Eternal History

A recording of the new Wonder Woman film (made to fast forward through the ads), felt very timely. It could have been about getting Brexit done rather than confecting an armistice to end WW I.
    There was the same self-interest & treachery flying around in a very well crafted film, which managed to pinch/recycle the mission statement of Metropolis. Even the closing credits were worth watching until they got to the endless list of names.

Zeroes with the rims rubbed off

The James Bond in John Gardner’s Win, Lose or Die work of fan fiction isn’t man enough to have chips with his steak. He has a wimpy small green salad instead. Credibility shot to pieces as small as the salad in an instant.

Mucho masochismo

Lawrence of Arabia done over by Turks. Clint Eastwood’s character in A Fistful of Dollars done over by Mexicans. Per Ardua Ad lots of pain for your enemies!

Loss of seriousness

Watching the BBC lunchtime news yesterday, I was struck by how much the bloke @ the right side of the screen doing the gesticulating reminded me of Mr. Bean. After lots of Festive Season nosh.

Get lost!

Two calls the other day from different phone scammers trying to do the ‘iPad ordered on your Amazon account, do you want to cancel?’ scam. Clearly making up for time lost over the Christmas holiday.

Money down the drain

Watched a crap film on U-Tube, treating the crap ads like the ones on TV by hitting the mute button, and realized at the end of the film that I had no recollection of what had been advertised. Let us hope the advertisers weren’t charged too much for the showing!

Useless silent film

I normally have the TV sound set @ 25 or so. Watching a recording of the film Loopers from the Syfy Channel, I ended up at 89 before I could make out what a couple of characters were mumbling about. So much for following the plot.
    Or maybe there wasn’t much of one and that’s why everyone was mumbling so much; to cover it up.
    Eventually, blip, blip on the remote control; I jumped forward 30 minutes twice to the ending and saved myself an hour’s ear-straining.

The mind boggles

“A jab in your village hall” is a euphemism for . . . what?

Not fooled

It says Orange Intense on the packet of Lindt dark chocolate. Which is just as well as you might not guess it’s supposed to be orange-flavoured if you hadn’t been told.

No problem

If there’s a choice between going swimming in freezing cold water and going mental, I know which I’d pick.

Cold comfort

A Scots member @ the British Antarctic Survey base reckons the crew is free of the plague and they can indulge in Hogmanizing as usual because whisky doesn't freeze at -30 deg.C. But drinking it that cold will do more than make his eyes water!

More on chocolates

What is the secret of the Black Magic box? The 8" square box has an area of 64 sq.in. The chocs can be fitted without crowding into an area 7.5" by 3.5" = 26.25 sq.in. This corresponds to a deception factor of 243.8%.

One-Eighty, What’s Up?

Don’t they have some weird snap counts! Omaha!
    Land Clark is an NFL ref. What were Mr. & Mrs. Clark smoking when they picked a name for their son!!
    The Jets, meanwhile, have a defensive lineman called Bash ’Em. He’s much more appropriately named.
    Go, Steelers!

Bum rule

2 chocolates = 1 serving? Yeah, right!

Should happen more often

I read yesterday that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, blagged about 40 wives and was killed by a mob. Sounds about right.

Such sort-of accuracy

I bought a box of Black Magic chocs. The contents decay during 05:2021. The date of destruction is not specified, but whichever day it happens on, the expiry will be at 19:14 precisely!

Definitely resistible

Two hundred quid for a WahWey watch that only tells the time in China? Not on my present list!

Other people’s misery . . .

. . . but sometimes deserved. Who, exactly, is the target audience for TV shows featuring coppers being knowing bastards after stopping some (not very) criminal on 4 wheels? Has to be non-motorists.

Random thought

A bed of nails is suppose to have them distributed such that when someone is lying on it, there isn’t enough pressure to break the skin. But how do you get to that lying position in the first place without doing yourself an injury? Other than needing 4 big blokes to grab arms & legs and put you in place.

Coming to get you!

One of the weirdest sights in the home has to be a cat sitting on the floor at just the right spot for her eyes to catch the light from a reading lamp and appear to glow bright red, like a little demon’s!

Weird World

Switched on for the first Pink Panther film on Xmas Day and found myself watching the tail end of a lovingly restored version of Spartacus, which is about as Xmassy as The Great Escape is BoxingDayingy. Brilliant opening titles for the PP film.

