Ten things you don't need to know

The BBC magazine has started listing Ten Things We Didn't Know Last Week. Let's take a look at their list and offer a few thoughts of our own:

1. Nicolas Sarkozy collects stamps.

Isn't he busy enough?

2. Doodling aids memory.

While actually taking notes does the opposite, trust me.

3. Peanut allergies have trebled in the last decade.

So, judging by the press coverage, have incidents of peanut smuggling.

4. Wendy Richard was in Up Pompeii

This is a difficult one. I could say either a) Now she's in Up the Khyber or b) Now she's in Six Feet Under, but these would be tasteless remarks so instead I will just say c) Duh.

5. The biggest underground machine in the world mines salt in Cheshire.

a) That's their story and they're sticking with it. b) The badger population in Cheshire has a dangerously high rate of heart disease and the government must act now.

6. There are two types of intelligence.

As readers of this blog are all too aware.

7. About 1,000 people in the UK lose their voice box annually.

I cannot work out if these means that the same 1,000 people lose their voice box once a year, or if every year 1,000 new people lose their voice box. Either way, it's a good thing as it stops them calling phone-in radio shows.

8. Hitler spared Blackpool because he wanted to use it as his personal playground.

This explains absolutely everything.

9. Fleeces were part of the acid house scene in the 1980s.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to make me think, but so far it's nothing. So what?

10. Rio has a Sambadrome.

Then let's all go to Rio.

In homage to my mate Will Butterworth

I proudly present Sun Ra:

My dad

thinks he's doing his bit for the environment by eating burnt toast.

Thought for the day

There once was a man named Gandhi
He woke up one day with a dandy
He said to his aide fetch me a maid, or a goat, or anything handy

Ryanair

Now officially taking the piss.

Bring me my spear! (o, 'clouds' unfold...)

Women demand all-day session; man wins wager; and death-in-the-sack no longer the preserve of the elderly.

What's not good about this story?

This explains everything

Apologies to all who've seen this before, but I got my first glimpse last night (thanks to my tecchie cousin) and it's too good not to share.

The original Microsoft team, circa 1978:


Bill Gates, bottom left hand corner.

Best & Worst Lyrics (All Time)

I hope this topic'll prove an ongoing thang, but while I'm thinking about it, I just want to offer my two centimes on the hugely important issue of which are the best and the worst lyrics of all time.

As is the rule with this blog, my primary reason for doing this is because I was just having a jolly confab about this very subject in which I dug up some pretty decent answers, and I figured I'd forget them by this evening if I didn't write them down somewhere. And seeing as how I am already drowning under a Kilimanjaro of notes right now (none of which I seem to be able to get into any sort of order) I couldn't think of a better place than right here on the Amnesiac Thingamajig.

So, without further ado, here are my initial public offerings:

WORST LYRIC OF ALL TIME:

My diamonds are reckless
Feels like a midget is hangin' from my necklace.

- Ludakris, Stand Up

BEST LYRIC OF ALL TIME:

I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.

- Men At Work, Down Under

BONUS LYRIC:

We dont wipe our asses on Old Glory,
God and Lone Star beer are things we trust.
We keep our women virgins till they're married
So hosin' sheep is good enough for us.

- Kinky Friedman, Asshole from El Paso

Overheard at the Coliseum

"As someone once said of Harrison Birtwistle, it's just one fucking passacaglia after another."

Ponce.

My Shakespeare brings all the boys to the bard

Interview with Edward Hall, director of the Propeller (all-male, Shakespeare-only) ensemble.

KaBOOM!

Interview with Penny Woolcock, director of Doctor Atomic.

Incidence of RAPE at all-time high in City.

Dear employees,

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of economy, Management has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 40 years of age and above on early retirement. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to management to be eligible for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination). Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW programme (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as Management deems appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPED can only get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).

Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by Management.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Management has always prided itself on the amount of SHIT it gives employees. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring to the attention of your Supervisor. They have been trained to give you all the SHIT you can get.

