Time I duct
Jen: I was reading in the paper that the number of vasectomies in England has fallen by over 60% in the last ten years.
Me: Over 60%: that's a vas deferens.
Blimey, Nicole Kidman's let herself go!
Giving a clown a bad name
A professional clown writes:
Guardian: This craze gives us real clowns a bad name. It’s no joke
No, your parents are entirely to blame for your bad name, Bibbledy Bob.
So, it's come to this
Facebook just sent me an ad aimed at ‘Silver Surfers’.
How bloody well dare they!
Driving Miss Daisy
A short video starring my nemeses of the week. (Seriously, don't ask.)
Hollywood beckons
One of my sources at the BBC tipped me off that there might soon be a vacancy for a fat, bearded Merseysider for a new cookery show featuring Mary Berry and Mel & Kim. So I made this:
My culinary talents know no bounds.
Carolyn asks me to Bangor
(And, yes, we did have a lovely time, thank you for asking.)
EU Madness!
BBC: Visegrad Group of EU states 'could veto Brexit deal'
A group of Central European countries is ready to veto any Brexit deal that would limit right to work in the UK, Slovakian PM Robert Fico says.
He might be ‘Prime Minister Robert Fico’ to you, Slovakia, but to us he'll always be loveable old Suggs.
The art of analogy
I'm a firm believer that use of good analogies is a reliable indicator of intelligence. The ability to convey a complex concept by comparing it to one easier to understand is the mark of a gifted communicator.
So, how would you go about describing the dangers of self-reflection when vexed?
When one is vexed, one must avoid meditating about oneself. One is like a man with jaundice: he must not study the map of the countries he is about to traverse—he would see everything in yellow. Yellow is the colour of Sweden, so he would believe that every country was Sweden, and if by chance the King of Sweden had set a price upon his head, he would be in despair: this despair would be the effect of his jaundice. And such is the effect from which I suffer every time I go to Grenoble; so much so that, on the last occasion, I almost entirely avoided thinking about my future.
—Stendhal to his sister Pauline, 17-Sep-1805
To the Happy Few: selected letters of Stendhal (trans. Norman Cameron) (1952)
…I'm reluctantly beginning to accept I'll never be recognised as a literary genius on a par with Stendhal.