Introduction

You've probably read or heard some stories about how the world was created haven't you? These stories are called cosmogonies. The word "cosmogony" - which means "a story about how the world began" - was, like all words, invented after ordinary life began because of course before ordinary life began there were no words.

You'd think that once the world was created - which in most cosmogonies took either quite a while, quite a lot of effort or both - that ordinary life could begin. But, when you think about it, you would realise that ordinary life could not have started immediately. After creation but before ordinary life could begin a few things would have to be put in place. It's just like going somewhere for a holiday.

After you've arrived at the campsite but before you can actually start camping for example - let alone enjoy it - you have to put up the tent, unpack the car, get the bedding ready, check that the cooker is working, check that all the food you thought you were going to bring, you did bring and that it has all arrived safely while in the meantime the children are either grizzling because they want to go for a swim or they've run off to have a swim by themselves and now nobody has their eye on them...

If you're on a more sophisticated holiday - for example at a hotel - after arrival you have to check-in, take your bags to the room, find out if and how everything that you need to have working in the room works, admire the view if there is one, unpack your bag, have a shower, have a cup of coffee, check the map in relation to where you are and where you are going to go next, make sure you have enough money for whatever you might buy when you leave the hotel, store your valuables, check the temperature, check whether it is raining or will rain and so on. Only then can you start your holiday

So you see once the world was created but before ordinary life could begin things had to be done or made. That's what this story is about - how, after creation, things had to be put in place before ordinary life could begin. It was very similar to starting a holiday except that things which had to be put in place were things like grammar, highways, money and of course warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches as well as things which aren't dealt with in this story such as pinches of sugar, space alone with my thoughts and fingernail polish.

This is a song about some of the events that happened then. You won't know, or understand it, but you can sing along if you want:

Ordinary life, ordinary life, ordinary life began.

It began some say after a bang.

But others of course like those of the Norse

Say it just began when it began.

Between it, creation and the real start date

There was heaps of work, but none ran late

'Cos we always proceeded on that basis

And moved along anyway, we were quite tenacious

Ordinary life, ordinary life, full of the essentials of ordinary life

Like straight-edges themselves and maids and shampoo

There was some for me and some for you

Despite the scientists and the celebrities too

Agreeing with the artists and economists who

Think that a song about me and one about you

Are worth the same as a je ne sais quoi

Ho for them and ha ha ha

Ordinary life, ordinary life, you're usually quite safe in ordinary life

But don't be a tourist needing a map

Your neck will get sore - it'll get out of wack

Highway collectors will think you are one

Of them when you at the metro appear

With your neck and eyes all wrong and queer

They'll commiserate with you that it’s hard to drink beer

They'll want your highways, and may or may not wish you good cheer

Ordinary life, ordinary life, words made grammar before ordinary life.

I heard from a friend it went something like this:

With their Oslo lunch and milk in a glass

They said "bye jerboas" and joined a class

To be a part of speech - they could apply.

They paid in belts money which is why

They traveled to school - less than a zap - in a really fast car

And making grammar? They all really liked it - at least one bizarre

Ordinary life, ordinary life we'll all have a drink to ordinary life

We spread out the rivers, the seas and the lands

We delivered the mosquitoes, the apples and cheese

Via skylifters and airtrucks and ships on the seas

We sorted out people and gave them homes

Rituals and lore and gmail and phones

We made the best slogan, you won't want to miss

But most of all we've delivered bliss

So drink with us to ordinary life

To ordinary life

To ordinary life

Drink with us to ordinary life

Eightee double you two seedy one [ATW2CD1]

To get the world organised so that ordinary life could begin a meeting was held early on the first day of the time just before the beginning of ordinary life.

The Chair said, "Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming."

"I would like us to work through the items on this agenda I've prepared."

For that day the items were:

Welcome

Today is?

Today

Welcome

To deal with this first item the Chair welcomed everybody to the first day.

So that item, the first agenda item ever dealt with after the world was created but just before the beginning of ordinary life began was also one of the most easily ever dealt with.

Today is?

The Chair reminded them that it was not the first day of creation but Day 1 after the world was created and that tomorrow would be Day 2 after the world was created and so on until ordinary life began. The Chair suggested that provided there were more days in this time just before the beginning or ordinary life they could refer to them as ATW2CD1 [After The World Was Created Day 1], ATW2CD2 [After The World Was Created Day 2], ATW2CD3 [After The World Was Created Day 3]. They could be pronounced as eightee double you two seedy one, eightee double you two seedy two and so on.

That, they agreed, was a pretty good system but they decided that for short the days could be referred to as seedy one, seedy two and so on and this period of time they were in could be called "the seedy days" instead of or as well as "just before the beginning of ordinary life".

So on this, the first of the seedy days, they had very quickly been welcomed and also had agreed on a numbering system for the days. They thus moved on to the third agenda item.

Today

First they agreed that they would need meetings because that, they knew, is what people doing things do.

Second and more importantly they agreed that they needed to have a plan so that they could really get things started and completed so that ordinary life could begin.

They decided that they would deal first with Guiding Principles as these would help set the priorities and would of course be nice things to have especially once web-pages and glossy publications were able to be produced. Next they would deal with highways. Starting with highways might seem odd given that they could have chosen anything else but it was really quite a practical decision.

The world had come with railway tracks and roads to say nothing of a myriad of smaller things like streets and lanes and goat tracks but they all needed to be put in the right place. Highways were part of that whole infrastructure which was needed for getting around easily and they thought that if they could get the highways laid out then once ordinary life had begun people could deal with all the other things like flight paths and shipping lanes as well as small stuff like tracks and roads which anyway would be in part determined by where the highways were.

The practical part of this was that someone who had been out and about earlier had noticed signs saying "Highway collectors ahead" and had taken the liberty of rounding them up - the highway collectors that is. So they had highway collectors who could collect highways. No-one had come across any track collectors or any road collectors so using the resources at hand was another reason to concentrate on highways first.

Having reached agreement that Guiding Principles would be first and, next, Highways, they got rather stuck on the other items. Items such as People Things and The Natural Environment. Did they need to be dealt with? If so, how and in what order? "How, why, what, when, where" someone said and they all agreed and liked the fact that they had invented a whole lot of adverbs all at once.

They then continued some quite lengthy discussions but did not seem to resolve much more about how to proceed after Guiding principles and Highways. For example in the discussion about people things they all agreed that there were lots of people of varying ages and sexes all wandering around the newly created world like fish. They all agreed that there was no order to anything and that things could not be kept that way. They also agreed that living arrangements, holidays, bulimia, fishponds, where to take illegally parked cars, and what to do about nice women's city bikes with locks, helmets and front lights should all be thought through.

However of the "How, why, what, when, where" which related to them, they didn't proceed very far past "what" before the meeting ended and the Chair said, "So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

Guiding principles

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming." said the Chair at the commencement of this second meeting which was held on seedy two.

This meeting was to sort out the principles by which everything else would be sorted out. It was also to have something with which to fill up web-pages and glossy publications once they were able to be produced.

Because the creation of a new world had been pretty dramatic and because being able to start an ordinary life was almost as dramatic and because web-pages and glossy publications would appear to be dramatic they felt that the principles should also be dramatic. In addition they thought there should be at least one impressive slogan to go with them.

This meeting took a long time and involved groups and sub-groups using large and small bits of paper, sticky notes, felt pens and a lot of reporting back to the other groups and sub-groups with lots of words.

Ultimately - and they were fortunate that seedy days were flexible enough to fit in just about any amount of time needed - they found that they had decided what the principles and the values were. Of course they also changed the words by which they referred to the concepts such as principles and slogans and also added in a few others.

