From Number 11: subject - Further adventures of HMT (our HairyMammal Typist. a.k.a. The Horizontal One)
One day in the not too distant past, HMT (our HairyMammal typist) received a blank email from Br (not Bob).
'Ahha!' said HMT, 'someone wants to be on t' mailing list!'
He (HMT) sent an email to Br asking for confirmation of his intent. Br's spouse replied saying the email shouldn't have been blank!
(If I may digress for a moment, I suspect it was the googlebots. )
HMT then sent another email saying 'please send it again then!' a relatively decisive and positive move by his standards, I'm sure you will agree.
Br's spouse then replied, again by email, saying 'Okay, we will.'
Three days later the email, in printed form, arrived in an envelope by snailmail. Then Br's spouse (who is also a person in her own right; we could call her Herself) phoned HMT to make sure the printed email had arrived.
HMT phoned back, after a suitable period of pondering, to read it to her, just in case they'd accidentally snailmailed the wrong one.
Herself's husband's spouse (i.e. Herself) was not at home and the call was recorded by a BT scheme.
Herself's husband's (i.e. Br) 's spouse phoned back and confirmed, yes, it was the right one. The subject being Herself's husband's (i.e. Br's) fiftieth birthday bash.
HMT sent an email saying
'Right. I'll let you know.'
HMT couldn't go to the Big Five Oh Bash having a previous engagement with a mattress, and thus the frontiers of civilisation, communication and possibly several other ations were valiantly pushed, err, somewhere.
Number 11
P.s. It wasn't a nobby do - I'm sure he could have taken the mattress along...