Category: Waffle

As the actress said to the bishop

Humphrey Lyttelton and producer Jon Naismith during a 2005 recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue at the Edinburgh Fringe

Humphrey Lyttelton died earlier this week. For those too young (i.e. who don’t listen to “old people’s radio”) or too non-British to know who he was, he’s most famous for presenting a Radio 4 show called I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. It’s one of those quiz shows with celebs in it, and some daft questions. Along the lines of TV’s Have I Got News For You, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and – to some extent – Who’s Line Is It Anyway?

It was/is (I don’t know when it’ll pick up again) a remarkably funny show if you get a chance to listen to it. The link above is to the official page with lots of samples to download and enjoy. I confess I didn’t listen to it regularly, but if it happened to be on when I was in the car it was a great half-hour chuckle. And you’ve not lived (or stretched your imagination) until you’ve played a strenuous game of Mornington Crescent against an expert.

Lyttelton was most famous for his constant use of double-entendres. I had a “complaint” in my comments the other day that I use naughty words on here and therefore I have no appreciation of the English language or the wondrous variety of nuances within it. Let alone how to be smutty without appearing to be so.

Codswallop, frankly. I could have learned from this man how to talk fluently about porn without actually using a sweary. Finbarr Saunders from Viz could, in fairness, be a more knobbly-kneed, big-nosed version of Lyttelton. Between the two of them they could translate the entire letters page of Forum magazine into something you could hand to an 8 year-old and they’d never guess what you were on about.

This article on the BBC News site is a great summation of the show and Lyttelton himself. Definitely worth a read.

So when is World Book Day?

I check out a few of the official Google blogs and today they had an interesting post. It’s regarding some work being done by various organisations and part-sponsored by Google to help improve literacy numbers. All well and good. But the article is “In celebration of World Book Day” – which according to the World Book Day website was back in March.

Then I did a little digging. The link above is the top link should you search for “World Book Day” in Google itself. Despite the use of the word “World” and the “.com” domain, it seems it’s more of a UK thing. In fact, it was kicked off by Tony Blair back in 1998 – five years before UNESCO’s version which is actually somewhat more international in flavour.

In fact, UNESCO’s version is actually more English than our own version – given that it’s celebrated on St George’s Day. This is actually one of the reasons for them picking the date. In Catalonia (a province / part / territory / autonomous community / whatever) of Spain, it’s traditional on this date for men to give a rose to their lover, who in return gives a book.

Regardless, can someone explain how we can have a World Book Day, and a World Book Day (UK and Ireland) which are on two different dates? We obviously didn’t make ours “world” enough, despite nabbing the better domain name, and we only seem to concentrate on initiatives within the UK anyway. So another chance to lead the world wasted by a pathetic Labour government. Kudos for the fantastic idea and great initiative – they just didn’t take it far enough.

However, check out the title of UNESCO’s effort – it’s formally called World Book and Copyright Day. Which, to me, sounds a bit of a gobful and slightly legalese. There’s no denying, though, that it’s more widely accepted worldwide than the UK version.

As an aside, doesn’t it gall many of the English readers that our national saint is celebrated more in other countries around the world (I’d somehow expect Georgia to have a holiday) than in our own?

Dog poo

A U.S. Army soldier using a Schiebel AN 19/2 MOD7 metal detector, public domain photo from navy.Image from WikipediaI responded to a post on Scaryduck’s blog and ranted on a bit. So I pinched my reply to use here:

We’re supposed to be a nation of animal lovers, but frankly we seem to treat dogs like the **** you’re complaining about. It’s not the dog’s fault it needs to done a poo. It’s the owners for not tidying up afterwards.

All dogs should be injected with nano-bots at an early age. Harmless and designed to sit over the arse-opening. On poopage, they’re deposited with the turd and emit a radio signal unique to each pooch. This will allow inspectors with a poop-detector (like a metal detector but smellier) to locate these and identify the guilty party. And pick up the poop for smearage over the relevant front doorhandle.

I’m sequestered in France right now, in a very touristy town. There is a dog **** issue here as well, but not to the scale as back home. Which is strange, as a lot of dogs just run around on their own here. The owners don’t walk them per se – they just let them out to walk by themselves.

Go into a pub and I’ll almost guarantee you’ll see at least one dog sat on the floor, or wandering around enjoying the attention. Dogs in supermarkets, dogs in shops… as long as it doesn’t **** on the floor nobody cares.

Actually, one pup did **** on the floor of the MBC (microbrewery pub) the other week… to a rousing cheer from the locals before the staff cleared it up.

Random brain-spewings

It’s been one of those days, which has resulted in the following mental gurglings:

First off, I’ve realised how sad I am by finding the following link incredibly cool. It’s an enigma machine simulator. Possibly sadder is that the link’s from a paper-based version.

And then I spent ages coming up with this:

Apologies to Monty Python
Apologies to Monty Python

For tomorrow e’en, I shall be watching us getting towelled by bloody Birmingham City. Don’t get me wrong – I love the guy. But he’s been **** out of luck this season.

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On national anthems

I do whinge about the crappy "God Save The Queen" that England seems to be stuck with, but according to this interesting web site, it’s not actually our "official" anthem. In fact, we don’t have one – by law anyway. It just seems that England finds itself in an awkward position of being too closely identified as Great Britain and therefore defaulting to the "umbrella" anthem.

This is endemic of England’s lack of identity these days. There’s not denying that the Scots definitely and the Welsh to a lesser extent (though actually more so recently) have a definite established identity. Northern Ireland, to outside views, is still more lumped in with the Republic as part of the Emerald Isle thing but still has its own identity as part of the United Kingdom (not Great Britain – check the wording on your passport, people).

England, however, is often just seen as the UK. Scots say they’re from Scotland, Taffs from Wales and Micks from Ireland (I wonder… Irish folk – if an foreigner asks you where you’re from, do you specify North or South?). English people – in my experience travelling – are as likely to say "Britain" or "the UK" as they are to say "England". At least I have an excuse with my parentage.

Regardless, have a trawl through the site. It makes for some interesting reading.