Eccentrics

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea-cosy, doesn't try it on.

Billy Connolly (attrib)

While we are on this subject, we should reflect that real eccentrics never think they're eccentrics, they always think they're mainstream; if you think you are an eccentric then you are merely a poseur. After all, why would you not try on a tea-cosy?
I think the point is not that eccentrics are mistaken about where the mean lies; they are mistaken about the standard deviation. They think they are one standard deviation from the mean when they are in fact ten.

Is there a point to be made about Englishness here? I remember seeing Buñuel giving an interview to a French TV journalist, and talking about the Theatre of the Absurd. The interviewer asked him why the English did not seem to have a Theatre of the Absurd; Buñuel replied:

``Les Anglais n'en ont pas besoin; ils sont absurde!''

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