Tuesday, 19 February 2013


Irony is very hard to define or explain. If you turned on a radio for more than a few seconds in 1995 or 1996 you heard an Alanis Morisette song called "Ironic". The song presented eleven unlikely and unfortunate situations and asked of each "Isn't it ironic?". A lot of people have spent a lot of time making fun of the fact that none of the situations in the song was in fact ironic. Few seemed to notice the complex and deep irony of a song called "Ironic" that attempts to explain irony and illustrate it with examples and then fails at every turn. It's an under-appreciated master-work.

My pillar drill went wrong when the motor capacitor failed. It was easy to get a replacement, but the mounting lug was in a different place. It would have been a simple job to fit it if I could drill a new mounting hole. There was delicious irony and thorough inconvenience in standing in front of my broken pillar drill knowing that I could fix it if only I could drill a large vertical hole[1][2].

[Note 1] No I don't have a second pillar drill, nor a lathe, nor a milling machine.
[Note 2] Yes I was able to fire-and-hap- hazardly tape it in place while I made the repair[3].
[Note 3] fire-and-hap joke stolen from Verity Stob.

Richard "incongruity between actual and expected events" B

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