A year ago last Thursday, I was in Edinburgh for the festival. That's where I was last weekend, too, as it happens. One of the best shows I saw this time around was a tribute to Flanders and Swann.
F+S are only a recent-ish discovery for me, and the fact that I've missed out on so many years of listening to them is incredibly annoying. I try not to dwell on it too much.
It was quite tricky choosing just one of their songs, because they're all brilliant, but I think this is really sweet. Besides, when did you last hear a love song about a warthog? No, I thought not.
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Friday, 27 August 2010
The Canterbury Tales: A Bluffer's Guide part 14
I'll let you into a secret - I have no clue what this next tale is all about. And I'm summing it up from memory and I'm in a bit of a hurry because it's Friday night and I do have a life, occasionally, and tonight is one of those occasions. As always (although I have forgotten to mention it recently), and probably more importantly than normal today, don't rely on me for any proper facts and analysis. That's what Peter Ackroyd is for.
The Second Nun's Tale: Cecelia, when she is not busy breaking the hearts and shaking the confidence of Messers A. Garfunkel and P. Simon, is busy being a virgin. She marries Valerian which makes it a bit tricky maintain her virginity, and even though she wears an ugly old shirt of hair under her wedding dress, she's a bit worried that this won't be enough to discourage him. So she makes up a story.
I have an angel watching over me she tells him. If you lay so much as a finger on me, he will kill you. But go ahead and love and respect me if you like - he won't have a problem with that. But no touching.
Valerian, understandably, wants to see the angel before he believes her. He's convinced that she's actually in love with another man, which she isn't, she's just, well... a bit weird, if I'm honest.
Anyway, Cecelia agrees, but says first he must be baptised, and she gives him instructions to visit some old guy living in a cave. He does what he is told and finds the old cave-dweller (whose name is Urban; am I the only one who finds this super ironic?) and gets baptised, and sees the angel, so I gues Cecelia wasn't making it up after all.
Valerian comes back and tells his brother what happened and his brother sees the light too, and Valerian takes him off to be baptised by Urban. Basically what happens for the rest of the story is lots of people become converted to religion and then get themselves murdered. In that order.
The two brothers became preachers, and got quite well known. They also got beheaded. Maximus, one of the officers responsible, felt so bad about this he also turned religious, and went around converting people in their place. When Almachius, who was the guy in charge, found out about this he ordered Maximus to be killed as well. Which he was, but I forget how.
Almachius decides the best thing to do would be to banish Cecelia to some far-flung corner of the earth, employing that principle of justice favoured by five year olds everywhere: "well, she started it". But by now the court officers have all turned to religion too and they refuse to take her away. Finally he manages to convince them to at least set up a meeting with Cecelia, during which he demands she renounce her faith. She won't, of course, and says all sorts of things to goad him about how stupid and powerless he is. To be fair, she has a point.
He condems her to death, and tells his men he wants her to be "cleansed by fire." He must have found some new men from somewhere, because these ones are prepared to follow his instructions to the letter (heathens!): they put her in a bath and try to set fire to her. She won't burn, so they try and cut her head off, but that doesn't work either.
There's some sort of convenient plot point (sorry, I mean long-standing rule of the kingdom) which says that it's illegal to try and chop someone's head off more than three times, so the soldiers leave Cecelia with her neck all mangled, and blood spurting everywhere. Eventually after three days she dies, but not before she converts lots more people and asks for her house to be turned into a church.
The Second Nun's Tale: Cecelia, when she is not busy breaking the hearts and shaking the confidence of Messers A. Garfunkel and P. Simon, is busy being a virgin. She marries Valerian which makes it a bit tricky maintain her virginity, and even though she wears an ugly old shirt of hair under her wedding dress, she's a bit worried that this won't be enough to discourage him. So she makes up a story.
I have an angel watching over me she tells him. If you lay so much as a finger on me, he will kill you. But go ahead and love and respect me if you like - he won't have a problem with that. But no touching.
Valerian, understandably, wants to see the angel before he believes her. He's convinced that she's actually in love with another man, which she isn't, she's just, well... a bit weird, if I'm honest.
Anyway, Cecelia agrees, but says first he must be baptised, and she gives him instructions to visit some old guy living in a cave. He does what he is told and finds the old cave-dweller (whose name is Urban; am I the only one who finds this super ironic?) and gets baptised, and sees the angel, so I gues Cecelia wasn't making it up after all.
Valerian comes back and tells his brother what happened and his brother sees the light too, and Valerian takes him off to be baptised by Urban. Basically what happens for the rest of the story is lots of people become converted to religion and then get themselves murdered. In that order.
The two brothers became preachers, and got quite well known. They also got beheaded. Maximus, one of the officers responsible, felt so bad about this he also turned religious, and went around converting people in their place. When Almachius, who was the guy in charge, found out about this he ordered Maximus to be killed as well. Which he was, but I forget how.
Almachius decides the best thing to do would be to banish Cecelia to some far-flung corner of the earth, employing that principle of justice favoured by five year olds everywhere: "well, she started it". But by now the court officers have all turned to religion too and they refuse to take her away. Finally he manages to convince them to at least set up a meeting with Cecelia, during which he demands she renounce her faith. She won't, of course, and says all sorts of things to goad him about how stupid and powerless he is. To be fair, she has a point.
He condems her to death, and tells his men he wants her to be "cleansed by fire." He must have found some new men from somewhere, because these ones are prepared to follow his instructions to the letter (heathens!): they put her in a bath and try to set fire to her. She won't burn, so they try and cut her head off, but that doesn't work either.
There's some sort of convenient plot point (sorry, I mean long-standing rule of the kingdom) which says that it's illegal to try and chop someone's head off more than three times, so the soldiers leave Cecelia with her neck all mangled, and blood spurting everywhere. Eventually after three days she dies, but not before she converts lots more people and asks for her house to be turned into a church.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Reasons to be cheerful
Time for a little light relief round these parts, I think.
1. From the comments at another blog:
This game sounds BRILLIANT. I can't begin to imagine what it involves or how on earth this daughter's woman ever came up with it, but I would dearly love to know. And, I have so many questions. What kind of restaurant? Are the vampires the customers, or is the pony? Who pays the bill? Is there a vegetarian option?
2. I doubt there is anyone in entire universe who hasn't heard the cat-in-the-wheelie-bin story a million times by now, but here's an alternative version of the story you may not have seen. It's very silly, but it made me smile.
3. "Sorry, I must have got my Walters crossed" is my new favourite expression. This is why. Good old Letters of Note. (Speaking of LoN this is incredibly sweet too. I can't remember if I've posted it before)
4. Some time soon I am going to learn how to knit this squid:
1. From the comments at another blog:
I'm sorry to ignore the four challenges you've thrown down but I just wanted to add my own favourite phrase to those you mentioned. It comes from my daughter; it is the name of a game she used to play with her best friend, and it's called Restaurant, Vampire & Pony.
2. I doubt there is anyone in entire universe who hasn't heard the cat-in-the-wheelie-bin story a million times by now, but here's an alternative version of the story you may not have seen. It's very silly, but it made me smile.
3. "Sorry, I must have got my Walters crossed" is my new favourite expression. This is why. Good old Letters of Note. (Speaking of LoN this is incredibly sweet too. I can't remember if I've posted it before)
4. Some time soon I am going to learn how to knit this squid:
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
....and why it was such good timing.
Hello again. This was originally part of the previous post, but then I realised it is a bit self-indulgent (sorry) and worthy of its own little home, which you are very welcome to drive straight past if you prefer.
