Ten Questions

We face many years of austerity, and savage cuts in support for many of our cherished institutions will be necessary to ensure the survival of the coalition government. Keen as always to support official policies, Other Men's Flowers is taking the lead: the Board of Editors has decided to make an immediate 50% cut in our much-loved Twenty Questions feature. Here is the first of the newly truncated series:

81    What do 114 suras make?

82    What does the SIM in sim card stand for?

83    "Honi soit qui mal y pense" is the motto of what?

84    What links Jim Morrison, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Chopin?

85    Which girl's name was invented by Jonathan Swift?

86    Other than humans, which animals can carry leprosy?

87    Which Broadway star's marriage to Ernest Borgnine lasted 32 days?

88    Which novel is set on 16 June 1904?

89    What's the only Scrabble tile with a value not shared by any others?

90    Against whom is the bloody standard raised?

ANSWERS ARE HERE

Earlier questions are HERE

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Lesser-known Rudyard

Most Englishmen have no problem in meeting with with Triumph and Disaster, and are fully aware not only that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, but also that East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. Few realise, though, that some of Kipling's seemingly high-flown pronouncements are actually ironic or even sarcastic.

A poem he wrote in 1919 is called The Gods of the Copybook Headings. Hardly anyone nowadays has any idea what the title means; you will have to look here if you want to find out what a copybook is, and even then it is not easy to understand exactly what the sly old devil is saying. It could be that he is making a plea for common sense, but perhaps he is pouring scorn on traditional values.

One verse has given us a colourful image in its third line:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire

But there is a reason why I have been reminded of these fusty old verses. Let us, holding our noses, turn to the paranoid commentator Glenn Beck, conspiracy theorist, rabble-rouser and darling of Fox News and the loony right. He used the last two verses of the poem in a video trailer and read the entire poem except the final lines on air in his broadcast on October 7, 2010, making an attempt to explain it in terms of today's politics and his own beliefs.

If, on November 6th, one of the possibilities facing the US is realised, he will have a powerful friend: Glenn Beck is a Mormon.
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A triumph for the FSM

Austria has long been regarded as a reactionary society, so it is splendid news than an Austrian man has, after a three-year struggle, won the right to wear a colander on his head for his passport photograph. Well done Niko Alm of Vienna, who has struck a blow for Pastafarians everywhere!

Those unfamiliar with Pastafarianism should read the note in Wikipedia which explains how its clever and effective argument underlines the absurdity of Intelligent Design and the preposterous creed of creationism.

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Still around

Last month the Sunday Times published a two-page article in which Lord Snowdon and his son Viscount Linley paid extravagant compliments to each other. Linley noted "a certain elegance" in everything his father did, illustrated by anecdotes such as the one recounting how he turned away a workman who had come to fit a chairlift because he wasn't sporting a nice tie.

A few years ago a biography of Snowdon was published by Anne De Courcy, describing him in comparable terms. Reading a book review can often provide a better experience than its subject ever could; a perceptive and witty review of a rubbishy biography of a rubbishy person can be thoroughly enjoyable.  Here are some snippets from Catherine Bennett's delicious review of Snowdon: The Biography, by Anne De Courcy, which tell you all you could possibly want to know about the book and the man:

