Bloody hell, is the world of photography having a totally crap year, or what? A quick glance at this year's Toasts reveals that we have lost the following:
I think I'd better hang up my cameras until the new year.
BBC: New funeral service goes off-road
A new funeral service is aiming to give Land Rover enthusiasts one last ride in an off-road vehicle. Alpha 4x4 Funerals is believed to be the only funeral directors in the country to provide a Land Rover hearse.
Postcard from Fitz and Moley, on their honeymoon:
Ireland is much more traditional than it used to be.
They're totally right, of course.
BBC: Kilroy-Silk: I want to lead UKIP
Robert Kilroy-Silk has confirmed he wants to be the leader of UKIP but says there is no mechanism for him to run against current leader Roger Knapman.
Yes, that's right: the party that is up in arms about the proposed European Constitution, saying it is undemocratic, doesn't even have a mechanism in its own constitution for getting rid of the party leader. It would seem that xenophobic scaremongering isn't the only idea UKIP stole from the Nazis.
BBC: Suzuki sets Major League record
Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki broke the Major League record for hits in a season with three singles in the 8-3 victory over the Texas Rangers. The Japanese star matched George Sisler's 84-year record of 257 with a single in the opening inning before adding another two runs to his total.
I had absolutely no idea what this meant when I first read it. Having recently read a book about baseball by one of my heroes, the late Stephen Jay Gould, I knew enough to realise that Suzuki's achievement was a very big deal in the world of baseball. But, as I bemoaned at the time, Gould's book didn't contain a glossary, so I hadn't a clue what a hit might be (presumably it involves hitting the ball), and as for a hitting streak or a batting average, well I was totally stumped.
But, yet again, the good old Beeb comes to the rescue. For they have been thoughtful enough to compile a useful baseball jargon buster. It turns out:
- a hit is when a player connects with the ball and gets to at least first base. This is the most important statistic for a non-pitcher.
- a batting average, as in cricket, is the key measure of player's worth. In short, it is the number of hits made divided by at bats (q.v.).
But the jargon buster still doesn't explain what a hitting streak is; nor why Joe DiMaggio's legendary 56-game hitting streak was (according to Gould) the greatest ever achievement in any sport. I'm guessing it's a sequence of 56 games where you have at least one hit per game.
Anyone who knows for certain what a 56-game hitting streak is, please leave a comment.
S T E N S E ! The next time I'm in your neck of the woods, let's go to Fortingall church!
Illustrated Guide to Places to Visit: Fortingall Yew
Fortingall is a small village in the heart of Perthshire, at the entrance to Glen Lyon, not far from Loch Tay. The yew tree which grows there has been estimated to be at least 3,000 years old and possibly as old as 5,000 years. It is certainly the oldest living organism in Britain and possibly the world. It's [sic] girth at one stage was over 56 feet when measured in 1769.
Holy crap!
BBC: GPs confused by 'manky' patients
A group of foreign doctors left baffled by South Yorkshire slang are being taught the local dialect so they know when their patients feel "champion". The seven Austrians are fluent English speakers but were left confused by patients feeling "jiggered" or "manky"…YORKSHIRE TO ENGLISH:
- Ey oop = Hello
- Fizog = Face
- Lughole = Ear
- Jiggered = Exhausted
- Manky = Rough
- Our lass = Wife
- Gipping = Vomiting
Lughole, fizog, jiggered, manky: Yorkshire dialect? I think not! Doesn't everyone in England know and occasionally use them? Fizog is a great word (it's short for physiognomy, don't you know?).
And I'm not even sure about the definitions of the genuinely Yorkshire words. Jen (a 100% Yorkshire lass), also tends to use ey oop as an expression of surprise when something goes wrong (c.f. oops-a-daisy), and, to her, our lass is her sister.
But to gip, meaning to vomit or feel like vomiting, is a wonderful Yorkshire word that has now passed into this incomedun's vocabulary, along with while (until), spawny (lucky), and thoil (tolerate).