Really?

Examination of the contents of the envelope revealed that I am one of the sender’s best customers. As I don’t remember when I last ordered anything from them; it has to be well over a year ago; I hate to think what the rotten customers are like!

Dodged one

‘Order before 18th December to ensure Xmas delivery’, it said on the envelope which got buried until yesterday. After seeing the pix in the paper of parcels stacked up everywhere, not ordering anything was a disappointment avoided!

Enuff, already

We’re a couple of days into winter, that’s all. So could we have an end to the ‘bleak midwinter’ cliché until February? Thank you.

Really big surprise

On Xmas Eve, PM Boris was locked in mortal combat with EC President von der Leyden and the BBC News Channel was showing a programme about Spitfires and beating the Germans in the Battle of Britain.
    How unusually patriotic of the Beeb!

Tell me something I DON'T know

Should pundits be advising people with lots of turkey left over from Xmas to stick it in the freezer? You’d hope that anyone who has invested in a freezer would know that and the pundits are pointless.

Not even with onions

Anyone surprised that the 70% more infectious number for the new plague type has been dismissed as tripe by professors of virology? We shouldn’t be after all the tripe served up by the SAGE crew.

Calm down, dear!

The members of the public who were aghast & staggered @ seeing the families of Princes William and Edward mingling, outdoors and distanced, need to get a life. Or go and lie down in a darkened room until they gain a sense of perspective.

Won’t wash

How can Spiderman be a 15-year-old kid, as in the film on last night? Shudda bin Spiderboy, as in Superboy. Otherwise, it’s plain fraud.

LGM alert

Desperate attempts seem to be in progress to make unusual radio signals from the region of Proxima Centauri some sort of communications traffic by an alien civilization.

Bad & Good News

Have the Steelers forgotten how to win? Have the Bengals forgotten how to be Bungles? Monday Night Football sez yes to both.

Desperate daftness

You can’t get much better than the notion that babies born containing tiny, tiny microplastic bits are cyborgs!

Alternate reality?

Some Daily Mail Correspondent in Monaco is asking why the 8-sided threepenny coin was called a joey. All the 3d bits in my collection have 12 sides.

Sideways mathematics

How do you calculate 7 x 8? Either add 8 to 8 then add 8 more to the running total 6 more times. Or, multiply 7 by 10 = 70, subtract 8 from 10 and multiply 7 by the answer = 14, then subtract this result from 70 = 56.
    Simple. I’m hoping my resident teenage genius will teach me to walk on water next.

Wolf! Wolf!

Being told that the latest crisis ‘could’ overwhelm the NHS no longer has the slightest impact on me. I’ve heard that bloody ‘could’ far too often before.

Not so great expectations

Don’t forget your BUMPER Xmas hamper guide – even though you don’t have a hope in hell of getting it delivered in time.

Great deal

The EU is demanding status quo access to our fishing grounds for 8 more years as the price of a trade deal. How about a compromise? We let them in for 5 years if they pay a nominal £3 Billion/year plus inflation for those 5 years, and we decide if they’re trying to over-fish our waters.

Point of accuracy

Did Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints break 11 ribs, as we were told last night? Or did he have them broken for him?

Not quite the message

“Nothing makes us feel more festive than a ballet @ Xmas”, I read. Just as well nothing is as effective, as that’s what we have plenty of!

Just not on

Is a BBC dancing show worth an extended slot on the BBC news? Rather incestuous, surely.

Groan!

What is the point of Sir Starmer? Do we really need someone who keeps preaching the exact opposite of what the government is doing? Next thing you know, the Labour leader will be demanding that the government demolishes all plague Tiers and declares a free-for-all. Groan again.

Not enough problems?

How will the International Space Station be disposed of when it comes to the end of its useful life? a Daily Mail correspondent asks. The only thing that makes any sense, in view of the cost of putting all that stuff into orbit, is to boost it to a higher orbit and mine it for spare parts as needed. And maybe bring the odd small bits back to Earth with returning astronauts to feed the souvenir trade and raise a bit of cash.

No foreign cash, no credit either

If Unicef UK is feeding poor kids in London, that’s the British public doing the job as they are the source of the cash, not the UN, as the usual Labour suspects would have us believe.

One in your eye, mate

The Daily Mail’s parliamentary sketch bloke was twitting the PM about the time it took him to learn how to pronounce dexamethasone. But his newspaper’s computer still doesn’t know how to hyphenate the word @ a line break.

