No through road

This is an interesting take on graffiti on road signs.  I've posted some Parisian road sign graffiti before, but this is a new one on me.  No through road for mythical characters here!

No through road for mythical saviours

Its interesting though.  When I see people wearing a cross around their necks I usually find myself wanting to ask what the T stands for.

Now I know!

Eating well in England

I ate very well in England, both last night and this lunch time.  However, the words of W Somerset Maugham come to mind:

"If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts."

Beer, bacon and blasphemy

The Jesus and Mo cartoons vary in quality from good to brilliant.  This week's edition is near the top of the scale. 

Jesus and Mo on Denmark - the land of beer, bacon and blasphemy

Jack or Jill?

I have to do a little maintenance on a family laptop.  When I say 'maintenance', I suppose I really mean that it is major surgery, to replace the connector on the motherboard for the power lead.

Don't lose heart, I'm not going to get too technical.  I just want to muse on the etymology of technical jargon, and perhaps to make a little fun of it.

In locating the spare part that I need, I used the power of Ebay, naturally, and found the component at a very reasonable price.  Finding it was not difficult, but the description is "ASUS . . . Genuine DC Power Jack Socket Connector."  So why does this seem strange? 

To me, the jack is the plug that plugs into this socket connector, and you could read the description that way.  On the other hand, thinking of the many variants on the nursery rhyme about Jack and Jill you might think of it in a different way.

If the plug is a Jack, does that make the socket a Jill?

Turning in their graves

This week on BBC Radio 4 a reporter was interviewing some of the people of Woolwich where there was a high profile murder of a serving soldier - allegedly by two young Muslim men.

The news story is far from funny, but one of the interviewees said something that made me hoot with laughter.

They claimed that our grandfathers fought for this country, and if they were alive now they would be turning in their graves.

Humour gets everywhere!

Plagiarising Douglas Adams

If you saw this book . . .

Douglas Adams plagiarised by David Wilkinson (or his publishers)

 . . . might you be tempted to think that it had been written by Douglas Adams? 

It has the same title as one of Adams' own works, it has a cover reminiscent of The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, and there is a reference to the number 42 in the notes on the front and back cover.

42 meditations??? 

It is such an obvious attempt to steal the intellectual property of the Douglas Adams estate that I'm surprised to find that it is still on the market.

On Amazon there is only one review (rating it at 4 stars) which amuses me.  The small notes are mine.

"David Wilkinson's book is an excellent series of short meditations. [I assure you - it isn't!]  Its one drawback is that to be fully understood, the reader needs to have a close acquaintance with popular culture [of the 80s!]. Some of the references to films and TV programmes were lost on this reader!" [Whereas . . . I would say that it needs a grounding in modern neuro-science to be fully understood!]

In the circumstances, being so detached from the whole point of the plagiarism, I can't see why that reader found it inspiring at all.  Personally I found the extracts that I read to be puerile and pathetic shams compared with the original works of Adams.

Only dead fish go with the flow

We are often exhorted to 'go with the flow'.  But as the name on the side of this narrowboat suggests . . .

Only dead fish go with the flow

. . . only dead fish go with the flow!

"The Fly"

At my place of work we have a system for reporting accidents and near misses, as do most places of work.  Sometimes people make informative and factual reports, with or without grammatical errors, but once in a while a modern classic gets into the system.

One such report went like the following paragraph.  I have edited it slightly but only to correct the punctuation and not to change the words or meaning.  In local folk-lore it is now known as "The Fly". 


[Our building] has a fly problem. Recently a large bug zapper has been installed. It's very impressive. Whilst waiting for a key exchange I observed several winged insects meet their end in the device. One in particular was most spectacular, lodging between the electrodes and catching fire as the miniature lightning bolts seared over its dancing carcass. Then its fried insides explosively outgassed through a weakness in its exoskeleton and the flaming body erupted from the grill. Clearing the insect collection plate it tumbled down under the force of gravity onto the paperwork beneath, still aflame. The solid paper sheets didn't have me launching out of the seat to beat them out, but had the remains landed in the tissue box I suspect it would be a different story.

Of course the author has to remain anonymous, but I credit him all the same. 

Discovery Institute's latest 'divine comedy'

It is not unusual for The Discovery Institute's podcast, ID the Future to be filled with pseudo-scientific nonsense (in the style that I mentioned a couple of days ago).  I loyally listen to laugh and to learn the arguments that the  neo-Creationists like to use (and what creative pejorative terms they propagate to describe real scientists).  The latest episode doesn't feature the always-offended voice of Casey Luskin who is the regular host, but it takes the form of an audio adaptation of a short novel called I, Charles Darwin by Nickell John Romjue.  You can read more about it here.

Judging by what we have heard in the first episode (which you can find here) it will be surprising if many people actually bother to listen to the whole of it, unless like me they do it to giggle at it!

