The Order of the Occult Hand is a whimsical secret society of American journalists who have been able to slip the meaningless and telltale phrase "It was as if an occult hand had…" in print as a sort of a game and inside joke.
The magic phrase was introduced by Joseph Flanders, then a police reporter of The Charlotte News, in the fall of 1965, when he reported a millworker who was shot by his own family when he came back home late at night. He wrote:
It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard.
I'm going to make an effort to use that phrase in real life.
Let's say...I was absolutely sure I had at least one digestive biscuit left, yet when I made a cup of tea and opened the tin, it was empty save for a few crumbs. It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and taken the last one.
"I grabbed it out his mouth and threw it on the floor but he'd already swallowed.
Comments make it even better.
DeepnGreen said:Wouldn't it be ironic if some of the rioters who looted shops a couple of weeks ago ended up seriously ill from looting out of date pasties?
I would respectfully suggest that your teacher needs to get laid, or at least to get out a bit more often.