BBC: Scots bid to win back border town
Fresh calls are being made for the Northumberland town of Berwick to become part of Scotland again. The town, which lies about a mile from the border, has changed hands between the two countries a number of times. Now the leader of the Scottish Borders Council, David Parker, says he would like to see a referendum for people in the town to decide.
Yes, Berwick-upon-Tweed's ever-changing nationality was the cause of one of the longest wars in history: the great Berwicko-Russian War (1853–1966). As is explained on the Undiscovered Scotland website:
Even Henry VII's final capture of the town in 1482 didn't entirely simplify matters. Under the Treaty of Perpetual Peace between Henry VII of England and James IV of Scotland in 1502 (just 11 years before the Scottish army and nobility was destroyed by the English at the Battle of Flodden) Berwick was given a special status as being "of" the Kingdom of England but not "in" it. As a result the town thereafter needed special mention in royal proclamations.
This had one odd effect. When Queen Victoria signed the declaration of war on Russia in 1853, she did so in the name of "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and the British Dominions beyond the sea." But Berwick was not mentioned in the Treaty of Paris that concluded the Crimean War in 1856, leaving the town technically still at war with Russia.
A peace treaty was only finally signed by a Russian diplomat and the the Mayor of Berwick in 1966. As the mayor said at the time: "You can tell the Russian people that they can now sleep peacefully in their beds".
A correspondent is surprised that I didn't comment on this last week. So am I:
BBC: Emperor and mystic nun beatified
Pope John Paul II has declared five Roman Catholics blessed, including the last Austro-Hungarian emperor and a nun who inspired a Hollywood film…
However, the beatification of Emperor Karl I has been criticised by some as he authorised the use of poison gas by his army in World War I…
"I hope Emperor Karl will serve as an example, especially for those with political responsibilities in Europe today," the Pope said.
As I no doubt would have commented: Barking!
BBC: Australian PM wins fourth term
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard says he is "humbled" after winning a fourth term in office.
Confident prediction: John will be the only Howard elected Prime Minister this decade.
BBC: Deconstruction icon Derrida dies
Jacques Derrida, one of France's most famous philosophers, has died at the age of 74…The Algerian-born philosopher is best known for his "deconstruction theory" - unpicking the way text is put together in order to reveal its hidden meanings…
At its heart is the notion that each word and by extension each text contains layers of meanings which have grown up through cultural and historical processes. A writer may not know it, but what he puts on paper has all kinds of other significance than the obvious and this can be "deconstructed" by the expert.
Look what some total idiot had hidden behind some cheap and nasty plasterboard in our dining room.
What a bozo!
One of my pet gripes is something I call soundbite science: so-called scientific studies whose sole purpose is to generate a bit of cheap publicity for someone. Soundbite science is easy to spot, as it typically displays a number of the following characteristics:
- the studies appear as 'fun' news items towards the end of news broadcasts
- they are carried out by people described with the generic word 'scientists' (as opposed to physicists, biochemists, etc.)
- the 'scientists' are usually from a famous university
- the study is sponsored by a company or organisation that has something vaguely to do with the subject of the study
- …but the study is really "just a bit of fun"
- the subject of the study is one of perpetual fascination to the public (men v women, beer v wine, Britain v the rest of the world, tea, biscuits, sex, genes, television, music, food, sport, etc.)
- the studies are often published at the start of a special national 'week' invented by the sponsors (National Sausage Week, National Biscuit Week, etc.)
- the study has no real scientific merit whatsoever
Here's the latest little gem:
BBC: Formula found for film chemistry
Scientists say they have discovered a formula for creating sexual chemistry on the movie screen. The experts, from King's College in London, watched romantic films to come up with the right formula. They said voice, eye contact, body language and excitement could be used to measure sexual chemistry…Chemistry couples
- 10/10 - When Harry Met Sally
(Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal)- 9.5/10 - Casablanca
(Ingrid Bergman/Humphrey Bogart)- 9/10 - Breakfast at Tiffany's
(Audrey Hepburn/George Peppard)- 9/10 - Lost in Translation
(Scarlett Johansson/Bill Murray)- 7/10 - Pretty Woman
(Julia Roberts/Richard Gere)…The research was carried for Sky Movies.
