I just love waking up

to this sort of breaking news:

Nuclear subs 'collide in ocean'

Most alarming revelation of the day so far

According to Ian Bell, Kevin Pieterson owns a hoodie made from lion skin.

Most alarming paragraph of the day so far

A rule change would allow women to compete in heavyweight wrestling and men in synchronised swimming. (BBC)

Be my Valentine?

Provincial matineés

By phone

Press lady: "Why don't we meet in the foyer? Do you have any distinguishing features?"

Your critic: "I'm under 70."

ATTENTION ALL PERVERTS

Valentine's special: Only $50 to watch animals having sex

(Thanks to Frank, who didn't say if he has tickets)

Thought for the day

The naughty ol' Sappho of Greece
Said, "What I prefer to a piece
Is to have my pudenda
Massaged by the tenda
Pink tongue of my favourite niece.

- George Holbert Tucker*

*As seen in the opening pages of Steppin' on a Rainbow by Kinky Friedman

Musicians: deviants all.

With keyboard accompaniment?! The mind reels.

From this week's New Yorker

"The worst checking error is calling people dead who are not dead."

- John McPhee

Prob'ly a breach of basic etiquette, too...

Egg on their boffin faces

I don't understand science. And I don't just mean because I spent more time laughing at how my physics teacher, Mr. Dove, wore a polka dot bra under his Burton's short-sleeved shirt than I did listening to whatever it was he was saying through his beard about quantum mechanics and ticker tape machines.

No, I don't understand science because for a discipline that (unlike mine) relies so heavily on raw provable data, it is so obviously a specious load of horseshit. (Seriously, I checked, even going so far as to run a series of control experiments in bed this morning.)

Take eggs. For years we've been told that eggs are bad for us. Eggs are bad for us, we were told, because they raised our cholesterol levels. Sounds reasonable enough, right? I mean, when it comes right down to it, a raw egg even looks like a bunch of cholesterol in a shell-casing.

Well, no, actually, because now scientists are telling us they'd got it all wrong. Apparantly, eggs AREN'T bad for us, and they certainly do not raise our cholesterol levels.

Admittedly, this is just today's nutritional volte-face - tomorrow they'll be telling us wholegrain rice causes ingrowing toenails. But seriously, to ask the obvious question: HOW THE HELL COULD THEY HAVE ONLY JUST REALISED THIS? How is it that they (by which I mean, science morons in polka dot bras) could've come to the wrong (for now) conclusions about eggs for the past fifty sodding years? How bloody difficult is it to determine if eggs boost cholesterol?

I often wonder what exactly science has contributed to the past fifty years. Penicillin was discovered by accident, and yet that really was the last major achievement to come out of a laboratory - unless you count the 'genius' invention of the atom bomb ("Hey guys! I've invented a way to wipe out all of humanity! Let's celebrate in the pub!"). Since the penicillin mistake, we've pretty much invented nothing that will cure anything. Brilliant.

So this is why I've never really understood those who marvel at science. Computers are really not impressive, people (see here for an incisive investigation of this claim). And even if they were, Windows 2000 is hardly enough to justify all this unwavering faith in science and its big-breasted practitioners. I mean, come on! They've only just noticed that eggs aren't bad for you? To ask another obvious question: Given the eggs malarkey, how the hell are science boffs going to, say, predict global weather patterns over the next century, huh?

Just a thought.

[DISCLAIMER: For the record, I am not a denialist on the whole climate change thing. I have no doubt we are screwing up the environment left, right and centre. I just don't need a bunch of eggheads (in polka dot bras) to tell me that.]

Er, what?

Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin told MPs on the Treasury Committee he "could not be more sorry" for what had happened.

The former bank chiefs also said the bonus culture had contributed to the crisis and needed to be reviewed.

