Fun

A Toast to Technology

Thursday, 16 May 2013

Despite my antipathy to mobile phones and ambivalence to Kindle (as mentioned the other day) technology is the living proof that mankind has clambered to the top most branch of the evolutionary tree. Take the self-stirring mug on the left. Think of all the energy you’ve wasted over the years clattering a spoon around your cup when all that was needed was a little ingenuity to save you all that effort. No this isn’t the information or communications age, it’s the Age of the Gadget and nowhere is this more [...]

3 comments Read on ›››

Star Warsop

Monday, 13 May 2013

Word play and puns are a great joy in life, or at least they are in mine. I’m sure my long suffering family would disagree – they think that being with me is like living with a walking Christmas cracker joke. The reason I mention this is because of some fun on the Saturday Breakfast Show after the annoncement that the seventh in the Star Wars franchise is to be filmed in the UK next year. Listeners came up with their alternative titles with a UK place motif like the one [...]

5 comments Read on ›››

Euro Vision

Sunday, 17 June 2012

Well it seems Greece finally has something to cheer at last. I’m sorry I missed it, but I was out for the evening. The question is, will it influence the vote in today’s election? Whatever the outcome, it seems the Euro is unlikely to get out of the mess it is in as described here by Blackadder and Baldrick*: Baldrick: ‘What I want to know, Sir, is, before there was a Euro there were lots of different types of money that different people used. And now there’s only one type [...]

4 comments Read on ›››

To Do List

Sunday, 3 June 2012

I’ve been humming and ahhing about whether I should write about my feelings on the anachronism that is the monarchy, but that would be churlish on HMtQ’s diamond jubilee, even if that’s what prompted the thought in the first place. So instead here is a list of things I hope to do one day, shamelessly lifted from Pinterest: Buy a horse. Name it ‘Thunder Takes the Lead’. Enter it in horse races. Become a doctor. Change my last name to Acula. Make vanilla Angel Delight. Put it in a mayo [...]

6 comments Read on ›››

Zen and the Art of Car Maintenance

Friday, 13 April 2012

During my Buddhist training high in the Himalayas, we students would attempt to achieve enlightenment through meditation exercises, such as staring into puddles of water or sitting in the snow for hours on end dressed in nothing but a loincloth. For years I practiced these techniques until the day finally arrived when I was allowed to glimpse the ultimate attainment of self-realisation – Zen through the art of car maintenance.

8 comments Read on ›››

Homage to a Sex Goddess

Thursday, 12 April 2012

We live in a political age when style trumps substance every time – think Blair’s Babes and Cameron’s Cuties – but we forget that the trend began in the aftermath of WWII with Attlee’s Angels. The surprise Labour victory of 1945 that ousted Churchill was founded on a new political philosophy – sex-appeal. The backbenches were suddenly filled with a new breed of MP who relied entirely on their looks and charisma. The likes of Barbara Castle, Jennie Lee, ‘Red’ Ellen Wilkinson, Harold Wilson, Michael Foot and even the dubious [...]

8 comments Read on ›››

Old Parrot’s Almanack

Saturday, 1 January 2011

Today is a day for looking forward, facing the future with hope and a glad heart, but will 2011 be a year of good or ill fortune? Here is a selection of uncannily accurate predictions from Old Parrot’s Almanack. The Royal Family: There will be a great celebration involving royalty at the end of April or the beginning of May, although it will seem to last much longer because of the endless stream of tv specials and newspaper pull-out supplements marking the event throughout the year. It will be a [...]

2 comments Read on ›››

Kid Stuff

Saturday, 4 December 2010

There is an email going round purporting to show real answers from real kids to real school questions. Whatever, I have put them together in a little gallery. Click to enlarge and scroll through.

2 comments Read on ›››

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni

Friday, 3 December 2010

The title of this post is one of my favourite palindromes, certainly my favourite in Latin and known as The Devil’s Verse. It means “we wander in the night, and are consumed by fire” or “we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire”, both said to describe the movement of moths or the ‘mayfly’ which circles the candle only to be consumed by the flame.

1 comment Read on ›››