All you Beefheart fans out there might recognise some of the lyrics.
Jack White’s favourite song
7
Yearly Archives: 2009
Which reminds me…
I’ll tell you what I find mildly irritating: the phrase reminds us, as used by scholarly reviewers. You see it a lot in the London Review of Books (my butler reads it). Indeed, if you search for the phrase ‘reminds us’ on the LRB website, you will see that it has been used 739 times in that august magazine over the years. That’s an awful lot of reminders.
Here are a few recent examples, to give you a flavour of the sort of thing I’m on about:
What The Age of Wonder narrates is also, Holmes reminds us, what Banks himself would have been learning. An ‘all-seeing eye’, ‘the sceptical, all-weather eye of Banks’, peers out of successive chapters; his gaze sweeps ‘steadily round the globe like some vast, inquiring lighthouse beam’.
—Susan Eilenberg, LRB 7 January 2010
In the Sonnets, as Schalkwyk reminds us, the humiliations of rank are never wholly separable from the poet-actor’s sense of himself as one whose histrionic trade has made him ‘a motley to the view’, the fool’s costume becoming a substitute for livery and a degrading reminder of the player’s role as servant.
—Michael Neill, LRB 22 October 2009
With her own special bite, Atwood singles out for dramatic treatment the girls who worked in the palace and fraternised with Penelope’s suitors; she reminds us how pitilessly Odysseus orders them to be hanged, every one.
—Marina Warner, LRB 27 August 2009
Carson reminds us that Aristotle thought that Euripides, ‘whatever the ineptitudes of his stagecraft’, was ‘the most tragic’ of the tragic poets.
—Michael Wood, LRB 11 June 2009
By triangulating the relationship between Cecil, Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, Alford reminds us of the very unusual circumstances that shaped Elizabethan politics.
—Simon Adams, LRB 11 June 2009
Yes, thanks for the reminders, chaps! Fancy forgetting something like that—silly old us! We’d forget our own heads, if they weren’t screwed on, eh?
No, what the phrase ‘reminds us’ really means is ‘somebody else has said something rather clever and profound, but I’m going to pretend I knew it all along, and make you feel stupid by implying that you should have known it too’.
It must be really great to be as clever as one of those scholarly reviewer types.
Meanwhile, Fitz reminds us that two of the UK’s most popular pop songs of all time, Whiter Shade of Pale and Bohemian Rhapsody, both contain the word fandango.
Gunners envy
I see Manchester City F.C. has a new manager, Roberto Mancini.
This is blatant Gunners envy. The Citizens simply couldn’t stomach the fact that Arsenal were the only Premiership side whose manager, Arsène Wenger, had a name which was practically identical to the club’s. So Man. City had to have Mancini. It was as simple as that.
What nonsense can we expect next? Chelsea Clinton to manage The Pensioners? Trevor Nunn to take over at Goodison? The late Oliver Poole to replace Benítez at Anfield?
Actually, than might not be such a bad idea.
Cold snap
A cliché yesterday
Merry Christmas to one and all.
22 not out
It’s 24th December, so the question on everyone’s lips is did Richard make it to the top of Moel Famau for the 22nd consecutive Christmas Eve today?
Oh ye of little faith:
Carolyn and kids at the top
Actually, to be honest, I wanted to call it off on account of the heavy snow, but Carolyn and her three kids were pretty persuasive. I’m glad they were: the snow was fantastic.
More photos here.
See also:
[ spoops! ]
Jen and I were catching up on a backlog of Spooks episodes last night (it just hasn’t been the same since Agent Jo took a bullet from that grumpy woman from out of Cold Feet), when Jen spotted this:
Is it any bloody wonder the CIA is having so much difficulty fighting so-called Al-Qaeda, when they can’t even spell the word terrorism?
Someone should write to the Home Secretary or something.
Boss v King
Be honest, now, we’ve all secretly wondered what would happen if Elvis returned to Earth and gatecrashed a Springsteen gig:
So now we know
Next week: Glen Miller v U2.
Snap
I’m thinking of making this my new official publicity photograph:
Extreme close-up!
Any thoughts?
Respect where it’s not due
Independent: Man sacked for belief in psychics backed by judge (but, of course, he knew that would happen)
A police worker who was sacked because he believed psychics can help solve criminal investigations is to go to court today to defend his right to legal protection from religious discrimination…
In Mr Power’s case Judge Peter Russell, sitting at Manchester Employment Tribunal, said: “I am satisfied that the claimant’s beliefs that there is life after death and that the dead can be contacted through mediums are worthy of respect in a democratic society and have sufficient cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance to fall into the category of a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 [Employment Equality (Religion or Belief)] Regulations.”