On the same day that the winners were announced I received an email which, to cut a long story short, meant losing a big chunk of work I had lined up for September. The income from this work has pretty much been the bedrock of my financial plans for this half of the year. (I say plans, but I don't really have any. What I really mean is that knowing this money was on the way was making me feel a lot more relaxed about having no income in August, or beyond November.)
It rocked me to the core, and not just because of the financial implications, although those are pretty dire. The biggest problem was having to accept the fact that IT WAS ENTIRELY MY OWN FAULT. I had been procrastinating, for no particular reason, about filling in a form. If I'd done it when I was supposed to and before I had forgotten, there wouldn't have been a problem. But I didn't, and there was, and as a result I lost the work.
This scared me. It also forced me to confront something which I have known for a while now; the things I am worst at are the things which you ned to be good at when you are self-employed. Pitching for work, controlling finances, demanding payments, negotiating rates, planning ahead; none of these are things which come naturally to me. I'm not good at them, and because I don't like not being good at things, I try to avoid doing them. It's not a great strategy, I know that. But there's another key skill for succesful self-employment, which I'm not great at either: self-discipline. The cold facts are that if I remain a contractor the time will come when I simply can't afford not to be good at these things any more. A little sooner than expected, now.
I constantly question whether freelancing is the right option for me; I left a perfectly good job, which I could do perfectly well, to try something different which I'm not doing very well at all at the moment. Was it the right decision? While all of my instincts scream yes, the practical side of me is suggesting (quite loudly) that I should just stick to what I'm good at and find a real job. I want to trust my instincts, but they really worry me sometimes.
How is any of this relevant? Well, these were some of the thoughts bouncing around my head on Friday afternoon, causing all manner of confusion and chaos. Then I saw my name among the list of competition winners on Rowan's website, screamed several times and promptly burst into tears. There are few things which would match the rush of delight and disbelief I felt at that moment, but (and this is something I didn't realise at the time) the overwhelming emotion was actually something else. An enormous sense of relief.
Writing is another thing I'm new at, and another thing I'm not sure if I can do. Knowing that someone else liked my story enough to rate it among her top eight, among a field of over 300, made me think maybe, just maybe, it is something I could get good at after all. I'm under no illusions; this was just one story, and just one competition. But somewhere, mixed in with the questions and worries and insecurities that have been jangling around in my brain, there's now also a tiny scrap of faith. It's the only thing keeping me brave enough to keep trusting those crazy instincts of mine at the moment.
(I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to be feeling this confused about life in general. According to every magazine article I've ever read on the topic of getting older, being confident about who you are and what you are good at and what you want from life is meant to be the best thing about your thirties. It's some sort of trade off for the wrinkles, harder-to-shift extra kilos and general sense of impending physical doom, apparently.)
Anyway, enough of this. I have stuff to do. Work to find, invoices to chase, a diary to fill. Plus, as an author I was chatting with recently (yes, this is how I roll now) jokingly said during our conversation "the problem with being a writer is that as soon as you finish one story, people expect you to produce another one". Easy for her to joke about; she had just signed a three book publishing deal. But still, I know how she feels.
On the same day that the winners were announced I received an email which, to cut a long story short, meant losing a big chunk of work I had lined up for September. The income from this work has pretty much been the bedrock of my financial plans for this half of the year. (I say plans, but I don't really have any. What I really mean is that knowing this money was on the way was making me feel a lot more relaxed about having no income in August, or beyond November.)
It rocked me to the core, and not just because of the financial implications, although those are pretty dire. The biggest problem was having to accept the fact that IT WAS ENTIRELY MY OWN FAULT. I had been procrastinating, for no particular reason, about filling in a form. If I'd done it when I was supposed to and before I had forgotten, there wouldn't have been a problem. But I didn't, and there was, and as a result I lost the work.
This scared me. It also forced me to confront something which I have known for a while now; the things I am worst at are the things which you ned to be good at when you are self-employed. Pitching for work, controlling finances, demanding payments, negotiating rates, planning ahead; none of these are things which come naturally to me. I'm not good at them, and because I don't like not being good at things, I try to avoid doing them. It's not a great strategy, I know that. But there's another key skill for succesful self-employment, which I'm not great at either: self-discipline. The cold facts are that if I remain a contractor the time will come when I simply can't afford not to be good at these things any more. A little sooner than expected, now.
I constantly question whether freelancing is the right option for me; I left a perfectly good job, which I could do perfectly well, to try something different which I'm not doing very well at all at the moment. Was it the right decision? While all of my instincts scream yes, the practical side of me is suggesting (quite loudly) that I should just stick to what I'm good at and find a real job. I want to trust my instincts, but they really worry me sometimes.
How is any of this relevant? Well, these were some of the thoughts bouncing around my head on Friday afternoon, causing all manner of confusion and chaos. Then I saw my name among the list of competition winners on Rowan's website, screamed several times and promptly burst into tears. There are few things which would match the rush of delight and disbelief I felt at that moment, but (and this is something I didn't realise at the time) the overwhelming emotion was actually something else. An enormous sense of relief.
Writing is another thing I'm new at, and another thing I'm not sure if I can do. Knowing that someone else liked my story enough to rate it among her top eight, among a field of over 300, made me think maybe, just maybe, it is something I could get good at after all. I'm under no illusions; this was just one story, and just one competition. But somewhere, mixed in with the questions and worries and insecurities that have been jangling around in my brain, there's now also a tiny scrap of faith. It's the only thing keeping me brave enough to keep trusting those crazy instincts of mine at the moment.
(I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to be feeling this confused about life in general. According to every magazine article I've ever read on the topic of getting older, being confident about who you are and what you are good at and what you want from life is meant to be the best thing about your thirties. It's some sort of trade off for the wrinkles, harder-to-shift extra kilos and general sense of impending physical doom, apparently.)
Anyway, enough of this. I have stuff to do. Work to find, invoices to chase, a diary to fill. Plus, as an author I was chatting with recently (yes, this is how I roll now) jokingly said during our conversation "the problem with being a writer is that as soon as you finish one story, people expect you to produce another one". Easy for her to joke about; she had just signed a three book publishing deal. But still, I know how she feels.
That writing competition I mentioned.......
Hello. If you would like to read my prize-winning short story (a phrase I will never tire of), you can do so here. Also, coming soon to this very blog, will be the director's cut. (You probably think I'm joking about this, but I'm not. Watch this space.)
The competition was set up by author Rowan Coleman, who launched it to coincide with the publication of her latest book, The Happy Home for Broken Hearts. Rowan's writing career started when she won a short story competition run by Company magazine. The prize included all sorts of amazing sounding things like lunch at the Ivy (Lulu was at the next table), a meeting with an agent, and lots of free books. From what I have heard about publishing there was probably also some cake. But as Rowan explains on her website:
There is no way of saying this without sound incredibly cheesy, but it makes me really happy to know that there are people in the world who care enough to do things like this. And I would still say that even if a signed copy of Rowan's latest book wasn't winging its way to me by way of a prize. Hand on heart.
I had to cut the story down quite a bit to make the word limit, and I think I still prefer the slightly longer version, which I will post here in the next day or two. If you read either version, I really hope you like it.
