Quote:I have been furiously mixing paints ever since this question
appeared in last month’s issue and am astonished and
proud beyond measure to be able to announce that I have
discovered what I believe to be an entirely new color! By
mixing blue paint and red paint, I have come up with a
wonderfully rich, regal hybrid that is somehow warmer and
more mellow than blue, and cooler and more elegant than
red. I call it “Simon,” because my name is in fact Simon. I
am enclosing a swatch of pure Simon for you to reproduce
in your magazine—perhaps on the cover?!?
~Simon Sayers, Durham County

[Ed note: We’re not entirely sure, Simon, but we think you might
have made purple. Thanks for trying, though.]

Quote:Not to be disrespectful, but this could very well serve
as a kind of prototypical stupid question, much as
Donald Rumsfeld’s words about “known knowns”
and “unknown unknowns” have become bywords for
political bluster and obfuscation. The way the human
eye reacts to the light it receives determines the colors
we see. A point often made is that we can never be sure
that while we agree something is “brown,” we are seeing
the same color. In theory I might receive a blow to the
head and wake up seeing completely different (or
“new”) colors but never know the difference. Synesthesia
is interesting in its implications for this— it results mostly
from neurological trauma. In the USSR one Yuri Zherkov
survived a plane crash near Katerinapol and afterwards
saw colors in musical notes. Taken to the National Soviet
Gallery, he was able to play many of the great paintings there
in astonishing improvised arrangements on the piano. He
had always been tone deaf, however, and his later attempts
to paint the great Russian composers’ works were met with
critical revulsion, official anger, and banishment to a Gulag
for anti-Soviet aesthetic tendencies, where he died of potato poisoning.
~Greg Maresh, Cubbling, Alaska

Quote:Wooden legs, stout, second wives, the King James Bible,
iron bridges, public executions, hot acorns at the theater,
the London Bridge, and Rita Hayworth’s tits are among
the things that have been historically referred to as “the
best thing since.” Many other verbatim references are to
be found among letter-writers, diarists, and journalists
to “the worst thing since”: the Black Death, Alaskan
whores, that bastard Cromwell, France, the French,
French anything, German anything (foreign anything,
in fact), the Industrial Revolution, and, in Whitman’s
famous words, “the law against buggery.”
~Terry Graite, Holyhead , Wales

Quote:We in the Best Thing Since Society have spent years
campaigning for something to replace sliced bread
in the “best thing since” stakes. We are hopeful of
recognition through avenues such as this column,
so that people might start to call various things the
“best thing since…” Here is a selection of our current
alternatives: resealable coffee packets, the suck-nipple
on bottled water, cash-back, the “recall email” tool on
Microsoft Outlook, Snake II, multi-region DVD players,
and the Washington Post Giant General Knowledge
Crossword.
~Jeremy Shrimp, Best Thing Since Society, Washington, DC

Quote:As ousted chair of the Best Thing Since Society,
reading Mr. Shrimp’s facile suggestions, I thought it
might illuminate your readers to see the other things
that were once considered for entry by that pathetic
organization: the Concorde, Col. Oliver North, the
widget, audio cassettes, Madonna getting into movies,
leg warmers, spam, Dan Quayle, medium-wave radio,
boxed wine, modernism, postmodernism, and the Emmy
for Outstanding Host of a Reality Show.

It will be apparent how transient the appeal of each
of these things was. Yet sliced bread remains with us,
as useful as ever.
~Jonathan Radiohead , Next Best Thing Since Society,
Boulder, Colorado

Quote:This question was most interesting to me, as a former
baker by trade. The best thing before sliced bread was
having ordinary, unsliced bread and a full set of f*cking
fingers.
~Harry Noel, West Tittering, Shrops

Quote:As Mr. Herring recounted in his fascinating letter
(January issue), striking signmakers make their
point precisely by not carrying signs (though as
some commentators have identified, the whole affair
consequently seems like nothing so much as twenty
blokes in overalls, looking cross). Further to earlier
answers, I remember well the pitched battles between
signmakers and militant coal miners in the summer
of 1984. When members of the south Derbyshire coal
miners union appeared over the hill, carrying homemade
banners decrying Thatcher’s government, a chilling cry
of “SCABS!” went up from the five striking signmakers,
and a bloody skirmish ensued, while the police—grateful
for the chance to have a cup of tea—looked on.

~Albert Shankly, Langley Mill, Notts

Quote:am very interested to read the letter of Monsieur
Shankly about signmakers who made riots in England in
the 1980s. Of course, in France the union of signmakers,
FROTAGE (Fédération Régionale des Ouvriers Textuels/
Artisans en Grève), we do things very differently and
with much more class. We do carry signs, but instead
of the angry slogan, our signs they feature beautiful
paintings of the signmakers themselves, in the style of
M. René Magritte, over the legend: Ceci n’est pas un
fabricant des signes. Though, I confess, we also block
all of the roads into Paris and firebomb the houses of
old womens

~ Jean-Marie Oranais , Paris