“I will follow you to the ends of the earth,” replied Susan passionately. “It will not be necessary,” said George. “I am only going down to the coal-cellar. I shall spend the next half-hour or so there.” P.G. Wodehouse, quoted by R.W. Burchfield
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12Jul05 — 15
Sky TV’s Advertising Agency Hires World’s Worst Copywriter
PooterGeekers of a grammatical disposition—Pashmina, Norm, Judith, my dad—should look away now. I cannot be blamed for any trauma you suffer by reading further. The Rock is a Cambridge sports pub. Still bolted over the main entrance to the venue is a rigid, commercially produced, full-colour banner. The banner promotes The Rock’s comprehensive Sky Sports […]
Read More10Jul05 — 3
The First Valley Girl In Space
This, however, is not only not one of my spoofs; it isn’t a spoof at all. It’s a direct quote from a New York Times article about the Captain of the next Space Shuttle mission: Capt. Wendy B. Lawrence of the Navy looks at her first space shuttle flight in 1995 almost as a vacation. […]
Read More05Jul05 — 18
The Chomsky Test
The breadth and depth of Noam Chomsky’s wrongness must be marvelled at. Within and without his professed area of expertise he is so skilled a sponsor of untruth that, in some future world, whole virtual shelves will be devoted to studies of how it happened that so many of his peers were willing to stir […]
Read More22May05 — 0
Not McPassingOff
Usually I only knock McDonald’s when they are particularly nasty and stupid. It warms my heart to know that a company that beat them in a case you’d have thought McDonald’s would win hands down are, four years later, is still selling East Asian fast food under the cheeky name “McChina“.
Read More08May05 — 2
Grumpy Old Mancunians
One day I must buy my dad and Norm a couple of Test match tickets, drop them off at the entrance to Old Trafford, and leave them to spend the day swapping this kind of gripe. [I know you didn’t mention it dad, but yes, I did notice that I had used “licence” as a […]
Read More26Apr05 — 0
My Old Man’s A Linguist
Keen Spanish speaker Brian emailed with a pretty direct translation of the dustbin message: “Bastard rubbish collector, put the rubbish into the (f*****g) lorry and work like some kind of whore’s life” …or similar. It could be Portuguese though. I don’t recognise a couple of the words. I’ll get working on it! He did (though […]
Read More24Apr05 — 5
Comrades In Arm Rests
I’m adding three more sites to the ‘Blogroll today. First is Bloggers4Labour. This is late, I know, but I’d assumed that I had already installed it. B4L led me to two entertaining sources of nitpickery: Twistblog, which I am going to forgive for being run by the person responsible for Cute Cat Of The Day, […]
Read More20Apr05 — 0
Garbage In; Garbage Out
I have to apologise to people expecting reports from the Labour canvassing frontline here. This evening I set off to join our candidate on the streets and got completely lost on the way to the rendezvous point. I promise to tell all when I finally get out there and meet the voters, the bastards. At […]
Read More02Apr05 — 2
Geek Fails Turing Test
I wanted to comment on a ‘Blog yesterday, but I couldn’t read the distorted characters on the security image clearly enough to type them in. Does this mean that I am really an artificial intelligence?
Read More13Mar05 — 0
Who’s A Clever Girl?
If you’ve got Macromedia Flash installed on your computer this video is deeply entertaining [via The Motley Fool].
Read More04Mar05 — 5
TD-ous
The Genome Campus library subscribes to several publications that I have to force myself only to skim read. If I don’t there’s a good chance I’ll throw them across its outer reading room and stamp on them and Joan the Head Librarian will have to report me to Security again. One, obviously, is The Independent, […]
Read More09Feb05 — 0
Beyond Our Ken
Shocking headline reveals that Mattel’s new Evil Cell Biologist Barbie has been given the go-ahead to meddle with Nature.
Read More24Jan05 — 8
Writer’s Block
I might have to consult Will of A General Theory Of Rubbish. I’ve been trying to complete a post about Michael Howard, but I’ve run out of profanities.