What has worked for Lord Snowdon all his life almost works in this hagiography. In a little world populated by England's most ghastly and dim, he again appears to enormous advantage: abrim with style (of a sort), charm (if you like that kind of thing) and energy (mainly for sex). It is worth remembering, of course, that in this context the same would apply to the average tomcat.
....When, to his enormous satisfaction, the priapic photographer (then called Antony Armstrong-Jones) made it into the royal family, it was easy for this spoiled little pixie, with his extra-tight drainpipes and mesmerising bouffant, to be mistaken for a much-needed corrective to the snobbery, stupidity, and stolid sybaritism of the nation's top inbreds. Simply by being a society photographer, as opposed to a titled nothing, Snowdon was able to portray himself as an arty free spirit, almost an intellectual, under whose tonic tutelage, it was imagined, the Windsor troupe might evolve into a more acceptable, near-human subspecies.
...The most iconoclastic thing he ever did, as a royal, was to wear polo necks instead of ties, a level of democratic endeavour that proved eminently acceptable to his in-laws, who soon discovered that they preferred the dashing, yet reliably subservient, Tony to foul-tempered Princess Margaret.
...The exact nature of the qualities that captivated Princess Margaret, her family, Snowdon's legions of ill-treated lovers and, most recently, the author of this dazzled tribute, remains, even after 400 pages, obscure. Loyal De Courcy passes on reports of an extremely large penis, but that can hardly account for Snowdon's effect on Prince Philip. Or, later, on Christopher Frayling, rector of the Royal College of Art, who said Snowdon was "the best provost we ever had".
Was it wit? None is recorded here. Young Snowdon's speciality was nasty practical jokes, such as putting dead fish in girls' beds. It was the grown-up Snowdon's, too: "they would sortie out to the houses of neighbours they knew to be out or away", De Courcy hilariously reports, of the earl and his chums, "and rearrange all the furniture".
...Looks, then? As irresistible as Snowdon may have been in the 50s and 60s, and even the 70s and 80s, it hardly accounts for the posh old shagger's continuing appeal, not only to the author of this homage, but, incredibly, to an attractive young journalist, Melanie Cable-Alexander (by whom he fathered a child)
....Although De Courcy tries valiantly to generate admiration for various artistic and charitable triumphs, her efforts are continually nullified, not by her obvious partiality, but by yet more evidence of Snowdon's awfulness, as volunteered to her, exclusively, by himself. There are reasons, De Courcy shows, why Snowdon should have emerged so deceitful, manipulative and cruel; so mean, boastful and silly. His father sounds silly too. His mother more or less ignored him until he bagged Margaret. He had polio as a child, leaving him with a dodgy leg. Then again, you'd think that half a century of adulation, plus a family, experience and a bit of maturity would eventually even things out. On the contrary. It is only, one suspects, because he is using a wheelchair that Snowdon does not, even now, creep out of a night to plant dead fish or rearrange people's furniture.

I suppose I've taken rather more than snippets, but it's still worth following the link and reading the article, if only to learn about the wedding present for him and Margaret for which British servicemen's pay was docked by sixpence apiece, and why his mother was called Tugboat Annie.
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Blessed is the cheesemaker

In a speech delivered at the LSE, Malcom Turnbull gives an Australian's view of China and refers to the assumption by Americans they will always be the strongest, richest and cleverest nation on earth. He goes on to suggest that there is evidence of a growing sense of inadequacy, and the realisation, not limited to Americans, that the rest of the world is becoming outclassed by China: "Nobody who has visited Shanghai could be unimpressed".

Well, yes. But the experiences of many of the expatriates who have lived and worked in China for some years may cause them to give a wry smile at the "cleverest nation on earth" bit, having found incompetence, mendacity, inflexibility and general stupidity and lack of sense among many—or even most—of the clients and employers they encounter. The miseries of being an expatriate trying to make a living in China are described by Froog with justifiable anger.

But there is another side to the Chinese character. In the blog of an American globetrotter called Heather I came across an account of the achievement of a young Chinese man called Liu Yang who went to France to study management, fell in love with cheese, learned all about it and became a cheese maker. Now he is single-handedly introducing cheese culture to Beijing with his artisanal cheeses, handmade in his workshop. Although most of his clients are expatriates, he is slowly winning over Beijing locals. Heather's blog has a link to a Mercedes-Benz ad in which he talks about his business.

Clearly Liu has enormous energy, initiative, determination and sheer ability. Of course he is only one out of 1.3 billion, and there must be several hundred millions in China who lack all these qualities and resemble those Froog has encountered, but there must also be tens of millions who could one day do the sort of thing that Liu Yang has done.

This is an inspiring thought. Or perhaps a frightening one.

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Streisand, Poe, Sturgeon and Arkell

The first is an Effect, the second and third are Laws and the fourth is a Response: all these are familiar to users of the internet. They have been described by Wikipedia or the Oxford English Dictionary as follows:

The Streisand Effect: This is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters, to suppress numbers, files and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.

...The term was coined after Streisand, citing privacy violations, unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have an aerial photograph of her mansion removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs. Adelman said that he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the government-commissioned California Coastal Records Project. As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month. 

Poe's Law: Named after its author Nathan Poe, this is an Internet adage reflecting the fact that without a clear indication of the author's intent it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and an exaggerated parody of extremism. Its core is that a parody of something is by nature extreme. That makes it impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism.

