The Art of Autobiography

"I was a signalman, one who knew the semaphore code and how to receive and transmit it... I had blundered into wanking a teleprinter..."

- Peter O'Toole, Loitering With Intent

Wisdom

The washpot never boils.

Good cheer!

The Amnesiac Review - spreading warmth and love, this festive season.

[Thanks to KJW]

I've had enough of singing for one year.

This guy, on the other hand....



Which of the four is actually his natural voice, d'you think?

[Thanks to BCG]

Santa censors?

On the off-chance that Santa visited this Christmas, my father asked if there was anything I might like.

I said an album by (the) Fuck Buttons.

Didn't get it, though.

The Lost and Found Orchestra

Junk, but not rubbish. Or vice versa.

At the Southbank Centre, until January.

Absolutely NO way

CRIME UPDATE

Without warning, the nation's favourite chocolatier has axed four ranges - Time Outs, Picnics, Dreams and Crunchies - from tins of Heroes and replaced them with just two - Bournvilles and toffee Eclairs.

Full horrifying story

Least comforting headline of the day so far

People 'still willing to torture'

Also, I don't understand what the word 'still' is doing in that sentence. Unless of course they're referring to whoever is in charge of the Christmas TV schedule.

Terrifying Science News UPDATE

“From aspirin and bananas to Vegemite and water, internet searches present seemingly endless options for preventing or treating alcohol hangovers,” the doctors said. “No scientific evidence, however, supports any cure or effective prevention.”

For various reasons to do with Czech lager and French wine, this comes as particularly unwelcome news this morning...

Science latest

SCIENTISTS are to test whether sharks enjoy listening to Christmas pop songs, it was revealed yesterday.

They will also find out whether the fish prefer Slade's Merry Christmas Everyone to Cliff Richard's Mistletoe and Wine.

Seen in a charity shop

As opposed to what, exactly?

Tony McNumpty

The Out-of-Work & Pensions Minister, Tony McNulty, says that the whole financial crisis (with attendant job-losses) is far from over, but - huzzah! - that the HMG will be going through inquiry reports on the economic slump with "a fine tooth-comb".

The Amnesiacs suspect he may have meant 'a fine-tooth(ed) comb'. But no matter.

"I learned a new word today, Basie" - 5

hellion, n. a disorderly, troublesome, rowdy or mischievous person (e.g. Hunter S Thompson).

The Scarecrow and His Servant

... at the Southwark Playhouse.

Philip Pullman - too good for children.

Why we need to start closing all the schools

Because the internet teaches us everything we really need to know:

Amnesiac Food Critics' Awards, 2008

AA Gill at his best/worst.

I calculate that less than 40% of this week's column has anything to do with food, let alone Trishna, the restaurant ostensibly under review.

Nick Hornby, legend

The third installment of his brilliant Believer reading diaries.

Technology latest

Aiko says "I do not like it when you touch my breasts," before swatting the inventor away with her right arm.

Quote of the Day

From Peter Schmuck at The Schmuck Stops Here, one of the handful of blogs I read religiously:

"By the way, I'd like to make a shout out to President George Bush for the deft way he dodged those shoes that were thrown at him by a reporter in Iraq. The incident got me wondering if I could have been a Secret Service agent. I'm not a real brave guy, but I think I would be willing to take a shoe for the president."

I drink, therefore IQ am

More from doctors. Apparently, smart kids are fractionally more likely to develop drinking problems by the age of 30.

This is clearly bullshit, since I developed mine a full decade ahead of schedule.

Health latest

Dr Philip said: "A recent market research report has suggested that there has been a worldwide increase in the number of wooden and ceramic toilet seats sold.

"We would not be surprised to hear that other colleagues have noticed an increase in penis crush injuries as a result of this." (BBC)

(Thanks to Alexandra)

Most unfortunate headline of the day so far

'More action needed' on obese kids

To be fair, there's probably a perfectly good physiological reason obese kids aren't seeing much action.

Apostrophe police

This one is bad (about 17 seconds in):



The interview itself is terrible, until the last three seconds, when Chevy Chase releases an enormous air bagel.

Reading matter

Nearly half of all men and one-third of women have lied about what they have read to try to impress friends or potential partners, a survey suggests.

Men were most likely to do this to appear intellectual or romantic, found the poll of 1,500 people by Populus for the National Year of Reading campaign.

The men polled said they would be most impressed by women who read news websites, Shakespeare or song lyrics.

Women said men should have read Nelson Mandela's biography or Shakespeare. (BBC)

One of these days*, the authors of this blog will write a book called The 50 Worst Books Ever Written, in which we will dissect (review) the 50 worst books ever written (like Ulysses and Penetrating Wagner's Ring) so that you, the reader, will be able to lie about having read them.

*Defined as: if we ever get our fucking acts together.

Hot and bothered

August: Osage County, at the National.

Bunch of bankers

Alex, at the Leicester Square Theatre.

Fascist referee of the week

Prospective title for my autobiography

"It was the operas wot done it."

- D S Hilton

Conclusive proof that nothing works in Britain

It relates to tennis, but this is as perfect a microcosm of events in my lifetime as I've ever read:

There was a time when British tennis was run by blazered Bufton Tuftons and cried out for modernisation and efficient practice; now the desire of the LTA to 'organise into the optimum way of serving our key stakeholders to efficiently and effectively deliver real benefits to British tennis in 2008 and beyond' (the words of Stuart Smith, its departing President, not mine) has a distinctly hollow look.

As heard Today on R4

"The Civil Service leaks like a sieve."

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the essence of the statement is correct.

The phrase just seems a little unfair on the sieve, is all.

Headline of the day so far

ECO WARRIORS SNITCH ON BEAVERS FOR 'ILLEGAL LOGGING'

Economic Outlook: Things must be really bad

The New York Times has resorted to flogging its autographed baseballs

Quote Unquote

"I believe in history [or, possibly, 'History']"

- The Dean of Southwark, on Newsnight.

Something refreshingly ironic in a priest declaring his firmly held belief in something everyone knows to exist.

Scheherazade

AKA "Keep talking, girl!"

- Simon Bates, Classicfm

The great thing about Wikipedia UPDATE

As my learned colleague should have learned by now, ALWAYS read the footnotes!

The great thing about Wikipedia

is that it always delivers the facts you most need

And the winner of the cheeriest headline of the month is...

Job market is awful, but may get worse

Today's best headline

Accounts see record fall in profits

Nice to know they're paying attention.

"Wishing you all the best on your Rosa-less future"

The kid couldn't score in a Burnley brothel

Hunting horn

Finding horn.

I Found My Horn, at the Tristan Bates Theatre, W2.

Bangladeshi Brickies

As Hunter S Thompson might have said, BAD MIDGET CRAZINESS!!



[Thanks to KJW]

I Found My Horn

Jasper Rees's mid-life crisis, now showing at a theatre near you.

Best of Stop Smiling - 8

Sebastian Faulks Channels Ian Fleming: Devil May Care

Received, by e-mail

One very actual invitation to an event.


























They know me so well.

[click on image for full ghastliness of small print]

Spam of the day

"one wife is not enough"

This courtesy of Mr(?) Winterfeldt Gianotti. You really have to wonder who his target audience is.

Best of Stop Smiling - 7

On Screen, In Debate: Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass

Best of Stop Smiling - 6

RAW Art: Conversations with Art Spiegelman

Best of Stop Smiling - 5

In Rainbows - A Free Album? I Don't Buy It

Best of Stop Smiling - 4

Now I Have To Pretend To Like Graphic Novels, Too?

One for the ladies

Biblical advice.

You eye-balling me, boy?

Dead concert pianist plays Yorick in Tennant's Hamlet

Beats having your ashes scattered in the garden.

