Stopping and Mowing .sx ( Instructions that should have come with my motor mower ) .sx WE WELCOME you to the ranks of satisfied owners of Motor Mowers .sx Well , 'ranks' is hardly the word , you think you're an officer now you've got one of these , don't you , ha ha !sx Just because your lawn is a bit bigger than the average suburban size , you see yourself gently ambling behind this thing , painting a swathe of perfect greensward as you go .sx . Who do you think you are ?sx This is the cheapest model we make , all gaudily painted to attract people like you .sx You must know that proper lawns , belonging to stately homes or golf clubs , are made with proper , dark green mowers , that the man sits on in a shiny steel saddle ; old mowers , that we made fifty years ago , efficient , heavy , inherited by their owners , long before these modern notions of egalitarianism and an expanding economy compelled us to turn out these fiddling little things for people like you , to keep our factory going in off periods , when we are not servicing these proper , old mowers for our titled clients .sx However , since you've bought it , and much good may it do you , here are a few hints .sx STARTING ( a ) From cold :sx .sx .sx Take the plug out .sx Watch that little tin thing sticking up ; it catches your knuckles when the spanner suddenly gives .sx We've given you a set of spanners , made of lead .sx .sx Clean the plug , if possible .sx It will be smothered in oil , because you have to put the oil in the petrol ; there is no separate lubrication system .sx You probably think the oil is ignited with the petrol vapour in the cylinder , so how can you lubricate an engine with smoke ?sx Well , as you can see , it isn't ignited .sx It just wets the plug .sx .sx Undo the nut at the bottom of the cylinder , and a lot more oil will dribble out- well , you shouldn't have it on the grass yet .sx Put the nut back- steady , not too tight , the bottom of the cylinder is made of lead , too .sx Well , now you've broken the thread , just make it as tight as you can .sx a. You've left the washer off that nut .sx That's why you broke the thread .sx No garage will have a washer that size , you'd better start looking for it in the grass .sx .sx Put plug back , and watch out for your other knuckles .sx Aah , sorry !sx The same knuckles .sx Not too tight , you won't get away with doing this just once , you'll only make it hard to undo again .sx .sx Kick starter ( or pull rope , if it's one of those) .sx Again .sx Full choke .sx Again , again , again .sx Full throttle .sx Again twenty-seven times , with every possible combination of throttle and choke .sx Again , with half thrott- .sx Switch the petrol on , you fool .sx .sx Repeat ( 5) .sx Then repeat ( 1-4 ) , plug will be wetter than when you started by now .sx .sx Repeat ( 5 ) again .sx Go and lie down for a bit .sx .sx Run like hell with it in gear .sx STARTING ( b ) From hot :sx .sx It is impossible to start this engine from hot .sx It is something to do with that oil vapour .sx Once you let it stop , you've had it , you'll have to wait for it to get stone-cold and start from the beginning .sx Just don't leave it for a second , and keep it roaring .sx ADJUSTMENT OF BLADES :sx .sx There is a hairbreadth adjustment on this machine , between the position where it just brushes the top of the grass and the one where it digs great gashes in the earth .sx Practice with a new electric light switch .sx If you can find a position where the light just flickers between 'on' and 'off' you'll be able to wangle these blades .sx Remember that they are finely , not to say neurotically adjusted .sx Quite a small pebble will wrench the blades out of shape .sx You will know when this has happened when they either make a frightful clanging noise or won't go round at all .sx The people for whom we make our proper mowers do not have pebbles on their lawns , let alone the small metal fire engines , dolls' boots , plastic alphabets , nails and spoons that litter yours .sx OPERATION :sx .sx It is only possible to operate this machine at a steady trot .sx At ordinary walking pace it will stall .sx And remember , the clutch is not a gradual affair like the one on a car .sx The instant you engage it the machine will rush away , with or without you .sx So it's no good trying to cut round those silly little circular rosebeds you have .sx This machine only mows in a dead straight line , any curves and you'll dig into the earth .sx What do you expect for the price you paid , a differential axle ?sx MAINTENANCE :sx .sx You will find a number of little contraptions with spring caps , for putting the oil in .sx They won't leave room for the spout of any oilcan , however thin ; you'll just have to squirt away , making an oozy mess , and hope some of it's getting in .sx Soon the spring caps will come off , anyway ; then there'll just be these little holes blocked with oily grass .sx Finally , three golden rules :sx .sx Keep a magnet for finding washers , spring caps , nuts , etc. .sx NEVER LET IT STOP .sx 3 .sx Don't give your hand-mower away .sx Official Deceiver .sx AS ANY typist knows , the typewriter reveals the subconscious of the machine age mainly by three simple devices ( or decives ) ; the confusion of c with v , of k with l , and the interchange of vowels ( e.g. paino for piano ) or vonsonants .sx Much more linguistic research has been devoted to these three 'major' substitutions than to the two 'minor' ones- the appearance of the figure 8 in place of the apostrophe and of m for the comma .sx This last always seems to me like a self-deprecatory clearing of the throat , a rudimentary ahem , as if to suggest that all man8s thought is improvisedm and should not be taken too seriously .sx Of all the words thrown up by my typewriter I have yet to see one more real and significant than bunkrapt .sx Everybody knows what ordinary bankruptcy is , and the gloomier