A Matter of Ukridge

[bcl...@gmail.com]

[first posted 1996]

MAKE MONEY QUICKLY

by George Tupper, O.B.E.

I have always been of the opinion that a competent, business-like
man, possessed of a good education and sound common sense, should
with little difficulty be able to make a good job of anything to
which he might turn his hand. Take this business of writing stories.
Not the sort of thing I've gone in for, you understand, although I
did turn out a rather decent prize piece in school. I don't
mind admitting that my daily round at the Foreign Office tends
to keep me going in rather a prosaic vein. Nevertheless, it takes
far more than mere drudgery to turn out a really good White Paper
on American Tariff Policy or the Reinsurance Treaty. A great
deal more of creativity goes into it than the average chap would
suspect. Enough by way of pre-ambling, then--let me plunge "in
media res" as the chap says, and put you in possession of certain
information.
My tale begins in Curzon Street, where, of a certain morning,
I had what I assumed to be the misfortune of being accosted by one
Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge. Having had the ill luck to have
been at school with Ukridge, I have been forced over the subsequent
years to endure from this blot on humanity an unending series of
requests for funds. Ukridge, you see, fancies himself a "go-getter"
in the Modern style, full of grand schemes for immensely profitable
business ventures. Not one of them has ever amounted to anything
but financial ruin for himself, but (and it is hard not to admire
the cheerful spirit with which he picks himself off the canvas each
time), inevitably the day arrives when he comes to me for funds to
launch his next great Wonder of the Age.
It's not that I mind parting with the money, you understand--
after all, we were at school together. No, what galls me no end is
the way Ukridge makes a joke of the whole thing, and regales his
layabout companions with tales of how he has "biffed round to
Whitehall, and penetrated the outer defences of the F.O. to touch
old Tuppy for a quid". When one has offered charity, it seems a
bit much to be made a proverb among the town wastrels. Nevertheless,
I am firmly of the opinion that it better becomes a gentleman to
affect a certain negligence rather than resent such trifles unduly,
and I am generally able to let them pass from my mind.
It was, thus, with a feeling of irritation mixed with resignation
that I observed Ukridge approaching along the walk. "Laddy! Step over
here!" he shouted in the kind of thundering bellow which causes well-
bred passers-by to turn with a start.
I allowed him to accost me (the alternative being to be chivvied
along the Strand like a stoat, if that's what I'm thinking of), and
asked him what the devil he meant shouting at me like that.
"Sorry, old boy," said Ukridge, "I quite forgot that you're apt
to be in a mood of abstraction, composing in your head the orotund
periods of an ultimatum to the Faeroe Islands or a stiff note to the
Maharajah of Gwalior. Nevertheless, I have news of an opportunity
which can make us both rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and you are
the only person I know in a position to advance the necessary capital."
I told Ukridge, in a few choice words verging just short of
bitterness, what I thought of his schemes, and even worked out a few
rough sums on my pocket calendar estimating how much they had cost me
to date.
"I know, I know," said Ukridge, "I simply don't know what I could
I could have been thinking when I came to you with those ideas. Nothing
could now be more clear to me than that they all failed in one singular
respect, a fact dooming them in spite of any virtues they might have had.
They all lacked the Big, Broad, Flexible Outlook!"
"And now," I said, "I suppose you're going to tell me you've found
the secret of the Big, Broad, Flexible Outlook?"
Here Ukridge's voice dropped almost to a whisper: "I have, laddy, I
have, with my own two eyes I have seen it and felt its power. Have you
heard of...the Internet?"
"Yes, yes," I replied with some heat. "Of course I've heard
of your infernal Internet! I mean to say, Who hears of anything else
these days? Come to the point, man!"
"Look here, then," Ukridge went on. "Within the Internet are
colloquia of sorts, or symposia, I suppose you might call them, or,
to use the nomenclature of those who frequent them, news groups--but
never, for reasons which I confess elude me entirely, conferences or
boards. Though why there should be such violent disagreement over
the naming of things which are not actually things, is more than I can..."
"Blast it, man! Will you come to the point?"
"I was coming to the point," Ukridge replied with an air of
wounded dignity. "I've studied the thing in the most minute detail,
and I understand its workings down to the last jot. What one does,
you see, is to send a message to the group by means of an electronic
mechanism whose precise nature need scarcely concern us. The said
message then appears in a manner through which it can be read by
people with computers all over the world."
"Now," he went on, "this wonderful instrument is at present
used exclusively for the exchange of abuse and, above all else, for
the satisfaction of prurient lust."
I asked him how on Earth prurient lust could be satiated through
the medium of aetheric communication.
Ukridge put on rather a grave expression. "Were I to reveal to
you even the tenth part of what I have seen," he said, "the joy of
life would fade from your innocent visage, and you would henceforth
never pass another undisturbed night. Count yourself fortunate not
to have entered this Gomorrah."
Something in his tone convinced me that this was not the usual
Ukridge badinage, and I forebore enquiring further.
"Now, then," Ukridge went on, "here's the scheme, and just you
tell me that anything could be more simple than this. We send a
letter to each of these twenty-thousand or however many newsgroup
things, asking each reader to send a quid to each of five persons
listed in the letter. Each person who sends a quid then sends his
name to another of his acquaintance, who does the same thing..."
I must break off here, for it would not do to reveal all the
secrets of this marvellous procedure. For myself, I can only say
that Ukridge overcame my skepticism entirely and I have just now
dispatched a boy to the stationers' to purchase what Ukridge calls
a "fast modem". I've examined the scheme from every angle, and can
see no possible obstacle to the two of us making money very quickly
indeed.

*******************************************************************
dictated to Bill Cleere [aka Claude N. Eustace]
Please retain these lines if copying or redistributing in any fashion