Harder, Better, Faster, Stranger

I actually farted the Daft Punk sample that serves as the hook for Kanye West's single "Stronger" last night.

Tooting Bac

From the Guardian:

It was lunchtime on London's Northern line. Deep underground, passengers were getting on and off the tube trains as normal. Two men boarded a train at Colliers Wood in south London. As the train gathered speed towards its next stop, Tooting Broadway, one of them got up from his seat and dropped a small carton of face powder out of the window. He could have been idly throwing away litter.

As the train sped on, the carton hit the tracks and burst. Out spewed millions of tiny spores, which began to spread throughout the dark tunnels. Dust swabs taken after three days and two weeks showed that the spores had spread as far up the line as Camden Town station in north London, 10 miles away.

This really happened. But the two men weren't terrorists but government scientists. And the spores weren't anthrax spores, but a harmless micro-organism designed to mimic clandestine sabotage with anthrax. This was an official experiment in 1963, and it showed how easily saboteurs could inflict a potentially devastating attack on Britain's capital.

I promise never to be bored on the Northern Line again.

Puff

The Plain People of Ireland: Considering the man himself; the all round entertainer Puff Daddy aka P Diddy, you understand; what would he in your estimation would he be worth in cash money terms, if you please and by your leave?

Myself, a Welsh Born Icon: You may say that I would value Sean John Combs at one million dollars.

The Plain People of Ireland: But surely even an eye as jaundiced, or yet a head as drink raddled, as your own must see plainly that the gold, diamonds and furs that adorn him even as we speak must have cost that sum alone. His bling man! The issue of bling must be addressed.

Myself, a Welsh Born Icon: I included that gross ornamentation in my gross calculation. You may deduce the implied net worth.

"A sardonic laugh escapes us as we bow, cruel and cynical hounds that we are. It is a terrible laugh, the laugh of lost men. Do you get the smell of porter?"

Sea Bass

I'm not happy saying it, but I think England may be in with a shout against France. Sébastien Chabal et al's heart bursting efforts against the All Blacks may have taken too much out of them.

We shall see. I've been wrong about everything else in the Rugby World cup.

PSP

I got the New Ninja Bomber a PSP for his birthday.

It's now set up to access the Internet wirelessly in my office and at home, and with a selection of his photos, video and music as well as downloaded games.

This was however a pain in the neck for both me and The Profit Burglar. We had to upgrade the OS and reformat the memory stick before the web browser would work properly, and the text entry system (modelled on SMS) is an abomination that surpasseth all human understanding.

If you attach it to a PC via USB the device is simply mounted as a drive. Henceforth I'm going to manage it from there, and download from http://uk.playstation.com/psp/ etc. onto the desktop rather than directly to the PSP.

For all these travails however, I can see that the next generation of a PSP type system may become indispensable, that removeable storage is on its last legs, and that ubiquitous wireless access will change the landscape fundamentally.

Santa Carlotta's Nunnery

I plunged in to Emma Hamilton last night, as I had an evening at home.

Reading lurid tales of Georgian bawds reminded me that Mandy Rice-Davies of Profumo fame was given to comparing herself to Nelson's famous mistress.

Chris pointed out a week or so ago - when we were trying to remember who famously uttered, "He would, wouldn't he?" - that as she was born in Pontyates near Llanelli, she is eligible for elevation to Welsh Born Iconhood. Let's do it. It is good to add some colour to the list.

Paradise Merton

Off to the Chapter House last night to see Kate Williams on Emma Hamilton, her Nelson and her "Attitudes" as part of Wimbledon's inaugral BookFest.

Rather sportingly, she appeared in period costume and delivered a choreographed lecture accompanied by a dancer. I was entranced by the audacious combination of didactics and décolletage, and left clutching a signed copy of her magnum opus in my sweaty palm.

Quit While You're a Hedda

I went to the opening night of the excellent new production of Hedda Gabler in the Colour House Theatre last night.

It's a very interesting reading of the play. Jonathon Roberts makes Jørgen such an agreeable chap that he never seems pitiful or worthy of contempt, and the lady herself is portrayed more as a victim of circumstance than either a proto-feminist or a bunny-boiling neurotic.

Also, while Hedda Gabler will never be Ibsen's comedy of manners, the cast do extract a fair amount of laughter from the proceedings. Give yourself a treat and go along.