A corollary of Poe's law is the reverse phenomenon: legitimate fundamentalist beliefs being mistaken for a parody of that belief. A further corollary, the Poe Paradox, results from suspicion of the first corollary. The paradox is that any new person or idea sufficiently extreme to be accepted by the extremist group risks being rejected as a parody or parodist.

Sturgeon's Law: A humorous aphorism which maintains that most of any body of published material, knowledge, etc., (or, more generally, of everything) is worthless: based on a statement by Theodore Sturgeon, usually later cited as ‘90 per cent of everything is crap’, typically used of a specific medium, originally science fiction, and now frequently also of information to be found on the Internet.

The aphorism was apparently first formulated in 1951 or 1952 at a lecture at New York University and popularized at the 1953 WorldCon science fiction convention.

The Response of Pressdram to Arkell: An unlikely piece of British legal history occurred in what is now referred to as the "case" of Arkell v. Pressdram (1971). The plaintiff was the subject of an article [in Private Eye] relating to illicit payments, and the magazine had ample evidence to back up the article. Arkell's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: "[My client's] attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply."

The magazine's response was, in full: "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that your client's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off."

In the years following, the magazine would refer to this exchange as a euphemism for a blunt and coarse dismissal: for example, "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram". As with "tired and emotional" this usage has spread beyond the magazine.


(There is also Godwin's Law, but this is not so much a law, more an adage or a memetic tool.)

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New Year tomorrow

Tonight, Other Men's Flowers marches (staggers? crawls?) into its ninth year, having since January 2004 amassed (garnered? spewed?) 347,768 words in 1,213 posts, with 598 pictures, 1,290 links and 1,852 comments (not counting comment spam).

I know a dozen people who read every word of the blog, and there are perhaps a hundred more who glance at it from time to time. This is quite enough for me and the figure of 237,091 page views logged by one of my counters over the past eight years is of no interest, since the great majority of visitors will have stumbled on OMF when looking for something else, and there is no reason to suppose that more than a handful actually read any of it; I do not labour under the delusion that I am reaching out to a planet-wide community.

So why do I bother?

Well, actually, maintaining the thing is really no bother: I am committed only to publishing five or six posts a month (used to be fifteen) of any length, in any style and on any topic, and if I sometimes don't quite make it no-one will care or even notice. Also, only about 60% of the content is actually written by me: the rest is plagiarised or merely pasted wholesale from books, newspapers or elsewhere on the web, so there is no stress and little sweat involved.

The benefits to me are substantial:

First, it gives me something to do; Other Men's Flowers, a couple of websites and nine other blogs (rarely updated) keep me happily occupied and I am never bored.

Second, it brings me acquaintanceship with an extraordinary variety of people around the world: I never feel lonely.

Third, it is a modest intellectual exercise, helping to keep the mind alive.

Finally, after a few hours at the keyboard I have a sense of achievement, much more than I get from any of my other major activities such as emptying the dishwasher or watching old movies. I have done something, even if it was only drafting a paragraph of a post which I later decide is not worth publishing.

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody. Fat chance, we are told.


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Twenty Questions More

This batch is intended to provide a refuge for those who find festivities and the current news equally depressing: not one of the questions is either seasonal or topical.

61   What would I rather do than join the army?

62   What ends "Shantih, shantih, shantih"?

63   The 1814 Treaty of Ghent ended a war between which states?

64   What links: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Pasha, German invasion of the USSR?

65   Which wireless technology is named after a Viking king of Denmark?

66   Robert Hubert was hanged for supposedly starting what?

67   What became England's 10th National Park last year?

68   Which global issue was resolved by the Washington conference of 1884?

69   Which Wimbledon finalist in 1983 became a nun?

70   Who was it said, in 1932, that "the bomber will always get through"?

71   Variations And Fugue On A Theme of Purcell is better known as what?

72   Which country has world's largest proven oil reserves, according to OPEC?

73  In 1996 the Austrian Robert Kalina won a competition to design what?

74   Which chain now has more food outlets worldwide than McDonald's?

75   The "adulterous" Bible of 1631 omitted which word from the seventh commandment?

76   Which film star became US ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia?

77   The Starlight Barking was a sequel to which novel?

78   "Yes, the surface is fine and powdery" - whose words?

