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Do you know where the word plagiarise comes from? I do, and it's very interesting:
plagiarize or plagiarise
v. take (the work or an idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own.
- DERIVATIVES plagiarism n. plagiarist n. plagiaristic adj. plagiarizer n.
- ORIGIN C18 (earlier (C17) as plagiarism): from L. plagiarius 'kidnapper'.
I wrote that definition myself.
Which moron decided that our Beijing Olympics team should be called Team GB? Some sort of stupid focus group, no doubt.
Gordon Brown is behind this, mark my words.
In celebration of the return of Association Football to our television sets (has it really only been 3.4 nanoseconds?), we give you the timeless Kicker Conspiracy by the equally timeless The Fall:
(Come on you Reds!)
I was just thinking about God.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that an omnipotent God exists—which He doesn't, obviously, but just assuming…
Presumably an omnipotent God would be perfectly capable of creating an exact, equally omnipotent copy of Himself. No point in being omnipotent if You can't do something like that, is there? I mean, if You couldn't, it would rather cast doubt on Your omnipotence, wouldn't it?
So, setting aside the rather massive issue of where a God Who is, after all, also supposed to be omnipresent would manage to find space to put an exact copy of Himself (Jen pointed out that God is also supposed to be omniscient, so He should easily be able to work that one out—and I suppose two omniscient minds would be better than one), here's my question:
What if the two omnipotent Gods then decided to have a fight? Who would win?
They really haven't thought this one through, have they?
BBC: Eat kangaroo to 'save the planet'
Switching from beef to kangaroo burgers could significantly help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, says an Australian scientist…
He said: "It tastes excellent, not unlike venison - only a different flavour."
In other words, it tastes unlike venison.
I ate kangaroo once, in Cairns, Australia. Not a whole one, obviously. The waitress was intrigued to know what I thought.
"I didn't like it," I said. "I kept thinking of Skippy."
She seemed delighted that I knew who Skippy was.
Ah-ha! This might explain the legendary long-arm of the law!
I had a major senior moment at work the other week. Actually, it was more than a moment really; it lasted several days.
Whenever I went to make a cup of tea in the kitchen, or popped to the loo, or headed off to a meeting somewhere, I kept bumping into this young woman in the corridor outside my office. Metaphorically bumping into, that is—it wasn't that kind of senior moment. It was uncanny: almost every time I had cause to walk down the corridor, there she was coming the other way. I had no idea who she was; a new face from another department, no doubt.
After a while, our bumping into each other became something of a private joke: I would nod at her, or share a conspiratorial smirk we walked past each other.
Until a week last Thursday, that is, when I finally realised that she was two totally different women. I know this for a fact, because I saw them talking with each other. Apart from their blonde hair, petite builds, and stylish suits, they looked absolutely nothing like each other. Not even remotely.
I'll bet they were talking about the nutter down the corridor who keeps smirking at them.
See also: Senior moment
You've heard the sordid rumours, but now all can be revealed:
Telegraph: Strange sex life of melons exposed
BBC: Author and playwright Gray dies
English playwright and diarist Simon Gray has died aged 71.
The author penned more than 30 plays for stage and TV, including Butley, Quartermaine's Terms, Melon and The Common Pursuit, as well as five novels.
Gray recently gained in notoriety for his series of witty memoirs, The Smoking Diaries and The Last Cigarette.
I can't speak about his plays, but Gray's three volumes of diaries (The Smoking Diaries, The Year of the Jouncer, and The Last Cigarette) are modern masterpieces in the genre: moving and, at the same time, laugh-out-loud funny. Gray developed a unique voice in his diaries. It's sad to think there will be no more.
Postscript: Oh, according to the Guardian's obituary, there will soon be a final volume about the last few months of Gray's life.