I like the way some books have words in them and am a fan of those for Dummies books. You can get them in many flavours from, Body Langauge for Dummies to Building Self-Confidence for Dummies – honestly! The local library has a large collection of these books and throughout the years, they’ve helped me out on a number of occasions. They also have a good website www.dummies.com though it reminds me of The Golden Pages website. To continue my point, I found myself in the local library looking at at these books when I came across a title I wasn’t expecting – Elvis for Dummies. It began:
“The ultimate introduction to the life and works of the King. Want to understand Elvis Presley?”
Often I will find something funny, yet when I explain it to somebody else, they can’t see anything funny in it at all. This is one of those occasions. I went up to one of the librarians who has been working there for a long time and asked if she thought Elvis for Dummies was in any way a strange title. I should explain that this lady ticks all the boxes for the classic cliched Librarian – thick glasses, mousy hair, cardigan and a smile which must of left the last time the Titanic did. I’m not saying I don’t find this a turn on but that’s not what we’re talking about right now. Suffice to say, she found nothing funny or unusual about the title of the book. The fact that she chose not to use any words and instead looked at me with foul disgust shouldn’t of turned me on, but it did. I decided not to take the book for the following reasons:
To understand Elvis Presley, would it not be better to listen to some of his music or watch some of his films? How about eating one of the many burgers he adored or drinking a massive amount of the alcohol he consumed? Sure, the book could explain how many songs he released or how many films he made but listening to or watching his work has to be better than reading about it? Please tell me, I make even a little bit of sense? If not, I’m going to pass on those free Christy Moore tickets and just read the review of the concert, next day. Bill Y