79   What links Liliom, Green Grow the Lilacs, Sweet Thursday?

80   Who said "Twa piggles dinna mek a thrup", on what occasion, what was he prevented from saying, and by whom?

ANSWERS ARE HERE

[Questions 41 to 60 are HERE] 


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Secular Britain

As long ago as 2004, a survey of the religious beliefs of 10,000 people in ten countries showed that the UK was among the most secular nations of the world. More recent polls have confirmed this, with the UK coming sixth, being exceeded in godlessness only by Sweden, Japan, Estonia, South Korea and the Czech Republic.

So not a lot has changed in the last few years. David Cameron apparently believes that nothing much has changed since the Reformation, except that our society has had a moral collapse this century, which could be put right if we reverted to the application of Christian values.

This month's British Humanist Association's newsletter comments on Cameron's idiotic pronouncement:   

This week, in a speech celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible,the Prime Minister described Britain as 'a Christian country'. He claimed that Christian values could reverse British society's 'moral collapse', stated that he disagreed with the arguments of secularists, and argued that Britain is only welcoming of other religions because of its Christian heritage. We believe the Prime Minister is mistaken.

As a simple factual statement, what the Prime Minister said is incorrect. Only a minority of people in Britain are practising Christians, and we know from last week's British Social Attitudes survey that over half of the population sees itself as non-religious. Although Christianity has undoubtedly had a sometimes positive influence on the cultural and social development of Britain, it is far from being the only influence. Many pre-Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian forces have shaped our society for the better, and Christianity has often had ill effects. So, on the factual level the Prime Minister’s remarks are simply bizarre. 

We see two interpretations of the Prime Minister's remarks. The most hopeful reading is that Mr Cameron doesn’t really mean it. His statements may be intended as a way to pacify the increasingly strident lobbying of a minority of Christians for more influence in our public life. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Prime Minister repeated the myth that those of non-Christian religions are best off in a Christian society – a claim unsupported by history and logic, but one of the favourite arguments of activist Christian groups against a secular state.

If this is indeed the motivation behind the speech, it would at least give us less reason to fear any future policy initiatives shaped by these destructive ideas. But the far more concerning possibility is that the Prime Minister is serious. 

A politician and a government that tried to make Christianity and Christian beliefs the foundation of British values or a social morality would be building on seriously unstable foundations. All the evidence shows that religion makes no difference to a person’s social and moral behaviour – the same percentage of religious as non-religious people do volunteer work, for example. And people certainly don’t want to see it have more influence in government – in a 2006 Ipsos Mori poll, ‘religious groups and leaders’ actually topped the list of domestic groups that people said had too much influence on government. 

However you look at it, whether as a sop to appease increasingly aggressive Christian lobbies, or as a serious proposition to change public policy, his remarks are deeply concerning. We value reason and evidence in public policy, and fairness and secularism in our political life. The Prime Minister's remarks show why our work is so important.

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Jan-Pehechan-Ho

E-cards are AWFUL

...it's an insult to send them: it shows that you can't be bothered to select a card appropriate to the recipient, write in it, put it in an envelope, address it, put a stamp on it, and post it by Royal Mail (or mail it through the US Postal Service). And the kind you find on the web are GHASTLY: repellent cartoon figures, twee pictures, revolting sentiments, pathetic doggerel, unfunny quips and often, worst of all, a bit of unutterably vile music. Yuck!  Poo!  Delete it before it befouls your inbox.

Yes, but there are exceptions...

There is a British company which produces charming and witty e-cards. It was founded by artist Jacquie Lawson in 2000, and she now leads a team of talented helpers—mostly her friends and family—including animators, a watercolourist, a musician and a web designer, based in Devon, London and the US.  They have a range of 196 cards for various purposes: you can see them at their excellent website, www.jacquilawson.com.

There is still time to send out some of these for Christmas, or better still their magnificent 2011 Advent Calendar, a bit more expensive but very good value. If you don't want to buy this or anything else from them, you can pass a pleasant hour previewing their stock.

Other Men's Flowers is, of course, widely known for its venality; it will happily publish a plug for any product, however tatty, overpriced or downright fraudulent, provided the fee is right. But I can make an honest declaration of disinterest in Jacquie Lawson: I have no acquaintance with her or any of her associates and no financial interest in their company. I rather regret this, for they are clearly an agreeable bunch of people and have a deservedly successful business.