Reading ain’t believing

We’re having the bleakest mid-winter because of Maggie’s secret love split, according to the headlines on yesterday’s Daily Mail front page. Point of information: winter doesn’t start until December 21st, so we’re nowhere near the middle of it.

BS Broadcasting Co.

“The UK garden culture has racism baked into its DNA” is the sort of garbage we’re forced to pay for by being obliged to have a TV licence. Hurry on abolition.

No kidding

One in two people in the UK will get cancer, sez the fund-raising ad. Not much of an advert for the evolution process in humans. Or not much of an advert for the veracity of the ad agency.

Not good enough

The stress should be on the last world: Agatha Christie’s Marple. Otherwise, if a wonk continuity announcer says: Agatha Christie’s Marple, we’re left wondering who else has one. Small point but such details cost credibility.

Who would know, though?

It’s rather confusing, getting the odd episode of The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder in colour when the rest are in black & white. I’m left wondering if they were specials or they’re masterpieces of the colourist’s art.

Not fooled

“We’re close” a character thinks. “So much closer than the bad guy thinks.” Except that the smart sleuth has this thought on page 157 of the murder mystery and there are 200 or so pages still to go.
    Oh, what a giveaway! Not even close after all.

Monstrous imposition

Be very glad that you’re not the driver who is paying the £50 per second in parking fines the papers were complaining about!

He doth protest too much

One day, we have the top judge complaining that people are wrong to accuse the judiciary of being soft on criminals. The next, the Appeal Court refuses to up the lenient sentences imposed for the barbaric murder of PC Harper.

Chalk & Chunder

It’s amazing how mindlessly the hacks pushed the party line in David Cornwell’s obits. Writing as John le Carré, he portrayed spying as it really is as opposed to the world of James Bond, we were told.
    Fine. Except that Ian Fleming wrote entertainments and fiction, not something passed off as real life.
    See that thing on the horizon 1,760 yards away? That’s the point the hacks missed.

Cor blimey, Guv’nor!

The Daily Mail really has it in for Prince Andrew, going from the excited headlines on its exposé series. Not that I feel inclined to dip into the morass of speculation beneath those headlines as it would be beneath me.

Logic out to lunch

“The following programme contains scenes of violence” we are told before a showing of the Judge Dredd film. But not before showings of NFL matches, which contain real violence. Makes sense? Only to a TV company.

Time run out?

Is Lewis Hamilton worth $40 million? Not if George Russell is willing to win races for expenses and lunch money in return for a Big Career Break.

Another wearable remark

There was a lot of faux outrage over the purple frock a university student blagged for few pence along with a lot of other designer stuff. But the ladies of my acquaintance, young and old, reckon that they would want to be PAID a lot of cash to wear something so frightful.

Who the F* cares?

Do we really need to be told how much the jackets Princess Kate’s kids were wearing cost when she took them to a panto?

Might just work

Has anyone managed to get off a drink driving charge by claiming it was accidental contamination due to absorbing alcohol from frequent applications of hand sanitizer?

Must-have Xmas treat

We’re all waiting eagerly for the WW Xmas panto. Will it be Big Show and the 7 A.J. Styles? Or will they do Jack & the Beanstalk featuring these two?

Extended entertainment

What to watch on Xmas Day afternoon? TV looks pretty dire everywhere but I do have a recording of last year’s Grey Cup that should do the job.

Adventurous pensioner

The film actor H. Ford (78) is making another Indianabanana Jones epic. It will be interesting to see how he manages to manoeuvre through dense jungle, or escape from marauding tribesmen in an underground cave system, on a mobility scooter.

Routine wibble

It’s all very well, talking heads putting on a pious expression and saying business needs to know what’s going to happen about our future relations with the EU. But if no one knows, that knowing ain’t going to happen and the talking head is just a waste of space.

Simply Nasty Politicians

The Scottish government is eager to force females who claim they have been raped to be examined by men who say they are women. Something that baffled even Mad Mandy of the Sunday Post, who is as looney left as you can get.

Desperately needed in ’21

The first people to get the plague vaccine in Canada should be CFL players, their coaching staff, stadium staff and the officials. We can’t have another year without Canadian Crunch.

Lost their work ethic?

