“She walked like a partridge.” – Matthew Parris
“She scuttled about like a hen.” – Jon Snow
Two quotes from Maggie And Me, shown on Channel 4 this evening.
Archive for the 'Current Affairs' Category
Over in my cupboard at The Dabbler today I try, as best I can, to come to terms with the most seismic event in our national life for centuries. I am not ashamed to admit that I wept, wept I tell you!, and copious were my tears, and salty were they too, at the self-willed downfall of perhaps the one true political colossus of the past five hundred years.
On the other hand, it might be that, with The Miliband Resignation, I was trying my hand at devising a convincing Robert Ludlum-style title, in preparation for a forthcoming cinema franchise. But who would star as David Miliband?
Mr Key’s adventures in the world o’ contemporary art continue tomorrow at this event, nine miles west of Cambridge. Do pop along to cheer frenziedly, should you have the wherewithal.
The time has come for me to update the enormously useful Hooting Yard Pontiff Mnemonic. Before I wrestle with the most appropriate F word, however, I think I am right in saying that there could be no more Hooting Yardy Pontiff than a one-lunged Jesuit bus passenger.
UPDATE : I managed to pluck from the dictionary the definitive F word to add to the Pontiff Mnemonic just in time for today’s episode of Hooting Yard On The Air on ResonanceFM. You can find out what the word is by listening to the show, archived on soundcloud here.
So there I was, standing by a Norwegian roadside as smoke from a blazing consignment of Norwegian goat cheese billowed in goaty cheesy gusts. Luckily, standing next to me was Kjell Bjoern Vinje of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
“Tell me, Kjell Bjoern Vinje,” I shouted, “Can you recall any previous occasions when cheese has caught fire on Norwegian roads?”
I did not catch his reply, but a BBC News reporter did.
[Thanks to Glyn Webster.]
Last night on Channel 4 News, Jon Snow related that the Russian Orthodox Church had issued a statement regarding the Pussy Riot trio. “God has already punished them by depriving them of their common sense”, it said, or words to that effect. (I cannot find a written reference.)
The implications of this are immense, and I find in thinking them through that my brain is dizzied, and I too am being deprived of what common sense I might possess. Oh Lord, Oh Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?
Now here is an intriguing (if ungrammatical) headline:
Goblins attacks family, burn down homestead
Readers will be aware that I take a keen interest in goblins of all types. These ones are new to me:
Others went on to claim that snake-like creatures wearing sunglasses, a suit and a pair of shoes had been seen at the homestead.
Truly baffling. What type of snake-like being could wear shoes? Sounds like a job for Investigating Officer David Icke.
Over at my cupboard in The Dabbler this week, a four-second film clip provides the pretext for an exciting pastime that should keep you gainfully occupied for, oh, at least ten times as long.
Warning : contains withering satire on a contemporary issue.
The first of our helpful series of Tips For Young Persons is offered specifically to Shane Stoops:
1. It is neither bright nor seemly to describe oneself as a Renaissance Man.
Over at Comment Is Free, two impeccably bourgeois graduates of the grammar and public school systems and of Oxford University debate whether the total collapse of civilisation would be, on the whole, you know, a good thing. A commenter called “questionnaire” gets to the nub of its amusement value:
I love the way George [Monbiot] and Paul [Kingsnorth] are putting ‘best wishes’ and ‘all the best’ at the end of each doom scenario.
Yesterday’s Guardian reported on the trip to
The appointment of Brian Eno (aged 59) as the Liberal Democrats’ adviser to help new leader Nick Clegg (aged 40) keep in touch with Britain’s youth has caused much hilarity in blogland. I particularly liked this post which reminds us of some of Brian’s more enticing plans and projects. Yet I fear people are too quick to ridicule what is obviously a piece of visionary brilliance. Just imagine the transformation in the packs of brainless hoodies and gun-toting pre-pubescent inner city “gangstas” if, instead of being issued with Asbos, they are given a stiff dose of Oblique Strategies, innit?
