Hot news in the loft community!

A posting I wrote on June 2nd about the government planning White Paper has now made it, two months later, to the top slot on the "Latest news" section of Loft Shop. It's given me one hit so far!

You couldn't make it up!

The day the Washington Post thought Father Dougal Maguire had a chance of being Pope?

It was a delight to see a double bill of top Irish stand-ups at the Newbury Comedy Festival last night. First of all, one of my favourite comedians, Ed Byrne was hilarious. Then we were gloriously entertained by Ardal O'Hanlon.

The latter told the story of when his fictional character from Father Ted, Father Dougal Maguire, was 1000-1 with Paddy Power to be the next Pope after Pope John Paul II passed away.

Although Paddy Power probably saw the joke of this, the humorous nature of this punt did not seem to be picked up by the Washington Post, who reported the fact in all solemnity without apparently realising the fictional nature of Father Dougal Maguire:

...gamblers around the world can log onto paddypower.com, click on the Novelties section and put their money on Dionigi Tettamanzi, who is rating 11 to 4 odds in the race for the papacy. Or they can take their chances on Father Dougal Maguire of Craggy Island, Ireland, a long shot at 1,000 to 1.

Ardal mentioned that the Washington Post still survives on the internet, so of course this was a natch for me to look up on my return from Newbury's Corn Exchange.

Conservatories in Ealing

Millennium Dome in The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant, refers to the Conservatives as the "Conservatories". So when I saw a link on LibDem blogs aggregated for "Conservatories in Ealing" I went to click on it assuming that I would read Fluffy Elephant's latest comments on the antics of the Tories at the by-election.

However, it turned out to be a link to information about....well....erm....Conservatories in Ealing actually. Is there perhaps some fuzzy logic in Yell's advertising software which picks up on themes and turns them into an appropriate link? It certainly seems very clever!

Quiz question in the making - sons of Bishops in pop music

After coming up with "triplet" Trivial Pursuit questions about celebrities who wrote famous advertising slogans and ones who were jailed, I have another one on the go:

Name three Bishops' children who are famous in the pop music business

So far I have come up with two:

Radio One DJ Tim Westwood is the son of the former Bishop of Peterborough.

Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon is the son of the former Bishop of Clogher. (The "ecclesiastical connections do not end there - Divine Comedy performed the theme tune for Channel Four's Father Ted).

I am desperate for a third....sadly there probably isn't one.

What the Sam Hill is going on?

Balderdash and Piffle, BBC2's word origins programme is going from strength to strength.

It never ceases to amaze me how we use phrases without even thinking for a second what they mean or how they originate.

Last night's edition about people's names, which have become well-used terms, was fascinating.

Gordon Bennett. He was a famous media magnate, sportsman, and playboy in the early 1900s.

Bloody Mary. Although this is usually thought to be named after Queen Mary I, there is a school of thought that it was named after a girl at the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, where Fernand Petiot, the inventer of the cocktail had once worked.

Take the mickey. Thought to be connected to Mickey Bliss, whoever he was.

The programme didn't feature Sam Hill....as in "What the Sam Hill is going on?" (A particular favourite of mine, by the way). The expression is thought to be connected to Colonel Samuel Hill of Connecticutt. It's not clear why.

Scott Mills, meet Prince Charles

I think Scott Mills and Prince Charles should be put in touch with each other.

Prince Charles has just appointed an official harpist.

Scott Mills is looking for a harpist.

Job done! ...or.....should that be: Love you!

Сверлильный spam русского - Boring Russian spam

I have recently received a sudden influx of Russian spam. Here are some example headers:

семинары по строительству
Больше чем рассылка
Для всех возрастов
МОБИЛЬНЫЕ КОНДИЦИОНЕРЫ
Награждение ФОТО
Распродажа техники!
Спутниковый интернет
Супер-тренинг!!!

Eager to see if these were the inevitable messages about Viagra and...ahem...member enlargement, I entered as many of the titles, as I could be bothered with, into Babelfish.

The translations revealed these rather boring titles:

Seminars for the building
It is more than the distribution
For all ages MOBILE CONDITIONERS
Rewarding BY THE PHOTOS
Sale of technology!
Satellite Internet Super-training!!!
My hovercraft - it is full of eels.

