‹ 31.10.01 / 0 comment(s) ›
If some enterprising publisher printed this, they'd make a fortune. I can see it now: anonymous parcels left outside unsuspecting rooms in student digs around the world. I would have had cause to offer a few of said parcels myself over the years. And the book? Cleaning The Fucking Kitchen For Dummies.
[via swish cottage, linkmachinego, et al.]
‹ 31.10.01
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Contrary to popular English opinion, corned beef doesn't always come from a can. Wow! Check it out. And now that I've said that, I'm dying for a nice big plate of corned beef with mustard sauce, buttery mashed potatoes, stir-fried cabbage, and carrots cooked in the meat liquor. Mmmm. But no biccies.
‹ 31.10.01
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As weekend's are wont to do, this one just past sped by far too quickly. Friday was spent indoors but Saturday saw a trip to Paul's new flat in Claaahhhm (dah-ling) where an assorted collection of Antipodeans, Englishfolk and gay tennis teams assembled to warm the house. And much fun it was too. This was followed by a commando-style mission to Heaven where I ran into Andy and David - I always seem to have an inkling when they're going to be there and without fail, I bumped into them checking their coats in. Chalk one up to the old spidey-sense I guess.
I managed to catch The Talented Mr Ripley on Sunday evening (cheers Luke!) and was actually quite impressed. Think Happy Days meets American Psycho if you haven't seen it. Mr Damon strode the fine line between preppy and psychopathic very well. Like Luke, I curse him for putting in an admirable performance and being in possession of an unfeasibly defined set of abdominal muscles. Sigh.
‹ 30.10.01
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Maori take on hi-tech Lego toys: Look, a big company that actually listened to the little guy! It appears that Lego were using Maori phrases at random for characters and places in one of their games (Te Reo Maori, the Maori language, is regarded as a taonga or treasure). Someone brought it to their attention, Lego flew a rep to New Zealand to discuss the issue and eventually agreed to change the words in future versions of the game, and to develop a code of conduct for using the terms of indigenous peoples in toys. Kudos to Lego!
‹ 26.10.01
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This is what women look for in a wine brand: stylish packaging, dark contrasting colours, arresting and memorable branding, a smooth wine of true quality, darkness, naughtiness, seductive indulgence. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything. [this post has been brought to you by the obviously gagging-for-it Marketing Department behind the sliding, thrusting Infierno bottles over at www.oralsatisfaction.co.uk]
‹ 26.10.01
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Three-hundred and thirty years ago to the day, Giovanni Cassini discovered Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons. Three-hundred and thirty years to the day later, Comet P/2001 T3 (NEAT), Asteroid 2001 RM and Asteroid 11405 (1999 CV3) are all at their closest approaches to Earth. Relax ... the nearest of the three is still 82,727,622 kilometres away. More spoddy fun at JPL's Space Calendar.
‹ 26.10.01
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Man hears Smashing Pumpkins, thinks of Jesus: "Let me be practical. If you feel, like Smashing Pumpkins, that 'Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage', I want to tell you what you can do to get in touch with Jesus the Liberator."
‹ 26.10.01
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Note to self: Remember Jeb's lines for potential future complaint letters to stores with abysmal customer service:
"The young man who'd served me my meal walked past and sneered at me. Incensed, I immediately made an addition: 'Staff should realise their job titles state that they must go about their work and not look like they are being anally raped."Truer expressions have never been observed. And just how long would it take to write to 95% of London's retail outlets anyway?
‹ 25.10.01 / 0 comment(s) ›
Woman finds tooth in digestive biscuit: Will this deter Nick Jordan's excessive biccie consumption? Only time will tell.
‹ 25.10.01
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Pop Quiz V: Hmmm. A mixed bag last night. Scally, his new beau Rick and myself formed "The Inflatable Clogs", in reference to a bad joke Mr Cushing mailed round on Monday. Okay, here's the joke: "I met a Dutch girl with inflatable shoes last week, phoned her up to arrange a date but unfortunately she'd popped her clogs." See? Lame.