Best of Stop Smiling - 3

God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens

In the ghetto

Imagine This, at the New London Theatre.

You know what they say about Presumption

No?

Well here's what I said.

The strong arm of the law

A British man who fathered 9 (grand)children by his own daughters

"was given 25 life sentences yesterday. He will serve a minimum of 19 years and six months in prison."

It's the maths I don't understand!

This boy needs therapy

This morning, I awoke from a dream in which I was having a very pleasant fireside chat (and a drink) with General Sir Mike Jackson.

Whom do I see about this?

Best of Stop Smiling - 2

Q&A with Jan Grarup, author of Shadowland

Call me politically naive

but I really didn't know that there's a Commons all-party beer group.

It's good to know that our politicians are willing to set aside their differences and work together on the really important things.

And who is this hero of the people (Liberal Democrat MP) Greg Mulholland, who says, "The government needs to wake up to the importance of the pub"?

We need more leaders like him! I can't help noticing that the Chancellor plans to fund his VAT cut by increasing tax on beer:

VAT to be cut from 17.5% to 15% from 1 December 2008 until 31 December 2009. The chancellor urges retailers to pass it on as soon as they can. Alcohol and tobacco prices will not fall as duty on them will be increased to match the VAT cut.

We won't even be able to afford to drown our depression sorrows.

Best of Stop Smiling

In commemoration of a magazine that seems to have shut up shop, The Amnesiac Review will this week be running a special series of what just happen to be the best eight pieces Stop Smiling ever published.

For example: How Bond Got His Balls Back (and then nearly lost them again)

Words which sound rude, but aren't

noggings

palimpsest

tutorly duty

"I learned a new word today, Basie...." - 4

rake-hell, n. one who endeavours to subdue memory by means of drink and sex.

Handel's monikers

Georg Frideric Handel composed 47 operas, on every classical deity and hero from Alexander to Xerxes (if only he'd thought to do Zeus!).

Of his 47 titles, 13 begin with the letter A:

Acis and Galatea
Admeto
Agrippina
Alceste
Alcina
Alessandro
Alessandro Severo
Almira
Amadigi di Gaula
Arianna in Creta
Ariodante
Arminio
and
Atalanta

The complete history of religious iconography

"... those early painted-glass comics that were used in churches to tell the superhero story of that guy who could walk on water."

- Art Spiegelman, in The Times

From an adult education pamphlet...

Stick your finger in his eye?

(cf. Make A Maltese Cross, p29.)

My dream woman

As found in The Arabian Nights:

"I know Philosophy and Medicine and the Preface to Science and Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates - on which I, too, have commented. I have read the Tadhkirat (ibn Daoud) and commented on the Burhan and studied Ibn al-Baytar's Elements. I have lectured on Ibn Sina's Qanun and solved problems and set others. I have lectured in Geometry and Architecture and have mastered Anatomy. I have read the books of the Shaf'i theologians and the Traditions of the Prophet ... I have written on Logic, Rhetoric and Mathematics and I know Metaphysics and Astronomy, so fetch me an inkwell and paper that I might write you a book to entertain you on your travels."

- Nuzhat al-Zaman

Hell, yes! This is above and beyond her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Koran, and her ability to deliver, unprompted, an oration on Royal Governance and the Necessary Moral Rectitude of those who Administer the Law.

Note to self

I would like to get into bed with Sophie Dahl. Can this be arranged?

The Big Question

Q. Can Jacqui Smith overturn 2,000 years of history?

A. No.

Vader in frankly uncomfortable conversation with Imperial officers

[With thanks to KJW]

The Cumnor Affair

Giving a shite modern opera the hand-dryer treatment.

Treasure Island

Submissions invited for piratical headline puns. I couldn't think of any.

As seen in the window of a quiet haberdashery on Wigmore Street, W1.

Yep, it's a throw cushion with the face of Anne Frank printed on it.

And yes, the two thieves, one on either side of her, are Sinatra ('The Other Frank'?) and... Tricky Dicky.

For the record, Mother Teresa was there as well. I just couldn't get her in the same shot.

The not-so-great outdoors

"I do not go outdoors. Not more than I have to. As far as I'm concerned the whole point of living in New York City is indoors. You want greenery? Order the spinach."

- David Rakoff

'Jizz' UPDATE

Further to my researches on the issue (ahem) of jizz, I discovered the following in Craig Taylor's 'Letter From The Editor', Five Dials #2:

'There I was', she said, 'looking up at some trees two-hundred yards away and wondering what they might be. I asked James, who was standing next to me, and he told me: sycamore. So I asked him how he knew, because from where we were standing you couldn't see the trunk or the leaves at all clearly. He just knew, he said. Just like when he could see a bird in the distance and had a feeling for what it might be. It's all about the jizz, apparently.'

(Momentarily confused by the word, I did a bit of research and found that, regardless of other definitions, jizz is a term used by birdwatchers and naturalists to describe a feeling, an intuition, that riginates from the briefest of glimpses. Jizz is knowing a bird in the distance, a tree in the dark.)

Emphasis mine.

Best non-functioning pun EVER

All vetch is as grass.

Election Aftermath UPDATE

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Smith, by Smyth

Cool little play at the British Museum, for geeks who fancy a night out.

The other half are already dead

Half of adults think Scots kids behave like animals

Facebook of Genesis

If only college humour were actually like this!

The truth about insurance

"And if you do take out insurance, read the small print carefully: it may stop you claiming."

- Moneybox

Happy Birthday Charles

We hope you grabbed every opportunity available to you on this special day:

Black magic

My phone makes a load gong noise whenever it receives a message.

(This is because the walls of our house are very thick, the reception very poor, and the 'mobile' needs to stay in one place while I move around.)

Each time it goes off, my parents look at it like it's possessed; then at each other; then one of them brings it to me, taking care to hold it at arm's length.

New slight

Lord Mandelson has been presented with the Best Newcomer (or New Comb-over, or whatever the actual wording was) Award at The Spectator's annual Parliamentarian Of The Year knees-up.

So far, so bad; but the man doing the presenting was none other than George Osbourne, Mandy's rival in this autumn's dodgy donations row.

I have no problem with political narrow-escape artists mopping their brows and having the sense of humour to quip about how best not to get fired from the Cabinet for a third time (both men were, to give them their due, quite funny). But it seemed slightly shabby of the Speccie to connive at - and/or stage - the oleaginous, hypocritical charade.

Burning Question (of the day)

How do you sharpen the teeth on a hole-punch?

Just about Godunov

The other Great Boris And Leader Of The People, as sung by Peter Rose at the Coliseum.

A sight for sore eyes

The Raif, undone by the National's ill-advised production of Oedipus.

Fiennes' funny gait was the best thing in it. Saved them piercing his feet, anyway.

Good news!

Jolie 'could give up acting for babies'

This blog has always hoped she would get into making adult films.

Judging by the contents of today's paper

this blog can only assume that the employees of the Daily Mail have an average age of 20

The kind of behaviour I am more used to seeing from politicians

A drunken Jersey City councilman was arrested for urinating on a crowd of concertgoers from the balcony of a Washington nightclub, police and club sources said Saturday.

How much did I drink last night?

Gordon Brown to call for global tax cuts at Washington summit

(Post-election) Prediction UPDATE

My inspired punt notwithstanding, it turns out I only got half the story.

By 2020, Barack will be among the most popular names for black males entering secondary education, ESPECIALLY in Kenya.

Presuming there still is secondary education in Kenya in 2020, of course.

Certifiable

Giles Coren on the very real dangers of turning up for an Oxbridge degree ceremony.

UltraLibDems

A LibDem councillor from Devon has resigned after it emerged she was daylighting as a stripper and kissogram, as well as on a phone sex service. Apparently her colleagues were no longer taking her seriously.