Those crazy Russians, eh?!

(Oh alright then, I made that last one up, or at least borrowed it from Monty Python's Hungarian Phrase Book sketch.)

The fascination of food labels

I have a theory that the labels and packets of household items are some of the most widely read literature in the world. I found myself yesterday with nothing to do while I ate my toast, so I read the label of the Branston pickle jar. Growing up, I remember that my brother used to regularly read the Cornflake packet.

It's amazing what nuggets of information you pick up from a food label. What is Rutabaga, for example? That got you didn't it? After onions and carrots it is the third voluminous ingredient in Branston pickle.

I had to look it up. It turns out that Rutabaga is a type of turnip which is more yellowish than a normal turnip:

The rutabaga is very similar to the turnip except that it generally has yellowish flesh, a more dense root with more side shoots and they are usually harvested at a larger size. Unlike the turnip, the rutabaga has smooth, waxy leaves.

Why don't they just use turnips then? Oh alright then, I will end my curiosity there. If I started to go on about the pickle crisis of 2004, I really would expect the men in white coats to arrive pronto.

That James May "pain in arse" Autocar yearbook in full

Earlier this week we (my colleagues and I) treated a friend of mine who has cancer to his first trip in a small plane. Fortunately. he really enjoyed it and it was a wonderful occasion.

The flight took place at White Waltham airfield. We based ourselves in the bar looking out onto the planes and runway. It was a gorgeous day and such a vantage point must be about as near to heaven as you can get on earth.

My said friend is a fan of "Top Gear", so his pleasure was enhanced be being able to watch James May (who owns a plane at the airfield) eat his breakfast, then ready his aircraft and take off.

This led me to look up James May on Wikipedia. Imagine my delight to see actual photographs of the issue of the Autocar yearbook which led to May's sacking as Autocar's production manager after he arranged the bolded, outsize letters of each car in the yearbook so that it spelt (with appropriate punctuation):

So you think it's really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up. It's a real pain in the arse.

You can see the photograph of the Autocar yearbook here on Wikipedia. It was mentioned in last week's "Have I got news for you".

Memories of "Look and Learn"

A memory I didn't know I had was awakened as I turned over to the Obituary pages in the Guardian last Saturday. The obituary was for Angus McBride, artist and illustrator, who drew illustrations for "Look and Learn". You can see some of his illustrations for that magazine here.

There was an example of McBride's illustrations in Saturday's Guardian. It included the magazine's masthead (above). It took me a while to remember where I had seen said masthead. In the end I realised it. I used to get the magazine on a regular basis - delivered alongside my brother's "Eagle" comic.

There is an excellent web site devoted to Look and Learn here.

Bob Dylan relates the history of mattresses

I am immersing myself in Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour on BBC Radio Two. It is perfect for a rainy Bank Holiday Monday with the rest of the family gone to watch Pirates of the Carribean 3, which I would only sleep through. Dylan's theme tonight is sleep, coincidentally.

Bob Dylan's introductions are weird. He has a particularly strange voice which sounds like someone Taking The Michael. He talks about strange things like the history of mattresses and the Three Bears. But he plays some superb tracks and the programme "hangs together" beautifully.

But all in all, Theme Time Radio is like swimming in chocolate and is radio as it should be. Well done Bob Dylan and well done BBC.

Iain Dale: 'The Liberace of politics'

Iain Dale is often saying nice things about Nadine Dorries. One can't help thinking that she has not entirely repaid these compliments in kind, through her description of him as reminding her of "Liberace", in her blog on the Conservative blog awards (which I hasten to add Iain Dale won):

Iain Dale, king of the online diary, won best Conservative blog, as you would expect. He collected his award with great aplomb, Iain always reminds me of Liberace. When I think of Iain I see him sat behind a piano playing Rhapsody in Blue, maybe it’s the ties, anyway…

Conservative Home has duly obliged with this mock-up:

The questionable beauty of birdsong

Don't get me wrong. I am a great fan of birdsong. It is very relaxing.

