It is indeed George, however writing pretentious grafitti on the wall of a pub toilet cubicle is about as far from revolutionary as you can get. The motivations people have to write things like this in toilets is a source of endless fascination to me. It serves no more purpose than just writing "West Ham are shit" or something and yet they obviously really feel they've stuck it to The Man with twaddle like this. "Yeh, that'll show Mr so-called Tony Blair, on the off chance that he comes into the Westbourne in Notting Hill and needs a slash he'll be soooo shocked".
Friday, August 03, 2007
Blue Bins
I looked up 'furore' in the dictionary for an exact definition. "A very angry or excited reaction by people to something e.g. the furore over The Satanic Verses".
Salman Rushide was the subject of a fatwa from the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini after publishing a supposedly blasphemous book.
Harrow Council have issued blue wheelie bins instead of green.
Salman Rushide was the subject of a fatwa from the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini after publishing a supposedly blasphemous book.
Harrow Council have issued blue wheelie bins instead of green.
Euro's
This was in the window of a Post Office. I don't know why I expect the owners of Post Offices to have a greater grasp of grammar than your average shopowner but I do. I was tempted to take up their offer and 'ask inside' why they thought Euros should have an apostophe and dollars shouldn't but as usual there was quite a big queue.
Joyous soul
Interviewer: "Tell me Mr Davies, are you joyous?"
Interviewee: "Well, I've always thought of myself as quite jolly"
Interviewer: "Hmmm, tch, well, we're really looking for joyous I'm afraid, we might have stretched to blissful, maybe even elated, but jolly isn't what we're after, thanks for coming in."
Interviewee: "Well, I've always thought of myself as quite jolly"
Interviewer: "Hmmm, tch, well, we're really looking for joyous I'm afraid, we might have stretched to blissful, maybe even elated, but jolly isn't what we're after, thanks for coming in."
Open your cheap ears...
Poundland is a strange phenomenon and I could write for ages about it how it personifies the UK consumer's obsession with getting something for nothing - even if they don't actually want that something. However, my point here is with the tagline "Yes! Everything's £1"
This can, of course be read in two ways depending on your emphasis. Firstly there's the reasonable interpretation of "Yes! That's right, it's amazing isn't it, but everything really is only £1, come in and buy some shite with the dregs of change from your giro and/or state pension."
The alternative, however, is the plantive sobbing cry of a Poundland employee faced with yet another retarded pleb waving a plastic ashtray or four pack of almost out-of-date Crunchies in their weeping face "Yes! That costs £1. Everything's £1. Everything. I cannot stress enough how much you do not need to ask me about the price of individual items. Everything's a fucking pound you drooling mongoloid.'
And what's with the laurel leaf emblem? Didn't Caesar or at the very least Fred Perry pretty much have that one sewn up?
This can, of course be read in two ways depending on your emphasis. Firstly there's the reasonable interpretation of "Yes! That's right, it's amazing isn't it, but everything really is only £1, come in and buy some shite with the dregs of change from your giro and/or state pension."
The alternative, however, is the plantive sobbing cry of a Poundland employee faced with yet another retarded pleb waving a plastic ashtray or four pack of almost out-of-date Crunchies in their weeping face "Yes! That costs £1. Everything's £1. Everything. I cannot stress enough how much you do not need to ask me about the price of individual items. Everything's a fucking pound you drooling mongoloid.'
And what's with the laurel leaf emblem? Didn't Caesar or at the very least Fred Perry pretty much have that one sewn up?
Yeeeeesssss!!
How excited is that guy to have his phone unlocked? "Come on!!! Get in there!! My phone. Is. Unlocked!!!"
Ow
So there was this school bus full of kids..in fact, they were handicapped kids...anyway, the bus was hanging off this precipice...did I mention it was on fire?...no?...oh, right, well the bus was on fire...so I was pulling it back using superhuman strength when this panther came out of nowhere....oh, right, ok, yes, I did fall out of the bath, fair enough.
