🦆
The Beeb tiptoes delicately around the 'C' word:
BBC: Graffiti village name change plan
Residents living in a graffiti-plagued village on Merseyside are being asked to consider changing its name to tackle vandals who alter signs in the village.
Lunt, which dates back to Medieval times, has been repeatedly targeted by vandals who change the "L" to a "C".
Apparently, they're going to change the village's name to Ucking Hill.
They've not thought this through, have they?
… I say they've got a bloody cheek.
The Fall in reflective mood with Touch Sensitive:
BBC: Johnson must be coach - Woodward
World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward says Martin Johnson is the right man to lead England's revival - but only if he is a hands-on coach.
Just thinking, wouldn't Scuffles be a brilliant name for an impish, ragamuffin of a terrier!
Postscript: The BBC has now changed the title of the above news item to Clashes mar Olympic torch relay. Don't you hate it when they do that? Clashes would be a pretty rubbish name for an impish, ragamuffin of a terrier.
So, Charlton Heston has passed away. I'm off to California to pry his gun from his cold, dead hands. It's what he would have wanted.
Keith Beach, via email, observes:
Could never understand why he named himself after two small local towns, but it could have been worse - why not Hounslow Hayes? or Feltham Staines?
… or, indeed, Chorley Dumplington. Why on Earth would anyone whose real surname was Carter want to change it for Heston? It don't make sense!
(Two name-checks on consecutive days, Keith. They'll be asking for your autograph next. Hope you like the new avatar.)
I've just realised that today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my paternal grandmother, Nanna Margaret. She died almost 20 years ago, but I'll be breaking out the Laphroaig in her memory this evening.
Seems like a good excuse.
Nanna Margaret didn't like the fact that I drank neat whisky. She said it would rot my liver. She knew this for a fact: she had worked in an off-licence and had been on a course where they put some cow's liver in a tumbler of whisky, and a few days later it had gone!
I wasn't falling for that one: Nanna Margaret had also told me that eating the crusts of my toast would make my hair curl.
Not that I ever wanted curly hair, you understand.
Postscript: Oops! Almost forgot to mention that it's also Bette Davis's centenary today.
[Please Note: This announcement has been superseded by the major upgrade to Gruts on 01-Dec-2011.]
I've been working on a new comments feature for the Gruts website: avatars! Now, regular Gruts commenters have their own little picture next to their comments. The feature works off the email address you supply when commenting, so no email address, no avatar. Some of you occasionally use different email addresses; I have tried to cater for this.
At the moment, the avatars only appear on the recent comments page, but I will be adding them to the comments under each individual post in due course.
Apologies to any regular commenters I might have missed. Please drop me an email if you enter a comment and get the default avatar (an anonymous silhouette) and you would like a personal one. Also, if you don't like the avatar I have chosen for you, please feel free to send me another. All avatars are 48x48 pixels.
Note to Keith Beach: For some reason, your email address keeps getting lost against the comments, so your avatar isn't working at the moment. I know you supply an email address, but it gets deleted. I found a bug in the comments code which I have fixed, but you might need to re-enter your email address when you next comment.
Sod this for a game of soldiers. I'm off down the pub.
Accentuate the negative, that's what I always say:
BBC: Pendleton misses golden hat-trick
Reigning champion Victoria Pendleton missed out on gold in the final of the keirin at the Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester…
Pendleton adds the silver to her two golds from the sprints.
Sod of, Beeb! Two golds and a silver are a hell of an achievement. Especially when you consider she'd never actually seen a bike until a week last Tuesday. Or something like that.
I think she should change her name to Victoria Pedalton.
Pedalton… Do you see what I did there?