You know, the good folks of my adoptive county are so full of themselves sometimes…'Appen today is Yorkshire Day.
Pseud: Andrew O'Hagan (LRB: 04-Mar-04):
… D.J. Enright offered a nicely disgruntled definition of postmodernism in Injury Time, his posthumously published memoir: 'All it suggests,' he writes, 'if that isn't putting it too strongly, is that something comes after something else - as indeed most things do.' What Morrissey does as a lyric-writer and a singer is to make this coming-after a matter of homage and nostalgia, as well as a matter of self-revelation, for him and then for his audience.
Dude: Thomas Jones (LRB: 04-Mar-04):
I never was a boy scout. Not because I had anything against camping, making fires, tying knots, reading maps, climbing trees, playing at soldiers or pretending to be a spy, but because the idea of doing all those things in uniform, under the supervision of a middle-aged man in short trousers, threatened to take the fun out of them.
BBC: China ends Great Wall space myth (12-Mar-04)
China is changing official thinking about a common misconception relating to its best-known ancient site. For decades, elementary schoolbooks have maintained that the Great Wall of China could be seen from space - but now the books are being rewritten. The Wall, China now admits, cannot in fact be seen from the heavens - a fact proved by China's own astronaut Yang Liwei, who became the country's first person in space last year.
…Which is pretty odd, because, when I was on the Great Wall of China, I could definitely see space.
Guardian: Odds on that God exists, says scientist (08-Mar-04)
A scientist has calculated that there is a 67% chance that God exists.
Unfortunately, I have calculated that there is a 100% chance that this so-called scientist is wrong.
Let's face it, either God exists or God doesn't exist. In other words, there is either a 100% chance or a 0% chance that God exists—and there's nothing that this scientist or anyone else can do to say which is right.
Mind you, I know which one I think satisfies Occam's Razor.
The lights in the gents' toilets at work come on automatically as you enter. If you stay very still for a while, they turn off. If you jump up and down, they come on again.
Yes, my friends, the toilets at work have motion detectors.
And another thing about the gents' toilets at work: today I noticed a discreet little sign stuck just above the mirror saying SHAVERS ONLY.
As a proud beard wearer, I wish to state that I resent being discriminated against in this way.
I suppose this is how it all started in South Africa.
SeattlePi.com: A guide to veg-friendly living in the Northwest
The book includes a list of famous vegetarians, such as Charles Darwin…
That's the Charles Darwin, founder member of the Gluttons (a Cambridge University-based gentlemen's club, dedicated to the consumption of unusual animals), who is known to have eaten (amongst all things wise and wonderful) a putrid owl, giant tortoises, a large, flightless bird previously unknown to science (since named Darwin's rhea), guanacos, and—brace yourselves—a puma foetus.
That's one hell of a strange vegetarian.
(Mind you, aren't they all?)
I was in Winchester last weekend. I did the full tourist bit: King Arthur's Round Table, Jane Austen's rectangular grave, King Canute's box, the statue of Alfred the Cake.
While visiting the cathedral, I decided to kill time by playing my favourite cathedral game. This involves finding a large, echoey section of the building, then suddenly barking out a single, loud, strangulated cough, as if choking on a cat. As the echoes die down, I start looking around, as if trying to work out where the cough came from, while the cathedral's ushers frantically scour the vicinity in search of the irreverent trouble-maker (or the poor soul choking on a cat).
I must say, the Winchester ushers (unlike their slow-coach colleagues at Ely, Durham and York) were certainly on their toes. Two of them were on the scene in seconds. I only managed to throw them off my scent by pointing out a suddenly remarkably interesting memorial plaque to Jen, while she informed me that I was a fucking idiot.
Conversation with my friend the farmer yesterday:
(Me) "I think I'll light a fire tonight."
"We had a cracking fire last night. It was really roaring."
"They're good when they're like that."
"It was so hot, I burnt the cat."
"What, you're not going to try to get me with that old joke!"
"What old joke?"
"How do you make a cat bark?"
"I don't know, how do you make a cat bark?"
"Throw it on the fire and… WOOF!"
"Ha-ha! That's a good one! No—I really burnt the cat."
"Serves it right. Did it get too close to the fire and a spark hit it?"
"No, it was dead, so I put it on the fire. It went up a treat."
"You're a sentimental, old fool at times!"
"I thought you'd be pleased."
BBC:
On the contrary: I think you'll find Michael Howard has something of the nightmare about him.
I just thought of a really crap joke:
Q: What do you call a lazy mountain guide?
A: Shirka Tensing.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
I dreamt I was polishing my shoes last night. After I'd finished, I inserted some shoe-trees and put the shoes neatly away in the cupboard.
I remember when I used to have good dreams—the sort of dreams I couldn't tell you about.
BBC: Bayer deals blow to GM crops
GM crop growing has been shelved for the "foreseeable future", according to the UK government. German company Bayer CropScience was the only firm eligible to grow herbicide-tolerant maize in the UK. But it has blamed government conditions for making the crop "economically non-viable" because they would stall production of the maize for too long.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but what's going to happen if this company tries to grow a commercial GM crop in the UK? That's right, it will be destroyed by militant environmentalists. So how could the company (aided and abetted by the UK government) prevent the crop from being destroyed? That's right, by saying it had given up on the idea of growing one.
Remember, you heard it here first!