But Sir Fred said if bankers felt they were not paid enough, they would leave. (BBC)

Amnesiac interpretation:

BANKER: "Hullo! Did you know that we just brought about a worldwide depression? Huzzah!"
AMNESIAC: "Sorry, I can't hear you over these massive gallows I'm erecting."
BANKER: "Haha! Good one! Here, have a fiver and shine my hand-crafted John Lobbs, stitched by virgin midgets."
AMNESIAC: "Look, I told you I'm busy... Hang on! Is that a bonus in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"
BANKER (blushing): "You clearly don't appreciate the subtle intricacies of the banking world."
AMNESIAC: "Oh, yeah?" [Author's note: This is a crap response, but bear in mind that this is only a blog. I haven't time to think of a better one. On reflection, I probably should've said something like, "Are you basing your judgement on my footwear, or what?"]
BANKER (smugly): "Correct. You see, if we bankers didn't award ourselves whopping great bonuses, then something disatrous could happen."
AMNESIAC: "There are three s's in disastrous."
BANKER: "Right. Something disastrous could happen."
AMNESIAC (sounding like Ace Ventura): "Re-he-heally. Like what?"
BANKER: "Oh, I don't know. Like us quitting and working in the public sector."
Five minute pause
AMNESIAC: "And?"
BANKER: "And then who'd be around to do things like cause worldwide depressions?"
AMNESIAC: "Run that one by me again while I grease the guillotine with your trophy wife's tanner."
[THE END]
[BASED ON REAL EVENTS]

Quote of the day (so far)

"I think it was obvious, they were dressed as cowboys and indians. You could tell it was a party and not a shoot-out."

It's really annoying

when everyone is right.

More from Chipping Norton

This - 100% genuine (and uncorrected) - just sent round by the press department at The Theatre, Chipping Norton.

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Local shops may have run out of supplies, but the show carried on at The Theatre.

Despite all the weather conditions last week, snow, blizzards and ice. cars were blocked in, car parks inaccessible and the local shops running out of supplies, theatre tickets were still available. The Theatre operated on a skelton staff with staff who could get covering for those who could not.

We have a full schedule of performances again this week and see no reason why we can’t do the same again. Director John Terry said “if we can get through last week, we can get through anything that the weather throws at us.”

There were pictures, too.

Job Search UPDATE UPDATE

Otherwise, I'm fine just being the waterboy.

Job Search UPDATE

I have a good eye (when it's not rolled back into my head). Plus, I'm willing to bring my own telephoto.

Shakespeare wrote for money...

And so, it turns out, did Philip Pullman, once upon a time.

Wish I could say the same.

Something Amis

"'You can't write all day,' he used to say. 'And that leaves a dangerous amount of time left for drinking...'"

- Amis vive on Amis mort, in The Times.

(Though personally I don't believe that Kingsley left such glaring repetitions lying about the place, even when pissed.)

Attention Both/All Genders!

Consider the vole.

Seriously. Consider it.

The male prairie vole takes months to find the right sexual partner. The sex - and this is first time sex, too, people - lasts 24 (TWENTY FOUR) hours. Miminum.

However, a hormone (vasopressin) then kicks in, rendering him incapable of straying for the rest of his born voley days.

Like I said. Consider the vole.

(Un)Holy shit!

Mills & Boon are doing rugby books.

...

...

Yup. I got nothing.

The beauty of language

Agape, in Greek, means 'love'. Specifically, it means 'God's love'.

In Xhosa, agape means 'vomit'.

I'd turn for Giles Coren

Mum thinks you need 'a proper job'? Tell her The Times says otherwise...

"Believe me, the only man more benighted than the First Class Honours grad teaching ungrateful little toffs in a cabbage-smelling boarding school, with holes in his socks and dry rolls again for supper, knowing that he once turned down a job at Credit Suisse, is the money-rich banker with three Bentleys, six chins and two divorces who's forgotten how to read."

Gig notice

Wevver permitting (i.e. I'm not snowed in out in the sticks), I'll be watching my mate Jack Sandham perform at The Old Queen's Head on the Essex Road tonight around 9ish. Any readers of this blog who'll be in the Big Smoke tonight should come along. You'll get to (buy me a Foster's and) see Jack play. Well worth it.