Yes, that's right: the 'formula' for sexual chemistry on screen is… eye contact, body language and excitement.
Wow!
The Guardian Guide (16—22 October, 2004, p.53)
The Cell (Tarsem Singh, 2000) 10.15pm, C4
A standard serial-killer thriller, filtered intriguingly through an acid dream. Jennifer Lopez stars as a psychologist who delves literally into the lurid, nightmare mind of murderer Vincent D'Onofrio in an attempt to save his next victim (Tara Subkoff): and it's a place you really don't want to go. Wild stuff, with genuinely jolting imagery crafted by video star Tarsem Singh in an ambitious and effective big-screen debut.
The Guardian Guide (16—22 October, 2004, p.57)
10.15 The Cell (Tarsem Singh, 2000)
Wildly daft thriller with Jennifer Lopez entering the mind of killer Vincent D'Onofrio via a brain machine portal, and then finding herself inconvenienced by his sex games while Vince Vaughan tries to save her.
Q: What do you call a bird with a tedious job?
A: A drudgerigar.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Jen and I spent yesterday morning helping our farmer friend bring some cattle down from the moors for the winter.
Even though cows are fairly big, the moors in question are considerably bigger, so it took us over two hours just to find the cattle. They had split into two groups, so, while Jen and the farmer drove the larger group two miles back through the bogs to the farm, I decided to go after the smaller group on my own. But when I returned to the hilltop where I had seen them grazing about half an hour earlier, they had buggered off. I couldn't find them anywhere.
Then I remembered a Ray Mears TV programme from a couple of weeks back, and I had a cunning plan: I decided to return to the spot where the cattle had been grazing and try to follow their tracks. And you'll never guess: it only bloody worked! There were hundreds of hoof-prints on the hillside, but I reasoned that the freshest ones would be the ones that hadn't filled with water, so I followed the tracks about a quarter of a mile and found the cattle hiding below a ridge. Tonto, eat your heart out!
Then there was only the small matter of getting the nine cattle to walk the two miles or so to the farm. As I was doing this, I decided to invent some names for what I had now started to think of as my cows. Here are the rather clever names I came up with (with apologies to Peter McGrath):
- Black Bastard
- Other Black Bastard
- Brown Bastard
- Brown-and-White Bastard
- Black Bastard's Calf
- Other Black Bastard's Calf
- Brown Bastard's Calf
- Brown-and-White Bastard's Calf
- Lame Bastard
The way I saw it, these cattle are closely related, so they should all have the same surname.
Today marks the 589th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, one of the many battles in which the brave soldiers of Britain demonstrated their world-renowned flair for gloriously snotting the French in battle, thereby giving us something to remind them about ever since.
Today also marks the 150th anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, one of the many battles in which the brave soldiers of Britain demonstrated their world-renowned flair for gloriously following totally ridiculous orders to the letter, thereby snatching moral victory from the jaws of defeat.
The latter is a tactic proudly honoured to this day by our four national soccer teams.
See also: Why the Charge of the Light Brigade still matters (BBC)
Bloody hell! John Peel died yesterday.
I don't want John Peel to be dead. Why couldn't the good lord, in His infinite wisdom, have taken some other DJ unto His bosom—one who doesn't give a flying toss about music—Sarah Kennedy, say, or Chris Moyles? Peelie will be sorely missed.
To make matters worse, not only has one of my heroes died, but they wheeled another of my heroes on to Newsnight last night to give tribute. And Mark E Smith of The Fall made a total arsehole of himself. Yes, Mark E, we know you're cool and controversial and outspoken and an utter genius and all that stuff, but would it really have hurt you to say something nice about the chap who did so much for your career? I reckon it must be Scouse-envy.
(Not that Peelie was really a Scouser, you understand: he was from the Wirral, where all the best people come from.)
See also: John Peel 1939–2004 (Guardian special report)
OK, now I'm totally confused:
BBC: Cup of tea may help boost memory
Drinking regular cups of tea could help improve your memory, research suggests. A team from Newcastle University found green and black tea inhibited the activity of key enzymes in the brain associated with memory. The researchers hope their findings, published in Phytotherapy Research, may lead to the development of a new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease.