As opposed to when she was 'just' a LibDem councillor, of course.

Licence fee

Unlike many of my companions in the rabble-rousing trade, I am in favour of the BBC and have no problem with their public subsidy.

But this evening I flicked onto BBC1, to find Darren Gough in a (frankly optimistic) titanium posing pouch and some old lady doing squats in silver lycra. This turned out to be Hole In The Wall, hosted by - no sniggering, please - Dale Winton.

I confess, I am beginning to see the other side of the licence fee argument.

Best of Brian Moore

Yes, it's that time of the year again. No, not the baseball season, you pussies; the autumn rugby internationals.

Today's Brian Moore specials, from the Seffrica-Wales game, include:

"But this isn't a game for ifs and buts."

and the most blatantly nationalistic commentator in the business talking up the latest anti-racism campaign, as advertised on the sleeves of the two opposing teams, members of which are selected with reference only to their homeland. Priceless.

"I learned a new (Irish) word today, Basie...." - 3

curragh, n. boat: corracle

colleen, n. girl

gosawer, n. boy. From gasúir (Gaelic) from garcon

Joke (courtesy of PB)

Three doctors are arguing: an Israeli, a German and a Briton.

The Israeli says, 'Medicine in my country is so advanced we can take a kidney out of one chap, put it in another, and have him looking for work in 6 weeks.'

The German says, 'That's nothing. We can take a lung from one punter, put it in another, and have him looking for work in only four.'

The Brit says, 'Give over! We can take an arse from Scotland, put him in Number 10, and have half the country looking for work within 24 hours!'

Credit crunch crapper analogy of the day

Tory leader David Cameron told business leaders a Conservative government would "unblock" credit to get it flowing through the economy.

'Our David' must have a really big plunger.

Mother-r*ssia

Dmitri Medvedev is parking Iskander SS26 missiles in Kaliningrad, Russia's Baltic stump-statelet, in retaliation against American plans to construct a missile shield over the NATO nations.

Iskander is the Asiatic variant of Alexander - as in The Great. Is this irony? And if so, who comes out worst?

Election aftermath

1. McCain 'dead' email ruse punts penis pills

2. Republican lawyers head to Alaska to take back Palin's campaign clothes

The one question on all Gooners' lips

Have Arsene's nurtured charges suckled on the teat of absolve for too long?

Oink, oink!

Fat Pig, reviewed by the most discerning critic in the land.

Thank feck for Irish playwrights.

Eileen Sure, pegging eggs at a priest, isn't it pure against God?

Helen Oh, maybe it is, but if God went touching me arse in choir practice I'd peg eggs at that fecker too.

- Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan

Rugby ball, leather, £55

... and unusable.

Dead serious. From a leather boutique in Notting Hill.

"Will age beautifully..." Wankers.

(Post-election) Prediction

By 2020, Barack will be among the most popular names for black males entering secondary education.

Ten quid.

VIP and RIP

I spent a worrying proportion of Monday at the Tabasco Club lunch, the annual London gathering of all those who have ever set foot on Avery Island, home to the McIlhenny family and, indeed, to Tabasco sauce.

The event was notable for the spectacular quantity of booze consumed, starting with an hour-long champagne reception, interrupted only by an equally constant flow of Tabasco martinis.

Also notable was the fact that I inherited Ned Sherrin's place setting. Disturbing on so many levels.

"I learned a new word today, Basie...." - 2

jump the shark, v. when a (long-running) tv show loses its mojo and resorts to stunts and gimmickry. From an episode of Happy Days, in which someone did, in fact, jump a shark.

Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English - via dictionary.com

'Wazz' UPDATE

Finding the phrase 'jazz mags' in Giles Coren's latest restaurant review (you don't wanna know), I began to worry that it might be a corruption of 'jizz'.*

But apparently not. 'Jazz' is a slang term, meaning 'to have sexual relations with'; whereas 'jizz' is just, y'know, 'jizz': East European jizz, if you're watching Shooting Aces ('shooting aces' not iself, to my knowledge, a euphemism).

Weird but true: dictionary.com has no reference for 'jizz'. Wikipedia, on the other hand (sorry...), does offer it, but only with a capital letter.

--
*I also began to worry that my computer records all these search terms.

Note to self

"There's nothing so illiberal as a liberal on a high horse."

- Julian Fellowes

Five Dials

Nice new FREE literary mag, from Hamish Hamilton (Penguin), in the manner of a British McSweeney's.

Five Dials, edited by Craig Taylor.

Death to Caitlin Moran!

... for using the word 'wazz', and in The Sunday Times, too.

I never thought she was the next Hemingway, but seriously. There are ways of demonstrating the common touch without ending up sounding like a Division 2* striker on his night out.

It's 'whizz', people - 'take a whizz'. As in, The first thing I do on a Sunday is flick through to Caitlin Moran's column, and then take a whizz on it.

--
* Div. 4, in the old money.

NEWS JUST IN

There is a man called Royston Maldoom. He is a dance coach.

That is all.

"I learned a new word today, Basie...." - 1

lapidary, adj. characterized by an exactitude and extreme refinement that suggests gem cutting: a lapidary style; lapidary verse. From lapis (stone, Gr.)

Random House Unabridged Dictionary - via dictionary.com

Justifying my not-very-secret love for AA Gill

"The redeeming joy of [Prescott - The Class System And Me] was Pauline Prescott, with her eyes like two crows that have crashed into a stucco wall."

See, it's not just about the initials. Honest.

Christopher Buckley

"Human nature doesn’t stop being human nature when it gets elected to office."

By way of a treat for my fellow amnesiac, Stop Smiling's interview with Buckley, Jr.

Pesky Commies

Turns out, even after two decades of access to (relative) truth and the free exchange of ideas, the Russian Communist Party still thinks James Bond is a real person.

Well... good.

InDefinition - 2

Nascent, n. prop. Original name of Tashkent (before it got big, of course).

Most Surreal Title 2008/1945

(for a book not concerned with African genocide)

One query, though: the novel is published this month, for the first time, by Penguin Classics. A little presumptuous?

Easy listening

For a dose of weird and wonderful music that may well make you wish you'd been born deaf, tune in to Hiranimation and Mike on Freshair, Friday evenings at 5pm GMT.

Just go to http://www.freshair.org.uk/ at the appointed hour, and click Listen Live. Alternatively, you can get it through College Radio Stations ('Freshair') via iTunes.

NB This isn't a sponsored ad*.

--
* Alright, it is. But the 'sponsorship' was real small.

Branded 3: final edition

Nation Holds Its Breath

as we wait to see what will be on instead of Wossy tonight.

Branded 2

I've spent about 15 hours at the keyboard, trying to write something coherent (AND interesting) about Manuelgate. I haven't really come up with anything.

So imagine my joy when my mate James casually wired me this little nugget:

This Brand-Gate is ridiculous.

Why did no other 'artist' stand up for them? They must now know that producers are going to suck any daring or slightly risky material out for the foreseeable future. This whole thing could put British comedy back a generation. It took years to recover from Brass Eye, years filled with shite from Harry bloody Enfield and My sodding Family. Comedians should have spoken out, defending their right to make the occasional shite joke.

The BBC are the only bloody British broadcaster left putting any money into new comedy and now we'll be lucky if humour peeks its head out for anything more blue than As Time Goes By or Last of the Summer Wine just in case it might get savaged by a bunch of middle-Englander, Daily Mail-reading tosspots. And let's not get started on the hypocrisy of the media's reporting of this.

It's not Brand or Ross's fault that idiot journalists have been forced to write about the credit crunch for a month, a subject few understand and fewer still can write intelligently on. They must have been praying for a another story that middle England would care about. Hummmmpppphhhhh. Bugger, I may have started on the media hypocrisy...