Anyhoo, it was a good quiz overall, and thankfully back in the hands of the less arcane Landlady Wendy and DJ Lush (who bears the most astonishing resemblance to infamous New Zealand bridesmaid and Dame Edna consort, Madge Allsop ... I tell you, it's quite uncanny). I managed to scoop most of the new releases questions - thank you Radio 1 Breakfast Show - and on the whole we fared better than last week (read "still quite pitiful"). Grease was given a good airing too, as the reigning champions (or "raining champignons" - think The Weather Girls, mushroom style) and myself belted out an inebriated "Beauty School Dropout". Jonathan reports.
‹ 25.10.01
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Oh, and who are all these people who think I'm in need of a financial miracle? And why do they keep referring me to dodgy marketeers? I sure would like to punch them in the nose.
‹ 24.10.01
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These are the last three songs I've downloaded:
1. Bobby Vinton, "Blue Velvet".
2. Sir Mix-A-Lot, "Baby Got Back".
3. Hector Berlioz, "Vallon Sonore", Les Troyens.
I think I'm in need of professional help. Or at least consistent musical tastes.
‹ 24.10.01
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Praise the Goddess! A new issue of Blair is finally up and ready for your perusal (it's only been 21-plus months or so since their last one but who's counting?). Check out the back issues too if you haven't stumbled upon this brassy gem before ... they're home to the ever popular "Gay or Eurotrash?" and "Lesbian or German Lady?" games. Qualidee!
[via jonno]
‹ 23.10.01
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So, Duncan's gig went really well - he even had a cute little Junkwax t-shirt on ("Now with merchandising!" etc). The replacement singer has done the band a world of good ... her voice was somewhere between that of Roisin Murphy of Moloko fame and Gwen Stefani and they belted out a good selection of original pop/rock choons. Nice one mate.
Sunday was spent trudging through the rain, noshing on dim sum with Simon, Michael and Twom (who ate chicken feet: that's like totally gross. Totally. Dude!), and marvelling at the way the trolley dollies wheeled up the food, babbled at you in some form of English/Mandarin/Cantonese hybrid, then proceeded to give you whatever they fancied whether you liked the look of it or not (some of it should have definitely stayed on the trolley).
It was to The 2 Brewers soon thereafter to meet up with Scally and the new Mrs Scally, for a dose of Pam Ann (surprisingly subtle after recent "flightiness"). Topping & Butch followed - think old leather queen meets buckish skinhead with the world's smallest nipples - and did a fantastic skit called Gaydar: The Musical ... an epic tale of love, lust and truth-stretching, drawing inspiration from across the musical board and leaving Mr Cushing and myself in stitches. Bravo!
‹ 23.10.01
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Meg writes about splinters today at ickle.org and makes it post number 100. Which is cool. There's also a swank new archive to make hunting down your favourite little things just that little bit easier (IE only; don't even talk to me about NN ... y'all get the old style one, sorry). Why not make a submission as well ... g'wan, I'll be your best friend.
‹ 22.10.01
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If you're in a bind for something to do tomorrow night, come along to the cosy Bull & Gate in Kentish Town and see my mate Duncan's band Junkwax do a set. They're pretty good but kind of difficult to pin down genre-wise (female vocalist, guitars, drums, etc - indie rock stuff I guess). There's another couple of bands on as well (Cribabi apparently features one of the lads from the promptly forgotten Fine Young Cannibals) and it's only £4 if you print off this flyer.
‹ 20.10.01
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Go retro with your web greetings with a healthy dose of pulp fiction action. And while we're on the subject, I caught up with Tom flicking through this the other day - it's a beautiful book with a fair whack of interesting text too by the looks of things.
‹ 20.10.01
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Sick of extracting great hunks of lint from your clothes drier, only to discover there's no practical use for it? Well, look no further than Lint Clay: two recipes are featured and you can mold away to your heart's content. Perfect for the young, and young at heart.
‹ 20.10.01
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[affecting mid-Atlantic pasta sauce peddler accent] "Who'd live ... in a place like ... this."
