Exporting tossers to Krakow

Bugoslawska Marcinkowska fights crime in the Renaissance Market.

[Thanks to AT]

Lock up your children: 1

Examining the portrayal of African social customs, religious philosophies, and political structures in fiction for young people, Maddy and MacCann reveal the Western biases that often infuse stories by well-known Western authors.

- from the blurb for Neo-Imperialism in Children's Literature About Africa

"Elephant stolen in Witney"

One of the more unlikely (noe to say 'disingenuous') headlines from this week's Oxford Mail.

Minnie offences

My (gorgeous) friend/landlady Rebecca is (deliberately) feeling morbid today. At least she was, until she saw this news item, and sent it on to me:

Man Convicted of Groping Minnie Mouse at Disney

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 11, 2009

Filed at 12:48 p.m. ET

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- A 60-year-old man has been convicted of groping a woman in a Minnie Mouse costume at Walt Disney World.

John William Moyer of Cressona, Pa., told the judge he is innocent. His son said before sentencing that his father would never inappropriately touch a woman.

He was convicted Tuesday of misdemeanor battery and sentenced to write the victim an apology, serve 180 days probation and complete 50 hours of community service. Moyer must also pay $1,000 in court costs and possibly undergo a mental evaluation.

The victim says she had to do everything possible to keep Moyer's hands off her breasts.

(NYT - yes, really)

The perfect mensch

[Thanks to Jewdas]

Note

To Amazon, Moss Bros, my first primary-school teacher and anyone else perplexed by issues of basic spelling, my name is not SMITH.

Thank you for listening.

WTF?

Westport, Conn.

BOOKSTORES are getting shipments of a significantly changed edition of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpiece, “A Moveable Feast,” first published posthumously by Scribner in 1964. This new edition, also published by Scribner, has been extensively reworked by a grandson who doesn’t like what the original said about his grandmother, Hemingway’s second wife.

The grandson has removed several sections of the book’s final chapter and replaced them with other writing of Hemingway’s that the grandson feels paints his grandma in a more sympathetic light. Ten other chapters that roused the grandson’s displeasure have been relegated to an appendix, thereby, according to the grandson, creating “a truer representation of the book my grandfather intended to publish.”

(NYT)

(Thanks to Maggie)

IDentikit

My girlfriend................................... .....My... oh.

"I learned a new word today, Basie" - 11

five-finger discount, n. Stealing stuff.

The big questions

Why Men Watch Porn
and
Jim Davidson's So You Think I'm An Arsehole?

Just two of the mind-expanding programmes included in Virgin 1's relaunch package, according to Richard Brooks.

As Sir Humphrey would have said, "Always dispose of the difficult bit in the title. It does less harm there than in the text." Sort of.

Question of the day

HOW is this possible?

Dylan unnoticed on Beatles tour

Crime takes a comfort day

From the Coös Country Democrat (Lancaster, New Hampshire):

On Oct. 12, State Police responded to a report of a theft of three quilts from a motel in Jefferson. The quilts were later found to have been folded and in the closet by the tourists.

Geoff Dyer

... STOLE MY LIFE!

And I want it back.

Newsroom South-East

Four men were jailed today for "robbing convenience stores of cigarettes and alcohol to the tune of over a hundred-thousand pounds."

And to think it could have been the other way around.

Cut your cloth according to your Sado-Masochistic tendencies

As seen in Charles Tyrwhitt.



























I have reason to believe that my brother buys his shirts here.

More City stories

Paul's assessment of the whole G20 whiney vegan business:

"Personally I think it’s a load of hype about something that will lead to nothing… although I secretly would quite like to see a repeat of the May Day Liffe trading floor riots (when the story goes that 15/16 of the great unwashed tried to storm the trading floor and “take some people down” not realising that the Liffe floor housed rather a large number of East End wide boys with somewhat dodgy criminal connections and serious fighting experience, fuelled by adrenalin and a vast amount of drugs.

As the “rioters” ascended the escalator to gain access to the trading floor, fuelled with tofu and lentils - and probably a handful of pamphlets - they were met by what has been described to me as “big f*cking dave” who wasted no time in knocking each one out in turn and placing them back on the down escalator.

Cue a small pileup of “rioters” at the bottom of the escalator who didn’t even manage to step a single foot onto the actual floor)*.

--
* This story was originally told to me by “Gambit” – a one armed broker from the Liffe trading floor who was apparently there at the time (the nickname was given to him by his fellow brokers… nice people that they are)."

Confessions of a blue-eyed white dude

"This crisis was fostered and boosted by irrational behaviour of some people that are white, blue-eyed."

For the record, Señor Lula, I was nowhere near the crime scene on the day the bubble burst and the pyramid collapsed and the turn downed and the depression set-in and the wankers hung themselves from the shower rod and all the rest of that shit.

Plus, I have an alibi. I was taking Smytho's bird out for a curry. Check my credit card statements.

Sub-editing crimes

This one should make my fellow amnesiac's day.

Mate, I know you think you are the victim of some of the worst subbing crimes of the millennium, but imagine how you'd feel if (what you once called) "the HR monkeys of the print world" spelt your NAME wrong on your album cover.

That's really quite an achievement.


Thankfully, their illiterate sins cannot take away from the sweet, sweet sounds of the great Mr. Dekker. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: We should've been musicians. I think I'd rather be overproduced than overedited.

Maybe.

It's wicked to mock the afflicted, but...

... there's this blind busker dude who hangs out on Oxford Street, "playing" the violin. If you live in London, or even if you've just visited, chances are you've seen this guy. He's been around my whole life, I swear, in one place or another. The bloke's a permanent fixture. You would've thought by now he'd have learnt how to play a bit.

But no. Blind Willie Johnson he is not. As far as I can tell, this guy actually just wacks the strings with his bow. The sound is bad. Really bad. I assume he does his wacking randomly, but when I passed him today, I paused to wonder. Maybe I've got this guy all wrong. Maybe he's actually playing some 'contemporary' piece. I'm thinking something like Georges Antheil's Violin Sonata (actually composed in the twenties, but believe me, it'll do).

So, bearing this in mind, how much money should one drop into this maestro's velvet-lined violin case? The going rate for a Festival Saver ticket to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is £290. I reckon that ought to buy Blind Violin Guy a few lessons.

James-Bond-u-like

Walter Mitty-style character said he was a secret agent sent to save girlfriend

and other chat-up lines I've never tried...

No, seriously: I haven't.