Yours, in ranting, green ink, berserker mode,

JC

Bastard. May trick-or-treaters shove eggs through his letter-box.

Aida (encore!)

I'm sure critics* aren't supposed to seek affirmation from their competitors (I only do it afterwards, I promise), but I was pleased - not to say 'relieved' - to see this in the hallowed pages of The Spectator.

--
* For better or worse, the Oxford Times referred to me this week as 'our critic'. Debate still raging as to which is more disconcerting: the notion of me as critic, or their use of the possessive.

The Wisdom of O.W. Toad

"It's the newly conscious young I mean, the ones with ambition and fresh diffidence, those who've learned the hard way that reach exceeds grasp nine times out of ten. How disappointed they are!"

- Margaret Atwood, 'Encouraging the Young', The Tent.

Not-so-celeste Aida

Aida. It's not a quiz. Just stand there and sing it. Loudly.

John Prescott

... has eighteen hundred Facebook friends.

Twat.

CRIME UPDATE

Things are getting out of control here in Hertfordshire:

Puppy's ear trapped in shredder

Branded

Surely all of our devoted readers are by now up to speed on the story of Russell Brand and Wossy's childish phone call to Andrew 'Manuel' Sachs, in which Wossy told him Brand had doinked his granddaughter.

So far, not-so-hilarious, one might think (and much like Fawlty Towers in that regard.) So not-so-hilarious, in fact, that The Times ran an editorial denouncing the prank. Ouch.

Two questions, though:

1) Sachs' granddaughter is an innocent young lady called Georgina Baillie... who also goes by the name of 'Voluptua', belongs to a group called Satanic Sluts Extreme and describes herself publicly as a swinger.

None of which warrants a call to Sachs' house, of course, but might be considered to give Brand and Ross some wriggle room when it comes to writing their apologies. (Not to mention that, if, heaven forfend, Ross's remark should turn out to be true, the Beeb can stop worrying about defamation suits.)

2) Lodging a complaint on Mr Sachs' behalf, theatrical agent Meg Pool said that the infamous 'Portuguese' prat-faller was "offended very much indeed."

Well NOW who's being childish?!

Headline of the week so far

High-speed train toilet attempts to eat Frenchman

(Thanks to Frank)

Musicohysteria!!! (now with flattened sevenths)

More from the future archives of Music Teacher:

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)
Ross W. Duffin
W.W. Norton, £9.99, p196
ISBN: 978-0393334203

When William Gardiner lamented in 1832 that ‘the Deity seems to have left music in an unfinished state’ he was referring to a seeming paradox of tuning: if you start from C and keep adding fifths, twelve steps later you’re back at C… but out of tune.

Thank heavens, then, for the stroke of mathematical common sense that is equal temperament (ET), the elegantly efficient twelve-note, equally-spaced octave, which facilitates roaming modulation without endless re-tuning.

Surely?

Not in Ross Duffin’s opinion. For Duffin, ET is nothing less than the bastard offspring of our musical ignorance and laziness, and is responsible, with its over-wide thirds and too-too-sharp leading notes, for hopelessly warping harmony in both its vertical and linear senses.

In this long essay Duffin complains that few musicians have ever actually experienced unequally-tempered music, and argues that we should once again embrace the many alternative tuning systems (Mozart heard ‘richer, more dramatic chords’, etc.). He narrates the struggles performers have maintained, even recently, to avoid ET. He explains why so-called enharmonics really cannot be the same note (just as A- and B+ are not, alas, the same grade), and why even voice and strings, themselves not shackled to ET, are constrained when accompanied by instruments which are.

Notwithstanding his distracting and oddly patronising info-boxes (which make the eye skip constantly, offer frequently irrelevant detail, and imply a totally implausible non-academic readership), the prose is as free-flowing as could reasonably be expected in a tract on acoustic physics, and the charts, scores, cartoons and other illustrations are a great boon when the going gets tough.

The big problem is Duffin’s basic street-preacher hysteria. Like all fundamentalists, of course, Duffin claims he’s on the side of reason (while melodramatically comparing ET to lethal sonic weaponry); but, rather like the geek-advocates of vinyl records, he fails to convince that the musical characteristics of alternative temperaments are actually preferable, rather than simply unavoidable.

In his academic isolation, he waxes wroth about the ‘excruciating discrepancy’ of the rigged ET. (An error, for the record, of a quarter of a semitone across the entire keyboard: a slip of 0.014%. You could get trial drugs certified with worse odds.) Practically speaking, he ultimately wants every piece of music played in the composer’s preferred temperament – a lovely idea, so long as you’re not running a school orchestra.

At best, Duffin’s argument is theoretically fascinating, but essentially irrelevant; at worst, it reads like an argument in defence of oral poetry which ends up clamouring for the abolition of the printed word. So we ask the age-old question: isn’t progress called progress for a reason? Of all the various and considered attempts to ‘balance euphony with utility’ it was ET that won out. The democracy of tuning systems, equal temperament is flawed as a direct result of its inherent equality, comprehensible to all (in principle, if not in detail), and the least bad – and most practicable – of the available options. It is also, to borrow a phrase, the end of harmonic history.

Probably a good idea with a name like that

Roddick says he will not play nude

BREAKING WIND NEWS

The Stink in Farts Controls Blood Pressure

Seffrican politics LATEST

Warning all male tourists

Strike Malaysia from your list. There's nothing to see there.

Er, can you run that one by me again?

A British Army translator accused of spying for Iran was a voodoo priest who used black magic to protect the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Taliban

FULL UNINTELLIGIBLE STORY

Hold the front page!

I went to a marvellous party last night, on Bond St., to mark the launch of Ralph Lauren's Black Label suits and fragrance collection. I drank my body-weight in quality champagne, picked up a free copy of Esquire (mine hosts for the evening) and got a large and complimentary bottle of exceedingly expensive RL splash.

But by far the highlight of the evening was hearing the MC announce that black never really goes out of style, and that you can always dress it down a bit by wearing the jacket with a pair of jeans.

I tell you, the road to Damascus had nothing on this.

CRIME UPDATE

Naked man found wedged in chimney

At last!

MPs demand action over toilets

Local councils should be forced to draw up annual public toilet strategies, MPs said amid fears of a decline in provision and quality.

Thought for the day

"Those who can't, teach."

WARNING - Excludes military fitness instructors.

Theatrical craziness

Charitable types attempt to stage a musical with only 48hrs' prep.

My and My Girl, this weekend, at the London Palladium.

War on Terror UPDATE

An important victory in Ramsbottom

Ninja cat

I may be the only person with a computer in the entire world who hasn't seen this before, and my instincts tell me my fellow amnesiac isn't going to thank me for posting a cute animal video on 'his' blog, but nevertheless, this is pretty cool:



(Thanks to Whop Corn - i.e. if you think this is too cutsie, blame her)

UPDATE: Even the Queen has seen it before...

OK, this time Obama has gone WAY TOO FAR

To accommodate a half-hour Obama time buy on Fox on Oct. 29, Major League Baseball has agreed to move the start time of World Series Game 6 by about 15 minutes. That would move the start of the game from 8:20 p.m. ET or so to 8:35 p.m.

Most sophisticated analysis of the Global Financial Meltdown that I have read so far

"We're all hosed."

I too was once billed as a political analyst

and this was exactly the kind of analysis I was doing

Sex on beach shocker

You mean, women still have sex at age 36?

Gross.

PHILLIES WIN PENNANT, REACH WORLD SERIES!

And the Philadelphia Inquirer sums up the city's low-key celebrations:

women flashed the crowd amid the break-dancing and horn-honking

Music from Mother Russia

Tenebrae's Christ Church performance of the Rach Vespers.