‹ 19.10.01
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"S Club 7: More evil than a giraffe who's eaten more leaves than it should, so that other giraffes may die." [read on]
‹ 19.10.01
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From the Radio Times site, tonight's perfect programming on Channel 4:
‹ 18.10.01
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What she said. It makes me yearn for the Residential Tenancies Act of home ... landlords are still prone to be wankers but they have a much smaller chance of getting away with it as there's a government agency you can go to to complain about them and get something done. Antipodean bureaucracy never looked so good.
‹ 18.10.01
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The people at Mini are running quite a clever ad campaign over at Empire at the moment: go and visit, wait for the page to load and you'll see what I mean.
‹ 18.10.01
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Pop Quiz IV: Well, one month into my "Retro-teasers Pop Quiz" foray and I'm still not faring particularly well. Never mind - it's more about socialising with entertaining company and watching people gurn for an hour as they desperately try and recall the song information that's just on the tip of their tongues. Good stuff. Last night's was fairly tricky (see David's report - Jonathan, Ian, Darren and he, with tongues planted firmly in respective cheeks, called themselves "The A-List" and won the bloody thing! ) but I managed to answer three whole questions by myself, even though our (being myself, Scally and Iain) final score was fairly abysmal (and no, I'm not going to repeat it here). As the song goes, "Better luck next time bay-bay ..."
‹ 18.10.01
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While watching one of those generally tedious Dennis Norden clip shows last night (okay, Monday nights are generally televegetative), a clip of Rob Reiner's celebrity roast came up. Richard Belzer came on stage and read out Roger Ebert's review of one of Reiner's films, North.
Now, as you may or may not know, Ebert is a fairly generous reviewer who can generally find a few redeeming points in even the worst of movies. He uses a four-star rating system (including half-stars). North received the sum total of zero stars. This was the paragraph Belzer read out:
"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.I can think of no more eloquent way to express disgust for a poor movie than that. If you dare, read the rest of the review here.
‹ 17.10.01 / 0 comment(s) ›
Another photo of mine went up on The Mirror Project over the weekend: the Reichstag's disco carrot. The column is at the centre of the fantastic Foster-designed dome: a photo exhibition of the building's history surrounds the base, then you spiral your way along the ramp to the top of the dome, taking in repeated 360º views of Berlin. And then again as you corkscrew back down. Marvellous stuff.
‹ 16.10.01
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Your Dream: Cerise elephants were reciting Shakespeare while Björk danced through a field of peonies.
Words like Elephants: They are associated with terms like wisdom, memory and power of persistence. Overall is a very positive dream that will bring you dignity and distinction.
WARNING: English may have been learnt from fortune cookies. Never mind. Go and test your own freaky dreams.
‹ 13.10.01
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"Fuck" does NOT stand for "for unlawful carnal knowledge" or "fornication under consent of the king". It is not an acronym for anything at all.
It is a very old word, recorded in English since the 15th century (few acronyms predate the 20th century), with cognates in other Germanic languages. The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (Random House, 1994, ISBN 0-394-54427-7) cites Middle Dutch fokken = "to thrust, copulate with"; Norwegian dialect fukka = "to copulate"; and Swedish dialect focka = "to strike, push, copulate" and fock = "penis". Although German ficken may enter the picture somehow, it is problematic in having e-grade, or umlaut, where all the others have o-grade or zero-grade of the vowel.
AHD1, following Pokorny, derived "feud", "fey", "fickle", "foe", and "fuck" from an Indo-European root *peig2 = "hostile"; but AHD2 and AHD3 have dropped this connection for "fuck" and give no pre-Germanic etymon for it. Eric Partridge, in the 7th edition of Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (Macmillan, 1970), said that "fuck" "almost certainly" comes from the Indo-European root *peuk- = "to prick" (which is the source of the English words "compunction", "expunge", "impugn", "poignant", "point", "pounce", "pugilist", "punctuate", "puncture", "pungent", and "pygmy"). Robert Claiborne, in The Roots of English: A Reader's Handbook of Word Origin (Times, 1989) agrees that this is "probably" the etymon. Problems with such theories include a distribution that suggests a North-Sea Germanic areal form rather than an inherited one; the murkiness of the phonetic relations; and the fact that no alleged cognate outside Germanic has sexual connotations."
