I`m sure that you have all heard of Alexander the Great, the Greek hero, who , becoming king of Macedonia when still in his teens, conquered all of Asia Minor and Northern India in his all-too-short lifespan.
Now great king and leader though he was, and feared and obeyed through his conquered dominions though he was, Alexander was nevertheless always having trouble with his generals. The problem was that Alexander liked to have his staff meetings, with all his generals present, at exactly 6p.m. every day, before they started the evening`s carousing and still had clear heads. Unfortunately, in those days, the only means of keeping time were the hour glass and the water clock., but the hour glass only worked if there was someone constantly watching it to turn it as soon as the sand ran out, and the water clock was a great big clumsy instrument needing a horse and cart, and hardly the sort of thing for taking on a campaign in the mountains or the desert. So no matter how much Alexander shouted and raged at his generals, and even threatened to execute them, he could never get them to all turn up together at the right time. Eventually he got so fed up with this that he sent for his wise men and ordered them to find a solution to the problem.
For days the wise men pondered and worried about the problem, without success. One afternoon however, a boy who had been sent out to look for herbs came back with a pocket full of strange berries. When he started to empty the pocket he found the berries were squashed and the juice had stained his tunic red. He was told to go, red stained tunic and all, to wait on the wise men, who were still pondering. As he waited on them the wise men all poked fun at the boy over his stained tunic, but at exactly 6 p.m. the red stained tunic suddenly turned bright blue. The wise men had the answer. The next day they soaked several different sorts of cloth in the juice of the berries, and all turned bright blue at exactly 6 p.m.
Excitedly, the wise men tried to decide how best to use the discovery and (very important) what to call it. One tied a strip of the cloth around his wrist, and suggested calling it a “Wrist Watch”, but that was dismissed because a rag could easily become untied from around a wrist. Another tied a strip around his waist and wanted to call it a “Navel Watch”, but a man would have to keep looking inside his tunic to see whether it was 6 p.m. yet. Various other suggestions were made and dismissed. Finally, by mutual agreement it was decided that, to suit everybody, the strips of cloth were fitted with buckles so that they could be fitted and worn on whatever part of the anatomy the wearer wished. And the wise men decided to call it…
Alexander`s Rag Time Band.