Handelian foolishness

ENO's Partenope, a riot of cross-dressing and moustaches.

Now with added hyphens.

Ailment of the day so far

Fan fatigue

Key quote: "It's going to be tossed."

Another key quote: "I'm warning you with peace and love."

Never mind the credit crunch

What are we going to do about hitchhiking spiders?

Fact of the day so far

Via the BBC:

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1000. With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left. If you had purchased $1000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left. If you had purchased United Airlines, you would have nothing left. But, if you had purchased $1000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, and then turned in the cans for recycling, you would have $214.00.

Re: Sprung!

Funny, I didn't know that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy included any hot sex scenes.

Unless...

Sprung!

"A journalist works harder than any other lazy man in the world."

- Anon. [but probably a journalist]

Too true. Last night I got up from watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to discover I'd pulled a muscle in my elbow.

Re: Relationship advice

There's a nice RSPCA sanctuary up my way.

Relationship advice

"A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where will they live?"

- Chinese proverb

Is there anyone else out there

... who's finding it hard to feel sorry for Lakshmi Mittal, Roman Abramovich and everyone else who can AFFORD to lose £20bn?

How to defy the Global Financial Meltdown

1. Withdraw $30 million from your bank account.
2. Blast yourself into space.
3. Never come back.
4. Not unless you want to be greeted by an angry mob of earthlings who plan to blast you back up there.
5. You know, because they all now live in Tent City.
6. With the Joad family.

On the last train

Whether from fast food or alcohol consumption I do not know, but there seems to be some sort of hiccoughing epidemic, ranging from embarrassed little yelps to deep gutteral heaves.

Then another guy starts sneezing and can't - or WON'T - stop. Then sniffing, from some distant and invisible party.

What is going on? It is the plague?!

Bronze-tipped fags

Passing the Wilde statue on the way to the opera tonight I noticed some wag had put a fag end in Oscar's empty hand.

I'm sure he'd be most grateful. Though it brings a whole new meaning to 'waiting for the butt'.

Legoland, my Legoland!

Bloody kids coming over 'ere, and stealing our jobs.

The 5-Minute Management Course: 6 (and final)

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground, into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals

(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.

(3) When you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut.

Filth

"I was well aware of the demands I could put upon Russian basses! The audiences always listened with breathless suspense to the descent of the choir into the nether regions."

- Sergei Rachmaninov

Non-smoking kills

Our national obsession with legislating away the rough edges of free living now has a definable body count.

SPORTING WARNING

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the weak of stomach click this link.

The 5-Minute Management Course: 5

A turkey was chatting with a bull. 'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,' sighed the turkey, 'but I don't have the energy.'

'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. 'They're packed with nutrients.'

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral

Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Jokes

Excerpts from the superb McSweeney's compendium, Created In Darkness by Troubled Americans.

BAR JOKE #1
A man walks into a bar. He has a few drinks and chats with the bartender. Later that night, he goes home alone and reflects on the poor decisions he's made in life.

GENIE JOKE #3
A mand and a woman are crossing the desert. They find a lamp in the sand. The man rubs the lamp and nothing happens. Afterwards, he feels a bit foolish.

FARMER'S DAUGHTER JOKE #13
A man is driving down a country road at night when his car gets a flat tire.
He stops by a local farmhouse and asks the owner if he can stay there for the night.
'Sure,' says the farmer. 'As long as you don't touch my three beautiful daughters.'
The man did as he was told because, frankly, he didn't find the girls nearly as attractive as their father seemed to.

(from 'The Newest From Jokeland' - Brodie H. Brockie and R.J. White)

Website of the day so far

Hats of Meat

(Thanks to WC)

Why I am putting myself up for adoption

I want to milk the benefits

Yes, but...

why did he do it? (The report never explains.)

NYC Man Sued Over 25-foot Viagra Rocket
Man Sued For Trademark Infringement After He Towed A 25-foot-long Fake Viagra Rocket Around NYC (CBS)

Calling all Brysonites

Y'all can getchaselves a free Bill Bryson audiobook, right here.

Now don't say we never do anything for you.

We're all going to die

Poster at Swanley train station:

BEWARE THE SILENT ASSASSIN
Diabetes kills more people than
breast and prostate cancer combined.

Now I'm not a medical man, but this seems to be verging on the hysterical. I mean, just how many people have breast and prostate cancer combined?

LIVE BLOGGING (until I fall asleep): NLCS Game 1, Dodgers @ Phillies

Top of the N-N-N-Ninth: Right, here we go. Lidge looking somethingorother. I cannot tell. I am hiding under my covers, listening to Joe Buck relay his stats.

Kemp up: Flies out. Phew.
Blake up: Looks like he's stepped off the set of The Tudor's. Flies out. Double phew. (Another well hit ball...)
DeWitt up: Owt.

PHILLIES WIN
Lead series 1-0
Bedtime


Bottom Eighth: Am getting nervous. Brad "Lights Out" Lidge hasn't blown a save all season, but... Well, I've still never trusted him. He manages to put a hell of a lot of men on base. It would be just typical if tonight was his first blown save - in by far the most important game of the year. Half an inning til we find out.

DODGERS 2-3 PHILLIES

Top Eighth: This is a good game. Proof in the fact that I've miraculously managed to get through seven innings without once mentioning the Phanatic. If I do this again for Game 2, I promise to make up for the paucity of Phanatic posts tonight.

Bottom Seventh: Maddux on the mound. 355 wins in his career. Mind-boggling.

Taguchi screws up the bunt. His pop-up elicits the usual chorus of boos from the Philadelphia fans. Traditions must be upheld, I suppose. Still, at least Taguchi didn't pop out.

Brilliant play by DeWitt. Inning over.

Seventh inning stretch: A female air marshall sings 'God Bless America' a little aggressively. Sorry America, cannot hear this song without thinking of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land'. Far superior. And please, bring back 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' as the only seventh inning chansonnette.

Top Seventh: Rocky theme tune is playin' on the PA, of course. You know those steps at the Museum of Art actually have two footprints on the top step for you to stand in for your Rocky pose Kodak moment? It's true. People travel from all across America to the Museum of Art just to stand in those footprints. Then they skip the museum and go for a cheesesteak.

Speaking of which, I am obliged to post this pic of myself and Cubano Phil outside Geno's in Philly, legendary home of the legendary cheesesteaks. The shot was taken at 4am. This is usually where we were at 4am.


Oooooh, The Professor Greg "Mad Dog" Maddux is getting loose in the Dodgers pen. I shall say this only once*: GREATEST PITCHER IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAME OF BASEBALL.

*This is a lie. I will say it a lot. Maddux is the king.

Bottom Sixth: Perhaps it's the bloggin', but this game seems to be movin' apace. Am starting to think the Phils are waiting for me to nod off before they start hitting. Like the way the sex scene in a movie always occurs when you are out of the room, rifling fruitlessly through the refrigerator.

HOME RUN CHASE UTLEY! And you can forget my t-shirt theory. I shall wear it tomorrow, in his honour. Might slick my harris down with pomade, aussi.

DODGERS 2-2 FIGHTIN' PHILS

Meanwhile, am starting to wonder if I've hosed up the structure of this live blogging. Not that it matters, at all, of course. But still, what's worth doing...

HOME RUN PAT THE BAT! Am DEFO doing the pomade thing in the morning. Torre comes for Lowe. Gotta feel a little sorry for the guy. Pitched terrific, but you can't keep a good power lineup down, I s'pose.

DODGERS 2-3 PHILLIES

Chan Ho Park takes the mound for the Dodgers. Needs to keep the ball in the Chan Ho.