The competition was set up by author Rowan Coleman, who launched it to coincide with the publication of her latest book, The Happy Home for Broken Hearts. Rowan's writing career started when she won a short story competition run by Company magazine. The prize included all sorts of amazing sounding things like lunch at the Ivy (Lulu was at the next table), a meeting with an agent, and lots of free books. From what I have heard about publishing there was probably also some cake. But as Rowan explains on her website:
....what winning that competition really did for me was to give me confidence to try. I've met a lot of aspiring writers in the last nine years who have asked me what my top tip for getting published is and I always say write, because if you don't write you've got no chance. But apart from that, an essential component you need is the confidence to try .She goes on to explain that this is why she launched her own competition; in order to give the same opportunities she had to another aspiring writer.
There is no way of saying this without sound incredibly cheesy, but it makes me really happy to know that there are people in the world who care enough to do things like this. And I would still say that even if a signed copy of Rowan's latest book wasn't winging its way to me by way of a prize. Hand on heart.
I had to cut the story down quite a bit to make the word limit, and I think I still prefer the slightly longer version, which I will post here in the next day or two. If you read either version, I really hope you like it.
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Sunday Night Music Club on A Saturday Morning - the sequel
I'm off to the Edinburgh festival (watching, not performing) for a few days so won't be here on Sunday night.
I was trying to decide whether to go for something Scottish or, like the last time I did this on a Saturday morning, use it as an excuse to delve into the world of kids' TV. Then I remembered this cover. Problem solved.
As an added bonus, it's got a good helping of festival surrealness thrown in as well - something I'm hoping for a lot of over the next few days.
Back Tuesday.
I was trying to decide whether to go for something Scottish or, like the last time I did this on a Saturday morning, use it as an excuse to delve into the world of kids' TV. Then I remembered this cover. Problem solved.
As an added bonus, it's got a good helping of festival surrealness thrown in as well - something I'm hoping for a lot of over the next few days.
Back Tuesday.
Friday, 20 August 2010
In which I share some exciting (for me) and excellent (for me) news
I know I promised I wouldn't do this again, but I'm afraid it's all going to be about me for the next little while. Me me me me me me me. Feel free to skip this post if you like. There will be boasting.
I have won a writing competition. By "won" I mean "been chosen as one of five runners-up in" but trust me; that's more than good enough for me. I am so beyond excited that I can't even see excited any more. It's somewhere over there near thrilled, grateful and belief. I'm beyond all of those, too.
I have a lot more to say about this, and how it came about, and why I'm so pleased. And it's not ALL going to be about me, I promise. This wasn't just an ordinary competition; the reason behind it is, I think, something quite special and deserves an explanation.
I'm going to leave all of that until later though. Mainly because I am still ridiculously excited and need to calm down before this post self-combusts in a cloud of exclamation marks and shouty capital letters (you should have seen earlier drafts).
The timing couldn't have been better. I've had a funny old week, for lots of reasons; some bad things have happened, some nice things have happened, and some things have happened which I'm still not quite sure how I feel about. It's certainly been a week where I've spent more time than usual questioning the decisions I've made and and how wise (or not) they were. The answers to some of those questions haven't been very pretty.
I guess I've been having a bit of a confidence crisis, for want of a better term. Seeing my name on the competition website this afternoon was the very last thing I expected. But also, exactly what I needed. Some day, soon, I'll explain why. You can skip that post too, if you like. I really won't mind.
I have won a writing competition. By "won" I mean "been chosen as one of five runners-up in" but trust me; that's more than good enough for me. I am so beyond excited that I can't even see excited any more. It's somewhere over there near thrilled, grateful and belief. I'm beyond all of those, too.
I have a lot more to say about this, and how it came about, and why I'm so pleased. And it's not ALL going to be about me, I promise. This wasn't just an ordinary competition; the reason behind it is, I think, something quite special and deserves an explanation.
I'm going to leave all of that until later though. Mainly because I am still ridiculously excited and need to calm down before this post self-combusts in a cloud of exclamation marks and shouty capital letters (you should have seen earlier drafts).
The timing couldn't have been better. I've had a funny old week, for lots of reasons; some bad things have happened, some nice things have happened, and some things have happened which I'm still not quite sure how I feel about. It's certainly been a week where I've spent more time than usual questioning the decisions I've made and and how wise (or not) they were. The answers to some of those questions haven't been very pretty.
I guess I've been having a bit of a confidence crisis, for want of a better term. Seeing my name on the competition website this afternoon was the very last thing I expected. But also, exactly what I needed. Some day, soon, I'll explain why. You can skip that post too, if you like. I really won't mind.
Animal Trafficking is Absolutely Not Funny
Except it sort of is, when the media report it. Take the story of Jeffrey Lendrum, who was jailed yesterday for trying to smuggle 14 peregrine falcon eggs (£70,000 worth) from Birmingham to Dubai.
First he told police they were normal hen eggs which he had bought from Waitrose. I suppose if I was ever going to pretend to have picked up seventy grand's worth of rare eggs from a supermarket, Waitrose is the one I would choose too. But then again that's exactly the the kind of detail I would overlook, causing my defence to come tumbling down around my ankles. It's probably just as well I'm not a master criminal.
(Some reports are suggesting that one of the eggs really was a hen egg, which Lendrum had coloured in so it looked like the others. This was meant to act as some kind of elaborate decoy, apparently. I don't think it worked.)
Next he claimed he had taped the eggs to his body because he had a bad back, and a physiotherapist had told him that strapping something fragile to his stomach would encourage the muscles to tense up. I am no medical expert, but this sounds a bit dodgy to me. Besides, there are plenty of things which are cheaper, more fragile and less likely, when crushed, to explode in a mass of oozing yolk than peregrine falcon eggs are. Snow globes. Fortune cookies. Chinese lanterns. The possibilities are endless, and a lot less messy.
Something else which would probably make the average person's stomach muscles tense up, at least a bit, is finding yourself at the centre of an investigation being conducted by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what happened next. The CTU got involved after John Struczynski*, a cleaner at Birmingham Airport, noticed Ledrum spending an unusual length of time in the VIP lounge shower, and raised the alarm. Mr Struczynski (who in my head looks exactly like Bennedict Cumberbatch) became suspicious when he noticed a) the shower stall was still dry and b) there were some empty egg cartons in the nearby bins. He called CTU, they investigated Mr Ledrum, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The good news is that 11 out of 14 of the eggs were incubated succesfully, by a bird breeder called Mr Featherstone. That's right, Featherstone. Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. Some have already hatched.
Until Mr Featherstone could collect the eggs, CTU officers kept them warm by storing them on top of their computers. A CTU spokesman said "This isn't part of our normal business but we are pleased with outcome." I always wondered why, in eight series of 24, Jack Bauer didn't get a single animal smuggling storyline. (I can see it now: I promise I will return you to your natural habitat, if it's the last thing I do. I give you MY WORD.) Now I know.
That's not all from the world of international animal trafficking. The Sky News website helpfuly displays similar stories at the bottom of their news articles, and you'd be surprised how often people try and do things like this. Similar stories to today's include: Wriggling snakes strapped to smuggler (good example of the power of adjectives; take out the 'wriggling' and it's hardly worth a mention), Frozen sharks stuffed with cocaine and my favourite, Man held over birds in his trousers.
Just quickly: the snake man was caught out because he also had a tarantula in his bag, which was discovered during a routine customs check. "Customs officers quickly realised the man was smuggling animals because his whole body was in constant motion." says Sky News. One of the customs officers chipped in: "He told us he was crazy about reptiles".
Meanwhile, here is a photo of the man with birds in his pants:
He is not wearing the pants here. He was caught because an inspector noticed bird droppings and feathers on his socks, and bird tails poking out of his trousers.
*I had to read 4 different versions of the story, plus a press release, to find out his name even though he is clearly the hero of the piece. Big up John Struczynski, I say.