Thank you for your attention on this issue,

Management.

[Thanks to KJW]

And another thing...

If black soul singers are supposed to be so bloody sensitive, why do they persistently address their bitches as 'woman'?

(cf. 'If You Don't Know Me By Now' - Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes)

Humming, Singing, Tooting.

A coffee shop in SW London.

They are playing Worst EVER (Out-Of-Date) Love Ballads 9.

A woman at a nearby table proceeds hum her way through the entirety of 'Every Breath You Take'.

Overheard at The Wigmore Hall

- Remember me?
- No.
- You buried my mother-in-law.

Priceless.

"You can take the boy out of Devon.

You can even take Devon out of the boy.

What you can't do is take one Devon boy out of the other."

- G Rhydian Morgan

For the record

There exists, in this country, a Lesbian And Gay Immigration Group.

There is also a Seafood Choices Alliance.

I know this because I was out last night, drinking with their legal advisor.

Yes, one legal advisor. For both groups.

My dad

is cleaning his car before he takes it to the garage to be cleaned.

A final word to my fellow amnesiac before I stick two biros up my nostrils and slam my head down against my desk

This is from 'America the Beautiful', a post-election column by Louise J. Esterhazy, found on the back page of the January edition of W magazine (for the record, Ms. Esterhazy's prominent monthly column is called 'Last Laugh'):

"But American politics isn't really my bag, especially since I'm am old Austrian Countess..."

Clearly, this is where we went wrong, compadre. We were never old Austrian countesses.

A literary exchange

As transpired this lunchtime, via text message:

Dominic Hilton: I think I need a lesson in how to organise all my notes into something semi-coherent. Any tips?

ASH Smyth: A metal bin, and a match.

Professional advice

The problem with a career in the arts is that people make out like if you just throw enough spaghetti against the wall something will eventually stick.

What they don't tell you is that most of the time you won't be able to afford any spaghetti.

Dom's bird, and other mannequins

Biblical advice.

Freaky

What's a bloke s'posed to do when he mistakes a mannequin for his girlfriend?

Last night, staggering through the streets of Mayfair and Marylebone at 4am, I turned the corner off Oxford Street into Duke Street, and very nearly jumped out of my moisturised skin.

There, standing in the window display of French Connection, was an almost exact replica of my girlfriend. After taking several minutes to establish that it wasn't actually her (by asking that cunning question about Babe Ruth that the Yanks used to use to catch enemy spies) I took a picture:


Except perhaps for the height (my bird is taller), and the fact that my girlfriend has softer skin (and is generally a little less hollow when you knock her), the similarity really is uncanny (right down to the cream Cons). Plus, when I showed her the picture this morning, the tease just raised her eyebrows at me and handed me a cup of coffee, which I frankly found hugely unnerving.

I suspect that she's up to something (she keeps giving me those odd sideways glances that pretty girls excel at). And call me old-fashioned, but I really don't want her knowing that I prowl the streets at night, turning tricks. All told, she's a naive little thing, and as far as I know she still labours under the illusion that I'm a hotshot writer. And in the immortal words of Paul Simon: Who am I to blow against the wind?

If you're in London...

be damn sure to go here:


Order the Parrillada Deluxe (with extra black pudding), down a Fernet (if you can stand it), glug gallons of Quilmes, a good Malbec, port, sambuca and at least one espresso, then stagger out into the delights of Hackney, nurse your hangover the next day with hot and sour pho, follow with a few rounds of Guinness and Jose Cuervo, soak up with sashimi and Kirin, then get jiggy to Aretha, Stevie, James Brown and co. on Fosters, Peroni and vodka and soda until your knees give way.

You cannot go wrong. Check it out:



www.buenayre.co.uk

Recommended reading (and free)

Five Dials, issue 5, out now.

Headlines

Brings a whole new meaning to 'vicarious pleasures'.

Friday Joke

A teacher is instructing her primary 2 class, and she's telling them that the word of the day is 'contagious.'