What on Earth is going on? I thought tea was supposed to increase my chances of getting Altzheimer's Disease, not help me fight it. I distinctly remember them saying so a couple of years ago (about the same time they were harping on about mercury in my dental fillings, and fluoride in my tap water). Something to do with aluminium, if memory serves. Yes, that's right, it was aluminium from my kettle that was going to make me go senile. I remember thinking, why are they picking on tea, when I also use my kettle to make coffee? But apparently some tea already had aluminium in it, making it a far greater threat to my mind than other hot beverages.
But now tea is good for you, apparently. I reckon these scientists have been drinking a bit too much of the stuff (or maybe not enough, according to which scientist you choose to listen to).
It's like potatoes. Remember when potatoes were an absolute no-no? I certainly do. And the people who said so weren't just talking about chips; they meant potatoes in any form. Full of nasty carbohydrates that would make you go fat, you see… But now potatoes are good for us, and everyone is going on high-carb' diets to lose weight!
And let's not forget the alcohol. Alcohol is bad for us, right? But now they're telling us beer and red wine (and whisky, I hope) are actually quite good for us 'in moderation' (whatever the hell that means). Which, come to think of it, is exactly what my grandmother used to tell me: "Everything in moderation, Derek!" she used to say, as she poured herself another sweet sherry.
Mind you, Grandma also used to tell me that eating toast crusts would make my hair grow curly (even though I didn't particularly want to have curly hair). She also warned me that, if I carried on pulling that face, and the wind changed direction, it would stick like that. Which just goes to show that, when it comes to scientific matters, Grandmas are not always the most reliable pundits.
And what about masturbation? Admittedly, Grandma never broached that particular subject, but others used to say it would make you go blind and send your soul spiralling into the fiery furnace. But now so-called experts claim it protects you against cancer.
They'll be telling us cigarettes are bad for us next.
Honestly, you'd think an omnipotent being would know better, wouldn't you? What sort of example is this to set to devout, young believers?
Hasn't He got anything better to do with His time? Like rid the world of hunger, or bring about world peace, or brush up on His handwriting, or something like that.
I blame the parents.
BBC: Town pardons executed "witches"
Dozens of "witches" executed in a Scottish town more than 400 years ago are to be pardoned to mark Halloween. Prestonpans, in East Lothian, will grant the pardons under ancient feudal powers which are about to disappear. Descendants and namesakes of the 81 people executed are expected to attend Sunday's ceremony. More than 3,500 Scots, mainly women, were executed during the Reformation, for crimes such as owning a black cat and brewing up home-made remedies.
Or, to put it another way, innocent people tried, sentenced and executed on trumped-up charges are to be forgiven by the descendents of their persecutors.
Has anyone else noticed it's the 21st Century?
(Mind you, I'm all for executing cat-owners.)
Guardian: Ali, Beckham and Thatcher sketch and scribble for charity…The drawings are part of a project masterminded by Mr Greig [editor of Tatler magazine] to raise money for a London charity for the homeless, the 999 Club. He sent a number of artists, politicians, writers and sportsmen a miniature leather-bound book, a couple of centimetres tall, and asked them to fill it. The results will be auctioned, with proceeds going to the charity, on Monday.
Lady Thatcher wrote out her "lady's not for turning" speech. Paul McCartney was sent a vegetarian-friendly book, with a binding of acrylic-coated cloth, in which he wrote out the lyrics to Hey Jude, and provided a cheery scribble of a grateful cow, captioned with the word "Ta".
…Mr Greig said: "The biggest surprise is that everyone did it. The most popular British artists, the greatest American pop icon, the greatest and only surviving Beatle…"
Ahem. I think you'll find Paul McCartney isn't the only surviving Beatle, Mr Greig. Are you sure you're not confusing Ringo Starr with Yasser Arafat (who's not been looking too well recently)?
BBC: Cats suffer stress, experts say
Cats can suffer from stress-related illness like humans, a study by animal experts suggests.
Good.
