I just saw an advertisement on the telly, and I couldn’t believe my ears—so I checked out the official website:

L’Oréal website: Boswelox™ is a breakthrough phyto-complex created by L’Oréal Paris that combines a power dose of boswellia serrata extract and manganese, which help reduce the appearance of lines caused by facial micro-contractions.

No, really, I kid you not: Boswelox! That name gave me more than a few facial micro-contractions, let me tell you. Still, I suppose it beats Swel-bolox™—but only just.

Conversation over coffee with my friend the farmer this morning:

I know I shouldn’t laugh at my own jokes, but somebody has to…

Jen and I had the following conversation this afternoon:

J: “Russell’s chickens didn’t lay any eggs this week, apparently.”
R: “Why’s that? Don’t they lay eggs in cold weather or something?”
J: “I don’t think so. They can get too old as well, I think—a sort of chickens’ menopause.”
R: “You mean a henopause?”

“So, Richard, what do you use the internet for?”
“Oh, you know, emailing my friends, surfing, checking up on the news…”
“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to turn on the telly?”

BBC Food Newsletter:
Rick Stein joins the Saturday Kitchen on the 2nd January where he cooks fish pie with Antony Worral Thompson and a choice of three delicious dishes.

I wonder if Rick will be using the Antony Worral Thompson Juice Extractor.

BBC: The ethics of executing Saddam
How do opponents of the death penalty reconcile their beliefs with the need for Saddam Hussein to face justice in an Iraqi court?

How indeed.

One good reason for not executing Saddam: to demonstrate quite clearly that, as we all know, we are better than him.

Apologies for my momentary lapse in frivolity.

email to the London Review of Books:

So, Leigh Hunt had a father named Isaac, did he? Pull the other one.

Yours,

Hugh Janus
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

Work it out.

In one of the Liverpool Starbucks™ this afternoon, the chap in front of me was getting more attention than strictly necessary. I thought I recognised him from somewhere, but couldn’t place the face—which I guessed meant that he must be a famous sportsman. I don’t follow sport much.

“How did you get on in Superstars the other week?” asked the lad serving him. (Bingo!)
“I came third,” came the reply.

So, back to the office and a quick search on the BBC website…

Ladies and gentlemen, your host has rubbed shoulders with none other than Olympic cycling gold and bronze medallist, Chris ‘My Bike’s Made Out of a Washing Machine’ Boardman.

Mr Boardman might be a Superstar, but, as celebrity sightings go, he’s hardly in the same league as Her Majesty or Philippa Forrester is he?

BBC: Europe’s last push to end impasse

Apparently, it’s the French who want to describe the situation as an impasse; the British prefer the word deadlocked, whereas the Germans insist on calling it die Pattsituation.

Postscript: The BBC has now renamed the above news item European summit ends in failure, which rather spoils my already weak joke.

BBC: Frenzy builds for German ‘cannibal’ trial (02-Dec-03)

I do wish the BBC would stop over-using quotation marks to denote ‘the implied questionable’. Check out their news site any time, day or night, and I think it’s a fairly safe bet that you’ll see at least one headline with quotation marks used in this way.

Regarding the headline quoted above, the German man in question admits killing another man and eating bits of him. There really is no need for the quotation marks: he’s a cannibal.

Observer: The A-Z of laughter
Ahead of this week’s British Comedy Awards, the Observer has decided to find out who really makes us laugh. With the help of a panel of expert judges, we present the 50 funniest people in Britain. From stand-up comedians to the backroom producers, from satirists to the kings of slapstick, this is a celebration of the very best of British humour.

Any such list that includes Rowan Atkinson and Jo Brand at the expense of Billy Connolly is clearly taking the piss.

BBC: New chair for Arts Council

Sunday Times: Blunkett: ‘We don’t want terror camp Britons’
David Blunkett, the [UK] home secretary, is blocking moves to repatriate the British terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay… Families of the Guantanamo suspects had hoped the men might be home for Christmas. But the prospects of an early deal have been clouded by Blunkett’s warnings that any proceedings in British civilian courts would probably end with acquittals through lack of admissible evidence. [Emphasis added.]

Who says justice is blind?

Anyone else noticed that ‘David Blunkett’ is an anagram of ‘Dank devil-butt’? Kind of makes you think.

BBC: Ireland wins Miss World contest
Ireland has won the Miss World beauty pageant, held this year for the first time in China.

First Eurovision, then Riverdance and Westlife, now this. Dammit, those Irish are such a talented bunch!

New Scientist: Fossilised crustacean boasts oldest penis
A newly discovered 425 million-year-old fossil boasts a lurid claim to fame – it has the oldest penis on record. The five millimetre long crustacean, discovered by UK and US researchers, has been named Colymbosathon ecplecticos – derived from the Greek for “astounding swimmer with a large penis”.

A five millimetre long crustacean… Large penis?