She asks if anyone can use this word in a sentence, and several students raise their hands. "Carl," she says. Carl says, "My dad told me to stay away from kids with mumps because they're contagious." "Very good," says the teacher.

Then she picks Suzie, who says, "My granny says there is a bug going round and it is contagious." The teacher says, "Excellent, Suzie!"

Then she notices that little Johnny has his hand up at the back of the class. "Yes, Johnny?" Johnny says, "The other day, I was speaking to my Dad who had hired a fella to paint the fence. He arrived with a tiny little 4cm paintbrush, and he was going in tiny little strokes up and down the fence, and my dad says to me, 'Jesus, it's gonna take that contagious to finish that fence.'

[Thanks to JB]

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.

Who guards the Garde?

The Ballad of Prawo Jazdy

or quis custodiet dipsos custodies? - as they say in Cork.

There's something not quite right about these paragraphs: 2

For instance, they're not actually the ones I wrote.

Interview with Dambisa Moyo, economist and African aid nay-sayer, butchered by the OT editorial staff.*

--
* The piece, not Ms Moyo.

In our experience, this approach works about fifteen per cent of the time

As the results were delivered, 31-year-old Blomberg joked, "But the two most beautiful points remain with me" and grabbed at 28-year-old Bersin's chest.

There's something not quite right about these paragraphs

British children are more financially aware than their parents were at their age, a study suggests.

The Populus poll of 1,400 people for personal finance charity pfeg found 10-year-olds were shopping online using their parents' debit or credit cards. (BBC)

British politics explained

There's stuff I disagree with (or am confused by) in this article - and I imagine my fellow amnesiac is outright banned from agreeing with it on any level, what with his 'fight for Queen and country' armed forces stuff - but Monbiot actually sums it up pretty well right here:

One of the peculiarities of UK politics is that issues supported by hardly anyone receive majority assent in parliament. In the current system, no popular support is required. University top-up fees, for example, were rejected by the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, but Scottish and Welsh MPs were frogmarched through the lobbies to impose them on England (the government won by five votes). Foundation hospitals were voted down in both Wales and Scotland, and foisted on the English by the representatives of those nations. Had Heathrow's third runway been debated only by English MPs, the proposal would have been resoundingly defeated; it was approved by 19 votes, after 67 MPs from the other nations were induced to support the government. They can support such measures without any electoral risk, as their constituents are not directly affected.

Amnesiac interpretation: We are being royally rogered, if you consider the whole Crown-in-Parliament thing.*

*This is a really annoying clever-dick joke for which I humbly apologise.**
**I also never use the word 'humbly'.***
***And what's with all the footnotes? I'm turning into my fellow amnesiac.

Eh?

When men are shown images of women in bikinis, the part of the brain they use when thinking about DIY tools and other objects lights up.

Bollocks!

They sold it. We're gonna have to fink of summink else, innit.

I know, I've met some of my fellow amnesiac's former squeezes

Alien life 'may exist among us'

Key para:

Our planet may harbour forms of "weird life" unrelated to life as we know it, according to Professor Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University.

Key quotes:

"We don't have to go to other planets to find weird life.

"It could be right in front of our noses - or even in our noses."

The sin of wages

"My friend is looking for someone to write up a mini pack to send out to schools on the play King and Country. He needs ten pages and will pay. Will find out how much - was def over fifty pounds, from memory."

Shakespeare wrote for money, Shakespeare wrote for money, Shakespeare wrote for money...

"All the notes, all night."

As heard on Classicfm:

"And now, on The Complete Works programme, the Overture from Bernstein's Candide."

Idiots.

Literary echoes

"The libertine garb conceals a higher morality."

- Umberto Eco, 'Granita', Misreadings

Perhaps meant ironically; not that it matters.

My fellow amnesiac has been AWOL these past few days

and now we know why.

p.s. While you're out there, bring us back some of those delicious hash cakes, will you? Cheers, mate.