This is what they came up with:

Major purpose

To have enough in place for ordinary life to begin.

Major result area

We will know when we get there because ordinary life will be able to begin

Mission

To sort out or invent all the essentials of ordinary life over the next however-much-time-is-needed or at least before the end of the seedy days.

Values

We have one value, "bliss." All our achievements and the way of getting to them will be blissful.

All that looked pretty good until someone said that they had forgotten a slogan which by some means or other was now to be called a Vision Statement. They then spent many hours in selecting the Vision Statement. They drew inspiration from the yet-to-be history of the world and considered statements such as:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

"Give me liberty or give me death!"

"Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend"

"Peace, Bread, Land"

"All Power to the Soviets"

"Liberty, equality, fraternity"

“Sweet potato tastes good; I like it”

All of these got dismissed for one reason or another. For example they weren't sure if "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" meant "From each according to his ability AND to each according to his need" or whether it meant "From each according to his ability OR to each according to his need". One interpretation might mean a person with no ability might be deemed to need nothing - an outcome that might not actually be blissful. Also as there might be times when people had to be gaoled they didn't want them committing suicide which is what "Give me liberty or give me death!" might encourage.

Nobody quite knew what "Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend" meant even though it occasioned a lot of discussion. Besides not understanding it they felt it was a little limiting. They were hoping, after all, that the world might have rather more than a hundred flowers and also rather more than a hundred schools.

"All power to the Soviets" was considered favourably for a while until they realised that they didn't know what a Soviet was and anyway why should the Soviets have all the power? If they did nobody else would be able to cook their pasta. An outcome which would hardly be blissful.

“Sweet potato tastes good; I like it” was the inspiration for the principle that they ultimately chose. “Sweet potato tastes good; I like it” was the only one that seemed to include a reason for action - even though in this case the action of eating the sweet potatoes was only implied. There was however a clear outcome - liking the sweet potato. There seemed no apparent reason for action in all the others and the outcomes in those cases where there was an outcome were mostly rather vague.

On reflection though they found there was an ambiguity. Did it mean as most people initially thought that “Because I like sweet potatoes you should eat them too. I know you'll like them" or was it simply two statements "Sweet potato tastes good" and "I like it" with no suggestion that others should eat them too? As there was no suggestion of any other action maybe it wasn't action or outcome oriented after all. As with everything else they discussed this ambiguity for hours but ultimately decided they could not resolve it so had to dismiss that option too.

“Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley” on the other hand was much better. This was a phrase someone had noticed in one of the cookery books left over from when the world was created and happened to mention it when dinner was being prepared.

It was clearly outcome oriented - a something, an anything to be had with parsnip soup with leeks and parsley. The action - to include those two things with soup - was quite clear also. Furthermore they knew that soup, leeks and parsley could be cooked in all sorts of ways so there was bound to be a way of making soup - if nothing else- with the other two ingredients and anything else that came to mind to the likes of everybody.

Initial thoughts were very encouraging. People thought of including parsnip soup with leeks and parsley with other food things like chips and mashed potatoes or with caramelised onion or made into a desert. Some envisaged parsnip soup with leeks and parsley with a serving of braised koala paws on the side. So just including parsnip soup with leeks and parsley would result in the most blissful meal that could be had when ordinary life began.

As thinking progressed they were even more encouraged as they realised that they could be much more imaginative and include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley in spas, in potpourri, in aquaria, as water falls and so on. It could even be sailed upon or provide a medium for scuba diving. A football field covered with parsnip soup with leeks and parsley would be out of this world as would a parliament covered in parsnip soup with leeks and parsley. All this would add to the bliss of ordinary life.

They all imagined future times when there would be crowds of people celebrating by flying banners, wearing T-shirts and handing out leaflets emblazoned with the phrase “Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley”. It truly was a very good Vision statement.

All this was finally sorted out and agreed upon close to the end of seedy two.

"So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" said the Chair and left the room.

In Step come along

The Chair said, "Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming."

"But why," continued the Chair as though this was part of the agenda - which it did become - and as though there had been a meeting on seedy three - which there hadn't - "weren't highways done yesterday - seedy three?"

"Well," explained someone, "we had to have a sort of step-day yesterday. So today is seedy three. You know, we added a bit in. We realised that before we could do highways we needed to spread parts of the world out - the bits that everything else is going to be on. We called it a step day because it's a sort of extra day we hadn't planned to have but we also called it a step day for a couple of other reasons."

The person went on to explain what they did that day - Seedy three which wasn't - instead of working on highways and along the way explained the other reasons they called it a step day.

"One reason we called it a step day," the person explained, " is because we needed a space as big as the steppes to lay all the bits of the world out before they could be put together. We also had to invent a few words as we went along. For example the space was not actually called the steppes because neither that name nor the steppes had been invented. It was called a mantle [even though that word had not yet been invented either].

"Anyway we put a lot of plates [another word which of course had not yet been invented] on top of the mantle. At the top and bottom edges of the mantle we put poles. They are and will continue to be used to hold up the sky. They are very useful because without them we found the sky kept on falling down and our clothes got all dusty. It was that dust that lay in various places on the plates on the mantle that we called the steppes - because those areas were so dusty that anytime anyone stepped in there they left step-marks behind in the dust.

"We also needed a viscous liquid to put between the mantle and the plates so the plates could be moved about easily when required but would otherwise stay put. The best liquid that could be found was honey so we spread honey underneath every plate. We're sorry about using the honey but we had to even though we knew it was to be used for sandwiches.

"But we thought using the honey in this way was an investment. As soon as the world is sorted out, people will settle and there will be more and more of them to make honey sandwiches for - if the bees work properly.

"We also put bits of the world on top of the plates and have given them names like Gondwana and Laurentia. We think the names might change in the future as the bits are moved around across the honey to better spots on the plates. We think some might even be re-configured completely if they don't look quite right when they first get out of bed in the morning.

"It was great fun putting the world together in this way and we made up a few songs - different songs depending on the activity of the moment. So for example when the whales were doing a bit of exploring we sang whale songs to them - and I'm pretty sure the songs we taught them they'll sing well into ordinary life.

"Another song was really helpful when a piece of the world was misplaced on the steppes and time had to be spent finding it. We sang "In step come along". So when the Pacific Ocean was momentarily lost we sang:

We have lost the Pacific in the seas of the world

In step come along, in step come along, in step, in step, in step

If my ma should hear of that

She will say

In step, come along

In step, come along

In step, in step, in step.

"So that is another reason this day was called a step-day, " the person concluded.

"Thank you, and hmmff," said the Chair. "The 'thank you' is for spreading out the world. The 'hmmff' is for the mystery you've given us. Why would you sing "in step come along" when bits were misplaced? Still I guess they'll love a mystery in ordinary life. Especially if they have religions. Maybe a honey religion will be developed,' the Chair mused, "maybe even a book The sweet spread of religion or The spread of sweet religion or The honey god or Honey is my God or My god, honey ....What do you think?"

There was no answer from anyone in the group so after a judicious pause the Chair said "So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

More than a hundred highways

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

"Thank you all for coming," said the Chair reminding them that that they were actually starting seedy three again and that the meeting was being held to discuss progress with the deployment of highways.

In the ideal world they would have worked on Infrastructure which included things like highways, railways, shipping lanes and flight paths, water, government and the internet but at the earlier meeting they had decided to work first on highways because they already had highway collectors so this meeting was about highways.

The conversation went as follows and I've recorded it in the way they normally talked.

"I gather," said the Chair, “or at least understand - because I actually haven't gathered anything. In fact they are the ones that were gathering. Though they call it collecting. So I understand they were out all day? Does anyone know how many they collected?"