Top Sixth: Dodgers look goooood. Am trying to take my mind off it by thinking about how appropriate it is that the Dodgers of LA have a second baseman called Blake DeWitt, when Bobby DeWitt was a character in James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia. A fine book that.

SCORE REMAINS: DODGERS 2-0 PHILLIES

Bottom Fifth: Right, Phillies bats need to wake up. Speaking of which, it's now 02:45 in my English bed. I miss America (and I bet she misses me too, the hussy).

Ooh, base hit Hamels. Sweet.

Trouble is, Lowe's sinker is sinking. And with it the Phils? (God, am I poetic, or what?)

Top Fifth: In a vain effort to shut me up, my fellow amnesiac has posted some stupid entry about Swanley train station above this post - even though this post is LIVE. Let it be known that I cannot be silenced that easily. Sorry, Beardface, you shoulda sent round a woman. You know who I've got in mind...

Bottom Fourth: To liven things up a bit, and to perhaps inspire a Phillies rally, here's a pic of me at Citizen's Bank Park:


Not to boast, but I think now's the time to announce that Cole Hamels is the friend of a friend of my girlfriend. We're really close.

Meanwhile, no rally. Maybe time for a t-shirt change. Villanova is not cutting the mustard.

DODGERS 2-0 PHILLIES

Top Fourth: A lucky jam/dying quail by Kemp to lead off. Kills you, that kinda thing. Casey Blake reminds me of someone, too, but I can't remember who. Perhaps I just have doppelganger goggles on. Oh, and Derek Lowe is a bit like the guy who ran the radio station in Northern Exposure. I think the guy was also in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, though I didn't see the movie, so can't be sure, and can't be arsed to check IMDB (I'm watching the game, remember?).

On the hair front, I've noticed before that a significant portion of the Phillies players - Utley, Burrell, Werth, Dobbs - seem to flatten their hair with the same pomade George Clooney favours in O Brother Where Art Thou?

DeWitt sac fly. Kemp scores. Dodgers up by two.

Bottom third: Inning over before I got chance to adjust my duvet. The Flyin' Hawaiian, Shane Victorino (whose name elicits howls of derisive laughter from my Miami-basebd pal Cubano Phil), tries to squash Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe on top of first base. A cunning plan, say I.

Top third: More on lookalikes. The super at my apartment block in Bryn Mawr, PA, (where the ceiling caved in) was THE SPITTING IMAGE of Yankees captain, Derek Jeter. Maddeningly, I don't have any pics of Marlon, but he used to go around with a Yankees cap perched on his head (what a give away!). Plus, when Jeter turned over his ankle, Marlon turned up the next day limping (true story). He also did nothing about my collapsed ceiling. I really liked him though. I told him he looked like Jeter's twin and he said, "Yeah, so everyone is always telling me that, you know." He also said, "'Sup?" whenever I greeted him with a hearty, "Good morning."

Meanwhile, the Dodgers look frisky. Cole pitching ok - I do love him so (he's the screensaver on my other computer; on this one, the honour goes to an aerial shot of the first night game at heaven Camden Yards), but it just feels like the Dodgers are currently on an unstoppable roll. Cue Phillies rout?

Bottom second (breasts first?): No offence to the Fox commentary team, but games at Citizen's Bank Park just ain't the same without the sonorous tones of the great Harry Kalas.

Lowe doesn't like any of the balls the ump is throwing him. Pat the Bat rips one into left, but Bozza Manny makes a nice defensive play. An ominous sign. The Mayor of London lookalike is obviously up for it tonight.

Werth grounds into a DP. I should point out (for my own reference) that the Dodgers are on my list of favourite teams, but my ties to the Phillies make this a no-brainer. I lived in Philadelphia not so long ago and was a regular at Citizen's Bank Park, which I came to think of as my second home (partly because the bathroom ceiling caved in in my first home).

Top of the second: While we on the subject of lookalikes (c.f. Hamels/Fonda), as I've said before, Joe Torre is a dead ringer for Kevin's dad in The Wonder Years. Also, and this is a weird one, Manny Ramirez has always reminded me of London Mayor, Boris Johnson. Perhaps they are related. Decide for yourselves:

Manny
Bozza

I am quite serious about this. Their mannerisms are identical, except that Bozza is not a surefire Hall of Famer. Though if he ever played baseball, he'd definitely be a slugger.

DODGERS 1-0 PHILS

Bottom of the first: I have been torn about what to wear for tonight's encounter. My plan, obviously, was to don one of my Phillies tees - probo the blue Utley 22. Instead, for fear of hexing things somehow by stripping naked, I've stuck with the navy Villanova tee I've been wearing all day. I figure it should do the same (good or bad). Earlier today, several rabbit droppings crept into my sock and I squelched them under my foot. This information is not relevant to the game, but I figured I should get it in while I can. Derek Lowe on the mound for LA. I'm a big fan, but pleased as Utley (who is in a bit of a slump, and from now on will simply be referred to as Chase) gets a base hit.

DODGERS 1-0 PHILS

Top of the first: Hamels already in the soup. Ethier doubles, Manny doubles, Dodgers on the board. Hamels looks like a young Peter Fonda. A moot point, in that he is unlikely to look like an old Peter Fonda.

PRE-GAME: Rather than sit here by my lonesome, I thought I'd share the love, from my bed, in which either a spider bit me or a wasp stung me last night. Yes, my love life is really that wild.

My plans to sue lots of countries

Financial crisis: Gordon Brown to sue Iceland over near £1bn of frozen bank deposits (Telegraph)

Until I read that, I'd really no idea one could sue A COUNTRY!

For obvious reasons, this information fills me with new hope for my future financial security!

PROVISIONAL LIST OF COUNTRIES I WILL DEFINITELY NOW SUE FOR BILLIONS OF SQUID:

1. Great Britain
For years of untold misery.

2. The United States
For not letting me make any money when I lived there. Also, for not letting me run for President.

3. France

4. France again

5. Turkey
I once got ripped off by a gold salesman on the Turkish coast. He liked the colour of my hair - which at the time was blindingly blonde - and tried to pawn my wig. (At least, this is how I now remember it.)

6. Portugal
My father recently fell down a hill in Porto and dislocated his shoulder. (This one really happened, and I've got the photographs to prove it. Also, my dad proposed to the two Portuguese hotties who rescued him in their ambulance. They will make ideal character witnesses - so long as they first drop their pending lawsuits against my dad.)

7. Paris
Technically not a country, but I once got the runs from an incredibly strong cup of laxative coffee. The bog in my sister's apartment was blocked for the next fourteen months.

8. Peru
For selling me poor quality marching powder back in the nineties and frying all of my brain cells that were good with money.

9. Australia
For repeatedly humiliating us in the Ashes.

10. Russia
Because I really hate Russia and just want to bring it down.

My father on the Global Financial Crisis

"To my credit, I've been predicting this for at least the last thirty years."

Me: Er, OK...

Oh, so that's what I'm doing wrong

Whether or not Le Clézio is the worthiest winner [of the Nobel Prize for literature] will await judgment by those authorities in the English-speaking world qualified to pronounce on the issue ... I've put in my order for the English translation of the novelist's early masterpiece, Le Procès-Verbal (The Interrogation). A work, apparently, whose narrative technique was influenced by the author's residence among a tribe of Panamanian Indians.

NOTE TO SELF: Must stop using outmoded Westocentric narrative techniques (when writing).

I thought I heard something

SEVERAL DIFFERENT forms of messages have been beamed into space today in the hope that they will somehow reach an intelligent life-form and receive a response.

My reponse: Leave me alone, I'm eating.

The 5-Minute Management Course: 4

An eagle was sitting on a tree, resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?'

The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Thought for the Millennium

Dessicant silica gel.

