h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...no one seems to have noticed the fallacy to this one... it's not even a paradox: if the cook couldn't have thought of mayo, and the fat time cop just took the finished product, where did the recipe come from?

The clue is here:

>> working on damage limitation and control: ('Your next assignment is to go back to 1756, someone has got us into hot water in a kitchen way back then - How'd it happen? Who knows? Who cares? Just sort it out, Mac!').

I admit that in the diluted and watered down version of the article that you have here it isn't very strong. My idea was that an historian studying the battle for other reasons "helped out" the Duc de Richlieu's chef and didn't realise that they were creating an anachronism. I would still say that that is implied in the text above, even if it is not explicitly stated.

But who likes writing where all of your thinking is done for you and served up on a plate with parsley and a salad garnish?

Ben

ah well, i got derailed by the section on what the cop ordered ['Pastrami on rye, with extra mayo'], and thought you implied that that was the source of the trouble..

where's the original?

... er ... somewhere on my hard drive, if it is anywhere at all.

Ben