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By NedWilson
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25 March 2008 |
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Police Notebook:
PC Thomas Gillard Wimbledon Constabulary
25 January 2008
The subject was found wandering in the Broadway Wimbledon in the early hours of 25 January 2008 in distress. He was subsequently identified as Ned Wilson of Hastins Close in Streatham.
Upon being taken to Wimbledon Police station Mr Wilson was seen first by Dr Gillespie and treated for apparent shock. Mr Wilson gave the name of his Uncle Mr Jack Wilson as his next of kin and Mr Jack Wilson was asked to attend the Police station as soon as possible.
When Mr Ned Wilson had recovered himself sufficiently he was interviewed in an attempt to discover what had happened to him.
Mr Wilson said that he was living with his uncle Jack Wilson. His uncle was a collector of fine books and had a large collection. His uncle had asked him (Ned Wilson) to catalogue his books and this Mr Ned Wilson had happily agreed to do. His uncle had supplied him with a large leather bound book to be used as a catalogue. Mr Ned Wilson said that he had started work cataloguing his uncle's books at about two o'clock the previous afternoon.
Mr Ned Wilson stated that he had decided to title the catalogue "Uncatalogued Books" as this seemed most appropriate. He had written perhaps thirty or so of the books into this catalogue when he was called to attend to a phone call. After attending to the phone call he returned to the job of cataloguing the books. As he began writing the next book into the catalogue it suddenly struck him that the very act of writing the uncatalogued books into the catalogue of uncatalogued books meant that they were no longer uncatalogued but had become catalogued. This caused Mr Ned Wilson some surprise and he spent some time considering what he should do. He stated that he eventually decided that the best course of action was to delete the entries he had made. This he proceeded to do but after sometime he realised that the very act of deleting the books from the catalogue made them once again uncatalogued and they should therefore be in the catalogue of uncatalogued books. And he began writing them in the catalague again......It appeared that if the books were in the catalogue then they should not be and if they were not in the catalogue then they should be.
Mr Jack Wilson arrived at six o'clock am and took his nephew home. He agreed to abandon his ambition of cataloguing his books and to take Mr Ned Wilson away on a long holiday.
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Written by Fledermaus (3487 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | What about labeling them 'miscellaneous' ? 
Enjoyable story, and a simple, yet clever idea. | Paradox
Written by WeeAnn (35 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | | I liked it. I liked the way it was set out, and the end did not disappoint. |
Written by Asferthecat (859 comments posted) 27th March 2008 | A simple idea - its a bit like one of those stories written around a joke.
The only problem to my over-logical mind was that I had assumed his important work would be done in ink, rather than pencil, so how could he rub the titles out?
Having the story seen through the eyes of the police gave it an interesting angle, which saved it from being too simple. |
Written by Lizzy (828 comments posted) 28th March 2008 | Yes, I liked the way this was written as just 'facts' which made it an amusing read.
Lizzy |
Written by mia_ms_kim (1057 comments posted) 28th March 2008 | I found the hook very effective - arouses readers' curiosity from the very beginning. And I can understand the protagonist's sentiments, too. (Hope it wasn't autobiographical  - I find it hard to dissociate the character from the writer when the writer uses his/her own name for the character.) My analytical mind insists on sensible logic, too. I've always found Quantum Mechanics so dizzyingly paradoxical, I often felt I was beside myself in physics classes. In fact, it still annoys me.
Mia  |
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