Well, thank fuck for that! From the fascinating alt.english.usage FAQ.
‹ 13.10.01
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"Much Madness is divinest Sense"
Emily Dickinson (1830 - 86)
Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
`Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you`re straightaway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -
More at Poems on the Underground.
‹ 11.10.01
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Ladies: tired of worrying about your saggy behinds? Then why not try out the all new product from DuPont ... Wonderbum! You'll be the envy of all the gals at the Townswomen's Guild, I say!
‹ 11.10.01
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Pop Quiz III: A fairly laid-back affair for me really ... I stood there and drank my pint while team-mates Mark and Simon racked up a whopping 17 out of 20 (18½ was the top score, so no prize for us). It didn't help though that the quiz basically focused entirely on the 70s and early 80s (Jonathan reports) - not my particular forté insofar as I was barely sentient then - but I did manage to recognise the theme to The Six Million Dollar Man, thus clinching the spot-the-connection round. There's still room for improvement though - roll on next Tuesday!
‹ 11.10.01
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Things just keep getting wackier up at the Café On 4 ... it's Tuesday so it must me "Movie Madness" day! Well, apparently. So what themed treats have the staff come up for us this week? Well kids, today's movie is Gandhi ("You'll laugh! You'll cry!") and the dish? A tandoori chicken burger [sound of needle scraping off record] I'm sorry? You're naming your chicken burger after the world's most famous vegetarian? Again, clue! Clue for sale! Still got that clue for the lowest bidder! Roll up, roll up.
‹ 10.10.01
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Am I being mean when I say I have no sympathy whatsoever for this woman? She crossed into Afghanistan without a visa to cover the humanitarian crisis, according to her employer. Most people know that the Taleban aren't the nicest of regimes and when they say "please don't come into our country you foreign people" you really shouldn't do it. This from her mother:
Earlier she had criticised the UK and US Governments for going ahead with missile attacks on targets in Afghanistan without knowing if her daughter was safe. "The British Government said she was coming home. Why then could they not delay the bombing for a few hours? I just cannot accept that."Well that makes a lot of sense as well. Clue ... clue for sale ...
‹ 9.10.01 / 0 comment(s) ›
Tweaking, tweaking, all the time tweaking. Code, not nipples of course. Bugreps here please.
‹ 9.10.01
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One glance over the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Winners reveals more about our treasured humanity than any stuffy Swedish ceremony possibly could. The prize for Psychology went to Lawrence W. Sherman for his research report "An Ecological Study of Glee in Small Groups of
Preschool Children". I've heard of scientists endangering themselves for the good of their work but the dedication this man must have shown is truly astounding.
[via malpractice]
‹ 9.10.01
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What a fantastic movie Amélie (ou Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) is: go and see it as soon as is humanly possible because I promise you won't regret it. It's already at #125 in the Top 250 at IMDB and that's even before a U.S. release. You'd be hard pressed to find a warmer, funnier, more enchanting film this year (or indeed any). So yes, I liked it! Love stories tend to have me reaching for the inflight sickbag shortly after the first kiss, but this one is so funny and so enchanting the bag never even got an airing. And that's saying something for a cynical old bastard like me.
‹ 9.10.01
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Sage advice for the weekend, boys and girls: Alcohol can be a truly dangerous thing. However, we still do it, silly humans. Much like smoking. And The Secret Life Of Us. I wish you a fine two days with the substance of your choice nestled closely at your bosom.
‹ 6.10.01
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The movies were followed by a dinner jaunt to Satsuma in Soho - one my regular haunts (and her's too) - again with Tom and Nick. And who should turn up but me old mucka, Boy George. Who actually looked really healthy and well - the macrobiotic food regime must be doing the old boy some good. Actually, that's the second time I've seen him at close quarters - the first being at Heaven ages ago. Which spurred me to think of a genius new TV show: Celebrity Stalkers. I dunno, get Carol Smilie or someone to host it, pick a mid-grade celebrity (Lord knows this country has enough) and have them stalk a random member of the public. Don't mock: there's money in this one, I just know it.
