A Reckless Use of English

Here is an email I received the other day from a Chinese girl after she presumably read my MSN profile. It shows the dangers of using a phrase-book but greatly amused me for a few moments.

i'm shy a little!but i like you .the picture's handsome man is you ,really? very handsome. i like!do you like me,tell me ,truth? and i wanto you to help me to speak ENGLISH best,ok?

As you can see, bizarrely, "english" is in upper-case.

I Didn't reply but "Chinese girl" if you are reading this, no, the "picture's handsome man" is actually David Duchovny.

Regards

Unintentionally Hilarious Corporate Anthems

I just have to mention the phenomenon of the "corporate anthem" something both KPMG and Price Waterhouse Coopers have ill-advisedly used to promote their sprawling empires. Thankyou to fellow contributor SarahVicky who brought this issue to my attention.

KPMG commissioned a Frankfurt musician-songwriter to write a perky ditty for the annual consultants' conference in 1999. PwC followed not long afterwards with the dreadful "Your World". Click here for the full story.

Check out the links below if you want to torture your ears with the aforementioned theme-tunes

WARNING: Listning to either is enough to make oneself don a mask, grab a baseball bat and attack the nearest capitalist.

Listen to PwC here

Listen to KPMG here

Regards

Forever Vanishing: Sting

This week's PRH (Permanently Receding Hairline) belongs to Sting.



This is a man who must have been born balding. Even his earliest photos feature a mop of hair insufficiently hiding an expanse of forehead. Maybe the song "Can't Stand Losing You" is not about a girl after all.

Regards

Dave Matthews (shudder)

Thankyou to the latest issue of The Onion that pokes the gentle stick of fun at Dave Matthews lifeless bland middle-of-the-road rock.

See here

For a Dave Matthews college style rock alternative try John Mayers Room for Squares.

Or just skip that and buy the complete back catalogue of Wilco. Can't go wrong there.


Regards

One-off Daily Telegraph Nitpicking

A recent edition of the Daily Telegraph had the following graph on it's front page.

To the untrained eye it appears as though the Telegraph has more than double the sales of the Times! Classic 'massaging' of the figures. Below is the more truthful picture...

Telegraph Sales: 903,772
Down by 2,326

Times Sales: 684,495
Up by 22,165

So in actual fact, differences between sales are not that significant (around 200,000) and furthermore, Telegraph sales have been steadily decreasing in the same period in which Times sales have been increasing dramatically. (source: ABC)

Misrepresenting the figures seems to be a common occurance see here.

Regards

Lies

There was a post on the 5th of August entitled "Injury and Bad Luck". It mentioned unusual sporting injuries. I took the story from the Metro but it seems they made a mistake. It was not David James who injured his back reaching for the TV remote, but David Seaman (picutred). It has also become clear that the TV show he was watching when the injury took place was Coronation Street. May that be a lesson to you David.

Furthermore, in the same post I said:

"Alan Wright. Pint-sized Aston Villa full-back strained his knee trying to reach the accelerator in his new Ferrari. He later swapped it for a Rover 416."

It was the Ferrari he swapped for the Rover 416, not his knee.

Regards

Forever Vanishing: Nicholas Cage

From time to time I will be paying tribute to those stars and celebrities whose hairlines are wonders to behold. I am referring to Permanently Receding Hairlines (PRH), those hairlines that get thinner and thinner over time, but never seem to disappear completely.

This week: Nicholas Cage.



Gone in 60 seconds? Gone in 60 years probably.

Regards

Come Friendly Bombs

"Slough"

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town --
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week for half-a-crown
For twenty years,

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears,

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

-- John Betjeman

The Never Ending Cycle of Laughable Names

I have recently been reading that P Diddy has changed his name again. This time, to simply "Diddy".

Sean! Why not choose a name that's not going to cause stifled giggles to all who hear it for a change? Your first name (Gay Father) was unfortunate, your second, just plain ridiculous, and now this! You really are doing your best to shake off that bad boy image.

From the BBC....

He told the New York Post that his name was even starting to confuse himself.

"Nobody knew what to call me. I'd notice that people were uncomfortable when I'd meet them for the first time, and then they'd ask me what they should call me," he said.

"I even started to get confused myself - and when I'd called someone on the telephone it took me a long time to explain who I was. Too long."

He added: "One word. Five letters. Period."

I know what you're thinking. Period's got six letters in it.

Regards

Charlie Brooker

Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker spews snide, verbal diatribes like cobra-venom. Here are some of my favourite quotes.

• "the 73yr old woman wearing the mini-skirt had legs the textural appearance of Peperami sticks."

• "Abi Titmuss was described as a 'Tabloid babe' (which is as low as a human being can go short of gargling sewage for a living.)"