The In Plaice
The In Plaice. The plaice/place trick is a standard ploy but teaming it with the slightly out of date vernacular of somewhere being 'In' implying hip and cool is clever - particularly as chips, while tasty and yummy, are hardly groovy.
60's 70's 80's 90's
Another case of admiring their consistency yet criticising their use of apostrophe. This is real nit picking for the sake of it but it should be, an example, '60s not 60's. Nothing belongs to the '60s (apart from casual drug use and promiscuous sex of course). If we're being really pedantic (which I know I never am) it should also be OPEN 'TIL LATE...
Friday, June 09, 2006
The beast within
The World Cup starts today with the titanic clash of footballing super nations that is Germany v Costa Rica. The irony of this is, of course, that Costa Rica sounds more like a Brazilian player than a country. "Ronaldo, a short through ball to Ronaldhino, a beautiful cross, met by Rica and oh, he's scored a wonderful goal." Alternatively, it sounds like everybody's Dad making shit jokes about south american footballers. "Chelsea have signed a Brazilian have they? Eh? What's his name? Costa Lotta? Hahahaha..ha...ha....oh"
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Picture perfect
Just a quick note to say that I'm not putting pictures on this blog, I was taking far too many of them and would've ended up taking up the whole infrequently-updated thing with them. So I'm posting them on Flickr - link on the right.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Action man bow ties
Went out to dinner last night at Per Luigi's, a pasta restaurant in Beckenham. It's 30 seconds from our flat, and the food is good but it obviously has to cater for the truly stupid people of South London. This is the back of the menu, it hasn't come out really, but you can just about see the Quality Street style map making sure prospective diners know what spaghetti looks like.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Phantom Menace wasn't that bad...
Here in Harrow there are few landmarks of note. Up on the hill there is the school of course, but down here in the actual town there is nothing but Costa Coffees, Greggs, and Yates*. All very depressing until you look up above the normal street level. Next to the tube tracks there is a surprisingly large three-storey building that was once the Post Office. Now empty it stands as a testament to the boredom of office workers as this gem illustrates just what can be achieved with a simple pad of Post-It notes.
The question is, of course, who is Lucas? It's not a very common forename, so perhaps it's a surname. If so, it's very formal considering they're announcing his sexuality to the whole of passing Harrow.
The real genius is that fact that they've announced the Lucas is gay and then, just to make sure we're aware of what gay may mean, they've added the Post-It phallus. I particularly like the attention to detail that has led to cutting some notes into strips to form Post-It pubes. The testicles seem disproportionately small though considering the size of the cock.
And they're square.
If this really is an accurate depiction of Lucas' shrivelled angular winkie then I think Lucas should be found and given medical attention. A spokesperson for the Post Office was, however, unavailable for comment.
*Or Yates Wine Lodge as they used to be known. This is, of course, far too many letters for your average scouser to cope with so "Yateseys" was born, and Yateseys it shal remain hereafter
Monday, March 13, 2006
Breakthrough
Unusually for me, it worked, look at that. There's going to be a whole raft of them now aren't there...
Picture perfect
In a probably vain attempt to see whether I can get pictures on this thing using Safari, here's an example of the kind of thing being preserved at the National Archives - a bald head with a pony tail. They've even got him on reception to let new visitors know the kind of thing that's available inside.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Sick of commuting
Is this really my first post in 2006? Shocking.
Anyway, I'll gloss over that and begin by saying that I'm sick. Or more precisely, I was literally sick a couple of days ago. Now I'm well aware that tales of other people's "I threw up everywhere" exploits are about as interesting as listening to detailed descriptions of their dreams but this is worth noting for the record.
It begins with M being sick on Saturday. We had been over to Kew in the morning so that she could buy some material and I could visit the National Archives*. We went into town and had a bit of lunch at a pub before going to see a film - Capote if you're interested, think Larry Grayson meets Dead Man Walking.