First he told police they were normal hen eggs which he had bought from Waitrose. I suppose if I was ever going to pretend to have picked up seventy grand's worth of rare eggs from a supermarket, Waitrose is the one I would choose too. But then again that's exactly the the kind of detail I would overlook, causing my defence to come tumbling down around my ankles. It's probably just as well I'm not a master criminal.
(Some reports are suggesting that one of the eggs really was a hen egg, which Lendrum had coloured in so it looked like the others. This was meant to act as some kind of elaborate decoy, apparently. I don't think it worked.)
Next he claimed he had taped the eggs to his body because he had a bad back, and a physiotherapist had told him that strapping something fragile to his stomach would encourage the muscles to tense up. I am no medical expert, but this sounds a bit dodgy to me. Besides, there are plenty of things which are cheaper, more fragile and less likely, when crushed, to explode in a mass of oozing yolk than peregrine falcon eggs are. Snow globes. Fortune cookies. Chinese lanterns. The possibilities are endless, and a lot less messy.
Something else which would probably make the average person's stomach muscles tense up, at least a bit, is finding yourself at the centre of an investigation being conducted by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what happened next. The CTU got involved after John Struczynski*, a cleaner at Birmingham Airport, noticed Ledrum spending an unusual length of time in the VIP lounge shower, and raised the alarm. Mr Struczynski (who in my head looks exactly like Bennedict Cumberbatch) became suspicious when he noticed a) the shower stall was still dry and b) there were some empty egg cartons in the nearby bins. He called CTU, they investigated Mr Ledrum, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The good news is that 11 out of 14 of the eggs were incubated succesfully, by a bird breeder called Mr Featherstone. That's right, Featherstone. Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. Some have already hatched.
Until Mr Featherstone could collect the eggs, CTU officers kept them warm by storing them on top of their computers. A CTU spokesman said "This isn't part of our normal business but we are pleased with outcome." I always wondered why, in eight series of 24, Jack Bauer didn't get a single animal smuggling storyline. (I can see it now: I promise I will return you to your natural habitat, if it's the last thing I do. I give you MY WORD.) Now I know.
That's not all from the world of international animal trafficking. The Sky News website helpfuly displays similar stories at the bottom of their news articles, and you'd be surprised how often people try and do things like this. Similar stories to today's include: Wriggling snakes strapped to smuggler (good example of the power of adjectives; take out the 'wriggling' and it's hardly worth a mention), Frozen sharks stuffed with cocaine and my favourite, Man held over birds in his trousers.
Just quickly: the snake man was caught out because he also had a tarantula in his bag, which was discovered during a routine customs check. "Customs officers quickly realised the man was smuggling animals because his whole body was in constant motion." says Sky News. One of the customs officers chipped in: "He told us he was crazy about reptiles".
Meanwhile, here is a photo of the man with birds in his pants:
He is not wearing the pants here. He was caught because an inspector noticed bird droppings and feathers on his socks, and bird tails poking out of his trousers.
*I had to read 4 different versions of the story, plus a press release, to find out his name even though he is clearly the hero of the piece. Big up John Struczynski, I say.
Thursday, 19 August 2010
"And you're only smilin' when you play your violin......"
While listening to the back catalogue of a particular group, it has just occurred to me: lyrics don't come much better than this. If anyone can pick the song, I'll be more impressed than I can say.
Behold the Duck
Today's birthday - Ogden Nash. (Also John Stamos, Orville Wright and Coco Chanel, fact fans.) He wrote longer poems than these, but it's the short ones which are funniest:
Celery
Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
Further Reflections on Parsley
Parsley
Is gharsley.
The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.
The Duck
Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.
Celery
Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
Further Reflections on Parsley
Parsley
Is gharsley.
The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.
The Duck
Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Girl Talk
The internet thinks I'm a man. Well, not the whole internet; just one website, which analyses a web page and guesses whether it was written by a man or a woman. And not all of me, just 57%. I suppose this is what happens when you blog about such manly topics as sharks, oil tycoons and largely overlooked but brilliant mechanics. And, er, Rick Astley.
I can't decide whether to be slightly alarmed by this result, or to be proud of the fact that I'm not conforming to gender stereotypes. I'm leaning towards the latter; while I don't belong to the "life is too short to stuff a mushroom" or the "all men are morons" schools of feminism (I like canapes and my male friends far too much for either philosophy to stick), I'm hardly a card carrying member of the girly girls club either. Far from it, in fact.
Mainly I'm curious as to how the analysis works. Which topics are on the "girly" list? Would I have to be writing about shoes, beauty products and the many, many failings of men before anyone noticed the distinct lack of y chromosones around these parts? Or would a softer, less obvious choice of topics work - puppies, maybe? Recipes for cake? Perhaps all I need to do to shift the balance is keep my insightful opinions about Formula One and other major sporting events close to my chest?
The irony* is, I have just spent the afternoon engaged in an uncharacteristic flurry of toe-curlingly stereotypical, "girly" activities. In a blatant attempt to CONTROL THE INTERNET, I am going to tell you about them. They included some or all of the following:
I could go on. But I won't, mainly because I'm curious to find out how much difference this post has made to those percentages. Also, there is a particular reason for this afternoon of girlishness. And it's not just that I am looking for excuses to avoid sorting out my tax, although my toenails have been a handy distraction in that regard.
The truth is, I am off out somewhere. Am I going to tell you where, or who with? I am not.
We women need to maintain a sense of mystery once in a while.
*(I use the term irony with some caution, but given this scenario passes my mental litmus test, namely "does it feature in the lyrics of an Alanis Morissette song? If the answer is no then it's probably ironic", I think I'm OK.)
---Update---- : It still thinks I'm a man, but percentage maleness has dropped from 57% to 54%. Which is a start, I suppose. I'm off to curl my eye-lashes now.
I can't decide whether to be slightly alarmed by this result, or to be proud of the fact that I'm not conforming to gender stereotypes. I'm leaning towards the latter; while I don't belong to the "life is too short to stuff a mushroom" or the "all men are morons" schools of feminism (I like canapes and my male friends far too much for either philosophy to stick), I'm hardly a card carrying member of the girly girls club either. Far from it, in fact.
Mainly I'm curious as to how the analysis works. Which topics are on the "girly" list? Would I have to be writing about shoes, beauty products and the many, many failings of men before anyone noticed the distinct lack of y chromosones around these parts? Or would a softer, less obvious choice of topics work - puppies, maybe? Recipes for cake? Perhaps all I need to do to shift the balance is keep my insightful opinions about Formula One and other major sporting events close to my chest?
The irony* is, I have just spent the afternoon engaged in an uncharacteristic flurry of toe-curlingly stereotypical, "girly" activities. In a blatant attempt to CONTROL THE INTERNET, I am going to tell you about them. They included some or all of the following:
Painting my toenails for an unprecedented second time in one month. Or, now I think about it, year. Possibly even life-time.
Washing my hair, not once, but twice; the second after an unfortunate, sit-com style mix up between a container of leave-in hair conditioner and a remarkably similar looking container of foot deodorising spray (note: sit-com style mix ups are a lot less funny in real life)
Having a major wardrobe crisis, which is still not over. (This is a crisis of the "Why don't I have anything to wear? WHY WHY WHY?" variety, not the Janet Jackson one, although given one of the dresses on my short-list, the latter is a distinct possibility. Watch this space.).
