Today’s brief, pithy, and mildly abusive post is all the fault of Christopher Fowler. Click here to see the instigating post.

So sorry… I am so VERY sorry…
Mood: satisfied
Music: Branford Marsalis, “A Love Supreme”, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool (1994, !mpulse + Red-Hot Project)
Book: Mervyn Peake’s “The Gormenghast Trilogy” (this edition 978−0−099−28889−3, Vintage U.K. / Random House)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 9:29 am and is filed under Humour, LIT-O-RAMA, NEWS, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
So I went to Mr. Fowler’s site and had a wonderful time wandering around in it. I am now going to look for the other Bryant and May books. His How to Write a Mystery was one of the clearest process articles I’ve read in a long time. That is probably because he pays attention to what he’s doing while he does it. I don’t think many people do that.
Many authors write whilst asleep, or merely wearing a blindfold and comedy foam fingers. This is why they have editors.
And I’m lending you the books in their order… remember?
I did give you the first one back, didn’t I? Well???
I have to admit to not getting the joke. I realise that these are two educated men who have been reduced to being tramps and are arguing about the worth of their degrees when clearly there is none.
But I’m assuming there is something more subtle going on there that I am unaware of. Would that be right?
That would be correct, Sir.
An “M.F.A.” is a Masters of Fine Arts, typically given given for advanced studies in Theatre or in the ‘plastic arts’. It’s also has a well-established history of typically and ‘humorously’ defined as standing for “Master of Fuck-All”.
An “M.B.A.” is a Masters of Business Administration (or “Arts”, I don’t recall), given for advanced studies in Business Management, Corporate Administration, forward planning, and general continued livelihood of company affairs.
The ‘gag’ here is that, what with today’s economic woes and current state of the public’s perception of high-level corporate governance in general, to have an M.B.A. is as realistically practical a thing as an M.F.A. (which is only more ludicrous a degree than a Bachelor’s in the same programme).