True story: on my way into work yesterday, I couldn't get the Kenny Rogers song (You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me,) Lucille out of my head. It was really infuriating. Especially as I only knew two of the lines.
The song is the punchline to a crap, old joke about a man whose heel falls off his shoe: "You picked a fine time to leave me, loose heel" (geddit?).
Yesterday afternoon, the heel fell off my shoe. It had not been loose until that point.
Spooky!
This morning, I will be mostly singing The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.
…so what did you look like fat?
How to make a fairly mediocre pop song into something of a classic: phone up Mark E Smith after the event and ask him to snarl his own lyrics over the top.
What the hell is going on? Liverpool FC are actually winning matches at the start of the season. Haven't they read the script? Don't they realise they're not supposed to do that?
BBC: Liverpool 6-0 Derby
Liverpool outclassed Derby to move to the top of the Premier League table for the first time under Rafa Benitez…
It was an utterly dominant performance from the Reds, who have now won five out of their six games in all competitions this season - but none as easily as this.
Yes, and it would have been six out of six, had it not been for a certain visually challenged referee, who was almost certainly wearing Chelsea underpants at the time.
Yes, that's right, referee Ron Styles is the only person to have deprived Liverpool of points so far this season. As things stand, that puts him one point above Derby County.
Carolyn in an online chat last night:
I had to scramble up a hill - did I tell you? The neighbouring hill was called 'Brown Willy' - we decided not to do that one!
BBC: Theron 'wants US soldiers home'
Hollywood actress Charlize Theron, who is promoting her latest movie at the Venice Film Festival, has said she hopes US troops in Iraq can come home.
Fascinating. I wonder where Les Dennis and Natalie Imbruglia stand on this one.
What's the missing number?
Admit it, you think it's 5, don't you? Occam's Razor and all that.
Stop thinking so linearly. I'm all for keeping things simple, but you need to let your hair down once in a while.
The answer I'm looking for is 17.
Why? I'd have thought that much was obvious: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 17 are the five solutions to the polynomial equation:
x5 - 27x4 + 205x3 - 645x2 +874x - 408 = 0
Like all good puzzles, it's obvious when you know the answer.
Good job that didn't come up in an IQ test, eh?
According to a pundit on Match of the Day 2 last night, "Thierry Henry's a huge presence in the changing room".
You heard it here first, girls.
Unless you happened to watch Match of the Day 2 last night.
I performed a very selfless, noble and altruistic act on Thursday.
I was in the disturbingly small science section of the Liverpool branch of Waterstones, when I noticed Michael Behe's imfamous book Darwin's Black Box sitting on the shelf.
Despite its misleading title, Behe's book has nothing to do with science. It is a book about so-called Intelligent Design: the latest rebranding of the age-old, discredited philosophy of Natural Theology, which attempts to show that the universe—and, in particular, living organisms—are so complex that they couldn't have come about by chance; they must have been designed by some intelligent force—or God, as the proponents of Intelligent Design don't like to admit. They're trying to get this nonsense taught in school science lessons, so admitting that Intelligent Design is just another name for Creationism wouldn't help their cause. They evidently haven't read the bit in the Bible about not bearing false witness.
For some inexplicable reason, someone at Waterstones had decided to file Behe's silly book in the science section.
So I moved it.
I took it off the shelf, walked over to the disturbingly large religion and spirituality section and filed Darwin's Black Box neatly away behind a copy of the King James Bible.
Everyone's a winner:
- any religious nut wanting to buy Behe's book will be able to find it amongst the other religious propaganda
- therefore, Behe will sell more copies of his book
- therefore Waterstones will make more money
- and precious shelf-space is freed up in the science section for genuine science books
Think of me as a good Samaritan.
The late, great Luciano Pavarotti sings Elephants' Ears (skip to 58 seconds from the end for the best bit):
What a fantastic pair of lungs!
Which reminds me, it's Stense's birthday tomorrow.