"Well, yeah, no. No. Ah. I mean yes they had to clear a huge space so I imagine they collected quite a lot today."

"Thanks. And "quite a lot" means? Like how many did they collect?"

"Well I did get a report that somebody saw quite a big hunk of Sydney Road had gone."

"Thanks. And 'quite a big hunk' means? Like how many or how much did they collect? Oh. And two things. Sydney Road doesn't count and ... oh well... one thing. Because I can't remember the other. No, yeah. No. I mean no I can remember. Just because a big hunk of Sydney Road has gone doesn't mean that the huge space was cleared for that."

"No. I agree. Anyway Sydney Road doesn't count. It's pretty difficult teaching them when they are so old and that has been here since ... I don't know ... must be around 1835 mustn't it? [What would that be in seedy days?] Anyway even give or take a few years, it's pretty old. So no. I agree. Yeah Sydney Road doesn't count. Actually "can't count" would be the better way of saying it."

"On the other hand, what about the toll road nearby? Has to count. It's a toll road after all," said someone who was thinking of inventing humour.

"No. I don't mean Sydney Road doesn't count. I meant Sydney Road doesn't count as a highway. So whether or not it was Sydney Road they cleared the space for it wouldn't count."

"Umm. Do you think like we are getting anywhere?

Does anyone know how many they collected?"

"No. Oh yeah. No. Here is one of the highway collectors now. Why don't we ask?"

"Hey fellah's. Um. Like how many did you collect today?"

"Not sure. We collected lots but there are like still lots of highways to be collected."

"So why have you come back and like why is your neck twisted like that?"

"The answer to the last. It's like an occupational hazard. If you want to find like highways [well in our case it’s not so much that we want to find them as we have to collect them like - it’s in our genetic code] you have to consult like those wayfinding map things they have like in the metro or in the street.

"And you know like most of those are not oriented to the compass. You know. If you like look at the map, like north is facing east or something like that. So you are constantly like twisting your neck to make sure that you have like oriented yourself correctly."

"Oh. Here are a few more highway collectors. They can't even like get to dust off the highway dirt because like there are no showering facilities yet. They're like headed straight to the masseur to get some relief like for their sore necks."

"So how many did you collect today?"

"Not sure. We didn't know we had to count them like. We're just the collectors and it’s been busy enough doing just that. Counting would like add another layer of complexity and you know with our personality types we just couldn't cope."

"So where are the ones you collected?"

"Where? We gave them to the people from the charity like."

"Charity?"

"Yes that's what highway collectors like us do. We collect highways and like give them to the charity to distribute. The charity people distribute them to the people whose lives aren't very blissful."

"So we don't have to like store them? If not what was all that area being cleared for?"

"Not sure. Wasn't us. Though I did hear somebody collected Sydney Road. Bit of a problem as it’s not a highway. The charities don't want roads. My guess is they're like storing it till they work out what to do."

"Ok. So summing up - what is it? - eighty double you two seedy four- where did we get to?"

"Not sure what that comes to. I've only just learned sums. But I don't think it'll work like. I need something to add my first number to and I actually haven't got a first number. That's the problem. Like I thought it was because I didn't have like a second number. Well I haven't got that either but first I don't have like a first number.

"The highway collectors don't know how many highways they collected so I have like a question mark as my starting number. But that isn't a number. So sorry. Can't like sum up eighty double you two seedy four for you."

"Ok so we've got like an indeterminate number of highways collected, that quantity has been like given to the charity and we don't know whether they have like distributed any at all though, if they have, they've been like distributed to the blissless."

"Ah well... yeah. And like we've still got railways, shipping lanes and flight paths, water, government and the internet to go! It's a struggle isn't it? However, time to finish the meeting. Still we're like lucky that the songlines are in place. Someone's ancestral beings were like a bit more proactive than others. At least some of us can like travel around."

"So. Action items," said the Chair in a summing up - as in a summarising the meeting, not an adding up figures - sort of way, "We could continue with the highway collecting, stop and try to find where they have gone, collect them by another method, just leave them where they are or drop the whole thing and do some other infrastructure."

There was complete silence possibly because people were trying to work out exactly how many options the Chair was offering.

After a few moments of that complete silence the Chair said, "So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

Essentials of modern life

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming."

Preparing for the beginning of ordinary life seemed to be proceeding quite well. After all they had a plan which would look dramatic on web-pages and glossy publications. The plan had dramatic principles - so dramatic that they weren't even called principles - and an impressive Vision statement. They'd also spent quite lot of time and energy - all of seedy four - on highways and of course the day before had spread out the world. True, it wasn't clear what the outcome of the highway activity was, but, they decided, it must have been good because they'd spent all that time and energy.

It was at this point though that someone remembered that - apart from highways - they hadn't agreed on what else to put in the world. True, People Things and The Natural Environment had been raised as possibilities but, this person argued, what they should do now was to ensure that when ordinary life began all the essentials of life would be in place. To do this a list of essentials was needed the person said.

Everybody agreed that a list of the essentials of life which should be in place was needed and they also agreed that the essentials should be in place when ordinary life started. However they initially couldn't work out how to decide exactly what that meant? Lots of people had lots of ideas and they all rushed into the room - the ideas that was - at once. Whizzing around like fruit bats and all dodging here and there and unable to be caught or even hit with tennis racquets.

Fortunately someone - a someone who managed to get the Chair's attention - had been reading ahead and suggested if they were going to decide on the list of essentials of ordinary life and then put them in place so ordinary life could begin then they should decide in a planning-thinking way. That person introduced them to structured brain-storming and to the Nominal Group Technique.

So to start the brainstorm the topic for the list of essentials of ordinary life "I will just need a bit of ..." was selected.

At the end of the brainstorm the ideas for "I just need a bit of..." included:

An old sewing machine

A straight edge

Help

A hand

Contrast

Encouragement

A nudge

Love

A bit of rope

Something

You know what

Guidance

Sympathy

Reassurance

Advice

Time

Fresh air

Happiness

A break

Practice

Fun

Space alone with my thoughts

Inspiration

Support

A tan

Clarification

Because there were such a lot of things included in "I just need a bit of ..." they needed to prioritise them according to what should be provided first. They used the Nominal Group Technique to do this. Each person was given five votes and distributed each vote to five of the items on the list they thought were of highest priority. Then all the votes were added and they found that the most important things people needed just a little bit of were:

Help - 24% of the votes

Advice - 10% of the votes

Love - 7% of the votes

Encouragement - 5% of the votes

Practice - 5% of the votes

Support - 5% of the votes

Time - 5% of the votes

They pondered these things for a while, thinking that they should be SMART [a concept that was also planning thinking] meaning specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. They realised that none of them could meet all the SMART criteria. For example love is never realistic, help is never specific, support is never attainable and it would be illogical or a truism for time to be timely and so on.

So on the principle that "if at first you don't succeed" or the principle that "we'll do this til we get the right answer" they did another brainstorm for which they used “I cannot live without ..." and came up with:

Cookbooks

Fingernail polish

Fuschiabird

Gmail

Internet

Jaquen’s Quirky Speech Pattern Plus Hot Tub Scene in "A Clash of Kings"

Life

Maid

Microprocessor

Warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches

Pirate Bay

Though this was a much smaller list, when they did the Nominal Group Technique and pondered them, they found that they would all fit with the SMART criteria very well. Amongst all the paper, felt-pens, reports, discussions and polystyrene cups the record of the Nominal Group Technique was lost apart from the final ordering of the items which was:

Warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches

Fingernail polish

Maid

Gmail

Pirate Bay

Jaquen’s Quirky Speech Pattern Plus Hot Tub Scene in "A Clash of Kings"

Cookbooks

Fuschiabird

Internet

Microprocessor

Life

They decided that starting with warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches really was an excellent idea as that fitted the Vision Statement and the Value Statement so very well. In fact they decided then and there to stop for a blissful rest-break and have some warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches and of course to include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley.