Discovering a tube of "eye-repositioning cream" in my bathroom. I have no idea what this is, what I am meant to do with it, or where it came from. I also can't help thinking: is this how Picasso got started? (If I was a (stereotypical) man, surely I would have applied this cream with reckless abandon, enjoying the adrenelin rush which came with not quite knowing whether my eyes were going to end up near my knees or down around my ankles. I did not; instead I put it carefully back in the cupboard.)
Applying one of those face masks which, if you are starring in a romantic comedy and wearing a white bathrobe makes you look endearingly sweet and kooky, but which in real life makes you look like a sea-monster. Even with the white bathrobe. This particular mask was one of the ones which once dried has to be peeled off in the style of a Scooby-Doo villain, magically removing, if the packet is to be believed, a layer of dead skin and all manner of pore-clogging goop in the process. Resisting the urge to mutter "I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you medling kids" as I removed it remains my crowning achievement of the day.
I could go on. But I won't, mainly because I'm curious to find out how much difference this post has made to those percentages. Also, there is a particular reason for this afternoon of girlishness. And it's not just that I am looking for excuses to avoid sorting out my tax, although my toenails have been a handy distraction in that regard.
The truth is, I am off out somewhere. Am I going to tell you where, or who with? I am not.
We women need to maintain a sense of mystery once in a while.
*(I use the term irony with some caution, but given this scenario passes my mental litmus test, namely "does it feature in the lyrics of an Alanis Morissette song? If the answer is no then it's probably ironic", I think I'm OK.)
---Update---- : It still thinks I'm a man, but percentage maleness has dropped from 57% to 54%. Which is a start, I suppose. I'm off to curl my eye-lashes now.
Monday, 16 August 2010
He was some kind of singer
From an article on the BBC website about how technology is changing language* comes this brilliant exchange between a web expert and a rather baffled lawyer:
During the trial of the man accused of hacking into Sarah Palin's email account, a guy called Christopher Poole, who runs a chat website called 4chan, was asked to define various internet-based terms, one of which was the concept of "rickrolling". He explained:
*Ha! see what I did there? Isn't rickrolling HILLARIOUS??!! The real link is here.
During the trial of the man accused of hacking into Sarah Palin's email account, a guy called Christopher Poole, who runs a chat website called 4chan, was asked to define various internet-based terms, one of which was the concept of "rickrolling". He explained:
"Rickroll is a meme or internet kind of trend that started on 4chan where users - it's basically a bait and switch. Users link you to a video of Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up"
And the term "rickroll" - you said it tries to make people go to a site where they think it is going be one thing, but it is a video of Rick Astley, right?," asked the lawyer.
"Yes."
"He was some kind of singer?"
"Yes."
"It's a joke?"
"Yes."
*Ha! see what I did there? Isn't rickrolling HILLARIOUS??!! The real link is here.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Shark! Shark!
There aren't any in the running for Australia's Top New Species (have you voted yet? Have you? Have you?), but there's a fish which looks a bit like one.
In other shark-related news, I've just finished reading The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Last night, over dinner with a couple of friends, I failed miserably to describe this book; the best I could come up with was that it's the paperback equivalent of the film Inception. Which only helps if you've seen Inception, and even then doesn't help very much because The Raw Shark Texts is nothing like Inception, really, except that the plot is completely bonkers. Clever, and creative, and very unique, but still bonkers. I loved it.
It starts with a man waking up with no memory of who or where he is; not exactly an original premise, maybe, but that opening is the only unoriginal thing about the book. I'm willing to bet that the story which unfolds will be unlike anything else you've ever read.
The writing itself is also very enjoyable. How's this for a character description:
(XXX does have a name but I don't want to use it here in case that spoils your enjoyment of the book. You'll understand how this might happen if you read it. I'm probably being unnecessarily careful about this, but there we have it.)
Parts of the novel are beautifully tender; dialogue between two of the characters captures the awkwardness of fledgling romance (those very earliest moments when you've both realised you really quite like each other but don't have a clue what to do about it) absolutely perfectly. Equally enchanting is the relationship between Eric, as he eventually discovers he is called, and love-of-his-life Clio.
It's funny, too. Eric has a cat called Ian:
"He's a bit of an areshole," I said, thinking about it.
Scout nodded, smiling at this as she poured herself a cup of tea.
"Well, that's what you want in a cat."
I considered and nodded. "Yeah, actually it is."
I finished late last night and after I had thought for a while about how clever and creative it was, it occured to me that it is just as well I'm not the kind of person to let my admiration for such brilliance become swamped by feelings of inadequacy before spiraling downwards into a seething pit of bitter resentment.
Then I read the author bio and discovered Steven Hall is two years younger than me.
In other shark-related news, I've just finished reading The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. Last night, over dinner with a couple of friends, I failed miserably to describe this book; the best I could come up with was that it's the paperback equivalent of the film Inception. Which only helps if you've seen Inception, and even then doesn't help very much because The Raw Shark Texts is nothing like Inception, really, except that the plot is completely bonkers. Clever, and creative, and very unique, but still bonkers. I loved it.
It starts with a man waking up with no memory of who or where he is; not exactly an original premise, maybe, but that opening is the only unoriginal thing about the book. I'm willing to bet that the story which unfolds will be unlike anything else you've ever read.
The writing itself is also very enjoyable. How's this for a character description:
Maybe there should be types of gardener who visit bookish old men to trim and prune and generally tidy them up occasionally, because the real and actual XXX was as overgrown and tangled as an abandoned allotment. His thick salt-and-pepper hair had grown beyond Einstein-esque into a sort of mad rogue plume. A pen between his teeth, two tucked between his ears and several others tucked and knotted and sticking out of his wild hair, made his head look like one of those deceptively fluffy cacti. Blue, black, red and green biro writing covered the backs of his hands, creeper-vined its way up around wrists and forearms, and towards his rolled-up shirtsleeves, which themselves hadn't entirely been spared. Scrumpled chunks of paper and collected pages bulged from the pockets of his black schoolboy trousers and patchy threadbare dressing gown. He was smallish and probably somewhere in his late sixties. The harsh light from the single bulb didn't make it down through his hair canopy too well and the effect was like looking at a man who was peering out at you from the depths of a wardrobe.
(XXX does have a name but I don't want to use it here in case that spoils your enjoyment of the book. You'll understand how this might happen if you read it. I'm probably being unnecessarily careful about this, but there we have it.)
Parts of the novel are beautifully tender; dialogue between two of the characters captures the awkwardness of fledgling romance (those very earliest moments when you've both realised you really quite like each other but don't have a clue what to do about it) absolutely perfectly. Equally enchanting is the relationship between Eric, as he eventually discovers he is called, and love-of-his-life Clio.
It's funny, too. Eric has a cat called Ian:
"He's a bit of an areshole," I said, thinking about it.
Scout nodded, smiling at this as she poured herself a cup of tea.
"Well, that's what you want in a cat."
I considered and nodded. "Yeah, actually it is."
I finished late last night and after I had thought for a while about how clever and creative it was, it occured to me that it is just as well I'm not the kind of person to let my admiration for such brilliance become swamped by feelings of inadequacy before spiraling downwards into a seething pit of bitter resentment.
Then I read the author bio and discovered Steven Hall is two years younger than me.
Friday, 13 August 2010
#Seafoodfilms
Twitter has some excellent hashtag action going on at the moment (must be Friday afternoon). If you don't do Twitter, here's a taste of what you're missing:
Bedknobs & Blowfish (@ahmnivvorreet27)
28 Rays Later (@zombiewes)
Lock, Stock and two Smoked Salmon (@punkystarfish21)
The Prawn Ultimatum (@Jake_E_Lambert)
Angler Management (@DomDoze)
Toy's Dory (@stephencgrant)
Hakes on a Plane (@redrichie)
(I expect more than one person will have come up with some of these, but I have chosen to attribute them to whichever Twitter handle I spotted first; can't say fairer than that.)