In this risible novel Darwin finds himself resurrected and returned to present day London, where he has a wallet filled (and constantly re-filled) with magical pound notes!  Yes, notes!  And these notes are not mentioned just once but several times, so it isn't an error.  See the comment at the end if this doesn't seem strange to you!

We get all the usual time-travel nonsense about how surprised Darwin is to see the way we dress and travel, mixed in with a load of pseudo-scientific propaganda.   We have been told that he can make himself visible and invisible at will.  He has the memories of his previous life plus the instructions that he received from whoever sent him back to earth.  Presumably this was 'the intelligent designer' herself, but of course her identity is still being kept secret from us - just as it is in real life.

The unlikely and illogical tale is wrapped in a literary style that must be aimed at a pre-teenager.  The prose makes the Harry Potter novels (which I greatly enjoyed) seem to be written in quite advanced English.

Why would the Discoveroids lower their standards to this level, I wonder.  It must be another feeble attempt to corrupt the minds of the young!

Can't wait for the next exciting episode!

Small note: Pound notes have not been in use for nearly two decades and you would not be able to spend them in today's Britain, whether magical or not.  Since 1984, our lowest denomination in paper currency is the £5 note.

Now that Cher's alive and well

The demise of Mrs Thatcher last week has resulted in trending of a new hash tag on Twitter.

#nowthatchersdead has caused a small stir among music fans though, and we are relieved to hear that Cher is not dead but that she is still alive and well!

As @rickygervais tweeted:

Some people are in a frenzy over the hashtag #nowthatchersdead. It's "Now Thatcher's dead". Not, "Now that Cher's dead" JustSayin'

Short-lived apostates

From the great series, Jesus and Mo, comes this slightly sinister offering (originally via this link).

Jesus and Mo - "Green" from here

What a parent can never say to a teenage child!

This came up on Facebook.  It is what most sensible parents of teenagers really need to say but few of us would dare to try it.  Imagine the sulks!

Words for teenagers - what parents ought to say!

So if you are an uncle/aunt or family friend and can say it on behalf of apparent, then I think you will find that you have grateful friends.

After all, it it only explaining about the things that kept us entertained when we we teenagers.

Ezekiel's surprising bread recipe

Chapter 4 of the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains a surprising recipe for bread.  It is not exactly the finest bread, but more something designed to help the people survive periods of famine when the normal ingredients of bread could not be found.  Barley has never been favoured for bread for good reasons.

Verses 9 to 12 say this:

4:9	Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
4:10	And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
4:11	Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
4:12	And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.

Did you read that carefully enough and see the final ingredient described in verse 12?

Most of the ingredients for the Ezekiel recipe for bread!

Oddly, you can buy the ingredients for Ezekiel 4:9 on Amazon if you want to have a go at the disgusting recipe.  Presumably they were not able to include the final ingredient because you have to see personally that it cometh out of man'

God certainly does inspire the writers of his holy book in mysterious ways.

That's the spirit!

I happened across this reference to a product sold by Amazon, namely Rustin's Methylated Spirit. In spite of its attractive colour, it is not normally a beverage served at the finest parties.  However, it received a surprising commendation at this link.

Review by Mr Harold Ramp - Gentleman Of The Road (Brentwood)

What better way to celebrate yet another restraining order from the ex-wife than with a glass or two of this reasonably priced beverage. The initial bouquet can be a little daunting for some but after a glass or two even the uncontrollable defecation that tends to follow can be easily ignored and the words "If you come near me or the kids again, I'm calling the police" sound like a declaration of undying love...

I'm still chuckling!

Needing contraception?

Just a pertinent cartoon from the glorious Jesus and Mo series . . .

A budgie called Onan

When I was at university I had a friend and neighbour who had previously owned a pet budgerigar.

Somehow, it was revealed one day that the budgie had been called Onan.  At the time I hadn't heard of this minor character from the book of Genesis.  If you read about him in this story you can see that the name was chosen by someone with a sense of humour and a good knowledge of the bible.

Just like the budgie, Onan 'spilled his seed on the ground'.

Correcting the Ten Commandments

Correcting the Ten Commandments

Attempting to visit the Stone Museum in Great Bedwyn today, I found this amusing plaque on the wall.

See the second line.  The notion of correcting the ten commandments seems to be a very good aspiration. The rest of the plaque is entertaining too.

I wonder what the commandments said after correction.

Circular Reasoning Works

Circular Reasoning works!

Everyone's online

Apparently everyone is online . . . except me, as I will probably be at 35,000 feet on the way back from Marseilles to London as this post is published.  Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Looks like everyone's online!

Emergency entrance!

How's your French?  I was surprised recently to pass the office of one of my Swiss colleagues and see this sign.

Entree de Secours - emergency entrance!

If you travel in Francophone countries at all you will probably have noticed signs saying 'Sortie de secours' - meaning 'Emergency Exit'.  So this sign for an emergency entrance is both humorous and delightful.  It suggests that if you need help you have come to the right place.

Small note:  The gentleman concerned in invariably helpful too.