Words failurise me:
BBC: Eat well cash for mothers-to-be
Pregnant women will get about £200 paid into their bank account to spend on healthy food under a government initiative, the BBC has learned.
At the risk of sounding Tory…
IF THEY CAN'T AFFORD TO FEED THEMSELVES PROPERLY, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING HAVING KIDS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
BBC: Starch 'fuel of human evolution'
Man's ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet, genetic work suggests.
According to current evolutionary theory, man evolved in Africa, whereas the potato evolved in South America. The two were not destined to meet until long after human beings had evolved their ability to digest starch.
Pedantic, I know, but the next thing you know, the tabloids will be claiming that we evolved from chips, not chimps.
(And yes, I know we didn't evolve from chimps, but the tabloids probably don't.)
My, this is scary:
BBC: Faith schools set for expansion
The government has pledged its support for the principle of faith schools - with the prospect of many more Muslim schools within the state sector.
Schools Secretary Ed Balls and faith group leaders have formed a partnership - endorsing faith schools as a force to improve social cohesion in England.
Social cohesion? Is that what they're calling sectarianism these days?
Why not write to your MP and tell them how you feel about this? You might like to cc. the aptly named Ed Balls while you're at it. (Not that writing to your MP ever made a shite of difference, you understand.)
Personally speaking, I am fucking livid.
How totally ridiculous:
BBC: James Bond tops 'culture chart'
James Bond's Casino Royale has topped the UK's first "culture chart", bringing together sales of DVDs, books, CDs and computer games in one rundown.
How the hell can you rank books against DVDs, or CDs against video games? It makes about as much sense as saying you prefer cream cakes to the colour blue.
This is so embarrassing:
BBC: Monarch faith role 'should stay'
Prince Charles should not become defender of all faiths rather than just Christianity when he becomes King, the Archbishop of Canterbury has insisted.
Yes, that's right, embarrassing.
We Brits have a head of state whose job it is to defend religious faith—specifically the one, true Anglican Protestant faith (not the whole of Christianity, as the Archbishop conveniently forgets).
Look on a coin: ELIZABETH II D.G. REG. F.D. (or, to give it its full Latin, ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA FIDEI DEFENSOR)—Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God Queen and Defender of the Faith. A daily reminder that our monarch is required by our famously unwritten constitution to defend one particular brand of religious mumbo-jumbo. Defender of the Faith: a title first conferred on a delighted Henry VIII by Pope Leo X (a Roman Catholic) after Henry wrote a book utterly condemning the new-fangled Protestantism. Go figure.
I mean, if it wasn't embarrassing enough in the first place for a country governed by the so-called Mother of Parliaments to have a hereditary monarch as a head of state, we should hang our heads in shame that the land that gave the world Newton, Hooke, Darwin, Faraday, Lyell, Kelvin, and a host of other enlightened geniuses—not to mention the sodding Industrial Revolution—still has a boss who is supposed to defend to the death one ridiculous religious sect against all others.
To think that we shake our heads in (hopefully literal) disbelief at what's going on in the Middle East and Sudan. Talk about motes and planks.
Utterly, utterly embarrassing.
BBC: Five guilty of fake Viagra scam
Five people have been found guilty of conspiracy to supply millions of pounds worth of counterfeit Viagra.
Let's hope they're given a stiff sentence, eh, readers.
(Stiff sentence, geddit?)
Actually, all hype aside, I have to say, Viagra™ has totally transformed my life. Before they invented the stuff, I never received any spam.
Thank goodness for permanent news archives from reputable news organisations. Otherwise, history might well have forgotten the following:
BBC (30-May-2007): Pope meets parents of Madeleine
The parents of Madeleine McCann have met Pope Benedict in Rome and had a photograph of the abducted four-year-old blessed by him.
Apparently, the Vatican has removed all references to the McCann's audience with the pope from its website. I can't imagine why.
With friends like that, who needs enemas?
Stephen Fry (yes, that Stephen Fry) has a brand new weblog. I must be old-fashioned: I just can't bring myself to use the word blog. David Byrne (yes, that David Byrne) must be even fuddy-duddier: he calls his a journal.