Afterwards they pondered their list again. Some of it they thought did seem a little difficult if not impossible if items were attempted in the order listed. For example could you have Gmail without the internet and the internet without the microprocessor? And "life" was either unnecessary for them to deal with as there already was life or if it was to be dealt with by them then it should be dealt with first.

One member had been very severely affected when helping the highway collectors and had a neck so twisted from reading badly oriented wayfinding maps that it was almost at 180 degrees to it's normal position. This had meant that viewing the list in the correct order had to be done by standing upside down. When they'd stopped for the break and whilst mixing the tomato and parsnip soups while standing right way up - with head upside down - that member realised that the order was more logical if read in reverse.

Life

Microprocessor

Internet

Fuschiabird

Cookbooks

Jaquen’s Quirky Speech Pattern Plus Hot Tub Scene in "A Clash of Kings"

Pirate Bay

Gmail

Maid

Fingernail polish

Warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches

In fact it was a very logical order the person explained. Life is already done so we can tick that off and start with inventing the microprocessor. Then we can create the internet, then a few fuschiabirds, some books to make cookbooks with and the cookbooks to know what would go with the fuschiabirds, then after the meal read a bit of a book which could be made into a TV series and downloaded from Pirate Bay, send some emails to our friends, get the maid to tidy-up and polish our fingernails and then finish it all with some warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches. We would include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley of course. Bliss.

How clever thought the others without regretting that they had not been the ones helping the highway collectors.

There was agreement all around and they immediately invented all those things in that order. They worked long and hard that day and when they finished nobody had the will to remind the group that they'd not decided what to do about all the other essentials of ordinary life. Like help, advice, love and time or a bit of rope, a nudge, an old sewing machine or a something. The group never revisited the lists which is why, of course, these things are sometimes missing from ordinary life even though they are essential.

The group finished the day very tired but very pleased with themselves. They congratulated themselves over some warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches swimming in parsnip soup with leeks and parsley. Bliss [as the person who'd suggested the order of work had predicted].

The Chair looked around, happily observing all that bliss and said: "So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

People

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming," said the Chair in the usual way.

That day was eightee double you seedy four - or seedy four for short. They had no specific program for that day. They had already created the essentials of ordinary life and didn't have much else listed on their plan. However a couple of things had been mentioned in the planning process and so they thought they would spend seedy six sorting out one of those - people things.

There was discussion about leaving the whole matter aside for a couple of thousand years. As one member pointed out not only had the essentials they had agreed on been put in place but there was going to be an International Year of Family Farming sometime about then which meant that they could ... well actually they weren't sure. Plant families in furrows? But at any rate there would be big effort for or about families then so why expend effort now? In the end, however, they decided to pursue the matter. They thought that if people things weren't sorted out then the world would hardly be blissful.

“Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley", they all intoned and commenced what turned out to be a very complex task. It was complex not because they had lots of adults and children of various sexes and ages, heights and widths, which they did, but because there were lots of issues that had to be addressed such as groupings, rituals, and tourists.

Early on someone pointed out that if there was going to be an International Year of Family Farming - even if over 2000 years away - they'd need to have some families in place. Exactly what a family would be was quite unclear but they decided to make it easy and simply put some children and a few adults together, allocate them a space on the world which they could call home and call that grouping a family.

That however raised the issue of how they would deal with swaps and other changes. An older brother mightn't like the younger sister he got in the family or a wife become tired of a husband, the husband might be killed in a highway collecting accident - that sort of thing.

Luckily they found the world had some baby changing rooms and family changing rooms so as part of the next phase of infrastructure deployment they decided they could put these changing rooms around the world. There were lots of possible places to put them but they decided that a priority should be to places the people would be likely to be travelling through - such as at airports, train stations and beaches. Then if people changed babies or families they could leave them easily on the next train, plane, bus or sand dune. They'd be able to "move on" which would become a very important strategy in the next 2000 years.

They also invented the board so that people could change babies whilst still being on the move. They thought people could put signs on their vehicles saying "baby on board", and on the board the baby could be displayed so that people in overtaking cars could see the unwanted baby and decide if it was one that might suit them.

After that the next thing the meeting dealt with was rituals. They particularly wanted there to be rituals because these would provide a structure to ordinary life once it began. Of course they would have to fit with the Guiding Principles and particularly with the Vision Statement and Value which were, in order, "include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley" and "bliss".

One group of rituals they invented and a group which they knew would be very popular in ordinary life were the time-rituals. These were invocation-response rituals. Amongst the invocations were: a radio automatically turning on at a certain hour, a glancing at a watch on a wrist, or a nod toward a clock on a wall. After ordinary life began people could - and did - look at the item - the radio, the watch, the clock or whatever - and utter one of the ritual verbal responses such as a shout, a mutter or just a statement e.g. "Hell it’s already that time", "Time to go to bed", "Surely that is not the right time" or "We're late as usual".

To get closer to, or actually achieve a more blissful state, the response could be - and did become - "Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley". So once ordinary life began the tooth-brushing-time ritual became, "brush your teeth well; include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley"; the "it's lunch-time and I'm off” invocation and the “must catch the tram goodbye I'm late" invocation both were followed in ordinary life by "include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley" which could be uttered by the person themselves or an otherwise interested party

Another type of ritual they invented were the login- or entry-rituals associated with opening, starting, entering [or exiting] some property held in common by one of the yet-to-be-formed social groups. Most of these rituals would take a similar form such as typing on a keyboard, inserting a card or key, waving a card or simply looking at an object in a particular way. These actions would often be accompanied by an incantation of some sort such as "I've forgotten my password" or a beseeching such as "what's the difference between a login and a username" and sometimes by facial expressions which could best be described as grimaces. Some acolytes could take to wearing special objects or clothing to signal their membership of particular social groups. These could be objects such as flat, finely shaped pieces of metal or neck cords with cards connected to them.

As with the time rituals so with the login-rituals. They envisaged that a person would mutter "what! Another password" or "what password did I use for that?" and another could respond with "include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley". By performing these rituals ordinary life would be blissful, more blissful or completely blissful.

As it turned out in ordinary life people developed some of these further or raised their importance up or down. At one time the need for login rituals became very important as people believed that if they lost their password and hit the delete key about the same time they would delete themselves. Later it would be found that this was based on a confusion between a) not remembering a password and b) hitting the ctrl, alt and delete keys at the same time.

Both were quite different things and were done separately rather than together. Both of course had the same effect - people were not able to access all that mattered [which is to say they weren't able to benefit from all the essentials of ordinary life] and were forced to live a half-life without access to their computer files or the internet or both. So losing your password or hitting the ctrl, alt and delete keys at the same time had pretty much the same effect which is why some people in a confused thinking sort of way thought that if they did both at once [either one but not the other seemed to be ok] they would delete themselves.

To remind people of the proper rituals and in particular to guard against that possibility of people loosing passwords or hitting ctrl, alt and delete keys at the same time sermon apps were developed. These apps were to be played when the computer was on and would contain cautions and cautionary tales about what would happen if the right rituals were not performed at the right time or place. The sermons covered topics like the temptation to not properly store passwords, not hitting ctrl, alt and delete keys at the same time in a fit of wrath when an old password expires and a new one is required, or not lusting for the easy-to-remember-but-safe passwords that others had discovered.

