Gruts

BBC: Top UK dish 'hooked French first' (08-Jan-04)
It is thought to be the quintessential British meal, but new research claims the original idea for fish and chips came from Jewish and French dishes… Professor Panikos Panayi of Leicester's De Montfort University has begun a £6,000 research project to investigate the global influence on British food. He said fish and chips mixed "French frites with Jewish fish dishes".

De Montfort University, eh? Sounds suspiciously French to me!

Tell you what, François, you keep quiet about the fish & chips, and we won't let on that it was us Brits who invented sparkling wine. That's champagne to vous lot.

BBC: BBC halts Kilroy for race 'rant' (09-Jan-04)
The Kilroy programme will be taken off air immediately following comments made by Robert Kilroy-Silk in a newspaper article, the BBC has announced. The presenter branded Arabs "suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors" and asked what they had given to the world other than oil.

Of course, what Kilroy should have done was to slur Scousers instead: they're used to it. For example, I just heard Simon Hoggart on BBC Radio 4's News Quiz make an gratuitous joke—much to the London audience's amusement—about how a Scouser's idea of formal wedding attire is loose, comfy clothes and shorts. This unnecessary (and, let's face it, unfunny) anti-Scouse jibe was made during a topical question (about Britney Spears's recent short-lived marriage) that had absolutely nothing to do with Liverpool or Scousers. Will the BBC be taking Hoggart off the air, do you reckon—or do they see Scousers as fair game?

BBC: Rusedski fails drugs test
British tennis star Greg Rusedski has tested positive for the banned substance nandrolone.

British? Nope, I think you'll find he was born in Canada. Not one of our lads. No siree, Bob.

Come on, Tim!

BBC: Another jail term for naked walker
A naked rambler has again been found guilty of breach of the peace and sentenced to a spell in a Scots jail.

Ignore him—he's only trying to draw attention to himself. The magistrates should turn the other cheek.

What on earth is going on? The BBC News website maintains what it calls a Air Disaster Timeline: a list of air disasters going back to February, 1998.

Well, if that isn't going to scare the shit out of anyone already scared of what is, after all, the safest mode of transport per mile travelled, I don't know what is. It's like Rain Man all over again.

But the worst thing about this morbid ambulance-chasing journalism is that, by describing its list as a timeline, the BBC could be seen to be implying that all these air crashes are somehow related. Now there's a conspiracy theory if ever I heard one.

BBC (Have Your Say): Should Germans attend D-day events?
Germany's Gerhard Schroeder has accepted a French invitation to events marking the 60th annivesary of the D-Day landings … Is France right to invite Germans to the ceremonies? Sixty years on, is it time to move on and allow them to attend?

Isn't it time to forgive and forget? Aren't we all supposed to be part of Europe now? It's the 21st Century, for Pete's sake! Aren't we mature enough to forget our past differences? Of course the Germans should be invited—provided they promise not to hog all the deck chairs.

Conversation with Jen this evening:

R: You can cheat at Scissors, Paper, Stone, you know.
J: …
R: I'm quite good at it.
J: …
R: It's all to do with the timing.
J: …
R: As you're counting 1…2…3…, you delay your hand movements ever so slightly, to see what your opponent goes for—then you go for whatever beats them a split-second later.
J: …
R: They usually don't notice.
J: …
R: …What?
J: …
R: WHAT?!!!
J: …WE'VE played Scissors, Paper, Stone.

BBC: Martin case tops BBC's Today poll
A proposal to allow homeowners to use "any means" to defend their homes, has topped a BBC poll on the bill people would most like to see become law.

This proposed law is designed to allow respectable and responsible members of society, such as paranoid personality disorder sufferer and convicted child killer Tony Martin, to employ more than the reasonable force they are already entitled to by law to protect their property. Which I guess would give us all carte blanche to use unreasonable force.

Jehovah's Witnesses, door-to-door salesmen and cats of Great Britain, your days are truly numbered. Yeeeee-ha! Let the lynchings begin!

Happy New Year.

The final score for my 10 bullshit predictions for 2003 (based on anagrams of my friend Carolyn Farthing's name) is just in…

8 out of 10.

Remarkable, in an entirely unremarkable kind of way.

Remember this the next time someone tells you they've had a psychic experience.

I just saw an advertisement on the telly, and I couldn't believe my ears—so I checked out the official website:

L'Oréal website: Boswelox™ is a breakthrough phyto-complex created by L'Oréal Paris that combines a power dose of boswellia serrata extract and manganese, which help reduce the appearance of lines caused by facial micro-contractions.

No, really, I kid you not: Boswelox! That name gave me more than a few facial micro-contractions, let me tell you. Still, I suppose it beats Swel-bolox™—but only just.