From an email to Stense:
Hey, Stense, something’s been bothering me all week. You know The Lone Ranger? Well, why’s he called The Lone Ranger when he’s got a sidekick, Tonto? It doesn’t make sense. That’s like calling me Richard ‘Small Knob’ Carter. By rights, our hero should be called The Accompanied Ranger.
BBC: Sex offenders may face lie tests
Sex offenders released from prison could face compulsory lie detector tests, under new plans.
Sounds expensive to me. Why don’t they use dowsing-rods instead? Just as trustworthy, by all accounts.
See also: De-fibulators (14-Apr-03)
I’m in Newcastle. Canny day for it.
Carolyn emails:
Howard saw a very young one in our garden once and rang and reported it to someone because he thought it must have escaped from somewhere. Whoever he spoke to said it was probably just a wild one and not to worry! I thought that was very odd too – do you think there is some mysterious experiment going on or something?
I hope that’s clarified matters.
BBC: Black Death ‘is lying in wait’
The Black Death, which killed 23m people in the middle ages, could be lying dormant and could strike again, say researchers.
You have to hand it to those medieval chaps, The Black Death is a totally awesome name for a disease. I think it’s the definite article that does it: The Black Death. It wasn’t any old Black Death, you see; it was The Black Death.
Actually, no, I’m wrong—it’s the adjective that does it: The Black Death. Bloody sinister, or what?
No, I’m wrong again—it’s the noun that does it: The Black Death. No messing.
Well, let’s face it, whichever way you looked at it, you knew exactly what you were getting with The Black Death. It was exactly the sort of the pandemic that would lie in wait.
All of which makes you realise just how totally crap we are at coming up with names for new medical conditions these days: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, indeed, New-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Gulf War Syndrome, AIDS, Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy—all of their names, let’s be honest, total pants.
Mind you, Mad Cow Disease does have a certain ring to it.
Why, Michael… I’ll have you know I’m a happily married man!
Ladies, I have what I believe is a reasonable request:
In recent years, it has become fashionable for you to wear trousers with no waistbands and shirts/blouses with raised hems. The combined effect—I’m guessing it’s deliberate—is to expose varying amounts of your mid-sections. No harm in that. I suppose it lets you show off your newly pierced belly-buttons (another fad I don’t understand, but I don’t suppose I need to).
However, might I request that you show a degree of common sense when toying with the idea of wearing such outfits? They do no justice whatsoever, for example, to women with extremely large and flabby beer-bellies (why not follow my own worthy example and keep them covered up?); heavily pregnant women look plain ridiculous in them (yes, we know you’re proud to be fertile, but think of the dignity of your foetus); ladies of a certain age, I have two words for you: mutton and lamb; younger ladies, please note, the exposed thong is the 21st Century equivalent of the reversed baseball cap.
But I am prepared to put up with all of these minor indiscretions, if you promise not to break the ultimate taboo. Never again do I want to see (as I did in the Prestwich branch of Tesco on Thursday) an-inch-and-a-half of what can only be described as thatch creeping over the top of a waistband.
Although it did at least remind me to buy Weetabix.
Last week, I announced to Stense that I had decided to foster a new image as a Man of Mystery and Adventure.
This Monday, I had to go to a conference, so I emailed Carolyn to say that I wouldn’t be able to meet her as usual for coffee—adding mysteriously that I couldn’t tell her why. When she asked why I couldn’t tell her, I hinted—well, I suppose it was more of an announcement than a hint—that I was going DEEPLY COVERT on a TOP SECRET mission.
I don’t think Carolyn believed me.
So, during one of the conference’s coffee breaks, I went out into some rhododendron bushes and called Carolyn at work. I told her in a hushed voice that I was hiding in some bushes. I don’t think she believed that either. I reassured her that I hadn’t been spotted yet, and warned her that she might receive a strange phone call from someone using the password ‘Belgium’. If and when she received the call, she was to inform the caller that Agent Eleven was silent running and was on a code 83. I asked her if she was writing all this down. She told me to stop being silly.
Carolyn then said that she would probably be able to meet me the following day for coffee, but that she might have to go to the butcher’s first. I thought this was a strange thing to say, so I asked her to repeat it. There was a slight pause, then she repeated what she had just said, but this time she said bookshop instead of butcher’s. I thought nothing of it at the time, putting it down to a simple mishearing, but afterwards I started thinking…
What if Carolyn had actually believed all my Man of Mystery and Adventure stuff? What if she wasn’t a supemodel at all? What if she was actually a counter-agent?! What if “I might have to go to the butcher’s first” was a standard counter-agent pass-phrase to test whether other people are on their side? What if she now realised that I wasn’t on her side? And what if Carolyn—if, indeed, Carolyn is her real name—thought I knew too much?
So I’ve decided not to be a Man of Mystery and Adventure any more—just in case.
See also: Man of Mystery and Adventure part 2
My dad last night:
I see that Al Fayed has buggered off to France. We wouldn’t give him a passport, but the French have given him some major honour: le coup de grâce, or something like that.
[Mohamed Al Fayed has actually moved to Switzerland.]
