Global yawning

You can argue all you like about whether human carbon emissions are responsible for global warming, or whether it is down to solar radiation, animal flatulence, cyclical fluctuations or God.

You can argue all you like about whether a 2°C rise in temperature would cause a large number of heat-related deaths or whether this would be offset by the global decrease in cold-related deaths.

You can argue all you like about whether it is better to spend billions on making a small reduction in carbon emissions or whether this money would be better spent on providing agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare and education in the areas that are most affected.

But I'm not going to; I'm going to have a snooze instead.

I am Butt-Ugly Elmer Hacke

Arrh! Shiver me timbers, I forgot to talk like a pirate yesterday.

You can find out your pirate name by clicking here.

Foot in mouth

I think I may have offended our Ukrainian cleaning lady yesterday. After accidentally betting on a two-or-more goal victory for AS Roma in their Champions League match against Dinamo Kiev, I was discussing the match. Just as the cleaner walked in, I remarked that "the Ukrainians are rubbish". She gave me an icy glare rather than her usual cheery smile.

I was right though, Roma won 2-0.

Strolling bones

I was walking home along the canal towpath at a moderate to brisk pace, when I approached an elderly jogger. Was it rude of me to overtake him?

This one goes up to 31

I realised recently that the volume on my mp3 player goes up to 31.

Eat that, Tufnel!

Muso musings

About 9 months ago I started trawling through my old cassette collection and I have now finally completed the quest. Unsurprisingly the results are good, bad, ugly and downright embarrassing in fairly equal measures.
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Forgotten Classics

Most interesting stuff that I'd forgotten I owned.

1) Richard Thompson - Rumour and Sigh.

Quirky and humorous with stylish guitar-playing. "I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight"

2) Bobby McFerrin - Simple Pleasures.

Marvellous solo a capella vocalism. "Don't worry, be happy", he says. I couldn't agree more.

3) Spinal Tap - Break Like the Wind.

Far better than the bands they were parodying. The only shame is that the album doesn't include Nigel Tufnel's classical piano ballad "Lick my Love Pump"

4) Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Voodoo

The clue is in the name. They're a brass band, there are about twelve of them, and they play dirty old jazz and blues classics.

5) Terence Trent Darby - Neither Fish Nor Flesh.

Intriguing rather than particularly good, this was a surprisingly bleak, uncommercial follow-up to his hugely successful debut album. "Billy my friend, don't fall in love with me, I'm not that kind of guy"

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White-man blues

The popular myth is that white men can't play the blues. This is clearly untrue.

1) Stevie Ray Vaughan

Shortly after his fatal helicopter crash in 1990, I seem to remember a stand-up comedian putting it quite nicely : "Proof that God doesn't exist. Stevie Ray Vaughan is dead, yet Jon Bon Jovi lives"

2) Bobby Radcliff

I know very little about this guy except that he can produce some marvellously frenetic guitar pyrotechnics.

3) John Campbell

One-eyed growly-voiced Michael Bolton lookalike. But fortunately not soundalike.

4) Johnny Winter

His albinism makes him the whitest of all white blues men. Unless you count the head-to-toe tattoos.

5) The Allman Brothers Band

Rollicking Southern blues-rock that had me dancing around like a cretin. Includes "Jessica" (the Top Gear music). Hope I'm not turning into Clarkson.

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Stand-out tracks on otherwise mediocre abums

1) Good Morning Britain - Aztec Camera.

Cracking upbeat collaboration between Roddy Frame and ex-Clash frontman Mick Jones.

2) Norwegian Wood - Cornershop.

Hindi version of the Beatles song. ("Hai na ye achi, Norwegian Lakri")

3) Temptation - Wet Wet Wet.

Don't laugh. I'm not too proud to admit that I like this song. Oh, music can be an irrational beast.

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Drivel

1) Level 42 - Staring at the Sun

Mark King's high-chested pop-slap-bass can't disguise the fact that this is just dreary, monotonous rubbish.

2) The Animals

Nothing wrong the Animals, they wrote some classics in the late 60s. But I think this is a live album by a re-formed version of the group, and they sound like an eighties pub rock band doing bad covers of old Animals songs.

3) Dianne Reeves - Never Too Far

This starts promisingly with a lively jazzy tune, but quickly descends into soggy Whitney Houston-esque mush. The only positive is that it still had a price label on it, and it only cost me ten bob.

4) Billy Joel - Storm Front

Tripe.

The Glockberry

The only semi-automatic pistol with a full QWERTY keyboard. Defend your civil liberties without missing an email. Hurry now and own the official mobile device of the NRA.

Other similar devices can be found here

Future US President

She'll teach the US Americans to help South Africaaaah and The Iraq and everywhere like such as.

Angry letters (9)

I've just found an article from 1985 by the Times crossword compiler, in which he lists some of his favourite clues. See how many you can get - special prize to anyone who can get the last one.