As the credits rolled I leaned over to M and asked "What did you think?" to which she succinctly replied "I think I'm going to be sick". Before I could say "I think that's a little harsh, perhaps Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance was a little theatrical but surely it captured the mood of the times..." she was up and running for the toilet.
She then proceeded to throw up a few more times before getting home, including into a plastic carrier bag on the train, mmm. It laid her out for the next couple of days and she only properly ate something yesterday (Wednesday). We put it down to the nachos she'd eaten at lunch time and resolved never to eat pub mince again**.
We couldn't have been more wrong though, after a work trip on Tuesday I was in the car back when I started to feel dodgy, and my innards starting grumbling like a pensioner in a post office queue. I was dropped off in Amersham and caught the train to Marylebone when I really felt like shit. By the time I had got to Victoria and got on the train to Beckenham my stomach was grumbling like an Israel-Palestine boundary negotiation.
As we approached West Dulwich, a good four stops before Beckenham it was all getting a bit faint. I thought that if I got up and stood by the door when it opened I could at least get some fresh air***. The train pulled into the platform, I leapt up and once everyone had got off I leant out of the door and sucked in a deep breath. All this managed to do was displace whatever was bubbling in my stomach and I jumped off knowing that I couldn't put it off. I managed to wait til everyone who'd just got off had filed past me and I walked quickly in the opposite direction down the platform away from the entrance.
The platform was long and lit with lamposts but at least it was now deserted, I got as far along as I could before my diaphragm spasmed and my mouth filled with vomit. I clamped my hand to my mouth to hold it in, took three more steps, turned to the fence and blew the lot onto the floor, via my shoes.
Just at that moment, the train I'd just got off pulled away. As I retched my breakfast and lunch into the floor, safe in the knowledge that the platform was deserted the crowd of people on the platform opposite got a full view of me hunched over, wiping sick from my nose and plucking my glasses out of the puddle of now steaming vomit on the concrete under a lampost.
I went and tried to get a cab but couldn't find one, the smell of sick was in my nose, and the stain of sick was on my shoes, suit and dignity. I had to hang around for twenty minutes before another Beckenham train came though. When I eventually got home I stripped off, got straight in the bath, got out, threw up again, got back in, got out, dried off and went to bed.
I took the next day off.
*Family tree stuff, I know, I know, a bit of a fad at the moment but I've been sucked in and it is annoyingly fascinating. Look at it this way, I'm vaguely related to a bigamistic fraudster and a family from Norwich called Whittle. They are not the same person.
**The fact that this says 'again' shows how slow on the uptake we are.
***No, it is quite fresh, it's Dulwich remember, not Crystal Palace.
Anyway, I'll gloss over that and begin by saying that I'm sick. Or more precisely, I was literally sick a couple of days ago. Now I'm well aware that tales of other people's "I threw up everywhere" exploits are about as interesting as listening to detailed descriptions of their dreams but this is worth noting for the record.
It begins with M being sick on Saturday. We had been over to Kew in the morning so that she could buy some material and I could visit the National Archives*. We went into town and had a bit of lunch at a pub before going to see a film - Capote if you're interested, think Larry Grayson meets Dead Man Walking.
As the credits rolled I leaned over to M and asked "What did you think?" to which she succinctly replied "I think I'm going to be sick". Before I could say "I think that's a little harsh, perhaps Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance was a little theatrical but surely it captured the mood of the times..." she was up and running for the toilet.
She then proceeded to throw up a few more times before getting home, including into a plastic carrier bag on the train, mmm. It laid her out for the next couple of days and she only properly ate something yesterday (Wednesday). We put it down to the nachos she'd eaten at lunch time and resolved never to eat pub mince again**.
We couldn't have been more wrong though, after a work trip on Tuesday I was in the car back when I started to feel dodgy, and my innards starting grumbling like a pensioner in a post office queue. I was dropped off in Amersham and caught the train to Marylebone when I really felt like shit. By the time I had got to Victoria and got on the train to Beckenham my stomach was grumbling like an Israel-Palestine boundary negotiation.