Eric, our neighbourhood "early bird - no glimmer of dawn missed - guaranteed reaction with tweeting within one nano second of daylight suggesting itself" blackbird started off at 04:11 today. Bless him.

I had just got back to sleep when at 05:17 it all kicked off in the local ornithological world. It seemed that two birds (I assume blackbirds) were having a bit of a barney in our front garden. Territorial, perhaps. Anyway they didn't let up twit-twitting very aggressively at each other for what seemed an eternity. Bless them.

Parental exhortations to their children

We were at the University of East Anglia today for the National Biathlon championships. The Bernard Matthews Olympic Pool was one of the venues we enjoyed!

It is fascinating to watch parents (of whom I was one) shouting exhortations at their children on the running track. You hear these loud, highly technical streams of motivational advice pouring out. Then you look at the receiver of this advice and see a tiny lad, charging along, who looks barely out of nappies.

My favourite was the father who shouted at his son saying "Keep Breathing!" Sound parental advice, if perhaps a little superfluous.

Does male pattern baldness need a "cure"?

The Guardian reports today that "Researchers hope that a treatment for hair loss may be within sight after healthy hair-producing follicles were regenerated in adult skin in mice."

I can understand why some bald men want to grow their hair back. I can appreciate that in some cases there is some cause for baldness other than genetics, which needs correction.

However, to talk about male pattern baldness needing a "cure" is just ridiculous.

As About.com writes:

Most men are genetically predisposed to male pattern baldness. It is the effect of hormones on the hair follicle that produces male pattern baldness. Testosterone, a hormone that is present in high levels in males after puberty, is converted to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) by an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase.

In other words, the very hormone which gives males much of their maleness is responsible for baldness. It's passed down on the male side of families. It is one of the few things which men inherit which women generally don't.

So it doesn't need a cure, right? I can accept that some men want to reverse nature. But I don't.

Just a thought: Sean Connery versus Cliff Richard. Any contest? I think not.

Life on a remote Scottish island

I have often been fascinated about living life on a remote island. The New Statesman carries a regular column from Malachy Tallack who is 26 and lives in Fair Isle. "He is a singer-songwriter, journalist, and editor of the magazine Shetland Life." The articles are well worth reading, if only to hear how far removed island life can be from that in the bustling south of England.

The strange things people google about

Keeping an eye on the search terms which land people on my blog can be an odd business.

I have seen at least five visits via searches for "Is 'name of leading Rugby player' gay?"

Now, I am seeing "Is Marija Serifovic gay?"

I am not quite sure that those searchers will find the answer to their question amongst all the politics on this site.

And for the person or persons who has persistently, over several months, googled "What did Paul Walters die of?" the answer from a couple of commenters on Yahoo answers is cancer.

The strange things people google about

Keeping an eye on the search terms which land people on my blog can be an odd business.

I have seen at least five visits via searches for "Is 'name of leading Rugby player' gay?"

Now, I am seeing "Is Marija Serifovic gay?"

I am not quite sure that those searchers will find the answer to their question amongst all the politics on this site.

And for the person or persons who has persistently, over several months, googled "What did Paul Walters die of?" the answer from a couple of commenters on Yahoo answers is cancer.

Free hugs success

There was a TV advert a while ago which featured a chap walking round in the street with a sign saying "free hugs" and then hugging people. I was fascinated to see that there is actually a bloke in Sydney who does this. He's called Juan Mann and has become an international phenomenum via You Tube, even appearing on Oprah. There is also a Free Hugs Campaign.

Colne Milly

We had a long weekend last week in Colne, Lancashire. This was to meet relatives and finalise some arrangements. However, we had an exceptionally enjoyable time. The Bronte museum at Howarth was a particular highlight.

As usual, we stayed in the wonderful Crown Hotel in Albert road, Colne. This is just near the railway station. Recently, this statue of "Milly" by Claire Bigger has been erected in the station approach. It is part of "Colne in Bloom 2007" and a superb example of public art. There is a great display board by the statue (below) which links it to the local milling industry. It is particularly poignant to be reminded of the conditions in which Lancastrians worked only a hundred or so years ago.