Why?

REVEALED: How we are going to pay for the financial bailout of the banking sector

More speeding fines.

[REMEMBER: The Home Office is more cunning than you. Always.]

The song of the fowl will be heard in the city

Interview with Ian Partridge, retiring tenor.

Why can't they all have had one-armed piano teachers? It would make interviewing so much easier!

Portrait by the Artist of a Young Woman

Review of Girl With A Pearl Earring, Haymarket Theatre.

I hereby claim the first use of 'Yoink' in the Oxford Times.

Best excuse yet...

... for trying to dodge taxes.

Sneaky fucking Russians.

Proof that there is a God

The 5-Minute Management Course: 3

A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a genie comes out. The genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'

'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.' Puff! She's gone.

'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.' Puff! He's gone.

'OK, you're up,' the genie says to the manager.

The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'

Moral

Always let your boss have the first say.

Vote Palin!!!!!!!!!

“That's what I say that I like every American I am speaking with we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout, but ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, um, helping the, oh, it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and, and putting it back on the right track; so healthcare reform, and reducing taxes and reigning in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade we have we got to see trade as opportunity not as, a, a, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today we, we've got to look at that as more opportunity, all of those things under the umbrella of job creation, this bailout is a part of that.”

Verbatim. (Via Martin Samuel - The Times)

Thom Yorke

hasn't changed in thirty-two years

Thought for the day

"I think, actually, that I'm right about almost everythying."

- DS Hilton

I Barbiere di West Malling

My hairdresser, Phil, is a man of rare wit and charm.

He staffs his salon exclusively with attractive girls, knows how I take my coffee (orally) and can use words like 'equilibrium', 'meretricious' and 'notwithstanding'.

I saw him this morning. "Trust me," he said. And then gave me a mullet.

The 5-Minute Management Course: 2

A priest offered a Nun a lift. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her habit to reveal a leg. The priest nearly had an accident. After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?' The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.

The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest apologized: 'Sorry, sister, but the flesh is weak.'

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129.

It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'

Moral

If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.

News Just In

Bodies rot. Who knew?

Evidently not the church officials attempting to exhume the remains of John Henry Newman (Britain's first candidate for canonisation in nearly 40 years) who rolled the stone away to find only the brass from his coffin and a couple of red tassels from his hat.

Hardline Catholics might take it for granted that the Cardinal's mortal remains have been snatched up to Heaven. But then you know what they say about assumptions.

Mirthless irony of the week

Luke McCormick, the Plymouth Argyle goalkeeper who 'fell asleep' at the wheel (while shit-faced, by complete coincidence) and killed two kids...

... had appeared in a road-safety video, scheduled for imminent release.

School Daze

Girl fed school staff hash cakes

The 5-Minute Management Course: 1

A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up. The doorbell rings. The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs. When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor.

Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.'

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob. After a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs. When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'

'It was Bob the next door neighbor,' she replies.

'Great!' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'

Moral

If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.

disAbility

During a break in rehearsals for last Friday's Brahms gig [see below], my eye fell upon a 6'x2' banner bearing the following inscription:

"It's not the wheelchair that makes sex awkward: it's people's preconceptions."

Now I've been pretty hard working of late, and I'd already had a couple that afternoon... So I shook my head a bit and blinked a few times, in case, y'know, my tired eyes were playing some sort of trick on me.

But no. Wheelchair sex: 12sq feet of it, right there in front of me.

I became aware of the presence of a woman (it's a gift: I can't control it), just behind me. She looked nervous. 'We wondered about taking it down,' she said apologetically, 'in case people were offended. It is a church after all.' It seemed only fair to set her mind at rest.

'Yup,' I replied. 'I mean, I'm about as open-minded as they come - it's not a church, by the way; it's a concert venue - but that's just plain wrong. Also, I'm guessing it really is the wheelchair that gets in the way.'

She said nothing. But the poster was gone before the first punters arrived.

Pistache

Aw, what the hell. Pistache is hilarious - buy 10 copies for Christmas presents: you can get it in FOPP. Herewith, Faulks' back-flap 'biog', by way of a taster.

"The author was born in Vilnius in 1969 and educated by Russian monks. He learned English while working as a deckhand in Odessa.

His first novel Shortlist was longlisted for the Bass-Charrington Book of the Week. His collection of sea poetry, Port List, was nominated for the Rowntrees Silver Pastille. His most recent book, Through a Dark Ghastly, was runner-up in the Watney-Mann Bookend of Longlists.

He is married to his work and lives in Fier, in the Albanian lowlands."

Typoes

As anyone who was at my book-launch can relate, typos are a sore point with me (though obviously I like that funny story about Dan 'Tomatoe' Quayle as much as the next man...). So I thought I'd share these two meta-literary gems with you.

From the Acknowledgements section of a book which I shall not name, since I know the author and would like to remain on speaking terms with him:

"Heartfelt thanks... to Dr Owen Marshall and writing his class of 2001...."

and from the same section of Sebastian Faulks' excellent Pistache*:

"May I finally thank Mrs Brenda Wigwam for the diligence and the dedication she brought to her unsurpassably brilliant proof-reding."

Which is the last word in the book.

--
* pronounce it like the ski run plus the dull pain in your legs you get from spending too much time on same.

Try this on for size

Running past Tesco today (for health reasons, you understand, not by way of a nervous reaction), I realised there was rain-water coming up into my shoe.

Turns out the crux of the new Adidas Climacool system is that essentially my trainers have no sole.

Fitting, I thought.

You're gonna die, Clown!

Purely for Dom's delectation, ENO's new production of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci (or Cav & Pag, innit?).

YOU try reviewing two shows in 500 words.

Mildly disconcerting food packaging encounter of the day so far

life's tough... at least there's pizza

[As seen on a box of M&S cheese and tomato pizza]

For the record, this is exactly what happened to us

IRAN'S Interior Minister Ali Kordan has admitted to holding a fake Oxford University degree which he thought was valid, coming clean after weeks of controversy, a newspaper reported today.

"In a letter to the president on Saturday, Ali Kordan said he had pressed charges against the person who claimed to represent Oxford University in Tehran as soon as he realised his degree was fake," the government daily Iran said.

Thanks to Frank, who recognised the similarity in our cases. If anyone has any information about the whereabouts of this con man in Tehran, please contact this blog. We too want our money back.

Re: Re:(taliatory) Wisdom

Shit.

Re:(taliatory) wisdom

I don't consort with g)1) and g)2* are too busy flirting with me to ask about my finances; besides, the drinks are free on a plane.

And you know my views on 0) golf is the 'sport' of Shaitan.

As for

e) motherS-in-law (like Attorneys General), perish the plural thought...
v) 'whom'
i) didn't go to public school
j) your mum loves it

--
* There are traditionally only 26 letters in our alphabet. As you'd know, if you'd been to a proper school.

Re: Wisdom

Actually, compadre, I have no intention of questioning that evident truism. (The fact that you are a gay Commie peacenik is another issue entirely.)

My only concern is that so much of the world doesn't think that way.

i.e. It's OK to think "The real measure of my wealth is how much I'd be worth if I lost all my money," but what do (the dreaded) other people think about your penniless philosophy? I'm thinking, in particular, of:

a) Women
b) Other women
c) Richos
d) Other richos
e) Potential father-in-laws
f) Potential mother-in-laws
g) Bank managers
e) Bailiffs
f) Snoots
g) Stewardesses who treat you like crap because you can't afford to fly first class
h) All the people we knew in Oxford
i) Your public school bumchums
j) Our parents
k) Americans
l) The Swiss
m) Japanese tourists
n) People at tennis clubs
o) People at golf clubs
p) Your relations (at family reunions)
q) Your parents' friends (who love to quiz you on your loserdom)
r) Other writers
s) Merchant wankers
t) Girls
u) Other girls
v) Waiters who you can't afford to tip
w) Your comrades in the soup kitchen who find out you were educated at Oxford
x) The literary world
y) The entire world (except practioners of Jain)
z) Aliens

Faulkner UPDATE

"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it."

