Sloth

‘My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of branches, and fall out of trees.’ (Douglas Adams)

My Local

The Whalebone.

In Moby-Dick Melville describes the skeleton of a sperm whale washed up on the north sea coast and claimed by the Lord Paramount of the Seigniory of Holderness: ‘Sir Clifford’s whale has been articulated throughout; so that like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his boney cavities – spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan – and swing all day up on his lower jaw. […] Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo at the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.’

Does a good pint of Hoegaarden.

Disliking It

"I, too, dislike it," are the immortal beginning words of Marianne Moore's poem "Poetry", and they seem to me to be the only possible credentials for a poet and a reader of poetry. I sometimes wonder if there are any poets who "like" it, and whether I would like them.

(Michael Hofmann, Poetry September 2005)

Waiting

Que faites-vous? Je m'attends. (Cioran, Cahiers)

Stupidity

“Il n’y a que la bêtise humaine qui donne l’idée de l’infini.” (Renan)

Diarrhoea

“It’s very difficult to get rid of diarrhoea once it starts.” (Colm Tóibín, The Blackwater Lightship)

Iceland, Natural History of

Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of The Natural History of Iceland, from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus:- 'Chap. lxxii. Concerning Snakes. There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island'. (Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson)

Fleas

Adam
'ad 'em

Till Eulenspiegel

Speaking of arses: Till Eulenspiegel's appearance on a 16th century pilot of How Clean is Your House comes to an unfortunate end.

Woodcut from Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason, a volume close to our heart. And our loo.

Look at This

Here’s a poem from Forward Prize-winning Helen Farish’s collection Intimates, and Georgiasam’s tribute.

Look at these
Seeing you makes me want to lift up my top,
breathe in and say Look! Look at these
I've kept them hidden till now
under loose shirts, Dad's jumpers.

Suddenly I'm offering them
like a woman ready to mate.
I'm holding my breath.
Don't tell me not to.

Look at this
Seeing you makes me want to pull down my stretch pants
breathe in and say Oy! Look at my arse
I’ve kept it hidden until now
under the back of my hoodie, these kecks.

Suddenly I’m offering it
like a drunk mooning a schoolbus.
I’m holding my nose.
Don’t tell me what to do with my arse.

Enturbulated Theta

Are you a pre-clear enturbulated theta? Maybe you should read this Scientology glossary and find out.

http://www.scientology.org/wis/wiseng/gloss.htm

Here is the entry for 'Q and A (noun).'

The practice of asking a question about a pc’s answer, i.e., the auditor asks a question, the pc [pre-clear, i.e. non-Scientologist] answers, the auditor asks a question about the answer. This is the chief auditor fault, as it is giving session control over to the pc. The auditor following only the pc’s lead is giving no auditing and the pc is left on “self-audit.”

Here is a wrong example of auditing:
Auditor : “How are you?”
Pc : “Awful.”
Auditor : “What’s wrong?”

Here is a right example:
Auditor : “How are you?”
Pc : “Awful.”
Auditor : “Thank you.”

{End quotation}

Here is a Georgiasam example of auditing:

GS: “How are you?”
Auditor: “Awful.”
GS: “IT'S YOUR FUCKING FAULT GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY GO WHIMPER YOURSELF TO DEATH IN THE CORNER YOU DESPICABLE PIECE OF HUMAN FUCKING JET-TRASH. And here are some complimentary Tom Cruise tickets.”

I Hate the Human Race

Like Harold Pinter, Adrian Mitchell writes fairly rotten poetry. Here is a verse from his fairly rotten poem 'Human Beings', winner of the fairly rotten 'Poem for Space' poll, which makes it 'the [fairly rotten] poem that people most want to send into space in the hope that it will be read in one hundred years’ time' (readers' views on which [fairly rotten] poets, rather than poems, deserved to be fired into outer space were sadly not canvassed):

we all start human
we end up human
human first
human last
we're human
or we're nothing

Adrian Mitchell adds: 'Human Beings is a poem for peace. It is about the joy of being human, but that doesn’t mean that it’s against animals or alien beings. When it goes into space and it’s read by aliens, I’d hate for them to think that it’s anti alternative life forms.' Consider the Venusian counterattack called off then. For the moment.