I can't decide which is my favourite: right now it's a toss up between Catch Me If You Can (@prototype_iv) and @FerryVeerman's contribution, which was simply: Ocean's...ehm....
Bedknobs & Blowfish (@ahmnivvorreet27)
28 Rays Later (@zombiewes)
Lock, Stock and two Smoked Salmon (@punkystarfish21)
The Prawn Ultimatum (@Jake_E_Lambert)
Angler Management (@DomDoze)
Toy's Dory (@stephencgrant)
Hakes on a Plane (@redrichie)
(I expect more than one person will have come up with some of these, but I have chosen to attribute them to whichever Twitter handle I spotted first; can't say fairer than that.)
I can't decide which is my favourite: right now it's a toss up between Catch Me If You Can (@prototype_iv) and @FerryVeerman's contribution, which was simply: Ocean's...ehm....
A Shocking Secret About Teachers
We occasionally tell lies. There, I've said it.
Back when I was teaching, my most frequent lie was the one I trundled out whenever I made a spelling mistake on the board:
"Well, yes, that was a deliberate error, designed to see if you were paying attention! Aren't you clever for noticing it!"
I'm not entirely convinced that's what happened here:
It's OK though: according to the company responsible for this road sign, which appeared outside a school in North Carolina recently, it's only "interim paint", applied before the final coat is applied.
Interim paint. Just as well, really, isn't it?
Back when I was teaching, my most frequent lie was the one I trundled out whenever I made a spelling mistake on the board:
"Well, yes, that was a deliberate error, designed to see if you were paying attention! Aren't you clever for noticing it!"
I'm not entirely convinced that's what happened here:
It's OK though: according to the company responsible for this road sign, which appeared outside a school in North Carolina recently, it's only "interim paint", applied before the final coat is applied.
Interim paint. Just as well, really, isn't it?
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Unsung Heroes
You probably know that Edison invented the phonograph. You might even know that the first thing he recorded on it was himself reciting "Mary had a little lamb". Pretty rock and roll.
What you might not know is that Edison didn't actually build the phonograph: he had a mechanic, John Kreusi, build it. Edison and Kreusi worked closely together on nearly all of the inventions Edison is credited with, including the light bulb.
Edison's favoured way of working was to draw a sketch of an idea, and give it to John Kreusi with a note saying "Make this". Kreusi would make a prototype, the two men would test it together and agree changes to the design, Kreusi would scurry off and make another model and they would test again, and so on. Einstein might have been the ideas man, and there's no doubting he was a great ideas man, but without John Kreusi his inventions would have remained exactly that - ideas.
I had never heard of him until today.
What you might not know is that Edison didn't actually build the phonograph: he had a mechanic, John Kreusi, build it. Edison and Kreusi worked closely together on nearly all of the inventions Edison is credited with, including the light bulb.
Edison's favoured way of working was to draw a sketch of an idea, and give it to John Kreusi with a note saying "Make this". Kreusi would make a prototype, the two men would test it together and agree changes to the design, Kreusi would scurry off and make another model and they would test again, and so on. Einstein might have been the ideas man, and there's no doubting he was a great ideas man, but without John Kreusi his inventions would have remained exactly that - ideas.
I had never heard of him until today.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Go Team Barnacle
The time has come.
My mum is a really nice person. She is also, as you may already know, a barnacle expert, and a barnacle she discovered last year has been nominated as one of Australia's Top New Species (2009).
I mentioned this a while ago, but maybe you haven't read back that far, or maybe you did read about it but had forgotten. Or, and this is the scenario I prefer to imagine, maybe you did read about it and have been on the edge of your seat ever since, anxiously awaiting further news about how you can do your bit to help my Mum's barnacle snatch victory from the jaws of a mountainous tree dwelling snail named after Steve Irwin.
If that's the case, then today is your lucky day. Voting couldn't be simpler; all you have to do is click on this link, select "General Public" and then pick the Opera House Barnacle. To make things even easier, it's right at the top of the list.
Please vote, and please ask everyone you know to vote too. They'll probably think you are quite mad, but go on, ask them anyway. You don't have to live in Australia to take part, and polls close on August 22nd. Your help will be appreciated more than you know and once you've voted it would be great if you could tell me so I can shower you with gratitude.
(I do know snails don't have jaws, by the way. It's a metaphor. The snail, though, is real; it is called Crikey Steveirwini and is one of the other contenders. Please don't vote for it.)
My mum is a really nice person. She is also, as you may already know, a barnacle expert, and a barnacle she discovered last year has been nominated as one of Australia's Top New Species (2009).
I mentioned this a while ago, but maybe you haven't read back that far, or maybe you did read about it but had forgotten. Or, and this is the scenario I prefer to imagine, maybe you did read about it and have been on the edge of your seat ever since, anxiously awaiting further news about how you can do your bit to help my Mum's barnacle snatch victory from the jaws of a mountainous tree dwelling snail named after Steve Irwin.
If that's the case, then today is your lucky day. Voting couldn't be simpler; all you have to do is click on this link, select "General Public" and then pick the Opera House Barnacle. To make things even easier, it's right at the top of the list.
Please vote, and please ask everyone you know to vote too. They'll probably think you are quite mad, but go on, ask them anyway. You don't have to live in Australia to take part, and polls close on August 22nd. Your help will be appreciated more than you know and once you've voted it would be great if you could tell me so I can shower you with gratitude.
(I do know snails don't have jaws, by the way. It's a metaphor. The snail, though, is real; it is called Crikey Steveirwini and is one of the other contenders. Please don't vote for it.)
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
The Canterbury Tales: A Bluffer's Guide part 13
In a bizzare case of life imitating art (art?) I found myself in actual Canterbury a week or so ago. I don't have anything particularly interesting to say about it, except that it's very nice, and everything is very merrie and olde but not too touristy. Lots of very wonky wooden buildings, cobbled streets, that kind of thing. Cracking pubs. (Not literally cracking. Although they were pretty old, so.....)
As always, please don't rely on the information contained here to get you through an exam or pub-quiz; for that I'd suggest you flick through Peter Ackroyd's excellent retelling of the Tales instead.
The Nun's Priest's Tale: A teeny tiny woman lives in a teeny tiny house with her daughters and various animals including a sheep called Molly, a cock called Chanticleer, and a bunch of hens. You don't need to worry too much about Molly the sheep; she's one of those annoying minor characters who is introduced in the first act and then never shows up again. Ditto the daughters.
The most beautiful of the hens (who is clearly the only one worth mentioning as far as the Nun's Priest is concerned) was called Pertelote and she and Chanticleer were in love.
One morning Chanticleer wakes up having had a terrible dream, which he starts to recount to Pertelote. He dreamt he saw a wild beast, which sounds awfully like a fox from his description, although we do have to remember that Chanticleer is only a rooster and so might find foxes more scary than the rest of us.
Pertelote is less than sympathetic. First she tells him off for being a wimp. Then she points out that Cato says dreams are all a load of rubbish and shouldn't be believed. Finally, being a practical sort of hen, she tells him that dreams are mainly caused by stomach problems. Too much bile, specifically, leads to dreams about things which are orange. Like foxes.