One wonders if Faulkner cut his teeth as a reviewer.

Kunst (Bunch of)

In case you're free this Friday night and fancy a bit of Brahms' Requiem (AKA If Hans Zimmer Had Thought of It First) or just want to see an amnesiac in white tie.



7:30pm, Friday Oct 3
St John's, Smith Square
Tickets: £12-£24 (-%20 for concs.) in aid of Leonard Cheshire Disability
Box office: 0207 222 1061 or www.sjss.org.uk

Wisdom

Doubtless my fellow amnesiac will accuse me of being a Commie, a gay and a peacenik for this, but - as the stock market reveals (again) this morning - it's not often you find words of any real wisdom where matters financial are concerned.

"The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money."

- Anon.

(B'sides, it's not really in either of our interests to question this evident truism.)

CNN

This bizarre prescription from the bottom-right corner of CNN's layout:

We Recommend

147 worshippers die in temple stampede
Giant recalls melamine tainted tea
'Shots fired' on ship hijacked by pirates
Car bomb strikes Baghdad restaurant
Police arrest suspects in Mafia killings

I'm OK with the Mafia arrests, the tough stance on piracy and the tea thing; but the other recommendations?

Brings a whole new meaning to 'the media agenda'.

Thought for the year

Puritanism: 'the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.'

- HL Mencken

Literary misery

My sister, Whop Corn, is a big fan of William Faulkner. (She's always encouraging me to follow in Faulkner's footsteps, saying things like: "When are you going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, you waster?")

To prove the point, here she is a couple of days ago at Faulkner's grave in Oxford, Mississippi, looking miserable and clutching a half-empty bottle of Kentucky bourbon.

Job prospect

I just got a message from my old friend and tennis partner Dr. Björn Öldbean of the University of Bangkok in Thailand.

It read:

"If you turn to prostitution, there's big money to be had over here banging old Chinese ladies."

Musicophilia

From Music Teacher magazine (to which - and I'm just guessing here - most of you do not subscribe).

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Oliver Sacks
Picador, £8.99, 240p
ISBN: 0330418386


To clarify a point on which Oliver Sacks is, oddly, not explicit: ‘musicophilia’ does not mean ‘love of music’ per se. Rather it refers to our ‘propensity to music… a given in human nature…’ Why, in short, from building sites to chapels Royal, ‘there is innate musicality in everyone.’

Sacks returns to his well-honed case-study format to explore four related themes: musical mental disorders; issues and types of musicality (absolute pitch, for example); music’s relation to other neurological or physical problems; and music and the emotions. The result is a collection of highly readable, short(ish) essays, long on detail about both music and neurology and mercifully short on scientific tongue-twisters (the parahippocampal cortex only crops up the once).

So Sacks discusses how aphasic (speechless) patients can be trained back into speech by song. How playing drums can alleviate the tics of Tourette’s sufferers (even if it does nothing to cure them). How people with one deaf ear can generate ‘a pseudostereo effect’ and how Beethoven’s impairment may even have improved his ‘voluntary imagery’. Even, in Sacks’ own case, how music can make you walk again. (For honest scientific reasons, Musicophilia is clearer on the hows than the whys.)

Not all of the manifold and complex powers of music are beneficial, though, and Sacks writes not just about musico-philia but -phobia, too. In fact, most of the book concerns the short-circuiting of musicophilia (as it were, the exceptions that prove the rule), mental anomalies concerning, caused or normalised by music.

As Sacks recounted in his eponymous study, the man who mistook his wife for a hat can’t perform even the simplest tasks without the spark-plug of a themed song. There is nothing amusing about amusia, least of all if you are the bass player with the New York Phil. Likewise the music critic whom music sent into convulsions, the man who lost consciousness every time he heard Bow bells, and the Sicilian woman who had to flee from weddings. And for anyone who fancies musical hallucinations as a cheap alternative to buying a jukebox, think again: it’s more like having someone else’s iPod, set to shuffle…

Two other interesting themes:

Why we associate some music with certain places almost involuntarily (for me, Blur’s Parklife with Israel, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Merton College chapel) – associations which are particularly strange given that music, alone of all the arts, is totally unrepresentational (Fingal’s Cave is only ‘about’ Fingal’s cave because Mendelssohn named it thus);

And the burrowing of ‘earworms’ or catchy tunes, an increasingly serious aural – and cultural – problem in the age of broadcast media (though before the wireless, Sacks notes, people hallucinated hymns and patriotic songs instead. Alas, earworms reflect the times and not one’s personal taste).

The case-study approach (and the four semi-discrete topics) leaves Musicophilia wanting narrative impetus. On the other hand, it’s easily digestible, chapter-by-chapter, and demonstrates Sacks’ principal strength: his understanding of the ‘richness of the human context’ and his refusal to reduce this to a set of clinical notes.

Amnesiac UPDATE

My fellow amnesiac will be out of action for a few days following an embarrassing accident.

Power corrupts

But impotence ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Seffricanisms: 2

Extracts from the best-selling Afrikaner Lexicon of I Are Is Computing.

Monitor - Keeping an eye on the braai
Hard drive - Trip back home without any cold beer
Byte - What mosquitoes do
Mega-byte - What mosquitoes at the lake do
Micro chip - What's left in the bag after you have eaten the chips
Dot Matrix - Oom Jan Matrix's wife
Mainframe - What holds the shed up
Web-site - The shed (or under the verandah)
Upgrade - A steep hill
Network - When you have to repair your fishing net
Internet - Complicated fish net repair method
Netscape - When fish maneuvers out of reach of net

Let The Band Play

In another effort to reshape the nature of music as we know it - and, yes, maybe sell a couple of extra records - Radiohead are offering Jo(e) Public the opportunity to remix 'Reckoner', a track from In Rainbows.

Remix #269, 'Let The Band Play (Reckoner Remix)', just so happens to be by my amigo Hugh. Give it a listen, and feel free to cast a vote in his favour.

Seffricanisms: 1

Herewith, some highlights from the South African Broadcasting Corporation's (tragically ficational) pronunciation style-book.

Beds - doves, vultures, etc.
Feather - implies distance ('Kep Town is feather than Johannesbeg')
Phlegm - the hot part at the end of a candle
Piss - as aymbolised by white doves
Weaner - 'the weaner takes all'
Wekkas - they do the wek

Riflemind

One has to wonder how Philip Seymour Hoffman - hereafter 'The One True Hoff' - got himself involved in this aimlessness.

Epiphany

In chapel this morning, I had an epiphany.

She was petite, chesty, lovely doe eyes, and blonde (of course).

I didn't catch her name.

How to shoplift

For those of you a little short on cash this month, here's Chuck Palahniuk kindly giving of his time to record a seminar on how to steal books.

[Never let it be said that blogs serve no social function.]

Crime update

Hot Dogs Spark Bomb Scare Outside Philadelphia Ballpark

The wrapping that made them so suspicious was so the team mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, could fire them from a hot-dog launcher. (Fox News)

I always knew that Phanatic was suspicious. See:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
And millions of other disturbing exhibits like this

For the record, here I am at Citizen's Bank Park enjoying a hot-dog launched from the Phanatic's hot-dog launcher:


And here I am about to make a citizen's arrest of two major terrorist criminals dressed as die-hard Phillies fans (of course, this was in Phiadelphia, so I was roundly booed for my heroic crimestopping efforts):