On this day they also invented tourists. These were necessary as all the highways and other infrastructure that had been deployed earlier had to be used. Not all people would be tourists and there was some thought that it might not be easy to distinguish between the tourists and other people. After a while though they formed the view that tourists would not be confused with non-tourists but might be confused with highway collectors. The tourists, like the highway collectors, would also have a crick in their necks or even twisted 90 degrees or more as they too frequently used the wayfinding maps in the metro or in the street. The fact that they might be confused with highway collectors was not, they decided, a concern as tourists would often need temporary work and highway collecting would be very suitable as temporary work.

Discrimination or rather the absence of discrimination was considered important if life was to be blissful so they invented a lot of rules to do with discrimination. There would be no discrimination on the basis of age, height, sex and so on. Tourists of course would be treated in the same way as everyone else. In fact a special effort was made for them in regard to diseases. Someone had read somewhere that diseases don't discriminate so they introduced as many diseases as possible to the tourists and then they invented vaccinations with large needles to deal with these diseases - and the tourists - in a non-discriminatory way.

After a very hard day's work dealing with this very unclear area it was time to finish. Even though not all of the things they'd mentioned on Seedy one - things like living arrangements, holidays, bulimia, fishponds, where to take illegally parked cars, and what to do about nice women's city bikes with locks, helmets and front lights - had either been thought about, addressed or even remembered they felt that they'd done enough.

The Chair agreed and said: "So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

Grammar

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming," said the Chair in not quite the usual way. Some detected a bit of uncertainty in the Chair's voice.

"Well now that we are all here let's start, " said the Chair again then coughed and repeated the words, "Well now that we are all here let's start. " The Chair then said, "You see I'm really not sure how much work or what work in particular we still need to do so that ordinary life can begin. It seemed to me that once we'd created all the essentials of ordinary life - you know, life, right through to warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches that that would be enough. Then I thought adding people and natural environment things would be enough but last night I read a civilisations study book and I think we still need to do a bit more - I especially think we need to have the start of a civilisation. Ordinary life would be less than ordinary without at least some civilisation."

Someone groaned and said, "but can't all that be done once ordinary life has begun?" but the Chair argued that a civilisation really was needed. Encouragingly quite a few elements were already in place, the Chair pointed out, but stopping now would really be doing only half the job. The Chair wondered out loud how that would look against their guiding principles and values. It would not, the Chair said emphatically, be blissful to leave the job incomplete and it would really not feel right to include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley and find that the job was really not done well.

"So what should a civilisation have? What are the elements of a civilisation?" asked the person who groaned.

As usual there was a lot of discussion, some quite different views and - as the Chair pointed out - some common areas of agreement.

Among the ideas were living arrangements and holidays, languages, arts, occupational specialization, schools, trade, transport, writing, standardized measurement, currency, legal systems, mathematics, the essentials of ordinary life not to mention bulimia, fishponds, where to take illegally parked cars, and what to do about nice women's city bikes with locks, helmets and front lights

The person who had groaned before, groaned again, meaning by the groan that it was a list with a lot of things on it.

"Let's concatenate them," someone suggested but the others replied that of course that didn't help because concatenate means to join together. A long joined-together list was still as long as a long un-joined-together list most agreed.

"Let's iterate them," someone else suggested but the others replied that of course that didn't help because iterate means to repeat. A long list repeated would be an even longer list most agreed.

"Let's ellipsis them," someone else suggested but the others replied that of course that didn't help because ellipsis isn't a verb. "Ellipsis means ... and then there was a pause [marked of course by an an ellipsis] ... well in grammar anyway ... it means an omission."

The idea of omitting some of the elements of a civilisation was quite appealing so they decided to change the nature and meaning of ellipsis. They made it a verb - to ellipsis - and made it mean to make an omission of anything. They then ellipsised their list so that it was a list of elements of a basic civilisation. This might be less than some might want but it would still be a civilisation the agreed.

As they had been speaking about grammar they decided to start with that and invent some more. Once that was done they thought the next elements to tackle would become obvious.

To start with grammar meant they had to invent schools which they did immediately and once they had schools it was easy enough to designate some of those as grammar schools. Then of course they had to make lists of words to send to the schools. This was harder than anyone would have ever thought [even though as the world had only just been created and ordinary life had not yet begun they didn't have much to compare with] especially as computers had not been invented.

But they sat down in 7776 columns - one column for every language - and every person in the column made a word then another then another until they had quite a lot of words to send to the schools.

Every word was given a change of clothes, an Oslo lunch and a bag and sent off to a grammar school. They tried hard to make the numbers of words at each school equal but though they took the opportunity to invent maths they didn't do a particularly good job. Probably this was because maths was still new to them. However apart from not having as much room on the playground at lunchtime most of the schools were pretty much the same - a teacher, a classroom and some equipment with which to learn - so it didn't seem to matter much that some schools were crowded and some not.

Before they could start learning though the words had to sit a test to see what sort of word they would be. That of course would determine how they would be used in grammar. They weren't allowed to just choose to be a noun for example instead they had to pass a test to be a noun.

It was pretty easy to pass the test to be a pronoun as more than 20% of the words to be used in conversation would be pronouns. The same was true for nouns - a little less than 20% of the words to be used in conversation would be nouns. However competition was fairly fierce for adjectives as only about 6% of words to be used in conversation would be adjectives but the really stiff competition was to be an adverbial particle. Only 1% of words to be used in conversation would be adverbial particles. Not all the words sat the test for every sort of word. Some just knew they didn't have what it took to be an adverbial particle or a preposition while some just wanted to be a particular word from when they were first invented and never thought about being anything else.

For some being a proper noun appealed to them more than being an adjective [adjectives tended to be a bit showy and flamboyant] so they just took the noun test hoping that when they had passed that test they would be sought out to be a proper noun. Other words had almost opposite preferences. Some for example especially wanted to be showy and flamboyant and in some way affect the character of a noun so they tried very hard to be adjectives and not nouns.

And of course there were the verbs. It was not only relatively easy to be a verb - about 16% of the words could be verbs - but for some it seemed much more fun. After all verbs were always doing something and particularly when young being active was very appealing even if the actions themselves might turn out not to be all that nice. Strangling wasn't actually much fun and nor was drowning but there were plenty of other verbs and many of them were fun. Like swimming, eating, abseiling and making things, for example bliss.

So off the words went to grammar school, sat the test and were sent to their classes.

Making grammar was quite a physical activity they found as it meant moving with and around other words to get in the right order. Of course the order changed and the number of words also changed from one language to another so they found that translation was quite confusing. Despite the confusion there were some similarities or common features to the translations. A well-considered translation for instance was like a well-performed ballet and a quick translation was like a mosh pit at a rock concert with words swinging their limbs, hitting each other, crowd surfing, or sprinting at each other. At the more crowded schools where the words could not move around so easily translations were short and rather cryptic. At the less crowded schools, though the grammar could be quite spirited, it was always carefully produced - in a manner similar to slow food cookery.

After a few seedy days the chair brought everybody together and they agreed that what with all the words and the various grammatical constructions created so far they had made enough progress on grammar to suit an early civilisation.

"What do you think we should do next," asked the Chair reminding everyone of the items still on the list of things required for a civilisation.

The person who had groaned, groaned again but within that groan the others thought they heard "money" or was it "weights and measures?". Whatever they heard it inspired them all to agree to settle on "measures" as that could include money as well as weights and measures.

"So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" said the Chair and left the room.

Distributing the environment

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming."

