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At the moment my brain is all back to front. I am too tired to think of stuff in the day, but then at night everything whirrs into action and I am having (largely useless) ideas. Tonight I lay in bed thinking about teaching my daughter to count and vaguely remembered my own attempts to do so for the first time and how once you've mastered the first ten numbers things go weird. Once you know the first nine everything should flow easily from there, but seemingly in an attempt to stop children being able to count above their own number of fingers, the system is deliberately complicated. It's all sensible again once you get to forty, but there's a vast chasm of wrong numbers between ten and thirty-nine that hold us all back.
I am aware that I am not the first to suggest this, but all logic dictates that the number ten should be called onety and then having learned the first ten numbers we would automatically be able to count to ninety-nine. None of this weird eleven, twelve, thirteen bullshit: onety-one, onety-two,onety-three. And clearly twenty should be twoty and thirty should be threety. The inventor of numbers clued up at forty, but was then too lazy to go back and change the previous threety numbers. And then forgot what he had learned and went for fifty instead of fivety. Then remembered and got it right for the next few decades.
And really to keep things simple, the system should progress so that one hundred becomes one onety-onety. Which means one hundred and one is one onety-onety and one and one hundred and eleven is one onety-onety and onety-one. This is clearly an easier and better system. One thousand (stupid name- hard to remember) is simply one onety-onety-onety. Making 1,111, one onety-onety-onety, one onety-onety and onety-one. No one could forget that. I don't need to tell you what a 1,111,111 becomes. But it would be awesome if millionaires had to describe themselves as onety-onety-onety-onety-onety-onety-onety-aires. They might be less up themselves.
Will no one think of the poor parents trying to teach their kids to count and make the whole counting system more logical? I am going to start doing this and would advise the rest of you to do the same.
The kickstarter campaign is some way from its one onety-onety-onety-onety-onety-onety-onety pound target, so do join in if you can pretend to afford it.
Another London preview for Happy Now? I will be at the Ho Ho Theatre on 3rd December and it's only £9. Or you can see me and the brilliant Boothby Graffoe for a ridiculous £14. Some other great acts on in this Christmas season too.
All my tour dates so far are here They're selling pretty well unusually, so worth booking ahead. I know, weird. What's happening?
RHLSTP with Janey Godley is now up on video in these places
itunes - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/richard-herrings-video-leicester/id922855595?mt=2
And on audio here and iTunes.