She tells him he needs ro take a laxative (this is centuries ago, remember; these days a good dose of probiotic yoghurt would sort him out) but he won't be able to get his hands on one because there isn't an apothecary in the area. Personally I don't think this is an issue; I'm pretty sure that no hen, regardless of how beautiful she might be, would get very far if she wandered into a chemist and asked for a packet of Dulco-lax. Whatever. She says she knows some herbs which will help but in the meantime he should go and eat some worms.
Chanticleer says thanks but no thanks, and points out that while Cato might have said dreams were all rubbish, other people didn't agree with him. He tells some stories to prove his point: one is about a bloke who had a dream his friend was going to be murdered, and he was; one is about a sailor who dreams he is going to drown at sea, so he doesn't go, but his friends still go and they all drown. Then, being a bird who like to labour a point, Chanticleer goes on to quote some bible stories about dreams which have accurately told the future. I'm sure you know the ones.
Next (and this will come as no great surprise if you have read earlier installments, or know anything at all about the Canterbury Tales and how smutty they are) comes a sex scene. Chanticleer moans that they can't do it in the hen house because the perches are too narrow, and so enjoys some hanky-panky with Pertelote in the yard. Twenty times. Yes, twenty. That is not a misprint. Afterwards Chanticleer struts around the place feeling all manlly. Fair play to him, I suppose.
Meanwhile, there's a fox, who had broken into the yard the night before, lying in wait among the cabbages. It has only just occured to me to wonder how much, if any, of the sex action the fox saw, and what he thought about it. I'm not sure how prudish foxes are. My guess is not very, but what do I know about foxes?
Chanticleer spots the fox and is terrified at first, but overcomes his fears remarkably quickly once the fox starts to flatter him. The fox goes on and on about what a good singer Chanticleer is, and what a good singer his Dad was as well, and asks whether Chanticleer would be so good as to sing him a song? Now, you know as well as I do that foxes who turn up in the middle of stories like this tend to be up to no good, and this one is no exception. Chanticleer is completely taken in by his sweet talk, though. As Peter Ackroyd rather elegantly puts it:
Anyway, Chanticleer stretches his neck out and starts to sing, and the fox grabs him by the neck and runs off. The hens are all distraught; none more so than Pertelote, who promptly throws herself onto the nearest bonfire.
The teeeny tiny woman, her daughters, the rest of the village and a bunch of animals chase after the fox (no mention of Molly the sheep, but a dog called Colin joins in the chase. He's another tragically underdevleoped character; if this was a television show it would definitely be Colin and Molly who end up in the slightly more succesful spin-off series of their own.) Chanticleer tricks the fox into opening his mouth by suggesting now might be a good time to taunt everyone, which the fox does, and Chanticleer flies away to safety.
The moral of the story is don't open your big mouth. Also, never throw yourself onto a bonfire until you have all of the information.
As always, please don't rely on the information contained here to get you through an exam or pub-quiz; for that I'd suggest you flick through Peter Ackroyd's excellent retelling of the Tales instead.
The Nun's Priest's Tale: A teeny tiny woman lives in a teeny tiny house with her daughters and various animals including a sheep called Molly, a cock called Chanticleer, and a bunch of hens. You don't need to worry too much about Molly the sheep; she's one of those annoying minor characters who is introduced in the first act and then never shows up again. Ditto the daughters.
The most beautiful of the hens (who is clearly the only one worth mentioning as far as the Nun's Priest is concerned) was called Pertelote and she and Chanticleer were in love.
One morning Chanticleer wakes up having had a terrible dream, which he starts to recount to Pertelote. He dreamt he saw a wild beast, which sounds awfully like a fox from his description, although we do have to remember that Chanticleer is only a rooster and so might find foxes more scary than the rest of us.
Pertelote is less than sympathetic. First she tells him off for being a wimp. Then she points out that Cato says dreams are all a load of rubbish and shouldn't be believed. Finally, being a practical sort of hen, she tells him that dreams are mainly caused by stomach problems. Too much bile, specifically, leads to dreams about things which are orange. Like foxes.
She tells him he needs ro take a laxative (this is centuries ago, remember; these days a good dose of probiotic yoghurt would sort him out) but he won't be able to get his hands on one because there isn't an apothecary in the area. Personally I don't think this is an issue; I'm pretty sure that no hen, regardless of how beautiful she might be, would get very far if she wandered into a chemist and asked for a packet of Dulco-lax. Whatever. She says she knows some herbs which will help but in the meantime he should go and eat some worms.
Chanticleer says thanks but no thanks, and points out that while Cato might have said dreams were all rubbish, other people didn't agree with him. He tells some stories to prove his point: one is about a bloke who had a dream his friend was going to be murdered, and he was; one is about a sailor who dreams he is going to drown at sea, so he doesn't go, but his friends still go and they all drown. Then, being a bird who like to labour a point, Chanticleer goes on to quote some bible stories about dreams which have accurately told the future. I'm sure you know the ones.
Next (and this will come as no great surprise if you have read earlier installments, or know anything at all about the Canterbury Tales and how smutty they are) comes a sex scene. Chanticleer moans that they can't do it in the hen house because the perches are too narrow, and so enjoys some hanky-panky with Pertelote in the yard. Twenty times. Yes, twenty. That is not a misprint. Afterwards Chanticleer struts around the place feeling all manlly. Fair play to him, I suppose.
Meanwhile, there's a fox, who had broken into the yard the night before, lying in wait among the cabbages. It has only just occured to me to wonder how much, if any, of the sex action the fox saw, and what he thought about it. I'm not sure how prudish foxes are. My guess is not very, but what do I know about foxes?
Chanticleer spots the fox and is terrified at first, but overcomes his fears remarkably quickly once the fox starts to flatter him. The fox goes on and on about what a good singer Chanticleer is, and what a good singer his Dad was as well, and asks whether Chanticleer would be so good as to sing him a song? Now, you know as well as I do that foxes who turn up in the middle of stories like this tend to be up to no good, and this one is no exception. Chanticleer is completely taken in by his sweet talk, though. As Peter Ackroyd rather elegantly puts it:
"he did not see an enemy, but an audience"(At this point the Nun's priest claims that what is about to happen is all Pertelote's fault; but this is a bit harsh, if you ask me. Mainly because (slight spoiler alert) I know what's coming for Pertelote and think she deserves some sympathy. But also, the alfresco sex was Chanticleer's bright idea.)
Anyway, Chanticleer stretches his neck out and starts to sing, and the fox grabs him by the neck and runs off. The hens are all distraught; none more so than Pertelote, who promptly throws herself onto the nearest bonfire.
The teeeny tiny woman, her daughters, the rest of the village and a bunch of animals chase after the fox (no mention of Molly the sheep, but a dog called Colin joins in the chase. He's another tragically underdevleoped character; if this was a television show it would definitely be Colin and Molly who end up in the slightly more succesful spin-off series of their own.) Chanticleer tricks the fox into opening his mouth by suggesting now might be a good time to taunt everyone, which the fox does, and Chanticleer flies away to safety.
The moral of the story is don't open your big mouth. Also, never throw yourself onto a bonfire until you have all of the information.
Monday, 9 August 2010
Oh, Those Russians......
I didn't grow up in the UK, which, now I've been living here for quite a while, is a fact that I genuinely forget sometimes. Luckily, every now and then a reminder comes and smacks me in the face.
Take yesterday, for instance. I was at a barbecue, having a conversation about the lyrics of Ra Ra Rasputin, which is exactly the sort of high level intellectual debate I tend to get involved in at these kinds of events. After the conversation had turned into an impromptu karaoke session (we all tried to start singing various verses then stopped when realised we couldn't remember any of them in full) I found myself swept up in what can only be described as a wave of cold-war nostalgia:
More silence.