What happened to all the place kickers in the NFL matches last night? Most of them couldn’t have hit a barn if they were inside it. They can’t all have had their glasses steamed up.
    Doesn’t the Arizona logo look like a zombie robin!

F1 done for another year

Tough titty if your brand new engine croaks after just 10 laps of the Bahrain GP, as Mr. Perez’s did. That was a world record escape from quarantine for Louie Hamilton. Not that he distinguished himself. Meanwhile, poor old George Russell ended up back in the pointless swamps next door to Vettel.

Unending story

EU deadlines for an extra mile and a half and three-quarters come and go, but the free lunch counter remains open forever.

Have mercy

How many times is the Syfy channel going to show the not SF 2004 Starsky & Hutch remake in its prime 9 p.m. slot?

p.s.

I’m still trying to work out how the Steelers managed to lose to the Washington Slavers. Unless it was getting a loss out of the way and getting the streak off their backs so they could concentrate on the rest of the season.

Cosmetic tripe

Ofgem thinks the power companies should reduce their customers’ bills by £10/year over the next 5 years. Which will make how much difference to the customer? About bugger all.

Not impressive, Sir Louie

Belated thought about last week’s F1 Grand Prix: it does deadly damage to L. Hamilton’s bargaining power if anyone can turn up, like G. Russell, and drive his car to a win; unless the team sabotages him with 4 tyre stops.

Figures . . .

Break dancing is a sport? Sure it is! But hey, if the Olympic Games isn’t happening, why not include non-sports?

Hurley Burley Gurley

Are we surprised that the media bods, who got on the case of Dom Cummings, are turning out to be no better examples of regulation followers? Of course not. It’s always ‘do as I say’ with them.

Evolution In Action?

If plague vaccinations prevent symptoms from showing in someone who gets it but leaves them able to infect others, that could be Nature’s way of wiping out a lot of the people who oppose vaccinations of all sorts.

Wonk World

What planet are Labour MPs from? One of them wanted the government to do plague vaccinations only in affluent areas to give her something to grouse about!!!
    Another was claiming the vaccines alter DNA – to make the recipients into Tory voters? Sheesh!

More Crumbs!

If worrying about a treatment’s side effects can cause them, does worrying about getting a plague vaccine jab give you the Chinese plague? It’s bound to happen to someone.

Crumbs!

Think of a medical condition; any one at all; and there is a doctor somewhere trying to link it to the Chinese plague.

Tiny Deal

Is it news if an old person thinks having a needle stuck in their arm to get a shot of the Chinese plague vaccine is ‘a doddle’?
    Not really if the same person has already had an armful of this year’s flu jab without all the song and dance.

Getting it right

The usual complaint is that you buy the mince pies and the eat before date is before December 25th. Not the ones we’re getting from Sainsbury’s. March 23rd 2021 is when they conk out. Not that they’ll see out this year.

Not such a brilliant idea

The Daily Mail has been attempting to outrage the nation with its campaign against involuntary DNAR notices, particularly those applied to elderly people.
    But I see it has had the decency to slip in a few comments from people who know that attempting resuscitation amounts to something akin to a violent assault with a very low (maybe 10%) chance of putting the patient in intensive care, alive but badly damaged and with not a brilliant chance of surviving.

Real enigma

The Persuaders! – Brett starts behaving oddly. But how can they tell?

Blue Bonehead

It seems rather strange for people to assume that if a luvvie plays a police detective in a TV drama, that means she has 2 brain cells to rub together, she’s some sort of expert on lor ‘n’ orda and she should be taken seriously if she thinks black foreign criminals are valued citizens and deserve a free ride.

Strange but true

There are people around who can remember taking a stroll along Downing Street before it got all the gates and security, as The Persuaders! were doing the other night. Our inability to do it now is something we have to thank Gerry Adams and his mates for.

Oh, to be aware

Is there an online crib sheet telling you what sort of mental ’elf ishoos you need to have to be fashionable? Bound to be. All you have to do is find it.

Can’t be bothered

There was a remake of The Magnificent Seven on Channel 5 last night. Having seen the original, I didn’t watch it, even though it is supposed to have a strong cast.
    If we have the original, and it has stood the test of time, why didn’t they use this allegedly strong cast to make something new? Sheer bloody laziness, probably.