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Nothing to add

It's not surprising that very few of the posts in OMF evoke any comments. The explanation could be that its most assiduous readers are diffident about expressing fulsome praise, or are merely stunned into admiring silence by OMF's forceful arguments and subtle analyses, or the erudition and percipience of its content.

My own view, however, is that after their biweekly perusal of the latest posts these readers simply have no time to spare to set out their own viewpoints, most of them being fully occupied by such things as chairing multinationals or ecumenical conferences, running major law practices, fulfilling their ministerial responsibilities or studying for their doctorates.

However, there are exceptions, and it is interesting to note that it is the posts dealing with the least interesting topics that seem to attract the most comments. For example, a boring and facetious item I posted about an opinion poll some years ago attracted some two thousand words of comment. After a brief and relevant comment from an old friend, two other ladies joined in with lengthy dissertations on feminist issues. I felt impelled to insert some hot news about gastro-oesophageal reflux before drawing the stimulating discussion to a close.

I suppose all this happened because the word sex had cropped up in the original post; similarly, a rather feeble post in which Jehovah was mentioned inspired a bit of tedious chat. Yet what I thought was a fascinating piece - lavishly illustrated - about the theatre in North Korea evoked no comments at all.

So you really can’t tell. Perhaps there are keywords other than the two I have mentioned which are bound to elicit a reaction from readers; I might try a few.


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Again Twenty Questions

Either the questions are getting easier or standards of erudition and culture are rising; those who say they got ten right are not necessarily lying; the mendacity threshold is raised to fifteen.

41  What has Himmler got?

42  How will I love you, always?

43   Sabrage is  a: a generic term for desert scrub  b: a yearling hawk  c: a rank of officer in the Indian army  d: the art of opening a champagne bottle with a sabre

44   What links: larynx, flight data recorder, St Stephen's Day?

45   Which Commonwealth country is on mainland South America?

46   What is detected by the Scott test?

47   Elizabeths I and II ascended the throne at what age?

48   Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger founded which reference source?

49   Sarah Woodruff is the title character of which novel?

50   "The Monster's Mate...?" is listed in the credits of which film?

51   Which baking aid was patented by Henry Jones in 1845?

52   Who had friends called Ginger and Merrylegs?

53   Which British fortifications are named after a Corsican original?

54   Which car is named after the French founder of Detroit?

55   "It was love at first sight" begins which 1961 novel?

56   YKK is the world's largest manufacturer of what?

57   What sort of delicacy is kopi luwak?

58   Which trophy did an American club successfully defend 24 times over 132 years?

59   What is made in a chessel?

60   What do lazy jellyfish do?

Answers are HERE

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And now farewell

...to cartoonist David Langdon. I posted some of his cartoons in 2009 to wish him a happy 95th birthday and now comes the sad news that he died this week.

He contributed to the New Yorker from 1948 and to many other newspapers and perodicals during and after World War II. The bulk of his cartoons, however, were published in Punch for more than half a century, from 1937 until it folded in 1992. They include these three, which appeared in 1968, 1976, and 1982.

'No, I think he's all right to ask the way. It's the chaps in round black helmets who knock your teeth in.'

'He wants twenty-five per cent of the gross, with an agreed minimum advance guarantee, plus doing our own tidying up.'

'Sorry, madam—the chef says he cannot reveal his sauces.'

The Prizegiving

My CV (which can be found by going HERE and scrolling down), includes one item of which I always been particularly proud. This, the second in the list of my lifetime's achievements, is perhaps the most noteworthy, though it was only a runner-up prize.

Unfortunately photography was in its infancy in those days and no pictures of the presentation of the prizes are known to exist. However, to illustrate the item I have found a lovely contemporary print of a comparable occasion, though it has to be said that this was a much more lavish affair:

Had I attended that 1885 prize-giving ceremony (at Le Palais de l’Industrie, Paris) rather than the one in 1938 at Kingsley Road Junior School, just by the Croydon gasworks, I might have been standing behind the man about to receive the first prize, though of course I would have been wearing shorts.

Incidentally, the respective Guests of Honour at the two events were Hector Berlioz in 1855 and, of course, Miss Beamish in 1938.



Comedy and drama

There is a TV series running at the moment called Death in Paradise. It is described as a comedy drama but is in fact not in the least funny or dramatic. It has reminded me of something I once saw many years ago in Pyongyang, also with Paradise in its title; this was tremendously dramatic as well as funny, though the comedy was unintentional.