Read the judge’s words carefully: “beliefs that there is life after death and that the dead can be contacted through mediums are worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
Bollocks.
While we should respect everyone’s right to hold whatever crackpot beliefs they might choose, to say that such beliefs are worthy of respect is utter nonsense. For example, the BNP’s Nick Griffin is fully entitled to believe whatever racist horse crap he likes—and I would defend his right to do so—but to say that his beliefs are worthy of respect is, as I said, bollocks.
I find it rather worrying that a judge—or, rather, the English legal system—apparently can’t see the difference.
Mr Power, your religious beliefs are nuttier than squirrel shit, but you are perfectly entitled to hold them.
No good deed ever goes unpunished
Approaching the checkout at Tesco on Thursday, I couldn’t believe my luck when I spotted Laphroaig whisky on offer. I slipped a bottle into my trolley.
I couldn’t believe my luck even further when I found the checkout totally empty. I began transferring my shopping on to the conveyor belt, asking the girl on the till not to start loading my stuff into plastic bags, as I had my own reusable ones. It flustered her a bit. Then another girl came and set next to her and asked her if it was her first day—which it was.
To be honest, I felt a bit bad about getting the poor girl flustered on her first day. So, as I was collecting my receipt, I made a point of saying, “I think you’re doing absolutely brilliantly, considering it’s your first day”. The girl was absolutely delighted.
Then I walked through the security scanners, and all hell broke loose.
The stupid tart had forgotten to take the security tag off my bottle of Laphroaig.
To the asshole…
…whose robot posted 670 identical spam comment on old Gruts posts over the last two days, it took me less than five minutes to delete them. These old posts will no longer accept hyperlinks in their comments.
Now why don’t you go and get yourself a girlfriend?
Swanzilla
I’ve produced another of my hilarious Beagle Project promo videos. Careful you don’t split your sides:
Scary movie
On account of its being Halloween, here is a scary movie what I shot in my cellar last week. It is unsuitable for people with a nervous disposition.
I’ve been a bit busy this afternoon…
…did anyone happen to catch the result of the Liverpool–Man Utd match?
Unpukka Cwistmas fakewy
It was 17.5°C in Hebden Bridge on Friday afternoon. I know, because I checked on my car’s thermometer. The reason I checked was that the centre of town was covered in snow.
But it turned out that it wasn’t snow; it was fake snow. Jamie Oliver was in town filming a Christmas ad for Sainsbury’s.
So, when you see the ad, I want you to shout at the telly, “THAT’S NOT REAL SNOW! I KNOW FOR A FACT: I READ IT ON GRUTS!”
My farmer friend and her friend popped into Hebden Bridge shortly after the filming had finished. “What’s that dreadful smell?” she asked.
Jamie Oliver’s cooking, apparently.
Thou shalt not bear false witness
A misleading chart.
Wow! Look at that! The Anglicans are over half-way up the chart when compared with the whole population, and the Catholics over a third of the way up. Not bad!
Until you realise that it is the areas of the semi-circles we should be looking at, not the diameters. The clue’s in the figures given in the labels on the chart (which totally misleadingly point to the semi-circles’ diameters): 65.6M population, 9.3M Catholics—that’s one in seven a Catholic, not one in three. 65.6M population, 26.5M Anglicans—that’s 40% Anglicans, not over 50%. But who’s going to check the figures when there’s a simple, reassuring chart? Apart from me, I mean.
How I would have drawn the chart.
Actually, it’s even more misleading than that. Think of the chart as being like a Venn diagram: Anglicans are indeed a subset of the entire population of the UK and Ireland, as are Catholics, but Catholics are most definitely not a subset of Anglicans. In fact, you could argue that the exact opposite is true: historically, the original Anglicans were a subset—or, rather, subsect—of the Catholic Church. And some of them might soon be again, according to the BBC article.
Setting aside the question of what counts as a Catholic or Anglican (I am a devout Atheist, but I was christened against my will by the Anglican church, so does that make me an Anglican?), and setting aside the fact that the church membership figures quoted were provided by the Catholic Church and the Church of England (who might be a little bit biased), this chart seems designed to give a misleadingly high impression of the churches’ memberships. It would be interesting to know whether the BBC just obtained the figures from the churches, or whether they obtained the chart as well.
I have banged on previously about how 3-D pie charts can be misleading, but I find these overlaid semi-circular charts far more obnoxious. What on earth is wrong with showing a simple, 2-D pie chart?