• (on Elmo) "scarlet squawking abomination."

• (on 6ixth Sense's Colin Fry) "failed prototype Chucklebrother."

• (on Patrick Kielty) "a man you wish would shut-up even before he's started speaking."

• (on a BigBrother contestant) "if Anthony ever contracts pubic lice, I'd like to shake every single one of them individually by the hand."

• (on a BigBrother contestant) "listening to Craig's voice is like lying in your own coffin hearing rain-water seep through the cracks."

• (on a BigBrother contestant) "Anthony, a man so thick you could sell him a pair of his own socks for £500, even if he was already wearing them."

• (on Nigella Lawson) "Nigella. Her name sounds like playground slang for an effeminate boy. They might as well have called her Malcomina or Keithette."

• (on Shane McGowan) "his face, following years of hardcore glugging, now resembles a puff-pastry model of the moon, speckled with broken teeth."

However, not all his comments hit the mark as the following clumsy observation shows:

• "Sir Alan Sugar is so good, he deserves a second knighthood. Sir Alan Sugar Squared has quite a ring to it don't you think?"

Regards

Federer and Carr

I'm probably very late posting this on the "World Wide Wait" but during Wimbledon, I noticed that Roger Federer and Jimmy Carr look surprisingly similar.



Regards

Flyering / Littering

Welcome to all you who have picked up one of my flyers! They can be found on trains, on buses, outside cashpoints and inside toilets around Birmingham.



To all the cleaners that have had to pick them up, welcome, hope you enjoy the site.

Regards

Quiz TV Mind Frustrator

Here is a puzzle I came across on Quiz TV last Sunday night. It is a show that somehow manages to make brainwork seem incredibly mindless. The object that particular night was to add up all the numbers in the text (see picture).



After more than 7 hours and countless calls to the show no one had worked out the correct answer. That's if the answer actually exists.

The website profile of presenter and constant grimacer Alex Knowles is one of the most surreal things I have read in a long time.

Incidently, although Toney Neves (mentioned in the puzzle) is a made up character, he has a small net presence (here).

Regards

Make Something History

I would just like to draw your attention to my good friend James Murray and his latest campaign: "Make Coventry History".



Coventry is not the most pleasant place in the UK and I am sure we will all be behind James in this venture.

The following campaigns have not been started. But hopefully we will see them off the ground in the not too distant future:



To Matt Cryer, who is from Coventry, I advise that you do the honourable thing and move you and your family to some other town, perhaps Luton.

Visit this site.

Regards

Tornado Creates Job Opportunity

A few weeks ago, a tornado hit Birmingham. This led to a strange series of coincidences resulting in me being asked to present Midlands Today.


Unfortunately due to my inexperience in the role I stood in complete silence for nearly 2 minutes not realising I was on air. I then played auto-cue catch-up for the remainder of the programme. They didn't ask me back.

Regards

Injury and Bad Luck

From an article in the Metro 05/08/05...

Derek Pringle. The England all-rounder injured his back while writing a letter.

Chris Lewis. The England bowler got sunstroke in the West Indies after shaving his head.

Stuart Spruce. The Widnes full-back injured a shoulder stopping his dogs fighting.

Rio Ferdinand. The England star strained a tendon in a knee while resting his leg on a table.

Dave Beasant. In 1993 the keeper dropped a bottle of salad cream and severed a toe tendon.

Kasey Keller. The US keeper knocked out his front teeth getting golf clubs out of his car.

Alan Wright. Pint-sized Aston Villa full-back strained his knee to reach the accelerator in his new Ferrari. He later swapped it for a Rover 416.

David James. The England keeper pulled a muscle in his back reaching for a TV remote.

Steve Morrow. The Arsenal player broke his collar bone falling off Tony Adams' shoulders celebrating the 1993 League Cup win.

Alex Stepney. Manchester United keeper who dislocated his jaw shouting at his defenders in 1975.

Chic Brodie. The Brentford keeper had his career ended in 1970 when a dog ran on to the pitch and shattered his kneecap.

Alan Mullery. The England star missed the 1964 tour of South America after injuring his back while brushing his teeth.

David Batty. England midfielder re-injured his achilles tendon when run over by his toddler on a tricycle.

Lee Hodges. The Barnet player slipped on a bar of soap while in the shower and wrenched his groin.

Sam Torrance. Ryder-Cup winning captain fractured his sternum colliding with a flowerpot while sleep-walking.

Jose Maria Olazabal. Spaniard broke a bone in his hand at the US Open in 1999 after punching a hotel wall in frustration at a bad round.

Genesis

Welcome. You are privileged to be reading my first ever post. What happens here (if anything) remains to be seen.

Regards