(I bumped into the director in the kebab shop on the way home. What a glamorous life it is.)

A joyful sound

I went to Andy's reunion yesterday. It is good to be reminded what a joyful sound a big band makes swinging in the flesh, even if it was something of a bitter sweet occasion.

The World in One City

Has any other reader noticed the remarkable resemblance between Eat Your Way Around the World in London and The World in One City - in which Owen Powell and Alex Horne aim is to prove that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world, by endeavouring to meet and chat to a citizen from every country in the world who currently lives and works here?

I wonder if I should have recourse to Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Run as The Profit Burglar and I have been at our scheme longer.

Actually I'm only joking. I think "The World In One City" is a great idea whose contribution to the gaiety of nations has earned my respect and admiration.

The Last Hurrah of The Golden Horde

Eat Your Way Around the World in London is back on the road for the first time - what with one thing and another - since June, so The Profit Burglar and I bowled up at Covent Garden's Mongolian Barbecue on Wednesday night.

The M.O. at the Mongolian Barbecue is that you select sliced meat and veg along with spices and sauces and hand it over to the staff to be stir fried on a large flat steel and then served up. For all that the website contends that "transcripts of Marco Polo's writings mention Mongolian warriors cooking on upturned shields", this doesn't seem to be very authentic at all. I couldn't find anything else even vaguely Mongolian in London however, so any port in a storm. (I also remember when there were branches of the franchise all over London's suburbs, though now the central London establishment seems to be the only one left.)

Wikipedia has an entry on Mongolian Cuisine which - rather wonderfully relates that:

BD's Mongolian Barbeque, has opened even in Ulaanbaatar (ironically the first American chain to open in Mongolia), neither the ingredients nor the cooking method has anything in common with Mongolian cuisine.

(Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations since 2005.)

My Name is Luca Brasi

My name is Luca
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes I think you've seen me before

If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble. some kind of fight
Just don't ask me what it was

Strange is it not how a lyric's meaning can be transposed by conjuring a new illustrative image to your mind's eye? The original intention is described here.

Walk and Talk

Tonight may be the night that - for all my Westwingphilia - I give up the ghost with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. One of the reasons I struggle with it is that the "show within a show" seems so lame. I'm convinced that the "controversial" Crazy Christians sketch that powered the plot from episode one would be about as funny as a hole in a parachute.

A couple of weeks ago there was an episode that even the power and the glory of John Goodman guest starring couldn't save.

My West Wing and Studio 60 knowledge has however earned me a namecheck on the weblog of the 77th most important figure on the British left as I explained to him that the trademark shot in both shows in which the camera leads two characters down a hallway as they speak to each other is called a "walk-and-talk".

See http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2007/10/for-more-dynami.html. (Rob M who sparked my interest should be proud. )

The real governor of the "walk-and-talk" however is somewhat closer to home. Step forward Peter Kay.

Tempted by a stovepipe

The results of the Wimbledon Bookfest Sandi Toksvig Writing Challenge (Can you write a story in prose (fiction or non-fiction), poetry or graphic form, including this sentence?“Terence had been confident of his hat selection.”) are out and I haven't won.

You can see the winners here, my entry is below and I still rather like it.

Terry Lifts the Lid

Girls’ hats come from milliners, boys’ are from a hatter
Though in the new millennium should such distinctions matter?

Terence had been confident of his hat selection
Trusting common sense to lead him in the right direction.

First he ruled out all the styles the Village People sported,
“Though I’ve got all sorts of friends both straight and gay (assorted),”

“Stetsons, safety helmets, feather head dresses, and caps,
I would rather leave to those flamboyant, Yankee chaps.”

Tempted by a stovepipe lid, subdued, he sadly said,
“Undertakers wear top hats to let you know you’re dead.”

“Gene Hackman in ‘The French Connection’ wore a pork pie hat.
It worked for him as Popeye Doyle but I would look a prat.”

“It’s obvious a crocheted tam would be a style disaster
Because you see, that truth is that I’m not a dreadlocked Rasta”.

“What I need is headgear that will keep me cool and sane,
So Sandi Toksvig’s Challenge will not overheat my brain.”

