Stense (remember her?) this morning:
Pheasants are like the sheep of the bird world.
Hmmm… Compare and contrast:
Don't quite see it myself.
The new Katie 'Jordan' Price and Peter André album is truly miraculous, apparently. Scroll down to the Customer Reviews section, if you don't believe me.
[Thanks to reader Phil for the link.]
Many great poets have been inspired by religious locations and stone memorials: Shelley penned a sonnet about the crumbling remains of a statue to the tyrant Ozymandias; Larkin wrote about an Arundel tomb found in Chichester Cathedral; Wordsworth spent many weeks at Tintern Abbey, trying to come up with a rhyme for Tintern—and, indeed, abbey.
Yesterday, I found myself standing beside the grave of the American poet Sylvia Plath. She's buried in a churchyard just across the valley from my house. Sylvia married local Yorkshireman and future Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, who presumably chose her final resting place after her suicide in 1963.
I'm not a poetic man, but, as I was looking down at Sylvia's grave, the Muse Thalia grabbed me by the nuts and moved me to verse:
An American poet named Plath
Was composing a poem in the bath.
Her husband, Ted Hughes,
Was far from amused:
"Tha'th wet all tut coal, ye daft lath*!"
How long before Calderdale has its second Poet Laureate?
* Note: It's a little-known fact that Ted Hughes had a distict lisp. I heard it from our milkman.
Did you ever witness something and know for certain that there was far more to it than what you had just seen? I think it's down to what arty-farty, dramatic types refer to as the back story: stuff which happens before the event, which you aren't necessarily a party to, but which is deeply significant to what you are seeing.
The rush-hour traffic was pretty typical on the M62 last Friday: generally slower than on other days of the week, but still moving, albeit occasionally degrading into stop-start mode as lane-jumping jokers tried to save five seconds by undertaking the car in front. I'd just passed the exit before mine, when I noticed two cars pulled up on the hard shoulder ahead of me. I assumed they must have had some sort of minor knock because of the inconsistent traffic speed. The aftermaths of such knocks are a pretty common sight on Friday evenings.
As I drew nearer the cars, I saw the two drivers inspecting the damage. The driver of the front car was a man in his mid- to late-thirties; the driver of the second car was a woman of similar age. From their general body language, I guessed they had both decided that whatever damage there was was inconsequential, and that they would both rather just let it drop, rather that involve their insurance companies.
The two drivers nodded at each other, and the man made to return to his car. But the woman suddenly ran after him. He turned, and she kissed him: not just a friendly peck on the cheek, but a proper kiss on the mouth.
As I overtook them, they both returned to their cars, and presumably rejoined the motorway traffic.
What the flipping heck was going on there, do you reckon?
I had a really weird dream last night: Carolyn and I were walking through a campsite in what I assume was Anglesey, when we spotted her oldest daughter trying to drive a white camper van. We called to her to stop, saying the owner would be really cross, but she said she knew it was my camper van really (which it wasn't) and carried on practicing her driving (including, I have to say, some pretty impressive reversing manoeuvres). Then Ann and Bill's gay dog ran up and started biting at the hems of my trouser legs. The next thing I knew, Carolyn and I were in an office somewhere, and she was explaining how it was really important for her to arrange a meeting between her boss and the actress Imogen Stubbs. I said that, by an amazing co-incidence, I happened to know Imogen Stubbs quite well, because she was a friend of Irish Mick, and lived at 66, Bromborough Village Road (Note: Imogen Stubbs is not a friend of Irish Mick, nor, as far as I know, does she live at 66, Bromborough Village Road—but she did in this dream.) Then Carolyn had somehow disappeared, and Irish Mick brought Imogen Stubbs into the room. Only it wasn't really Imogen Stubbs; it was this very fat woman, who vaguely resembled a very fat Imogen Stubbs. I decided to go along with her pretence: "So, Imogen, would you be happy to meet Carolyn and her boss?" I asked. "Erm," said the pretend, fat Imogen Stubbs, clearly embarrassed, "I'd rather not, if you don't mind… Not after last time."
And then I woke up.
All of which goes to prove that you really shouldn't mix grape and grain.