This internet thing will never catch on.
For reasons I won't bore you with (yet), Jen and I have been researching parquet flooring this week.
Whenever we searched Google for parquet flooring suppliers in various towns in West Yorkshire, the same company kept appearing as the number one hit. Knowing a little bit about how websites are put together, I worked out that this company had written a piece of code that gives the impression that it is a specialist supplier in just about any town you care to mention…
Including Lesser Willyhampton in Knobshire.
Talking (Heads) of David Byrne (as I think you'll find I was), compare and contrast:
One of the finest pop videos ever made:
Perhaps the finest tribute to a pop video ever made:
I'm speechless… What were his final words?… I wonder if there will be a minute's noise at the funeral… Well at least he won't have to pretend to be in a box this time… etc.
Sunday Times: Killer strength Viagra on sale in chemists
Careful you don't take any: you could end up a stiff.
(It's a gift, I tell you.)
At 09:51 GMT this morning, the Earth's elliptical trajectory around the Sun reached a point where, from an earth-bound observer's point of view, the Sun would have appeared directly overhead at the equator.
You can forget about when British Summertime officially ends. As far as I'm concerned, the autumnal equinox defines it. Summer is over.
Crap, wasn't it?
Carolyn yesterday:
Look at the size of your sausage, Richard! It's absolutely enormous!
No, I know what you're thinking, but Carolyn was, in fact, talking about a real sausage which I had ordered as part of a pub lunch in Chester.
Had we not already partaken of our frankly magnificent lunches, I would surely have dragged Carolyn into a pub we spotted a short while later. It was named The Albion and the chalk sign outside read:
THE ENGLISH PUB AT ITS VERY BEST
NOMINATED IN TOP SIX BEST CITY PUBS IN BRITAIN - NATIONAL PUB GUIDE
RECOMMENDED IN ALL MAJOR PUB GUIDES AND PUBLICATIONS OVER MANY YEARS -
A GROWN UPS PUB FOR GROWN UP PEOPLE - NO CHILDREN - FAMILY HOSTILE
Sounded like my kind of pub. I wonder where they stand on the cultural vandalism that is the smoking ban.
Times: Pope's robe cut up for 100,000 'holy relics'
Fragments of a cassock worn by Pope John Paul II are being offered for sale to the faithful, causing concern in the Vatican over the resurgence in the veneration of relics.
Devotees of John Paul can apply via e-mail, fax or post for fragments of a white cassock to augment their prayers. A cassock worn by John Paul has reportedly been cut into 100,000 pieces to satisfy demand.
The scheme is run by the Vicariate of Rome, which is promoting sainthood for John Paul…
The Vicariate said that it has been overwhelmed by requests for the relics, with priority now being given to those who were praying for the sick or were themselves seriously ill.
I well remember watching stage magician Uri Geller on telly in the 1970s using his so-called psychic powers to mend timepieces over the airwaves. He would tell everyone watching to dig out any broken watches or clocks they had stored away, give them a wind (no battery-powered watches in those days), and concentrate with him as he tried to beam out his psychic energy, or something like that. Then he would practically beg you to phone in if your timepiece (which you had just wound and shaken around in your hands) miraculously started working again.
Even as a kid, I realised that, with several million people watching the programme (only three TV channels and no internet in those days), some timepieces were absolutely bound to start working again—if only for a short time.
The Vicariate of Rome is using exactly the same trickery to obtain vital evidence of a John Paul II miracle: distribute 100,000 holy relics to the desperate and credulous, encourage them to pray to the old sod, and let the Vicariate know if anyone miraculously gets better.
With 100,000 trials and only one success needed to demonstrate a miracle, I'd say the sainthood was in the bag.
People often say to me, "Richard, your website is a confusing mishmash of thoughts and opinions. Is there no overarching set of ideas that links it together somehow, making method out of your apparent madness?"
"What?" I usually reply. "Do you mean, is there a Gruts Paradigm?"