Hallelujah! (The Nobel Prize)

Hallelujah!
It works.
He impressed the shit out of them.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

(Not including Pinter's poetry then,
which isn't much cop.)

Now I want George Bush to come over here
and kiss him on the mouth.

(The early plays are all right though.)

Struwb

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling: Yes, the Streebs originally hailed form Iceland – or Norway, as it was then, and what is now modern Denmark. Streeb is in fact a corruption of the original Norsk name Struwb.

Ludovic Kennedy: Does that have any meaning in Norsk, in fact?

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling: It means Struwb in Norsk. It’s almost impossible to translate, really. It basically means a sort of wooden bucket with two holes in it. Underwear, really – wooden underwear, which is the only sensible way to deal with the cold Norsk summer. You just take off your underwear, set it on fire and huddle round it for warmth.

You Always Knew I Had This Gun

Georgiasam celebrates finding the light switch (see 'You Know I've Got This Gun Don't You'). But I still love I mean hate Mike. I definitely hate Brian though.

Speed School

When I’m called to serious accident scenes, as I am every week, and I see a dent like this in the car roof I think, You may as well call the hospital now and say Stop, it’ s not worth it. She’s dead.

[Thankfully the woman in the safety film was in fact jumping over the car, not colliding with its bonnet. The dent in the roof was caused by the briefcase she was carrying.]

I feel like going down to the hospital and saying Stop treating this woman’s injuries. She’s not just seriously injured, she’s not just a vegetable, she’s dead.

[After dusting down her business suit, the woman was able to continue on her way to work, even managing to arrive on time.]

In fact I’m going to grab the plug for that life-support machine and yank it out of the wall right now.

[Joking about the incident with her colleagues over the photocopier, she is now looking forward to lunch with a man from the estate agent's across the road. As long as he doesn't get knocked down crossing it! Joke!]

She’s dead. She’s not coming back. Accept it.

Chervonooskilske Vodoskhovyshche

There's a place in Ukraine called Chervonooskilske Vodoskhovyshche. You'll find it between Kupyansk Vuzlovyy and Krasnopavlivka.

Ah, Chervonooskilske Vodoskhovyshche, are you as when I saw you last?

I Am Your President

I Am Your President.

And that's enough Ubu for now.

Terrorist Head

Terrorist head to sit on body.

(BBC Northern Ireland website)

Very Much Want Head Return

You finding Ling-Ling's head?

All hail Ubu: http://www.ubu.com

My Mistakes

I've learned from my mistakes. In fact I could repeat them exactly. (Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling)

Wallis and Fortuna (again)

In Wallis and Fortuna public display of the male nose is considered indecent. Male Wallis and Fortunans (Wallisians and Fortunans?) cover the nose with the small triangular hood known as the nmbti.

Modernising opinion, however, advocates the phasing out of the nmbti. Sarcastic liberals have taken to wearing a mock nmbti coated in velcro, so that on the performance of the traditional male nose-kiss greeting they are able to snare and bear off the other nmbti, leaving the other man helpless to retrieve it as he sinks to his knees and hides his face in his hands.

The situation is serious, but not an emergency (yet). No one wants to return to the dark days of the nmbti riots of 1972.

The female nose women can stick anywhere they want. No one cares about that.

Father Bosco Tutty

Possible names for Father Ted extras:

Father Bosco Tutty
Father Oisin McGillycuddy
Father Setanta O Muircheartaigh
Father Con Condon
Father Iggy O' Looby

Chewing Gum for the Eyes

Father Ted: Dougal, you can't sit around here watching television all day -- chewing gum for the eyes!

Father Dougal: No thanks Ted, I've got these crisps here.