Tradition sound and British as a tin of bully beef
Guided hand to pocket and thence to his handkerchief

And in no time each corner was anointed with a knot,
Then Terry, satisfied announced, “I think I’ve hit the spot”.

Most solemnly upon his pate he laid his linen crown
He opened up his deckchair and he had a nice sit down.

Other hats were knocked into the cocked hat of rejection
Terence had been confident of his hat selection.

squeezing lemons for juice

This is so good, I am merely going to reprint the first few to lead you in, encourage you to read the rest, and then absent myself from the picture. (Hat tip Norm.)

Blues is more than just the music and there's many a philosophical insight buried in all those wailin', ramblin' and jivin' old songs.

Here are the 30 things I've learnt about life from listening to the blues.

1 The boss man is rarely understanding of one's workplace issues.

2 After waking up in the morning, the best follow-up action is to get out of bed.

3 A woman is ill advised if she leaves town in order to cheat on her man, since - during her absence - he may well replace her with another sweet mama.

4 One sign of really serious depression is the decision to shoot a fellow citizen just to see him die.

5 Precipitation in the state of Georgia is sometimes so heavy one can be left with the misapprehension that it is raining all over the world.

6 The best response to an unfaithful spouse is to leave home for a time, and to
achieve success elsewhere.

7 There is almost no human activity, however unlikely, that cannot serve as a metaphor for sex, including playing a phonograph, digging for potatoes, checking the oil in a car, making biscuits, hooking catfish or even squeezing lemons for juice.

8 .......... read on ......

Playlists

We use Google Analytics on almost all the sites we are involved with, and I've noticed that there is YouTube playlist of "presentations, clips, and instructional videos on using Google Analytics, Website Optimizer, and AdWords to improve your marketing and website".

An embedded playlist looks like this:

I won't have seen it until I publish this post. I wonder if it will be of any use elsewhere now that we are starting to get more TV and press converage. (I was talking to a researcher from Working Lunch on Friday, and apparently there is some interest at The Sun as well.)

what dreams I have had of his future

It is the New Ninja Bomber's seventh birthday today. When I got a card through the door saying that the Royal Mail had tried and failed to deliver a parcel earlier this week, I assumed that it was most probably a present for him, so I didn't pick it up until yesterday morning. In fact it turned out to be a present for me; Roland Huntford's dual biography of Scott and Amunden gifted by Maturin most likley in light of this post on the British explorer's last letter. (Thanks Rob by the way.)

The coincidence naturally led me (on Ben's birthday and as the world's most sentimental person) back to the last words Scott scribbled in the icy wilderness to his wife about his son, and how - remarkably - that boy grew up to be the famous Sir Peter Markham Scott CH, CBE, DSC, FRS, FZS, a distinguished ornithologist, conservationist, painter and sportsman.

I have written letters on odd pages of this book — will you manage to get them sent? You see I am anxious for you and the boy's future — make the boy interested in natural history if you can, it is better than games — they encourage it at some schools — I know you will keep him out in the open air — try and make him believe in a God, it is comforting.
Oh my dear my dear what dreams I have had of his future .....

I'm ready for another blub up, but looking quickly at the book, I seem to detect a revisionist slant. I'm really not looking forward to finding feet of clay on a national hero, but what must be must be.

Far-called our navies melt away-
On dune and headland sinks the fire-
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

You knows it

alright, have you got...your draw?
check
got your fags?
check
got your rizla?
check
they're the 3 things you need to be in the GLC

Up Market

We sold a Jet Ski a couple of weeks ago, and last night we started auctioning a Jag and an Alfa Romeo.

Our police clients must be dealing with a better class of customer.

The fryPhone

I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but there is something I find immensely agreeable about Stephen Fry's public persona. You may imagine me therefore, garbed in the overcoat, muffler scarf and flat cap of the old school football fan, waving my rattle and cheering from the touchlines in support of his new blog - http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/.

He has kicked off - unpredictable as ever - with a comparative review of the smartphones on the market in which he displays an effortless and unforced familiarity with all the acronyms that disfigure the world of computing and telecoms. (He genuinley appears to know everything. If I had him and Danny Baker in my quiz team, our troubles here would be over very quickly.)

Of the iPhone he concludes, "only a cross and silly person would pretend to be unimpressed".

This is a phrase that only he would coin, and which we can unhesitatingly apply to the great man himself.