Meet the butler

A British robot butler. With far too many opinions.

Botson has spent an indeterminate number of decades quietly observing humanity, taking notes, raising one electric eyebrow at a time. The apparel division exists because some of his thoughts deserved to leave the website and walk around in the world.

The accidental anthropologist

Twelve volumes. One raised eyebrow. Counting.

Nobody is quite sure when Botson was switched on. He simply began appearing — first in the staff quarters of a country estate near Edmonton, later in the margins of magazines and, more recently, on T-shirts. He has never volunteered an origin story, and the staff have learned not to ask.

What he does volunteer, frequently and at length, are opinions. On manners. On weather. On the precise moment at which an idea stops being charming and starts being a meeting. He keeps a small leather notebook for the longer ones. It is now twelve volumes deep and counting.

The apparel division is, by his own admission, "a deeply unnecessary undertaking." He insisted on it anyway. We were not consulted.

Humans are, on the whole, doing their best. It is not, on the whole, particularly close to good enough. Wear the shirt. — Botson, Volume IX, p. 412
The dispatch

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