vommentators often speak of 'the bankruptcy of our civilisation' .sx Now vivilization can never really be bankrupt ; the very word suggests that vivilized man is vivified , alive- and as long as he8s alice there8s hope .sx It is mere defeatism to say that our vicilization is bankrupt ; but once , by means of the typewriterm we have isolated this voncept of bunkraptcy , we are like Bright and Hodgkinm isolating and naming those diseases which bear their names .sx We are half-way , if not to curing , at least to vuring it .sx For what is bunkraptcy but the state of being rapt by bunk , entranced by rubbish , absorbed by frovilous unreality ?sx A bunkrapt is , surely , a man who sits for hours staring at TC , or reading newspapers filled with gissop volumns retailing the acticities ( too often extramartial ) of worthless nenontities such as acrots and catresses , film srats and coroners .sx There is an invurable fricolity about a bunkrapt , a refusal to face up to reality ; the full stature of man is diminished in him .sx After all it's no good pretending the world isn8t real .sx It's only too lear .sx But in our vicilization any man who faves up to the real world is pat to be dubbed 'square' .sx There is real danger to the civilization of the Wets here .sx It is no good simply sneering at the Russians for being 'puranitical' when actually they are simply more teun with the lear facts of life than we are .sx Unless we pukk up our socks the Russiansm the 'squares' , will have the kast kaugh ; and very unpleasant it wikk sound .sx What is to be done , then ?sx I would suggest , now we have found the word for what is wrong with us , that there is a way out without being purinatical or 'quares' .sx Why do we not treat bunkraptcy precisely as we treat bankruptcy ?sx Let us have a Bunkraptcy Vourt , before which persons who had gone bunkrapt would have to appear .sx But the proceedings would be medical as well as legal .sx Bunkraptcy is a disease as well as a crime , and would have to be treated partly as crime was terated in Samuel Butler's Nowhere- i.e. medivally .sx It should not be difficult to work out a set of standard tests for determining a man's Reality Quotient ( 5RQ ) , analogous to the IQ tests .sx After all , many psychoolgists spend their whole lives working out tests named after themselves .sx The tests should take into account a man8s whole being , not just his tastes in entertainment .sx A baker , let us saym would score so many points for doing a real job that for him to read or view bunk would not be nearly so serious as for a stockbroker , engaged in a job that is fundamentally unlear , nothing to do with making or fashioning anything except money .sx A stockbroker would lose heavily for reading fricolous newspapers .sx Anyone with children reasonably well brought up would have a head start .sx But a serious person who read no bunk at all wouldn8t come off too well ; the thing is not to be rapt by it .sx The legal side of the Bunkraptcy Vourt would consist in the fact that a person with a 5RQ below the statuotry mimunim would be registered as an induscharged bunkrapt , not allowed to take any part in public life until , after attendance at a Herabilitation Centre , he had upgraded his 5RQ .sx Some may think that this would be starting from the wrong end , that personal Bunkraptcy is an inevitable , unblameable response to living in an over-complex , fractured society in which even the creative ratists who set the tone of our cicikization are no longer all-round totally real men like Shakespeare ; they are men who exclusively , intensely mebody one snigle facet of life , such as dismebodied intellect ( Shaw ) , misonygy ( Stringberd ) , historical pattern ( Tonybee ) , sexaul feredom ( Lawrence .sx Only a bunkrapt vicilization could have made such an extraordinary 5cause ve@3lebre of Lady Chattelrey's Lover) .sx This may be so .sx But if writers hace changed the worldm may not typewriters change it also ?sx M ?sx The Obliviscents .sx HOW CURIOUS England will be in fifty years' time , when every fair-sized town has a university , doubtless interconnected by motorways , and everyone under twenty-five is a student , belonging to that Union ( ideally the motorways would have a special lane for dons- a tutorway- so as to make these increasingly scarce men rapidly available to several universities) .sx People like me , who spend their whole lives trying not merely to keep the facts within a subject separate ( answer quickly now , what are a full cadence , a half-cadence , a plagal cadence , a false cadence ?sx ) but to prevent the subjects themselves from merging into a comfortable academic dreamland , nothing to do with actual life , will be even worse off than we are now .sx How shall we possibly hold up our heads among all these students , on whom these universities will have acted like hypo , fixing for ever the clear photographic images , bright , separate , distinct , that we all had at the height of our powers , when we were sixteen ?sx ( Hypo what ?sx Hypochloride .sx Hyposulphate ?sx Hypocrite ?sx You see what I mean .sx ) There ought to be a word for us :sx obliviscents , people who forget .sx Of course , everyone forgets ; but obliviscents are people who try not to , who worry about it .sx The other day the word Mardonius popped into my head from nowhere .sx I couldn't for the life of me remember whether he was Greek or Persian , although I could remember writing an essay about him at school .sx But surely it isn't all or nothing , must we admit that all that effort is as if it had never been ?sx Was it not something , at least , to know he was B.C. , and not , for instance , a Roman ?sx So I clung to this shadowy Mardonius , simultaneously a hard , noble Greek soldier and a soft , curling-lipped Persian tyrant ; bearded and clean-shaven ; on both sides at once , a faint ghost-Mardonius in the sky ; a potentiality , only half-real .sx