It was a sort of musical, though in The Democratic People's Republic of Korea they call them revolutionary operas. As I have noted before, the musical theatre thrives in Pyongyang as nowhere else; this production was in 1976, but there is no reason to suppose that this and similar productions are not still going on and on like a lot of mousetraps.

It was, and probably still is, called Song of Paradise, a "heightened paean for the advantages and great vitality of our socialist system... another monumental masterpiece adding radiance to the great flourishing Juche art... a high tribute to the illustrious line on literature and art enunciated by the respected and beloved leader".

The number being sung here is the first act closer, called A Love Much Deeper Than the Deepest Sea, and they sing:
Our fatherly leader's love that is warm and unlimited...
Our hearts throbbed with emotion profound
When he hugged us still damp from the sea-wind.
... though no doubt it has lost something in translation. The scene comes at the moment when "Deep-sea fishermen are moved to tears to hear the glad news that they will enjoy one-month holidays with their families in Mt Kumgang-san thanks to the Great and Respected Leader's loving care and attention."

It looks to me as if two quite separate announcements are being made simultaneously, one stage left and one stage right, and I cannot remember why this was, but anyway it was a splendid ensemble number. They all seemed very happy in their stylish deep-sea fishing uniforms.

The G and R Leader referred to here is, of course, the late Kim Il Sung whom we called Chubby-Chops when none of his subjects were listening, and it may be that by now the lyrics have been amended to transfer the credit to his son Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader.

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The Style Invitational

Under this title The Washington Post has offered, every week since 1993, a wordplay contest, "an irreverent mix of highbrow and lowbrow—haughty and potty—in genres ranging from neologisms to cartoon captions to elaborate song parodies".

In week 610 (June 2005), readers were asked to "mash" two movies, TV shows, etc., into a single work of art and describe it. There were over 4,000 entries; below, from The Post's archives, is a selection of the winners and runners-up:  

The Wizinator: A steroid-fueled cyborg pursues Dorothy and her companions as they attempt to reach the Emerald City in time to take their court-mandated drug tests. But along the Yellow Brick Road there were some poppies ...

Please Don’t Eat Miss Daisy: Hannibal Lecter lands a job driving for a prim southern spinster.

Pollyanna Karenina: "Oh my, isn’t that the most beautiful train?”

Terminators of Endearment: At last, the perfect “compromise” date movie.

Valley Girl With a Pearl Earring: There’s this girl, Julie? She gets to be a model for, like, a famous photograph or something.

It’s a Wonderful Life Is Beautiful: A man sees how depressing a Nazi concentration camp would have been without him.

My Left Footloose: A dancer with leprosy sees the imminent end of his career.

The French Lieutenant’s a Man and a Woman: Confused sexual identity threatens morale in Napoleon’s army.

The Americanization of Amelie: The cute, quirky French girl finds herself getting a big butt.

Soylent Green Acres: Two rich urban retirees find out the real meaning of being “put out to pasture.”

The Man With the Golden Gunga Din: James Bond finally meets a better man than he.

The Lion in Winterminator 2:
Eleanor of Aquitaine can’t be bargained with. She can’t be reasoned with. She doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And she absolutely will not stop. Until you are dead.

2001 Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A computer attempts to get out of work by acting crazy, but things get out of hand and he ends up with a circuit-otomy.

Love Toy Story: Woody, an old favorite, feels threatened by the arrival of the new battery-powered Buzz Lightyear.

Das Booty Call: When the German sub fleet puts in to port, they’re ready for some action!

A Bullet Is Waiting for Godot: Let’s just say Vladimir and Estragon have had it up to here.

Man on Fire Down Below: An educational film about STDs and their symptoms. 

Inherit the Wind in the Willows: Did Mole descend from Rat? Or was it the other way around? Let a jury decide!

Gilligan’s Island of Dr. Moreau: A mad scientist’s plans to perform experimental lobotomies on seven castaways are spoiled when he realizes that someone has already beaten him to it.

DracuLa Recherche du Temps Perdu: Memories of his past life come flooding back when a vampire bites into Madeleine.

Independence Day After Tomorrow: Aliens stupidly attack Earth right after global warming has rendered the planet uninhabitable.