Yes, yes, I know what you're wondering: where was Stense in all this? Exactly!! Boy, has she got some explaining to do!
Jen just came out with a good one: the next time she's handed a microphone at a conference, or somewhere like that, she's going to put on a pretentious actor's voice and say, "Thesping, thesping, 1-2-3."
Email this evening:
hi… i like to know where you take this pic ( disney war ) i'm the designer who create the Disney War stencil in Buenos Aires. Argentine. and i trying to reach all the clones the people made around the world.
Thanks!
This one has conspiracy theory written all over it.
BBC: Manchester tops second city poll
Manchester is thought to be England's second most important city ahead of Birmingham, a BBC survey has found.
The most important city, it goes without saying, is Liverpool.
Watching Match of the Day with Jen:
J: Is that Emlyn Hughes on the bench?
R: No.
J: Are you sure?
R: Yes. Emlyn Hughes is dead.
J: Are we watching an old match or something?
I just made one of the cleverest puns of my life.
Unfortunately, with all due respect to Jen, I could really have done with a physics graduate to hand to groan in appreciation. As it was, Jen just looked at me blankly (like any normal human being would), and asked me what the hell I was talking about.
Our dishwasher is broken at the moment, so we were doing the washing-up the old-fashioned way, and found ourselves fighting over a tea-towel:
"Tell you what," said Jen. "Hang the expense! Why don't I get a second tea-towel out? Is there some law of physics which states that you can't use more than one tea-towel at a time?"
I couldn't believe she had fed me such a line: "Yes," I said, "it's called the Toweli Exclusion Principle."
Ouch!
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T GET IT?
Damn, damn clever, if I do say so myself. On so many levels. Ouch! There I go again!
Why isn't there a scientific equivalent of the word Philistines?
Last night, Fitz (the tosser) emailed me a couple of links to some Howlin' Wolf videos on YouTube, observing that maybe God did descend in human form after all. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but Fitz is right. Watch the videos while you still can, and hear where Captain Beefheart got his sound:
(If you play them at the same time, you can hear the Wolf duet with himself.)
Never thought I'd find myself in total agreement with the Daily Telegraph.
A fart on Thomas Putnam!
Right, I'm off to bludgeon a fox cub.
My mum's new dog is already turning into a real character. For example, she barks at her own poo, which is kind of odd. But by far the strangest thing she does—I have never seen any other dog do this—is wag her tail in her sleep. Not just a gentle wag, you understand; she wags her tail like the clappers.
Now there's a happy dog.
I was thinking about door handles this week. Jen and I recently bought some snazzy, 1950's-style ones to go with the ones she brought here from her last house. They are extremely cool.
What I was thinking was, aren't door handles so much better than door knobs? Apparently, Americans really love door knobs, while we Brits tend to go for handles. The Americans are wrong. Door knobs are totally stupid: you can't get a proper purchase on them when you turn them; whereas door handles are proper levers.
Archimedes reckoned, if you gave him somewhere to stand and a big enough lever, he could move the earth. This wasn't just idle torque on Archimedes' part; levers are definitely where it's at. You certainly wouldn't catch Archimedes saying, "Give me a big enough knob, and I will move the earth".
Although it's a hell of a chat-up line.
(Don't worry, it's perfectly safe to watch, but it should make your blood boil.)
—via Respectful Insolence.
Compare and contrast:
Is the BBC trying to make the Prime Minister look jaundiced? Or, in the interests of impartiality, is the Press Association ('PA' in photo 2) trying to make him look healthy?
Shades of Nixon's five o'clock shadow? I'll let you decide.
Happy Birthday to Great Uncle Fred: 101 today!
Not bad for an awkward, old bugger. His words, not mine.
I picked up a business card for a rubber balloon design company in a pub last week. Their tagline is Balloon Artistry For All Occasions.
All occasions? This could be just what I'm looking for. I'm thinking of throwing a little party at the end of July to mark the 588th anniversary of the First Defenestration of Prague.
Any particular occasions you would like to celebrated with artistic balloons?
Google Maps seems to have discovered a brand new city: Pemberton!