"Today, being seedy ... well I'm really not sure ... what with the days being longer or shorter depending what we have been doing and - to be honest - loosing count somewhere. Anyway I think it’s about time we distributed some of the natural environment things like rivers, mountains and all those animals and plants the cosmogonies seem to have only mentioned in broad terms. I'm not aware of any specific mention for example of sloths, hairy-nosed wombats, leaping lesbian lizards or dugongs in any cosmogony and as for all those plants! Very few are mentioned in any of the cosmogonies.

Somebody did try to point out that they had agreed just the day before to do measures and money this day but the Chair was in full swing and simply went on.

"There are supposed to be about seven million species so I guess you can't really expect many to get mentioned in a cosmogony. But so many species it could take us aeons to get them all distributed except ... I think I have a way to do it now that we've got the highways sorted as well as the flight paths [which they had by now] and a few other infrastructure things like that.

"Fortunately some of the species are pretty small - they aren't all whales or Tasmanian Blue Gums - so we'll be able to deal with some pretty easily but the others would be a bit of a challenge for any plan but this one."

And this is what the Chair proposed and what they agreed to do even though none of this had been on the list of essentials of ordinary life which they had made up earlier:

First they would distribute a few of the flat things like the steppes [at least those ones that had not been distributed in all the cosmogonies], the plains, and the deserts. Then they would put mountains and rivers on them, and then they would start with large plants and animals. They'd put them on the rivers and mountains and then they'd put some of the smaller things on those and gradually they would work down through to all the small things.

"So," as the Chair said, "our approach will be the “Large, flat, small, lumpy principle" or "Elefesel principle" for short"

"Ok. So using the Elefesel principle the distribution will be easy. Once we've got the flat things laid out with a few large things on them we can run highways, railways and flight paths out to them and of course with the seas in place we'll be able to use water transport. Then we can put all the smaller and lumpier things in a truck, or a plane or a ship and just drop them off."

It was unusual for the Chair to talk so long and without interruptions or contributions from others. However the Chair did finally stop and others finally began to interrupt or contribute.

"Transavia airtruck," said one.

"Metal storm," said another

"Woomera," said a third. So gradually they identified the means by which they could distribute all these things.

"Noah's flood," said a fourth, "wind vectors" added a fifth and "Skylifter" added a sixth.

As the ideas kept on coming they included huge iron ore trains from Australia [or at least where it would be in the future], from China and from Sweden, container ships from South Korea and Denmark and mining trucks from Australia, Chile and Canada.

Finally they started to work. Though just before they did they all put their arms around each other, looked to where a clock might be in the future, shouted out "Hell it is already that time" and then managed a sort of whistling roar which in part comprised them singing or shouting "elesefel, elesefel, we're distributing things by elesefel."

They loaded the Skylifters with the large, flat things like steppes, plains and deserts and sent those off to be distributed where the pilots thought appropriate. Mountains and rivers - both lumpy but large - were put in Kalinin K-7's and in some of the large container ships. The Transavia airtrucks, the trains and the trucks were loaded with larger species like the African bush elephants, blue whales, Coast Red Woods and Huon pines. These of course were themselves loaded with medium size species such as goannas, and fir trees and these with the small species such as fruit flies, funnel web spiders, Venus fly traps right down to amoeba. Some of the smaller more round shaped plants and animals were loaded in the metal storm machines and a few one by one into woomeras.

Once loaded they let the machines do their work. The skylifters lifted off and gradually floated to the furthest parts of the world. As they floated they dropped off the steppes, plains and deserts in a higgledy-piggedly fashion which is why of course the world - and everyone's bedroom in it - is a higgledy-piggedly one.

The Kalinin K-7's, and the Transavia airtrucks were a bit faster, though the Transavia airtrucks could only carry a few things at a time. These things they unloaded onto the steppes, deserts and plains again in a higgledy-piggedly fashion. Meanwhile the ships, trains and trucks departed with their loads of medium size things. They just floated or drove to wherever the seas, railways or highways let them and dropped their plants and animals where they could.

Metal storm machines and woomeras were taken in all of the other transport and these were repeatedly fired and then re-loaded with the round shaped plants and animals which were shot into the air to drop down onto the steppes, deserts, plains, mountains and rivers that were being put into place. Very light things were thrown into the wind vectors and drifted down onto the various parts of the earth as they were being put into place.

Once they had all of those things in place they invented a flood which inundated much of the land. Into that they threw things that swam such as fish of course, whales, plankton, krill and jelly fish. They even remembered all the shell-fish such as oysters, abalone and welks.

Precisely where anything went was not of concern which is why we get large lumps of sea like the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and quite small lumps like the Black Sea. It's also why mosquitoes or apples are found in one place and not in another.

By nightfall that day they had distributed all the things which make the natural environment.

The Chair observed all this and though most people thought a summary or summation would have been appropriate simply said:

"So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

Measures and money

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming."

"I believe the activity for this seedy day is "measures", said the Chair a bit more cheerfully than at the start of the seedy day where the need for civilisation and been introduced.

"Measures and money," the person who tended to groan, groaned, "we were supposed to to them yesterday."

"Oh, yes, measures and money," agreed the Chair whilst ignoring the other part of the sentence, "let's start then."

Which was of course very easy to say but not nearly so easy to implement. How do you invent measures and money if you've never had them before? But as they had not been daunted by any of the other things they had had to put in place before the start of ordinary life, they were not to remain daunted for long.

"People must measure," said someone and in answer to the unspoken questions of others explained that over the course of at least the next 2000 years there could be many publications with that title or very similar titles if only, right now, this group worked out measures.

"Well I didn't know," another person added to the conversation, "what you could measure and what you would measure with but then this song came into my head."

And with that the person started to sing.

We need to measure, we need to measure what?

We need to measure treasure when we have a lot.

We need to measure buildings, how high their heights,

We need to measure aeroplanes, how far their flights.

We need to measure highways, how long their distance

We need to measure possums, how big their feets is.

We need to measure, we need to measure how?

We need to measure weight things so make a unit a cow.

We need to measure fast things so make a unit a zap.

We need to measure time things so make a unit a clap.

We need to measure angle things so make a unit a bough.

We need to measure intense things so make a unit a wow.

We need to measure, we need to measure why?

We need to measure costs in case our funds run dry.

We need to measure distance in case we go too far.

We need to measure emotion in case things get bizarre.

We need to measure temperature unless we get too hot

We need to measure durians which smell quite a lot.

And with that the person stopped. Stopping before dealing with the when and where [which does get rather tedious as a checklist] and also stopping just as everybody else was starting to get into the swing of things. Not so much the swing of the rhymes but the swing of listing all the things that could be measured and how and why.

"OK. Thank you," said the Chair, "that certainly gives us a good start - units of measure, things to measure and why. I think - and if you all agree I'd be grateful - we should finish this stage off by filling out the units of weight, distance, time and emotion. That would give the putative civilisation a good basis on which to proceed."

They of course all agreed and made the following four lists:

Units of weight.

For normal size things - Cow [base unit]

For large size things - Giant sequoia. 1 Giant sequoia = a lot more than one cow

For small size things - Mouse. 1 Cow = a lot of mice

Units of distance

For normal distance or normal speed things - Zap [base unit]

For large distance or very fast moving things - light zap year. 1 light zap year = a huge number of Zaps

For small distance or slow speed things - Zzzz. 1 Zap = a lot of Zzzz's

Units of time

For normal amount of time things - Clap [base unit]

For large amount of time things - Pat. I Pat = a lot of slowly performed Claps

For a small amount of time things - Strike. 1 clap = quite a lot of quickly done Strikes.

