BID Mailbag

Originally published September 1, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1137

People are always sending me interesting stuff to run in BID. However, an odd confluence of events resulted in several entertaining things landing at the same time. So what the heck.

I’ll share ’em all with you.

First is the following piece received from John Ostrander, to whom, in turn, it had been sent by a friend of his, Ed Dunfey. Some of these I’d heard before and I would guess that some (if not many) of them are even apocryphal. But they’re still funny. The origin beyond Ed Dunfey is unknown, except that it apparently was first posted on a computer bulletin board out of San Francisco:

The Butchering of a Language

In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not to read notis.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Bangkok dry cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.

In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 150,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours – we guarantee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ášš?

In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today — no ice cream.

In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

In a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.

In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find they are best in the long run.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance: English well talking. Here speeching American.

* * *

As I noted, I’m not sure how many of these are legit. Years ago I heard about the sign in the Israeli clothing store which read, “Today sale on shirts. Tomorrow pants will be lowered.”

And I’ve seen ghastly typos in signs in hotels. (I think hotels should know how to spell accommodate, don’t you?)

Still, at least all these countries are trying to be considerate. How many signs do you see in the United States that are duplicated in French, Japanese, or Majorcan, for that matter? Heck, you don’t even see much multiple signage in Spanish, and that’s practically our second national language.

* * *

Moving on: We’ve had a heck of a hot spell recently. Temperatures above 100. Whole cities roasting.

Hotter than hëll, right?

Heck, no! Hotter than heaven, according to the following which appeared in the journal Applied Optics, Vol. 11, #8, Page A14, in August 1972. It was given to me by Mike Bartman and reached the managing editor via John Howard, from H. William Koch, from Allan Bromley, and was apparently produced by an unnamed environmental physicist:

The temperature of heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is the Bible: Isaiah 30:26 reads, “Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.” Thus, heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does from the sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times as much as the earth does from the sun, or fifty times in all.

The light we receive from the moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the sun, so we can ignore that.

With these data we can compute the temperature of heaven: The radiation falling on heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation. In other words, heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the earth by radiation.

Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth-power law for radiation, where H is the absolute temperature of heaven and E is the absolute temperature of the earth—300 degrees Celsius (273+27), gives H as 798 degrees absolute (525°C).

The exact temperature of hëll cannot be computed but it must be less than 444.6°C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8: “But the fearful and unbelieving…shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, which is 444.6°C. (Above that point, it would be a vapor, not a lake.)

We have, then: Temperature of heaven, 525°C (977°F). Temperature of hëll, less than 445°C (833 degress Fahrenheit).

Therefore, heaven is hotter than hëll.

* * *

Wow, that actually took more space than I thought. OK, fine. More stuff next week.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P. O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)