PROOF!

Let us imagine that you were to find yourself in South London on a murky autumnal day. Haggard, mean-spirited people pass you on the street; scowling office workers grimace as they smoke in shirt sleeves in front of municipal buildings. But then, there on the ground before you lies a treasure, almost hidden below the scattered leaves, Tesco bags and discarded drink containers. It reads as follows:

"Wendnesday

We had a fun time at the beach and made fantastic sand castles. Then went to WOLWORTS and bourght 3 vidios."



Flipping this piece of sheer evidentiary gold over, we find:

"Thursday

Toaday I went to have a hair-cut then we went and had some fun at Panda's Palace."

Now, I'm not sure about you, but once Old Ken had finished weeping at the plangent pathos of this poetry, I set to work trying to interpret it. The narrator poses quite a challenge to the reader, emphasizing the plasticity of the English language, bending spellings to fit the mood. The initial syllable of Wednesday becomes the slightly more phonetic "Wendnesday," while the silent, penultimate syllable follows orthography - - as if to simultaneously break and follow the rules, thereby demonstrating their utter arbitrariness. While the discount chain "Wolworths" has lost its "h" and an emended "cemetery rule" governs the spelling of the word "video" (that is, apparently only 'i's are buried therein), the completed act of buying is subject to a fascinating remix. Part transposition of a famous, cold Russian beet soup, part imposition of the first-person plural possessive adjective "our" into the term of competed purchase itself, "bourght," I imagine, would rhyme with port or court.

But what of these Romantic destinations sketched with such intriguing outlines? "Panda's Palace" seems to be an attraction at Butlins Skegness - - one of three exciting Butlins UK resorts, which also include Bognor Regis and Minehead. In case you are interested in visiting, Butlins Skegness is near the town of Louth, which is, in turn, close to Alford, Horncastle, Spilsby and Wainfleet. Also nearby are Spilhorn, Castleby, Fordwain, Alfleet, Grimsby, Staines, Strood, Penge, and Steeple Bumsted.



But, like so many modern literary critics, I hear you impatiently asking: "But what does it mean?" Well, to a experimental philosopher like myself, it is less important to find "meaning" than to find proof. What is proof? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines proof as "that which makes good or proves a statement; evidence sufficient (or contributing) to establish a fact or produce belief in the certainty of something." I would submit that this poem proves that fun was critical to the self-conceptualization of the narrator's experience. For, on two consecutive days, the narrator describes him/herself as having had "fun," first at the beach making fantastic sand castles and then secondly at Panda's Palace.



Corroborating this evidence with the ludic experimentation with spelling noted above and it seems to this J. Hillis Miller that we have an air-tight case: some solid proof. And what better way is there to demonstrate that a claim has been proven than by stamping it with a "proof" stamp?

As the crimson ink of the stamp melds with the autograph script of the original poem, we can kick our heels back on a nearby table top, dip into a local wet bar or the ubiquitous pocket flask and reflect upon a job well done, a problem admirably solved, a point indisputably proven.