Units of emotion

For normal emotions - Placid [base unit]

For strong emotions - Bizarre. I Bizarre = a lot of Placids

For hardly showing emotion at all - Blank. I Placid = a lot of blanks combined with a lot of tickling

"Excellent," the Chair said with thanks which, as measured by the others, rated at least 1 Bizarre. "Now we better move on to money."

The Chair then introduced someone who was described as a money expert and who had offered to work with the group to explain money.

The expert used a discussion technique that would become popular in universities once ordinary life had begun. The main idea being that different questions or approaches were used at different stages in the discussion process.

Using this method, the question and answer session went something like this:

1. What do you know about money? Answer: It's a good idea.

2. Why do you think money will bring benefits to a civilisation? The answer's obvious

3. How do you think money compares with anything else? Never thought about it

4. Why do you want to have money? It's a good idea

5. Should we start making some money soon? The answer's obvious

6. Will money facilitate commerce in ordinary life? Never thought about it

7. Can you say a little more about money and its uses? It's a good idea

8. What should be done if people don't use it? The answer's obvious

9. What is the most important thing about money? Never thought about it

10. So in summary you think there ought to be money? It's a good idea

At the end of the session the expert was able to report that though many aspects of money had never been thought about, the need for money and the uses of money were obvious. Money and knowledge about money, the expert said, were a good idea. So the expert recommended that everything necessary for money should be worked out before the start of ordinary life.

Though some people thought that this is where they were before the expert was employed, the Chair nevertheless effusively thanked the expert for the report. “When money has been invented,” the Chair said , “I’ll ensure you are handsomely paid for your novel contribution.”

The group then had a coffee break and during the break discussed how they would work out money using the expert's report.

"Which of course might not be all that easy," said someone, "as the expert said we’d never thought about it much even though the need for it and it’s uses are obvious."

Which of course provoked quite a discussion about the possible uses of money. These included "to buy things", "to put in the bank", "to give to your friends", "to be asked for by your friends", "something interesting to find in the street", "for a bride to put in her shoe on her wedding day", "make counterfeit money", "use it as ghost money", "to leave as offerings", "to give to people with itchy palms"

"And another question is," said another person, "what would money look like?"

Which of course resulted in lots of ideas and speculations. "Small rocks all the same size and shape and of course large sums of money would need to be large rocks all the same size and shape", "Chinese chequers", “Barley,” someone laughed, “Paper,” laughed another. And gradually and often humorously they listed various sorts of animals, vegetables or minerals from which money could be made until the list was so large they could not contemplate adding to it further so had to stop. Some of the items on the list were:

gold, silver, copper, rice, salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, candy,paper, plastic and of course koala paws

Then someone asked, 'Where would you put it?" and the answers were things like 'In a pocket", 'Under a mattress" "In the bank", ‘”In a hole in the ground”, "inside of an empty bottle of Guinness in the back of the fridge with the cap seemingly in place" "inside an old sock in the bottom of your sock drawer."

Though most things would last some length of time in these places, some would not last as well as others. The other problem of course was that some things like belts and large stones would only fit in some of these hiding places. As for alcohol if that was money it would make no sense to hide it in an empty bottle of Guinness.

So after that discussion they were able to develop some criteria for money:

Money would need to be small enough to fit in a bottle but not so small that it might get lost. It would need to be flattish so it could fit under a mattress, it would need to be able to be burnt for offerings and it would need to be sturdy enough to last a long time.

Which they realised, meant the best money would be paper, plastic [provided it was eco-friendly when burnt] and belts.

It was time for a rest. Though before that they did a sort of summary of all the things they had been doing and decided that they'd really done all that was possible to sort out the world so that ordinary life could begin. In other words their basic civilisation consisted of some highways, families, money and measures, grammar [and therefore language], schools, and the essentials of ordinary life. It also had some rituals.

They acknowledged that were some things missing such as art and architecture, legal systems and political structures and some of the less essential essentials of ordinary life such as help, advice, love and time or a bit of rope, a nudge, an old sewing machine or a something. And they had not dealt with bulimia, fishponds, where to take illegally parked cars, and what to do about nice women's city bikes with locks, helmets and front lights. But, they thought, warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches would more than substitute for those. Further more if any of the civilisations adopted their value and mission statement - which it was hard to see they wouldn't - then life in any civilisation would be bliss.

"Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley," they all shouted in unison, very satisfied with their work and off they went - or at least started to go - when the Chair suggested they think about songs and pictures during their rest. To which they all looked blank in a blank questioning sort of way to which the Chair said:

"So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

Pictures

The next seedy day they all turned up having not thought about pictures or songs but just what a wonderful rest they had had.

The Chair said, "Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming."

"I think we've pretty much finished our work but as I alluded to yesterday I have been reading about pictures and songs. I understand from this reading that a picture is worth 1000 words and a good song worth 1000 pictures. I thought that if we create a few of these - pictures and songs - we'd have provided the basis for effective conversation.

So that is what they did that day which was probably seedy seven but they'd forgotten or been unable to keep count. They made lots of pictures and lots of songs until someone said "Of course not all songs are good songs but assuming they are and also that a long song is better than a short song, how many pictures-worth is a long song?"

They therefore looked at - or rather, listened to - some of their own good songs and found that they had a median length of 3 minutes and 51 seconds and a mean length of 4 minutes and 2 seconds*. [If you don't know the difference between "median" and "mean" don't worry for now]. They defined "A good song" as having a length between 3 minutes and 51 seconds and 4 minutes and 2 seconds. It followed, they said, that a good song twice that length would be worth 2000 pictures and a song of half that length, 500 pictures and so on.

This of course is how they unwittingly created the Eleven second conundrum - how can a good song of 3 minutes and 51 seconds be worth the same number of pictures as a song of 4 minutes and 2 seconds? This problem perplexed them more than Fermat's last theorem.

Fermat's last theorem is hard to state and hard to understand whereas the Eleven second conundrum is easier to state and easier to understand but unlike Fermat's last theorem is unlikely to have a solution

Fermat's last theorem:

"No three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n greater than two."

The Eleven second conundrum:

"GS,3:51t = GS,4: 02t = 1000P"

[Just to help a little, GS = Good Song; t= time (measured in minutes and seconds); P =Pictures]

Fermat's last theorem would take 358 years to be solved whereas they couldn't get to an agreed solution to the Eleven second conundrum and thought it unlikely there would be one even in ordinary life.

Amongst themselves they found that there were two directions to a solution to the Eleven second conundrum with each direction having two sub-directions. They left the matter there but as you know, once ordinary life began, the two directions are now referred to at conferences and in reports as the Equals direction solution and the Gooder direction solution but in the seedy times they didn't give them a name.

In ordinary life the Equals Direction Solutioners School now consists mainly of scientists and prima-donna celebrities. The scientists have developed song theory which deals with songs both good and bad and draws on quantum theory, to explain how a good song [GS] could be both 3 minutes and 51 seconds and 4 minutes and 2 seconds long whereas a bad song [BS] is neither.

Prima-donna celebrities agree with the scientists that a good song can be both 3 minutes and 51 seconds and 4 minutes and 2 seconds long but argue that a special theory is not needed, just that 11 seconds is never worth worrying about, darling, unless of course, it has to do with payment for their time spent doing a performance.

The members of the Gooder Direction Solutioners School are mainly artists and economists. Artists argue that there are variations of "goodness". Songs of both lengths are good, they say, but those of 4 minutes and 2 seconds are slightly "gooder". Like the difference between a score of A and a score of A+. They have a little something extra - a little "je ne sais quoi" as the French say - and which, in the case of songs and other art, only artists, having greater sensibility, can perceive.