I took the picture of Jack looking like Elvis in the summer of '07, I think, at a Great Bear gig in Stoke Newington. That's Jack Ross on drums in the foreground. Halcyon days.

I really can't understand

how my fellow amnesiac passed this one up?

You're slipping, compadre.

Amnesiacs' advice: Stop buying milk at supermarkets

There are considerable advantages to having your cow juice delivered to your door.

The joy(s) of text II

Meine schwester sent me a text this morning that meant to say 'Careful: It's still icy out there' but she used predictive text and it came out as 'Careful: It's still gay out there'.

She's likely correct on both fronts.

Aryans, innit?

Tooting, SW17.

And staying on the horticultural theme...

Did you know that Gardeners' Question Time is based in Chipping Norton?

(Well? Did you?)

I would've sworn Chipping Norton was fictional. The kind of place Agatha Christie sent unwanted characters to die (horribly).

But no; it's real. And in Oxfordshire, of course.

Marijuana: Not exactly a performance-enhancing drug

Anti-doping bodies are full of dopes.

And what's all this balls about Phelps setting a bad example? I thought he handled that bong like a pro.

Thought for the day (so far)

Coffee: why does it smell like garlic?

Oh, the good old days...

Two things must ye know about the SA High Commission.

1) 15 years into the New South Africa, the second language on the walls of SA House is still Afrikaans. This includes the foot-high gilt-lettered SUID AFRIKA on the portico looking out onto Trafalgar Square.

2) In the foyer outside the Kinema they have antique riempie seats, but they've cheated by boarding up the space under the cross-work. Cheaters.

Really useful sign

Seen inside the toilets at Victoria station.

Position Vacant

At my alma mater, King's College London.

Research Fellow in Brazilian Studies

No jokes.

I am quite tempted to send my CV (with covering letter and this).

Classic wedding

1 bride with a monster underbite
9 fur coats in as many sq. feet
5 groomsmen all with matching haircuts and mismatching ties
1 Good Friday crucifixion dirge
and
The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Fee: £50* - Glory, glory, hallelujah!

--
*As Woody Allen might have said, 'I'm not sure I've got fifty quid. Would you let me in for a tenner?'

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Is fucking ugly.




















Observant readers will note this is just a drawing. The reality is worse.

What loss of journalistic standards?

As seen on the front page of the (new-look) Times weekend section:

"Has the designer cake cult gone too far?"

Woodward & Bernstein eat your heart out.

(Only) In France...

There is, in the city of Lyon, a school called the Ecole Normale Supérieure.

Magnifique.

Dammit

This kind of thing never happens on the BBC. I stayed up all night, too.

Making babies

In the light of Jonathan Porritt's call for a 'green' cap of two kids per couple, the Amnesiacs would like to recommend an upper limit of approx. NO children for anyone who hasn't undergone comprehensive social and intellectual vetting. To wit:

NAMING THE FATHER FOR CHILD SUPPORT IN ENGLAND

The following are all replies that British women have put on Child Support Agency forms in the section for listing fathers' details. These are genuine excerpts* from the forms:

01. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins; child A was fathered by Jim Munson. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of child B, but I believe that he was conceived on the same night.

02. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.

03. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 Grand Avenue where I had unprotected sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father can you send me his phone number? Thanks.

04. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he's had it replaced.

05. I have never had sex with a man. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was immaculate and that he is Christ risen again.

06. I cannot tell you the name of child A's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the British economy. I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.

07. I do not know who the father of my child was as all squaddies look the same to me. I can confirm that he was a Royal Green Jacket.

08. Peter Smith is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him can you ask him what he did with my AC/DC CDs?

09. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Euro Disney maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom

10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I'd have stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 146 Miller Drive , mine might have remained unfertilized.

11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby; after all when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.

[Thanks to JB]

--
* The Amnesiac Review would like to make it perfectly clear that we in no way believe the above to be genuine responses to CSA questions. They are far too funny, and - for the most part - correctly spelled.

Utmost Umility

"What I wrote, even translated from Italian, is still readable, I think."

- Umberto Eco, Misreadings