Bob & Carol & Ted (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore): After the divorce, Ted settles into a ménage à trois.

You Only Live Twice, Pussycat: The other cats gang up on Felix and say nasty things to him.

Tequila Sunrise at Campobello: Suddenly Eleanor starts looking pretty good.

The Thin Red Blue Long Grey Line: A bus company offers an extended tour of the American political landscape.

My Fair Lady Sings the Blues: “Cocaine, I’m sayin’, stays mainly in the vein.” 

Die Another Day After Tomorrow: The world ends not with a stir, but with a shake.

[Every Friday there is a new contest; HERE, for anyone who wants to enter, are the Rules.]

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Bad Faith Awards

These annual awards are a means of dishonouring each year's most outstanding enemy of reason; winners in previous years have included Sarah Palin and the Pope.

Candidates for the 2011 prize have now been nominated, and the public are invited to vote for the candidate they think would be the most deserving winner. For me, the choice was not too difficult: dismissing Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann (why pick on two American politicians when their ranks include so many who deserve the award?), and ruling out two of the others whose idiocy has not impinged much on me, I was left with Nadine Dorries and Melanie Phillips.

From the first, Dorries looked likely to be the winner, so rather than merely adding one voice to the majority I chose the Daily Mail's deluded columnist to receive my vote. Now that over three thousand votes have been cast, Rick Perry has overtaken Phillips in second place and may well finish as runner-up.

Voting is open until 28th November. Vote for Mad Mel and help her to put the American into third place!

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Who's tops today?

One reason for not liking Hallowe'en much is that its feeble modern version has been imported from America (never mind about Walpurgisnacht and all that) and has come to overshadow our fireworks on November 5th. This good old British anti-Catholic festival (originally a pagan celebration) is much more fun than silly trick-or-treat and pumpkins, and gives us the opportunity of burning in effigy whoever we want to stand in for the Pope or Guy Fawkes (Nadine Dorries? Bashar al-Assad? David Tredinnick? Simon Cowell?).

Another reason is that it is condemned by some Christians who consider it a satanic ritual. Catholic parents are being advised to celebrate Hallowe'en by dressing up their children as popular saints instead of witches and devils: "...they should kit out their youngsters to look like St George, St Lucy, St Francis of Assisi or St Mary Magdalene rather than let them wear costumes that celebrate evil or occult figures", according to a campaign endorsed by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and at a season when people are expecting a knock on the door their accompanying parents can take the opportunity of doing some proselytising. This sounds like a splendid opportunity for a bit of fun for all the family.

But let Jesus and Satan fight it out over October 31st: a plague on both their houses, and a few days later we can commemorate the pathetic attempt of poor old Guy and his friends to replace King James 1st with a dynasty of Papists. Even those who dislike the Windsors would not maintain that we would have been better off had the plot succeeded.

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Another Twenty Questions

The mixture as before: questions suited to people with ragbag minds. Some of the questions are dreary, some obscure and some merely silly.

Three correct answers is a good score, five is outstanding, ten is a lie.


21    What is love not?

22    What is Other Men's Flowers?

23    What did George Holliday videotape on 3rd March 1991 in LA?

24    What links: Lake Manzala, Lake Timsah, Great Bitter Lake, Little Bitter Lake?

25    Why must I wayle for Witherington?

26    What did she cry before she died, after lifting up her lovely head?

27    What are the trees where you sit going to do?

28    Whom should you not trust when you can't find your way home?

29    Which psychological condition was defined after a 1973 Swedish bank robbery?

30    Which astronomical event is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry?

31    The King, or Kitchener?

32    Why did the Earl of Oxford leave Elizabeth I's court for seven years?

33    Magnetite, hematite and goethite are ores of which metal?

34    Fingal O'Flahertie Wills were the middle names of which writer?

35    Whose mother and sister are cured of leprosy in a biblical epic?

36    What became the largest country in Africa this year?

37    The USS Phoenix at Pearl Harbour was sunk 40 years later under what name?

38    The Parsi people practise which religion?

39    What restriction was introduced on 8 January 1940?

40    What's it all about?

Answers are HERE

[Sources: Guardian Weekend, Ask a Silly Question (Goswell Frand), New Statesman, Wikipedia, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The Public School Hymn Book, The OED, The Washington Post, The Bible, etc.]

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