Read More16Jan05 — 1
Radio Porn
Kirsty Young has been standing in for wrinkly Yorkshireman Michael Parkinson on his Radio 2 show lately. Her voice is pure sex. When she read out the title of a book in her orgulous Scottish husk: “Why The Whales Came“, I listened and could picture both voiceless labio-velar fricatives blossom perfectly. The whales were probably […]
Read More04Jan05 — 0
“I Used To Be The Next President, You Know”
Feeling smug after a compliment someone paid my prose yesterday, I have one more piece of advice for Kerry: if you’re going to run again, John, speak plain English.
Read More18Dec04 — 1
More Haste; Less Speed
The last couple of days’ entries have been so full of typos that readers have actually been emailing in corrections. Thank you to Hak Mao and casualsavant for spotting some of them and my dad for having the restraint to let me correct most of them before getting out his red marking pen online.
Read More16Dec04 — 0
Random Jottings
I am pulling out of the Genome Campus when I notice the car in front of me has a registration which is just a couple of characters away from spelling out “deontic”. First I think, “A near miss like that’s a bit of a shame.” Then I think, “Yeah, but what is the size of […]
Read More07Dec04 — 12
The Conservatives: Less Action. More Adobe Acrobat Files
A reliable source of cheap laughs here is the sometimes daft electronic media output of the Labour Party machine. I joke about it as only a fully paid up member can. Today, just for a change, I wandered over the the Conservative Party Website to kick the horse while it’s down. It’s so easy I […]
Read More15Oct04 — 7
Friday Feeling
It’s Friday! I invite haiku on the subject of Britney Spears—or is it “Britney Federline“?
Read More11Oct04 — 0
Cry For England and St George
This morning on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Dipesh Shah, Chief Executive of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority responded to the questions asked of him in his interview in almost unbroken corporate English. Listen to him use the phrase “the legacy of the past” twice and put the AEA’s recent success down to their “not […]
Read More06Oct04 — 5
Nerr Nerr Nerr-Nerr Nerr
There are some broken “arguments” that stupid people deploy with a smug smile and a fold of the arms time and time again. Subject to even superficial analysis these supposedly debate-clinching gambits break. You know the sort of idiot offerings I’m talking about: “I’m not racist, but flooding this country with people of another culture […]
Read More22Sep04 — 2
The Dangers Of An Israeli Accent
Listening to Radio 4 this morning I heard Humphrys ask Ehud Barak, “Would it be right for Israel to kill Yasser Arafat?” I almost fell over at the reply, “Arafat is toast.” What Barak actually said was , “Arafat is a terrorist”. Let’s hope anyone who has to translate his words into Arabic has sharper […]
Read More20Sep04 — 3
Bllokocs
You might have received something like the following in your forwarded-email-funnies recently: “Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and […]
Read More16Sep04 — 1
The Euph Of Today
What would we do without Guardian editorials? We wouldn’t appreciate that people who run onto the floor of the House of Commons and shout at MPs are “thugs” and people who shoot children in the back are “hostage takers“. (It’s worth noting the comparison made between Otis Ferry’s posh prannies and the Luftwaffe in today’s […]
Read More15Sep04 — 21
Enrich Your Vocabulary
Today my car share partner and I thought we had invented a new word. In fact, a quick Google shows a precedent. It appears in this match report. I misheard her saying “travesty”. I am, however, going to post the first formal definition: “chavesty n hopelessly naff attempt at grandness, made by members or graduates […]
Read More11Sep04 — 6
To The Point
Hak Mao pleads a lack of eloquence, but she says all that needs to be said today. I’m with her all the way—though obviously I’ll need to learn a bit of Cantonese and find some undiscriminating women first.
Read More10Sep04 — 0
The Guts Of The Family Jewels Are Not Between Silk Sheets
Sven, call the Metaphor Police and have this man arrested.
Read More25Aug04 — 1
A Public Apology To Judith and Arnon
The misspelling “high-acheiver” has scarred your page on counsell.com for months. It even appeared twice! I am so ashamed it hurts.
Read More22Aug04 — 0
Glad We’ve Got That Sorted Out
Globe-trotting teacher of English as a foreign language and funnyman ‘Blogger Harry Hutton puts me right over at Chase Me Ladies. It isn’t the Jooos who are to blame for the World’s ills; it’s the Joes. UPDATE: Ever alert, US Homeland Security bans Joes from flying. UPDATE UPDATED: Ted Kennedy is one of the main […]
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