You Know I've Got This Gun Don't You

Georgiasam wonders if his friend Mike is just being tactful about his little wind problem, or whether he's right about Mike hating him and had better get on with shooting the bastard right now.
Dark in here though, isn't it. I blame the BBC.

Rover

'It's never Rover' (Jeff Buckley, Lover, You Should Have Come Over)

Jeff Buckley's dog ran away. He used to sit in his porch waiting for her to return, but she never did (strange choice of name for a bitch, I agree). It's all very sad.

Miso

'Don't be like the one who made Miso' (Jeff Buckley, Dream Brother)

Little-known fact: Jeff Buckley nursed a deep grievance against a Japanese chef and his miso soup in particular, as expressed in the above lyric.

Narcoleptic Sex

Oh baby, you’re so good, you’re so hot (falls asleep). Oh baby, I’m going to, just you wait until I (falls asleep). Oh yeah, I love it when you, I love the way you (falls asleep). I love the way you (falls asleep).

The Arts

Il faut décourager les arts. (Cézanne)

Four Candles

Fork 'andles. 'Andles for forks.

Obscure Patron Saints

Peregrine: handicapped parking spots
Concepta: camogie sweatbands
Boethius: photocopiers
Mulrony: bubblewrap
Aengus: carpooling

Where Time Stands Still

Happy Hour All Day

(Pub sign)

Possibly the Worst. Poem. Ever

Blessed Be the Paps which Thou Hast Sucked

Suppose he had been tabled at thy teats,
Thy hunger feels not what he eats;
He’ll have his teat ere long, a bloody one,
The mother then must suck the Son.

(Richard Crashaw)

Head-Smashing

I must never again listen to Beethoven’s Appassionata, because when I do I feel like stroking the heads of children instead of smashing the heads of my enemies.

(Lenin)

Potent Shark

Researchers claim potent shark repellent

(Yahoo news headline)

Death (cont.)

Sounds like attention-seeking behaviour to me.

(Paul Whitehouse, on the death of Spike Milligan)

Death

A delegation of US Congressmen came to visit Leningrad once. They were being met by the First Secretary of the Leningrad Region Communist Party, Tolstikov. And so the exchange of views began. One of the Congressmen in passing asked Tolstikov: ‘And what are the mortality rates for Leningrad?’ Tolstikov replied assuredly and sharply: ‘In Leningrad there is no mortality rate!’

(Sergei Dovlatov, Notebooks)

One Million Chinese Poets

"There are at least 1 million poets across China," says Sun Yiqing, president of the China Poets Society.

"Poets are best known for their strong passion and in most cases, agony."

http://english.people.com.cn/200510/01/eng20051001_212041.html

The All-Seeing Eye

Georgiasam endures the unwelcome attention of gaping locals on a recent sun and sea holiday.

Hedgehog WMD Inspectors

Two hedgehog WMD inspectors in the desert. One says to the other --

No, still not funny.

Colourblind Bunny

The next instalment is called Colourblind Bunny. An eight-foot tall bunny is standing impatiently at a pedestrian crossing, despite the clearly visible green man. In the second panel the signal has changed to red, and in the third he is lying under a bus.

Isn't that funny? No it's not. What are you, some kind of sick bastard?

Echidna Trigonometry

That's the name of a new cartoon strip I've invented.

In the first strip two echidnas are poring over a trigonometry problem. You can see it's a maths book and you know from the title it's trigonometry, right? They do that for three panels, looking puzzled, and then in the fourth one echidna says to the other, 'Dude, I think you meant Sine, not Cosine.'

You have to think about it for a minute, and then you laugh. Except you are wrong: it's not funny. I just did that to test you!

Angry Hammer

http://cheston.com/pbf/archive.html

+ scroll down to link.

'Hi Honey. What the hell is that?'

I Never Knew

Howard Nemerov is Diane Arbus's brother.

Kotzwara Syndrome

Death by masturbation.