‹ 6.10.01
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Tom had scored a couple of comps to The Others last night, so along we went and a bloody good yarn it was too. The director (and writer and composer - bastard, he's only 28), Alejandro Amenábar, did a modest twenty second intro and then it was into it. Nicole Kidman did a fine job as the jittery war widow and managed to redeem herself for the schmaltz-fest that was Moulin Rouge (again, "yes to dark/edgy stuff, no to romantic stuff" - Dave's First Law of Kidman Roles). The support cast were fantastic too - the most expressive children perhaps ever created and Fionnula Flanagan as the unsettling housekeeper especially so. Brilliant use of props too - opening doors and drawing curtains will never be the same again. Go and see it soon.
‹ 6.10.01
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w00t! Looks like the Guardian picked up on the whole Clangers/moonlanding thing - strange but cool (yes, it's small and at the bottom of the page and of no real consequence whatsoever, but dammit it's there!). And a nice big blurb for the Pixelflo boys' Web Trumps game as well. Pity I only blagged mine instead of being creative and original, eh?
‹ 5.10.01
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It really tears at me when good friends are hurt - by any means. Street attacks are especially despicable. May the little fuckers' uppance truly come. Go and send David some virtual huggin' people.
‹ 5.10.01
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The Underground poster ad for the DVD/VHS release of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs is marketing genius: a giant mirror, as simple as that. In my inebriated state last night I demonstrated my observations to the bemusement of the others ... person walks past ad, person's reflection catches their eye, person stops, person adjusts their hair, person moves on after having taken the ad message. Preying on people's vanity - it's not a new concept, but it's one that works every time.
‹ 4.10.01
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Last night saw Scally and I return to the Retro Bar for a further sampling of pop quiz goodness. Bruce and Steve were in tow as well, the theme was "Forties to Noughties" (David relays the details), the regulars were in fine form and a good time was had by all. Alas, we did not win, (quelle surprise) but managed an improving 12/22. Baby steps people, baby steps.
‹ 4.10.01
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Link list ... now with world map goodness! (plus a few new sites to explore).
‹ 3.10.01
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As mentioned last week, October is "Musical Theatre Month" at the café at work (cue sound of nails down blackboard directed at the hideous marketing minds that dreamed that one up: coming soon, Porgy and Bess ... I kid thee not). Today, us happy folks at BT Ignite experienced our first taste of things to come: Grease was indeed the word for those who fronted up for their tucker this lunchtime.
I can still vaguely remember going to see the cinematic rendition of said musical when I was but an Invercargillite pup: it must have been 1979 and it was a last minute ring-in - we were going to see The Muppet Movie but it had sold out so, of course, my mother decided the next must-see movie on a five-year old's wishlist was Grease. I worry about that woman sometimes. Needless to say, the videotape almost had a hole burnt through it in the 1980s as my sister and I watched it time and time again. My cousin played Danny in his high school production and bloody good he was too.
But enough nostalgia. So there I was, feeling peckish and whistling my best version of "Beauty School Drop-Out" as I marched up the stairs, expecting the café ladies to be sporting wacky three-foot beehives with oversized silver rollers to boot, or at the very least, Pink Ladies jackets. Oh, you're in your regular uniforms I see. Okay, strike one. We could fix that with a tasty 50s-style burger and fries and a big milkshake to wash it all down, right? Again, no. There was some kind of weird American-themed food combo deal involving Coke and chips and I didn't bother to check what else. Yawn. At least they had enough nous to get the soundtrack going properly - ahh, those magic changes indeed.
Four out of ten. Must try harder. Further reports on MTM as they come to hand ...
‹ 3.10.01
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Kristen responds to my Dave collection with her Mark collection. Meg has an Iain collection. Do you collect anyone?
‹ 2.10.01
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Chris Tarrant compared to "messanger of the gods": Hermes couldn't be reached for comment but was reported to be "incandescent".
‹ 2.10.01
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