"I have absolutely no idea what you're on about," they invariably respond.
Tell you what: why don't I get His Bobness to explain? (Click to activate.)
If you don't understand the next paragraph, don't let it worry you—neither do I. Seriously. In it, I try to make use of some arcane jargon which, to be honest, I don't really understand. But the worrying thing is that I think it is slowly starting to make sense to me. It won't make sense to you, though. Not unless you listen to the same podcasts as I do. So, if I were you, I'd skip the next paragraph altogether and pick up the story one paragraph later. It will make a lot more sense that way, and won't detract from the story.
Two of my Gestures brought some unexpected Attention home to roost this week. Suddenly, I understand what Steve Gillmor (vanity feed still working, Steve?) has been going on about all this time. I think.
On Saturday, I received a leaflet through the post advertising a writing course in North Wales. One of the tutors on the course is author Redmond O'Hanlon, whose book Trawler I had written about on Gruts. The person who sent me the leaflet had evidently trawled (no pun intended) the web for people with websites (i.e. writers) with an interest in Redmond O'Hanlon. They had then picked up my contact details from my Charles Darwin website and sent me the leaflet. I am not at all interested in the writing course, but I was impressed to have been singled out for special attention in this way, and didn't (as I normally would) resent being sent this unsolicited advertisement, as it was at least relevant to my interests.
Then, yesterday, I received a free book through the post: The Evolutionists: American Thinkers Confront Charles Darwin, 1860—1920 by J David Hoeveler. It had been sent by the publisher. The person who sent it had worked out that I am in the habit of reviewing books about Charles Darwin etc. and decided to send me a copy. Over the years, I have been sent about 10 Darwin-related books by publishers. In many cases they were books I would have bought anyway. In this particular case, I probably wouldn't, but it is now on my reading list and will receive a review at some point. The book was addressed to the Review Editor at The Friends of Charles Darwin. Nice touch, that. I quite fancy myself as a Review Editor.
The message of this story: why not get yourself a website and start writing about stuff that interests you? You might end up getting some Attention.
Just Hey Man (Now You're Really Living) by the Eels:
According to a recent article in the London Review of Books, Pugin, the architect who designed the UK Houses of Parliament, had the forenames Augustus Welby Northmore.
Christ, what sort of sick bastard would do that to a child? I'll bet he was teased something rotten at school.
It must must have been one hell of a difficult childbirth.
I have no idea who Alicia Silverstone is. Sure, I know the name, but I don't know why she's famous. Perhaps her dad designed Formula One race tracks or something. I could look it up, I suppose, but life's too short.
Anyway, Alicia Silverstone has got her kit off to make a pro-veggie ad. Never one to miss an opportunity for some gratuitous female nudity on Gruts, why don't I show it to you?
Alicia Silverstone seems like a nice lass. For a veggie with an obnoxiously twangy American accent, I mean. They're usually such miserable sods. Vegetarians, I mean, not Americans. Not all of them, you understand—some of my best friends are veggies—but an awful lot of them are such miserable, joyless, pasty-faced sods. Vegetarians, I mean, not my friends. And it's no coincidence they're miserable, joyless, pasty-faced sods: not enough meat, you see.
Anyway, the American pro-meat brigade have responded to the Alicia Silverstone ad with an identical one of their own. Identical, that is, except this one stars a fat bloke with a 'tache. Never one to seize an opportunity for some gratuitous male nudity on Gruts, why don't I post a link to it on YouTube instead?
Do you see what they're doing, there? They're trying to imply that being a vegetarian makes you into a sexy babe, whereas being a meat-eater makes you into a fat bloke with a 'tache. No mention of miserable, pasty-facedness. No mention of obnoxiously twangy American accents. No mention of poo that smells of lentils. No, become a veggie and become a sexy babe like Alicia Silverstone; eat meat and become a fat bloke with a 'tache; that's what they're saying.
Well, let me present you with an alternative dichotomy. Compare and contrast:
Not so smug now, eh, Alicia?
