16 shells from a Thirty-Ought Six:
Monthly Archives: October 2007
Top priority
BBC: Family want plastic pen tops ban
The parents of a County Durham schoolboy, who choked to death on a plastic pen top, are stepping up their campaign to get them banned.
In case you were in any doubt, it’s plastic pen tops they want to ban, not schoolboys.
A measured and proportionate over-reaction, I’m sure you’ll all agree.
Eurocrats speak total sense shock!
New Scientist: Go nuclear for a third industrial revolution, says EC
We are on the brink of the “third industrial revolution”, according to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission—who believes it means nations may have to embrace nuclear power.
Europe’s “low-carbon age” is the revolution Barroso spoke of last week at an energy conference in Madrid, Spain. “Member states cannot avoid the question of nuclear energy,” he said, following the commission’s announcement last month of a new research initiative for nuclear energy. The European Union should contribute to research, Barroso said.
How do I vote for these people?
Any dream will do
Yesterday, I spotted these two magnificent specimens at the front of a long queue of people who were standing in the rain, waiting for their turn to meet Australian pop crooner and Graham Norton lookalike, Jason Donovan.
WHY?!!!!!
No disrespect to the talentless no-mark or anything, but I wouldn’t turn my head to see Jason Donovan unless he were on fire. Yet these poor souls were standing in the sodding rain, waiting for the opportunity to touch the hem of his amazing technicolor™ dream coat.
Jesus!
I mean, it’s not as if he’s Simon Callow or anything.
Oh that’s just great!
I dunno. I spend all my waking hours devising new ways to spread goodwill amongst all mankind through the Web 1.0 medium that is Gruts, and what bloody goes and happens? Al Gore wins the bloody Nobel Peace Prize. (He dyes his hair, you know.)
That medal had my name all over it, I tell you. Someone got to the judges. And we all know who, don’t we, Ratzinger.
Of course, you realise this means war.
And some of the seed fell on stony ground
Carolyn contacted me out of the blue on Tuesday and suggested we meet for a coffee: her treat. Which was nice.
“Hey,” I said, as I supped on my suspiciously medium-sized-looking, so-called Grande, “I read a great joke on the internet the other day. Want to hear it?”
“Go on, then,” said Carolyn, not particularly enthusiastically.
“‘Doctor, doctor, my hearing is getting worse and worse.’
‘What are the symptoms?’
‘They’re a yellow-faced cartoon family on the telly.’”
“… I don’t get it,” said Carolyn.
Nice work if you can get it
AAAS: Something in the Way She Moves
In a particularly stimulating study, researchers have found that lap dancers—women who work in strip joints and, for cash, gyrate in the laps of seated men—earn more when they are in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. The finding suggests that women subtly signal when they are most fertile, although just how they do it is not clear.
You’ve got to hand it to those sociobiologists: they get research grants to die for. I mean, how did they pull that one off? Getting paid to study lap dancers—and all in the name of ‘science’. I am humbled by their ingenuity.
Although the above study seems hardly worthy of comment, I should point out that, when I were a lad, young women gyrating in the laps of seated men was not considered to be a particularly subtle form of communication. Has anyone considered the alternative (and, to me, more likely) hypothesis that, when these women are at their most fertile, they feel more frisky and put more effort into their dancing, thereby reaping more spondulix from their discerning clientèle?
Interestingly, the woman who wrote the above piece has the unlikely name of Constance Holden—or Constant Holding, as I’m sure her friends must call her. I thought they discouraged that sort of thing in lap dancing bars. Or so I’m told.
True story: Carolyn tried lap dancing once. She didn’t find it at all easy. The reindeer kept trying to lead. Next holiday, she’s off to Gdańsk to try her hand at pole dancing.
Containing myself
BBC: Brown rules out autumn election
Gordon Brown has said he will not call a general election this autumn.
Thank goodness for that! It’s Children in Need day on 16th November. I can only take so much excitement in one season.
Unbearably smug? Us?!!!
Too bloody right, mate:
Jonny Wilkinson was the scourge of Australia again as his four penalties put England in the World Cup semi-final after a thrilling win in Marseille.
Did you hear that noise? That was the sound of the Aussies crashing out of the World Cup at the feet of Johnny Wilkinson encore une fois.
Beaut! It’s like Jen’s 40th birthday all over again.
Saturday Morning
… time for some more Eels:
Call of nature, slight return
Stense sent me a text message while I was standing at a urinal yesterday. My phone chimed in my pocket. The chap standing next to me shifted nervously.
“That’s why it’s called a tinkle,” I explained.
See also: Call of nature
Brickbats fly by my window
Nobody’s more surprised than me that this photo actually came out:

Now why doesn’t that surprise me?
BBC: Pope’s story through eyes of cat
The Pope has given his consent to a new children’s book that tells the story of his life through the eyes of his cat.
The pope has a cat.
I rest my case.
Spotted in Liverpool
From the same people who brought you buisness intrest:

