14. I possess a painting somebody has made of my visage

Now, it must be said that this is not an unalloyed delight. Having a 4 by 3 foot painting of yourself is not dissimilar to the position Bluebeard must have found himself in; having a lumber room jammed full of dead wives is hardly conducive to maintaining a happy relationship with the next spouse to peer in and see what might befall her. Thusly, if I ever were to entice a beautiful woman back to my house again, I'd have to tell her that she could look anywhere in the house, except behind the curtain on the wall above the sofa (which is where the painting is hung. Of course, as all fairy tales go, she'd be bound to take a peek, and, disgusted by the apparent boundless pride that I held in my appearance, run from the house never to be seen again.
But let's unpick that slightly. Firstly, I'm sufficiently good looking to warrant reproduction. How many of the rest of you would even dare to have a picture of yourself made?
Secondly, I'm confident that my charms would be enough to overcome the disgust the painting might engender in my female companion
Thirdly, once I've posted a picture of the painting up here, it will be clear that my ironic disregard for myself is so strong that I am happy to display the picture without thought of shame or worry.
So that's three reasons for the price of one - or should that be four, if you include my generosity?

13. I'm aware of the impossibility of proving a posteriori knowledge.

To the chagrin of many economists, it is a truth less than universally acknowledged that statistics can never actually prove anything. All they are capable of is demonstrating some consistency of conjunction between different events. They always stand the chance of being refuted by some brute fact.


If anyone paid attention when being taught about the inductive paradox, they'd soon realise this. After all, no matter how many white swans one sees, the potential for a black one to fly overhead makes generalisations about the colours of swans based solely on experience obviously unreliable.

Thus it is with many assumptions and inferences. And thus to all the people who pointed out that they were better than me because they had a girlfriend and I didn't (lesbian or not) pay attention at the back, the fact that being better than somebody who has a lesbian girlfriend neither affirms nor denies that one has a girlfriend oneself.

More importantly, if you thought you could defeat me with reference to facts about the world, when it's quite clear that any attempts to do so presuppose the possibility of definite and unimpeachable a posteriori knowledge where the knower can themselves be quite secure as to knowledge of those facts being true, then you're deluded. And thus once again, I'm better than you.

12. I can spell radiation.

(Sigh).

I can spell radiation. It's spelt R A D I A T I O N and not R A D I O A T I O N. One might assume that the second word would be something to do with transmogrification into a radio, but as various people will patronisingly tell you, when you assume you make an ass of you and me.