I went home later and checked, and sure enough, it's an Australian thing. Well, a German thing, technically. Moskau was recorded by a German band called Genghis Khan (yes, really) and adopted by Channel 7 in Australia for their coverage of the 1980 Olympics. As a result the song was released in Oz and spent five weeks at number one. It also became a huge underground hit in the Soviet Union. The director of the state-run TV station was fired instantly after he included a 15 second clip of the song's performance during a New Year holiday broadcast.*
Here it is; I think it's quite brilliantly insane:
*So says Wikipedia, which I tend to trust more often than some people seem to think is healthy, but then it also says a citation is needed and if even Wikipedia are questioning their own facts then, well, you know. Be wary of placing too much trust in this information, is basically what I'm saying.
Take yesterday, for instance. I was at a barbecue, having a conversation about the lyrics of Ra Ra Rasputin, which is exactly the sort of high level intellectual debate I tend to get involved in at these kinds of events. After the conversation had turned into an impromptu karaoke session (we all tried to start singing various verses then stopped when realised we couldn't remember any of them in full) I found myself swept up in what can only be described as a wave of cold-war nostalgia:
"Ooh! Ooh! Remember the Moscow song? That one from the Olympics? That had some BRILLIANT lyrics!"Silence descended.
"You know! It was played EVERYWHERE! Mos-COW, Mos-COW, da-da-da-da-da-da-dum........
More silence.
"You must know it! There were dance steps and everything! Mos-COW, Mos-COW....."
"Er, sorry" someone finally said (dodging some passing tumbleweed) "must be an Australian thing".
I went home later and checked, and sure enough, it's an Australian thing. Well, a German thing, technically. Moskau was recorded by a German band called Genghis Khan (yes, really) and adopted by Channel 7 in Australia for their coverage of the 1980 Olympics. As a result the song was released in Oz and spent five weeks at number one. It also became a huge underground hit in the Soviet Union. The director of the state-run TV station was fired instantly after he included a 15 second clip of the song's performance during a New Year holiday broadcast.*
Here it is; I think it's quite brilliantly insane:
*So says Wikipedia, which I tend to trust more often than some people seem to think is healthy, but then it also says a citation is needed and if even Wikipedia are questioning their own facts then, well, you know. Be wary of placing too much trust in this information, is basically what I'm saying.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Totally Worth the Licence Fee
Some things which have made me laugh on Radio 4 this morning*:
Fi Glover recounting a story she once read about a family of aristocrats who had a unique way of dealing with wasps when they went on picnics: smearing jam all over the bald head of their butler and making him sit several metres away from them.
This comment, from a tongue-tied Aussie climate change protester explaining why he was dressed as an elephant: "The elephant is climate change in the room" (I think we all know what he means. But bless him.)
Sandy Shaw talking about being discovered by whoever it was (I wasn't listening properly) who discovered her, then adding as an afterthought "That always makes me feel a bit like a continent."
The Esperanto expert who was convinced that the best way to get Esperanto taken more seriously is to have a celebrity learn it. His suggestion: Naomi Campbell.
I don't have time to do the maths and work out what proportion of my licence fee equates to a couple of hours of radio on a Saturday morning, but it was money well spent.
*That's bad grammar. I wasn't on Radio 4 this morning.
Fi Glover recounting a story she once read about a family of aristocrats who had a unique way of dealing with wasps when they went on picnics: smearing jam all over the bald head of their butler and making him sit several metres away from them.
This comment, from a tongue-tied Aussie climate change protester explaining why he was dressed as an elephant: "The elephant is climate change in the room" (I think we all know what he means. But bless him.)
Sandy Shaw talking about being discovered by whoever it was (I wasn't listening properly) who discovered her, then adding as an afterthought "That always makes me feel a bit like a continent."
The Esperanto expert who was convinced that the best way to get Esperanto taken more seriously is to have a celebrity learn it. His suggestion: Naomi Campbell.
I don't have time to do the maths and work out what proportion of my licence fee equates to a couple of hours of radio on a Saturday morning, but it was money well spent.
*That's bad grammar. I wasn't on Radio 4 this morning.
Friday, 6 August 2010
Just as we did away with the food
Think you've got a bad boss? Meet Edward "Tiger Mike" Davis. He was the CEO of a Houston-based oil company in the 1970s, during which time he sent some spectacularly entertaining internal memos to his long-suffering employees. Here's a selection; if you want to read them in full, and I really think you ought to, you'll find them over at Letters of Note:
What, you may wonder, would a man like Tiger Mike view as proper dress attire? Who knows. His own wardrobe is said to have consisted only of one-piece khaki polyester leisure suits, worn with white shoes and a white belt.
I have noticed the rugs throughout this office are very dirty from people spilling things on them. I will have them cleaned (which will cost me $1,000.00); and, in future, if people cannot carry their coffee without spilling it on my rugs, we will do away with the coffee pots entirely just as we did away with the food.
Idle conversation and gossip in this office among employees will result in immediate termination. Don't talk about other people and other things in this office. DO YOUR JOBS AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!
I am not fond of hippies, long-hairs, dope fiends or alcoholics. I suggest each and every person in a supervisory category (from driller up to me) eliminate these people. Anyone who lets their hair grow below their ears to where I can't see their ears means they don't wash.
Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don't want to ruin it by saying hello to all of you sons-of-bitches.
P.S. On days you have to work, and you think you should be off, you wear slouchy dress attire. That will not occur in the future. You will wear proper dress attire to work always. Also, all employees should have the proper attitude to coincide with proper dress, especially on those days when you're working and think you should be off.
What, you may wonder, would a man like Tiger Mike view as proper dress attire? Who knows. His own wardrobe is said to have consisted only of one-piece khaki polyester leisure suits, worn with white shoes and a white belt.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Marketing for Dummies
The whole point of a targeted marketing campaign is to identify a group of people who might be interested in your product and then pitch the benefits to them directly.
Here, word for word, is an email I received earlier this week:
Here, word for word, is an email I received earlier this week:
Hey Sex and the City fans,
It is almost football season! Play Sports Illustrated Fantasy Football on Facebook for FREE.
Featuring
-FREE Live Scoring
-Live Draft
-Expert Fantasy News and Analysis from SI.com and Rotowire.com
-Player Projections
-Share your Scores on and Players on Facebook
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Now I'm all for challenging traditional stereotypes, but I can't help but think: someone didn't quite think this one through.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Sunday Night Music Club
I'm sure somewhere around the world it is already nearly Sunday night, and I'm not going to be in later, so there we are.
This is a strange little video, but is the only one I could find which wasn't someone doing a cover version. I like cover versions, often, but sometimes you just need to hear the original. This is one of those times. (The orginal is David Gray, incidentally, not Damien Rice, whose album cover inexplicably pops up half way through the video. I did tell you it's a bit strange.)
On a totally unrelated note, if you are a horse (although I doubt you are), many happy returns. Go easy on the birthday cake.
This is a strange little video, but is the only one I could find which wasn't someone doing a cover version. I like cover versions, often, but sometimes you just need to hear the original. This is one of those times. (The orginal is David Gray, incidentally, not Damien Rice, whose album cover inexplicably pops up half way through the video. I did tell you it's a bit strange.)
On a totally unrelated note, if you are a horse (although I doubt you are), many happy returns. Go easy on the birthday cake.
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