As we approached West Dulwich, a good four stops before Beckenham it was all getting a bit faint. I thought that if I got up and stood by the door when it opened I could at least get some fresh air***. The train pulled into the platform, I leapt up and once everyone had got off I leant out of the door and sucked in a deep breath. All this managed to do was displace whatever was bubbling in my stomach and I jumped off knowing that I couldn't put it off. I managed to wait til everyone who'd just got off had filed past me and I walked quickly in the opposite direction down the platform away from the entrance.
The platform was long and lit with lamposts but at least it was now deserted, I got as far along as I could before my diaphragm spasmed and my mouth filled with vomit. I clamped my hand to my mouth to hold it in, took three more steps, turned to the fence and blew the lot onto the floor, via my shoes.
Just at that moment, the train I'd just got off pulled away. As I retched my breakfast and lunch into the floor, safe in the knowledge that the platform was deserted the crowd of people on the platform opposite got a full view of me hunched over, wiping sick from my nose and plucking my glasses out of the puddle of now steaming vomit on the concrete under a lampost.
I went and tried to get a cab but couldn't find one, the smell of sick was in my nose, and the stain of sick was on my shoes, suit and dignity. I had to hang around for twenty minutes before another Beckenham train came though. When I eventually got home I stripped off, got straight in the bath, got out, threw up again, got back in, got out, dried off and went to bed.
I took the next day off.
*Family tree stuff, I know, I know, a bit of a fad at the moment but I've been sucked in and it is annoyingly fascinating. Look at it this way, I'm vaguely related to a bigamistic fraudster and a family from Norwich called Whittle. They are not the same person.
**The fact that this says 'again' shows how slow on the uptake we are.
***No, it is quite fresh, it's Dulwich remember, not Crystal Palace.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Civil War
I laughed out loud on the tube this morning, always embarassing, but how could you not smile over this. Today is the first day in England for civil partnerships between gay couples, Northern Ireland was on Monday and Scotland yesterday and there were some typical protests from the religious right.
This is a letter from today's Metro:
"This is the final straw - our young children will no longer have any moral values. They will see same-sex marriages as the norm and opposite-sex marriages will be read about in history books. What are we teaching children? If God wanted two women or two men to join together in marriage, then he would have made them so they could reproduce
W Bent, West Yorks"
Now I obviously snorted at this on the train but I am doubtful whether that's genuine. I will confess here and now that publications, even newspapers, don't get anywhere near the amount of letters every day, week or month that most people think. We go out to 11,000 subscribers, and each issue is passed on to five others so that's 55,000 readers and we rarely get more than one and usually get none at all. The trouble with only getting one letter is that you can't really have a "Letters Page" with just a single missive on it so it's not unknown for the editorial dept to just make some up. The usual give away is "Name and address supplied" or something along those lines.
Of course, I would've put "I M Bent, West Yorks" or "I Bendover, West Yorks" so maybe I'm being overly suspicious.
This is a letter from today's Metro:
"This is the final straw - our young children will no longer have any moral values. They will see same-sex marriages as the norm and opposite-sex marriages will be read about in history books. What are we teaching children? If God wanted two women or two men to join together in marriage, then he would have made them so they could reproduce
W Bent, West Yorks"
Now I obviously snorted at this on the train but I am doubtful whether that's genuine. I will confess here and now that publications, even newspapers, don't get anywhere near the amount of letters every day, week or month that most people think. We go out to 11,000 subscribers, and each issue is passed on to five others so that's 55,000 readers and we rarely get more than one and usually get none at all. The trouble with only getting one letter is that you can't really have a "Letters Page" with just a single missive on it so it's not unknown for the editorial dept to just make some up. The usual give away is "Name and address supplied" or something along those lines.
Of course, I would've put "I M Bent, West Yorks" or "I Bendover, West Yorks" so maybe I'm being overly suspicious.
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