Economists agree with the artists that there are variations of "goodness" and also agree that songs of both lengths are good. They agree that those of 4 minutes and 2 seconds are slightly "gooder” but, they say, that is because there are more pictures in one quantity of good song. A greater quantity, economists argue, must always mean a greater good.

"Wow - a conundrum of our own and look what it's effect will be," they all said whilst pondering whether they should revise their definition of a good song or apologise for not being more precise and for thus leaving to the the Eleven second conundrum to be dealt with in ordinary life.

The chair smiled - a rarity - and said "So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" and left the room.

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*http://theinformationdiet.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/probability-distribution-of-song-length.html

A party before the start of ordinary life

"Ok. Now that we are all here let's start.

Thank you all for coming," said the Chair as usual.

As by this stage they'd provided the basics for a civilisation they felt that everything which was needed for ordinary life to begin plus even more was in place. So it was time for a party. Somebody had suggested and they had all agreed that it be a themed party - based on an event in ordinary life which of course had not yet begun.

Naturally there was a lot of debate about it. They considered events or eras like the Warring States Period in China, the War of the Two Peters in Spain, Tamerlane's invasion of northern India, and Kublai Khan's attempts to conquer Japan and even the Battle of Hastings. They considered periods of relative peace such as the Pax Khazarica and the Tokugawa shogunate. They considered the annual Royal Agricultural Show in Hobart, Tasmania but dismissed that quite early as they didn't think repeating the celebration every year was quite what they wanted. And they considered a child's seventh birthday party with cakes, party hats and games but dismissed that too because they didn't like catch and kiss that much.

In the end they decided that a theme that would apply at any time rather than just to a future event would be more appropriate. It had also of course to fit in with their Vision - include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley.

They decided, after many seedy days of thought, on quinoa. It was agreed that strictly speaking quinoa was not an event but as it could be a part of many, if not all events ever to be thought of, it was decided to proceed with quinoa and think of the party as the "Quinoa event".

Quinoa was chosen because it was the best fit with their Vision - include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley - and eating quinoa with parsnip soup with leeks and parsley would produce bliss - their most important [and in fact their only] value.

Quinoa had the added attraction for some that it would be pronounced differently in different parts of the world. This would occasion much discussion in ordinary life and distract people from other activities such as cooking dinner, making beds or engaging in intellectual pursuits. It would also allow them to consider the discussions about the pronunciation as intellectual pursuits in their own right.

Here though, in the seedy days, having identified that it could be pronounced keenoa, keenwah, kinoa, kwinoha or kinwa they decided to stick to two. They chose kwinoha and keenwah and in order to accommodate these two variant pronunciations they chose two titles for the Quinoa event - "Quinoa not jerboa" by which they meant, eat quinoa not jerboas and "Quinoa, not chinchilla" which meant that chinchillas should not be eaten either.

The guests dressed according to the theme and the band invented two new songs just for the party.

The first song went something like this:

Quinoa's for eating, jerboa's are not

We make all sorts of dishes from quinoa

But from jerboas we do not.

Chorus

Yeah for quinoa, yeah for jerboa

Wear them both on your head

They can be like your boa

My mummy cooked quinoa really really good

We never ate jerboa though

It was never good for food.

Chorus

We used to wear quinoa on the bus to school

And took jerboas in our pockets

Which didn't contravene a rule

Chorus

Now quinoa's going to be eaten everywhere

The jerboa's will be safe

Though my daughter has both in her hair

Chorus

The second song went like this.

Chinchilla is my love, keenwah is my food

My love and I love keenwah

It does wonders for our mood.

Chorus

Love, love, love chinchilla

Love, love love keenwah

Keenwah is my food, chinchilla is my love

My keenwah and I love chinchilla

She is our turtle dove

Chorus

My turtle dove is chinchilla

She loves keenwah and me

She is like my pet gorilla

Chorus

The guests - as guests do - arrived in dribs and drabs and dressed in what could only be described as amazing costumes.

Some dressed as things that rhymed with Quinoa so for the Kin-o-a variant there were genoas and of course jerboas, the occasional Noah and one protozoa. And for the Kinwa variant there were gorillas and guerrillas, a flotilla and even some people doing the cha cha.

They mingled and admired the displays of their achievements. A couple of families were on display along with a baby changing room, some of the highways were there accompanied by a contingent of highway collectors and there were panoramic displays of all the parts of the natural world being distributed according to the elefesel principle and showing the use of skylifters, the transavia airtruck and even the very big ships.

Some out of a sense of obligation to those whose lives would be lived in ordinary life continued to try to solve the Eleven Second conundrum whilst others who had noticed the absence of love were cheered to see a family was having warm milk, tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley".

"Welcome," called the Chair over the din. "Welcome to seedy ... I'm not too sure ... I remember having lost count at seedy five. Still I guess it doesn't matter. We all know this is the last of our seedy days. So welcome to the end of our seedy times."

The Chair went on to say that they had achieved a sorted out world that works for everyone and described their achievements over the previous week or however many years of seedy days, not knowing quite how long the whole business took, and that they had achieved it all blissfully. Congratulations, the Chair said and at the end toasted everyone. Then everyone toasted everyone else with the most beautiful serving of parsnip soup with leeks and parsley.

Ordinary life was due to start. Seedy time - the time just before the beginning of ordinary life which would have all the essentials of ordinary life - had ended.

Ordinary life, ordinary life, ordinary life began.

It began some say after a bang.

But others of course like those of the Norse

Say it just began when it began.

Between it, creation and the real start date

There was heaps of work, but none ran late

'Cos we always proceeded on that basis

And moved along anyway, we were quite tenacious

Ordinary life, ordinary life, full of the essentials of ordinary life

Like straight-edges themselves and maids and shampoo

There was some for me and some for you

Despite the scientists and the celebrities too

Agreeing with the artists and economists who

Think that a song about me and one about you

Are worth the same as a je ne sais quoi

Ho for them and ha ha ha

Ordinary life, ordinary life, you're usually quite safe in ordinary life

But don't be a tourist needing a map

Your neck will get sore - it'll get out of wack

Highway collectors will think you are one

Of them when you at the metro appear

With your neck and eyes all wrong and queer

They'll commiserate with you that it’s hard to drink beer

They'll want your highways, and may or may not wish you good cheer

Ordinary life, ordinary life, words made grammar before ordinary life.

I heard from a friend it went something like this:

With their Oslo lunch and milk in a glass

They said "bye jerboas" and joined a class

To be a part of speech - they could apply.

They paid in belts money which is why

They traveled to school - less than a zap - in a really fast car

And making grammar? They all really liked it - at least one bizarre

Ordinary life, ordinary life we'll all have a drink to ordinary life

We spread out the rivers, the seas and the lands

We delivered the mosquitoes the apples and cheese

Via skylifters and airtrucks and ships on the seas

We sorted out people and gave them homes

Rituals and lore and gmail and phones

We made the best slogan, you won't want to miss

But most of all we've delivered bliss

So drink with us to ordinary life

To ordinary life

To ordinary life

Drink with us to ordinary life

"So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" said the Chair and left the room.

Epilogue

After the world was created

Through many seedy days - that’s how they were dated -

We left them to solve that Eleven second conundrum

We hope ctrl, alt and delete's not pressed by someone

If our success was spread rather sparsely.

"Include parsnip soup with leeks and parsley"

We'll remember to say and guess what - bliss!

That elefesel principle worked like a kris.

It was almost as though it followed a plan

We sorted it all before ordinary life began!

"So that's it, we'll proceed on that basis" said the Chair and left the room.

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