If the font size on their map is anything to go by, Pemberton is of a similar size to Liverpool, Manchester and London, and dwarfs Nottingham, Leicester and Hull. Which is odd, because Pemberton appears to be at what we people who work in Liverpool refer to as the other end of the M58: the motorway which famously doesn't go anywhere. Apart from Wigan, that is. That's Wigan, where the pies come from; not Pemberton.
In fact, if you zoom in and in some more on the map, you discover that Pemberton seems to be a small offshoot of Wigan—which is a bit odd for a major city.
I wonder how much Pemberton village council paid Google to give their place so much prominence.
Conversation at my parents' house on Tuesday:
Dad: Do you realise, next year, we'll have known each other for fifty years?
Mum: Bloody hell! Bugger! No, seriously, bloody hell!
BBC: MoD defends psychic powers study
The Ministry of Defence has defended a decision to carry out tests to find out whether psychic powers could be used to detect hidden objects.
The previously secret tests - conducted in 2002 - involved blind-folding volunteers and asking them about the contents of sealed brown envelopes…
During the study, commercial researchers were contracted at a cost of £18,000 to test them to see if psychic ability existed and could be used for defence purposes…
The MoD refused to discuss the possible applications of psychic techniques, but said that the study had concluded there was "little value" in using "remote viewing" in the defence of the nation.
Does anyone else remember the (now happily defunct) Natural Law Party's election manifesto defence policy, which stated that they would use the so-called Maharishi Effect to prevent future enemies of Britain from ever being born?
And to think we thought they were nuts!
Jen works in Manchester and I work in Liverpool, so we have our own two-car convoy on the motorway each morning—Jen in front, me behind (I like to keep an eye on her). We go our own separate ways at junction 17 of the M60.
Last night, Jen stayed at her friend's house in Preston. It was weird not having her in front of me this morning: I'm used to her driving, and can predict her actions, whereas the bloke in front of me this morning kept slamming on his brakes for no readily apparent reason, and swerving inexplicably to the left.
I was just passing the junction where the M60 is joined by the M61, when some bloody idiot coming off the M61 started blaring their horn. I ignored them. Then my phone rang. It was Jen: "Are you going to let me in, or what?" she said. And there she was, joining the motorway right in front of me.
It's been a week full of co-incidences like that.
I can't help feeling this is asking too much of the Poles: they're already up to their necks in all that plumbing work.
BBC: Author of war novel Das Boot dies
The German author of the World War II novel Das Boot, made into an Oscar-nominated film, has died of heart failure at the age of 89.
Lothar-Guenther [sic] Buchheim was also an art collector and set up the Museum der Phantasie (Museum of the Imagination) in Bernried, Bavaria, in 2001.
If you've never seen Das Boot, do yourself a favour and buy the director's cut (or, better still, the uncut mini series) on DVD right away and watch it in a single sitting in the original German with subtitles. It is, in my humble opinion, the best film ever made—coming second only to The Blues Brothers as my all-time desert island choice.
The novel is damn excellent too (thanks for that, Stense).
Seriously, I can't recommend Das Boot highly enough. Go and buy it!
Reuters: Pope speaks out against "designer babies"
Pope Benedict on Saturday condemned genetic engineering and other scientific practices that allow people to select so-called "designer babies" by screening them for defects.
In a speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life, a Church body of experts, the Pope also attacked artificial insemination and the widespread use of medical tests that can detect diseases and inherited disorders in embryos.
The artificial insemination of virgins without their consent is still acceptable, though.
BBC: Jesus tomb found, says film-maker
Jesus had a son named Judah and was buried alongside Mary Magdalene, according to a new documentary by Hollywood film director James Cameron…
Academic Stephen Pfann, a scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said he did not expect Christians to accept the film's findings. "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," said Mr Pfann, who was interviewed by the film-makers.
I think there might be one or two atheists who will be with them on that one, Mr P. Apparently, James Cameron knows Jesus's DNA profile. Well, I suppose he did have a criminal record.
Telephone conversation with Carolyn this afternoon:
R: … It's St David's Day tomorrow!
C: What did he do, then?
R: He's the Patron Saint of Wales.
C: I know that! But what did he actually do? Apart from kill Goliath, I mean.
Stuff came out of my nose.