**Updated - hover mouse over clue for answer**

1. Chips come in after fish (9)
2. Art Master (8)
3. Riding into the sunset magnificently mounted in Avon county (6-5-4)
4. 1,200 minus 200 (10)
5. Swiss canton where German is spoken? (4)
6. Bird calls? (6,6)
7. Peel's creation, initially (6,9)
8. Damage by fire headquarters of Scottish Orthodox Church (6)
9. Dial 999 if upset - you might get him (5)
10. They hang from trees in the book of Jeremiah (6)

Apocalypse Now

Today I am wearing a jacket in August for the first time since records began.

Records have now begun.

Hot Stuff

Now you can watch live temperature fluctuations at the Gambit Research luxury offices. And the temperature at Heathrow is included for comparison.

This is what you get when you work with computery people, who bicker about the office temperature and then feel obliged to come up with a technical solution to back up their arguments. Still, I'm pretty certain it's more exciting than Big Brother.

http://www.gambitresearch.com/temperature-day.png

Three of a kind

I've had three visits from engineers in the last few days. All three serviced me adequately(!) but all three brought with them just the slightest hint of bizarreness.

The electricity man, who was due to arrive between 8am an 1pm, arrived at 7.30; surely an engineer/delivery man arriving half an hour before their given five-hour window is unprecedented in history.

The phone man didn't even enter my house. He gave me a device to plug into my phone socket, went back to his car and drove off. He returned 15 minutes later and asked for his device back, and the phone was magically working again.

The gas man found a pot of blue paint lying around and rather perplexingly decided to throw it everywhere, mostly all over his shirt. I would've asked him why but I was too busy laughing.

The Gambit Research Whine

The result of the Great Gambit Research Wine Tasting Challenge was never in doubt really. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

The teams were:

1) The Computer Geeks, consisting of...
(i) A small boy, who was more interested in the chocolate brownies than the wine.
(ii) An eccentric Scotsman, whose main contribution was to point out that a cork displays a negative poisson distribution. To demonstrate this, he squashed a brownie between his fingers, clearly illustrating that a brownie is something which doesn't display a negative poisson distribution.
(iii) A moon of Saturn, who dislikes wine, so his main strategy was that whichever wine he liked most must be the cheapest.

2) The Disciples of Copas : two ex-Warwick students who spent far too much time bickering over whether wine number 3 smelt a bit twee or a bit like wee.

3) The Classicists, one of whom organised the evening, had been to two similar wine tastings before, and used to work in the wine trade. Not fair.

Facebook shmacebook

I don't think I'm quite up to speed with the Facebook phenomenon which is supposedly sweeping the world. Any advice would be much appreciated.

1. I have a top friends friend request. What privileges , if any, do top friends friends get?

2. I have a Zombie request. Should I start biting chumps?

3. I have received a Shirley Temple (pink cocktail). Should I virtually drink it?

4. This is Tala. She wants to be my friend. Should I accept on the basis that it will make me look more popular? Or should I decline on the basis that I don't know who the hell she is. For all I know she could be a man, or a terrorist, or a politician. Or a male terrorist politician.

Homer says...

Words of wisdom from Homer Simpson:

"Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try."

"Weaselling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals ... except the weasel."

"Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races."

"If The Flintstones has taught us anything, it's that pelicans can be used to mix cement."

"How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

"All normal people love meat. If I went to a barbecue and there was no meat, I would say 'Yo Goober! Where's the meat!?'. I'm trying to impress people here Lisa. You don't win friends with salad."

"It takes two to lie, Marge. One to lie and one to listen."

"Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get."

"Here's to alcohol, the cause of - and solution to - all life's problems."

"Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such."

"I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?"

"God bless those pagans."

Delhi Jelly

Graham Gooch was on the radio this morning explaining why Zaheer Khan was angrily waving his bat at Kevin Pietersen yesterday evening. Apparently it was because someone left some jelly babies by the stumps as Zaheer came in to bat and he took exception to this. Thanks Goochie, that clears it up.

Bowling a maiden over

E-mail sent to the TMS website a short while ago. I don't know why it made me laugh, but it did.

"I played against (England women's captain) Charlotte Edwards in an under-15 match about 10 years ago. She was playing for Ramsey. Someone bowled her a bouncer, it hit her straight in the breasts, and she cried her eyes out. Nice girl though."

Lightweight

Marc on the journey home last night. Youngsters these days just can't hold their drink.

Puffs

I do feel sorry for politicians sometimes. Whenever one of them admits to having smoked cannabis in the past they never seem to have got any pleasure out of it - they always say something like "It was only one or two puffs" or "I didn't inhale" or "I didn't really enjoy it". When will one of the poor sods admit that they took drugs because they liked it?

wot a lowd ov nonsuns

In the latest example of the strategy "if we lower the bar, more children can get over it", some woman called Masha Bell (presumably that was originally "Mashable" but she's simplified the spelling) claims that if we dumb down spelling it will improve literacy.
(Click here to see article)

She says:
"Worldwide, English spelling wastes zillions, not onely in terms of time and effort, but in real munny too: for remedial education and to suport functionally illiterate adults. The latter ar also mor likely to becum yung singl parents, end up in jail, be adicted tu drugs and alcohol and hav poor helth."

I find it rather ironic that she managed to spell "functionally illiterate adults" correctly.