On 1st January last year, I made 10 bullshit predictions for the forthcoming year based on anagrams of my friend Carolyn, the supemodel‘s name. As we have seen, eight of these predictions came true. Of the two that remained, one (Anything for Carl) came true today:
Orlando Sentinel: The rise and pratfall of ottoman empire
…Despite doubts about revisiting a show nearly 40 years later, [Dick] Van Dyke finally gave in for several reasons. “I’d do anything for Carl Reiner, and he wanted to do it very badly,” the actor says in a call with TV writers. “Just the chance of getting together with everybody — the week was really the most fun I’d had in a long time.”
Spooky!
My mobile phone has a facility whereby you can associate contacts with photographs. When someone in your contacts list calls you, their photo appears on the screen.
Yesterday evening, Jen‘s young niece asked if she could play with my phone. The following conversation took place:
Niece: Oh look, here’s a photograph of Auntie Jen!
Me: Yes, it’s a nice photo, isn’t it?
Niece: Who’s this?
Me: Shh! That’s my other girlfriend, Stense. Your Auntie Jen doesn’t know about her!
[Niece looks at me suspiciously, then carries on playing with the phone.]
Niece: And who’s this?
Me: Shh That’s Carolyn, my other other girlfriend… Neither Auntie Jen nor Stense know about her!
[Niece looks at me even more suspiciously, then studies the photo more closely.]
Niece: That’s not your girlfriend; that’s a supermodel!
Me: What makes you think she’s a supermodel?
Niece: Well, she’s really pretty, but she isn’t smiling—and her hair is all over the place!
BBC: Intel focuses on new ‘super’ chip
That chip is enormous—it must be at least 15 storeys high!
BBC: Full text: [President Bush's] State of the Union address (21-Jan-04)
…Had we failed to act, Security Council resolutions on Iraq would have been revealed as empty threats, weakening the United Nations and encouraging defiance by dictators around the world. Iraq’s torture chambers would still be filled with victims, terrified and innocent.
I visited my parents last night. The following conversation took place as we were watching a programme on BBC4 about the painter, Paul Gauguin, presented by arts critic, Waldemar Janusczak:
Janusczak: The death of Gauguin’s mother had an incalculable effect on his psyche…
Dad: What the hell does that mean?
Me: It’s Jungian psychoanalytical bollocks.
Dad: But what does it mean?
Mum: It means he was very upset.
“Do you sell cards for people wanting to decline wedding invitations?”
“Do you want a single one or a pack?”
Hebden Bridge Times (30-Apr-04)
Mytholmroyd’s World Dock Pudding Championships ditched tradition this year by voting a veggie version top of the puds. Newcomer Jette Howard’s vegetarian recipe wowed the judges at Mytholmroyd Community Centre where hundreds gathered to see her take the title.
—Full story page five
For the uninitiated, dock pudding is a West Yorkshire delicacy made from dock leaves, nettles, onions, oatmeal, and (usually) bacon fat (plus a few other secret ingredients). Traditionally served with a full-English breakfast, it looks like rancid pond weed, but tastes surprisingly wonderful.
I was sitting at home last weekend, wondering, as I often do, what the point of sociology is. So I decided to find out by emailing an expert, Professor of Sociology, Laurie Taylor, of BBC Radio 4′s Thinking Allowed (a programme I genuinely enjoy—if only, some weeks, for its brilliant title):
Dear Laurie Taylor and the Thinking Allowed team,
I often manage to catch your programme, which is usually very interesting – but I am always left with one nagging question:
What on earth is sociology *for*?
I don’t want to be rude, but I’m guessing from the –ology suffix that it aspires to be treated as a proper scientific discipline. Interesting though your programme undoubtedly is, however, I’ve never heard anything on it that could be labelled as a scientific hypothesis, let alone a theory.
So what is sociology for?
Answers on a post card, please to:
Richard Carter
[My address]
You can imagine my pleasure when Prof. Taylor chose to open this week’s programme by reading out a large chunk of my email, and to make reference to it throughout the rest of the programme.
…Well, almost.
This morning, I sent another email to Prof. Taylor:
Dear Laurie Taylor,
Thank you for reading out my email and referring to it throughout your programme this week.
I’m sorry I made you feel defensive. Perhaps that explains why you felt the need to use the old rhetorical trick of misquoting somebody and then ridiculing (albeit in a humorous way) something they never said.
As we both know, I did not say that sociologists never come up with hypotheses or theories – any idiot can do that (indeed, sociologists seem particularly adept at it); I said that I had never heard anything on your show that could be labelled as a *scientific* hypothesis or theory. There is a world of difference – but a sociologist probably wouldn’t appreciate that.
I also couldn’t help noticing that you made no attempt to answer the central question of my email, namely what is sociology for? Although the tone of my email was characteristically – and I hope appropriately – light-hearted, this was a genuine question that I thought might make an interesting topic for discussion on your programme. Any discipline that, as you explained this week, awards Ph.Ds for asking people questions about their mantelpieces clearly has some explaining to do.
Regards,
Richard Carter