Rant over.
Rucksack enigma
I just saw an elderly gentleman get out of his car with a rucksack already on his back.
What on Earth was going on there, do you reckon?
I wondered whether he might have accidentally forgotten to remove his rucksack before he got into the car. But that seems unlikely: even if he had forgotten that he was wearing his rucksack, he would surely have noticed it when he sat down. It must have been extremely uncomfortable.
Then I thought that perhaps the elderly gentleman must have had short legs, and couldn’t reach the pedals without some sort of padding at his back. But his car was a Vauxhall Corsa, which is a pretty small car, and I’m pretty sure they come with seat adjusters. And, besides, surely some sort of cushion would have made a far more appropriate booster. And, besides some more, I couldn’t help noticing that he was about six feet tall, give or take.
When I told Jen about the elderly gentleman I had seen getting out of his car with a rucksack already on his back, she suggested that perhaps his wife had put it on for him, and that he was incapable of getting out of it on his own. If a man were to say such a thing about a woman, elderly or otherwise, he would no doubt be accused of rampant sexism, but us chaps are increasingly expected to put up with this sort of nonsense. I am sure that anyone who could parallel-park a Vauxhall Corsa as well as this elderly gentleman clearly could would be perfectly capable of manoeuvring himself out of a rucksack. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Unless, of course, something had gone wrong with the clasp on the rucksack. Perhaps it had jammed. Perhaps the elderly gentleman had been stuck inside the rucksack for weeks, but was too embarrassed to ask for help. Us chaps tend not to like asking for help. The poor fellow! If only it had occurred to me at the time, I might have asked if he needed a hand. Well, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have: us chaps tend not to like offering to help either.
But the whole affair is, I’m sure you’ll agree, very intriguing. There’s some sort of back story there that we aren’t party to. Something that explains the elderly gentleman’s apparently odd behaviour. In fact, I’m half tempted to pop back into town to see if he’s still there, so I can ask him about it. But I’m not going to.
Sometimes life’s little mysteries have to go unresolved.
Go for the prize, keep your eyes on the road ahead…
Fitz has done another one of his homemade Dunlin video things:
Re-engaging the public
BBC: PM agrees to TV election debate
Gordon Brown has confirmed he is willing “in principle” to take part in a TV debate ahead of the election.
Yeah, that’s really what we need to re-engage the British public with politics: another platform for our party leaders to say nasty things about each other, while failing to answer any of the perfectly reasonable questions put to them. Pardon me for not watching, but I think the Hairy Bikers might be on the other side. They usually are.
Call me cynical, but this proposed TV debate is not going to interest anyone other than the six people in this country already interested in all this politics crap. The British public doesn’t want any more pointless debate amongst its political leaders; it wants action. We don’t want to be bored shitless by politicians; we want to be entertained. We want excitement. We want politicians to stop pussy-footing around and get stuck in.
A former Deputy Prime Minister showing how it's done.
No, I don’t mean a metaphorical cage fight; I mean an actual, no-holds-barred cage fight. In a cage. Stripped to the waist. Last man standing becomes Prime Minister. Be honest now, wouldn’t you pay good money to watch that? It would justify the licence fee on its own.
I’ll bet Gordon Brown is handy with his fists. And he clearly has weight advantage over his political opponents. But I hear he has a glass jaw—and, indeed, a glass eye. That should even things out a bit, as David ‘Baby-Face’ Cameron feigns a few left jabs, then unleashes a flailing haymaker from the far right. Meanwhile, Nick ‘Kidney-Punch’ Clegg (OK, I had to look his name up) is kneeing Ian Paisley in the nuts, while gouging out the eyes of the leader of the BNP (whose name I won’t dignify by looking up).
Just think how much more respect our leader would command in the international arena if he had gained his post in a caged one. “Careful what you say to the British Prime Minister, Mr President: they say he killed a man with his bare hands!”
The party leaders spend all of their time these days bragging about how they’re going to make deeper cuts than their opponents. Isn’t it time we gave them knives and told them to put up or shut up?
Gertcha!
BBC: Pop veterans Chas and Dave split
Music veterans Chas and Dave have split after 35 years together, their agent has announced.
Dave is retiring, but, fear not, I have the perfect solution:
Chaz ‘n’ Garfunkel
(Remember, you heard it here first.)
Meanwhile, in other news:
Sun: Army bras are com-bust-ible
A female soldiers’ rights group has had a major BUST-up with top Army brass—because their BRAS keep falling off. The Swedish women troops have complained that their undies are useless in combat because they come undone too easily and catch fire.