Cudda done better

Is there cheese hard enough to compare to poor old George Russell? He got to drive one of the fastest cars in the in the Bahrain Burn Up Mark II, only to have a win snatched away by the Mercedes team bungling his tyres.
    Or did they? Was it done deliberately in order not to show up their No. 2 driver's lacklustre performance?

Down the drain

The once respected Oxford University Press is indulging in wonk self-censorship. It has decided to cancel the term ‘Essex Girl’ and the explanation of its meaning and context. Anyone who wants to know what it means will have to consult someone else’s dictionary in future.

Change the tune

Someone still using the discredited ‘working (very) hard’ cliché is Jeanne Freeman, Scotland’s Health Sec, which explains why she remains discredited.

A good day at the factory

Who set fire to them Giants and got them to murder the Squawks? Looks like the Eagles had a swig of it, too. But Mr. Jones had 2 swigs to keep the Packers winning. But not as much as them amazing Steelers!

Sanctions necessary

What the NFL should do is tell the officials to throw a flag for unsporting conduct when players & coaches claim falsely that an opposition play didn’t work or one of theirs did. That might do something about annoying gits like Pete Carroll.

No sale

Yesterday’s Sunday Post recipe was a meatless Xmas cottage pie. Aaaah . .  no bleedin’ way!

Fair question

A girl in the stand @ Green Bay yesterday was holding a sign reading ‘This is our house’. To which the only response has to be: “When are you putting a roof on it?”

New to me

Whilst recycling some old newspapers, a headline from around Remembrance Day caught my eye. One describing the Unknown Warrior as a hero. But if he’s unknown, how could the writer know that the dead guy wasn’t a right villain?
    “It’s just T.U.B., mate,” I was told. “Stuff made up as routine puff. The Usual Bollocks.”
    There’s a lot of it about. Especially in London.

Reset for Take #2

The car goes crashing down the side of a cliff dramatically after the occupants have been rescued during an episode of “CHiPs!”. Oh, crap. We’re going to have to do it again, guys.
    The passenger door was left open after the rescue. It was shut when the car did its death plunge. “Nah. No one will notice.”

Now, he tells us

How wonderful! Marco’s fuss-free festive feast includes a recipe for a sloe gin substitute. One small snag; you should have started making it in September.

Fail

‘Front part of a ship’ was the Arrow-word clue. Solving four other clues provided ‘head’. Which is a toilet. The front end of a ship is the prow, as any fule kno.

Easy come, easy go

What was all that snow about yesterday? Does that mean this global warming thing is over?

Groan

Having see a preview of the Xmas & Boxing Day fare on offer by the BBC and ITV, I shall be otherwise occupied.

Good prediction

George Orwell’s concept doublethink seems to be routine now. We’re being bombarded with messages about what we should be doing to get ready for Christmas on the one hand but on the other, the government is telling us to forget it.

Shrinkflation

Somehow, one gets the impression that the bars used to be fatter or there were once six in the pack rather than the present five.

Better life

Repeats of The Persuaders! demonstrate that 50 years ago, people could get on with their lives perfectly well without having to consult a pocket phone every two seconds. Amazing that it was possible!

Did he really say that?

Prince Harry’s advice that we should be like raindrops can be interpreted in a rather dark way, it seems. Raindrops which relieve the parched ground can also cause monstrous floods and the raindrops don’t care where they fall and what havoc they wreak.
    And Harry wants us to be like that? How unwoke!

Consumer non-choice

Pocket phones are really messing up the WWW for PC users. Especially bank websites. They used to have an interface offering a lot of info. Now, they're in big, babyish lettering that can be read on a tiny phone screen and they're annoying to someone using a proper computer.

Consumer choice

A Xmas guide to gadgets from the dodgy cars bloke on ITV? I don’t think so. More of The Persuaders! in widescreen for me.

Here’s a good one

Something else I read: “What has happened to the normal version updating process? We’re practically into 2021 and we're still being fobbed off with Covid 19.”

Prethetic

The Platell Person, writing in the Daily Mail, claims that if she found a bottle of Johnny Depp brand perfume in her bathroom, her first instinct would be to duck. And then she spoils it all by failing to reveal what she thinks an inanimate bottle of liquid could do to her unaided. Not one for her joke book.

The question everyone is asking

If the F1 driver’s title was still undecided and he had a shot at it, would Louis Hamilton have the plague? Bahrain seems to be a pretty dangerous place to drive around at lunatic speeds.

See how long he keeps it up

When the Sea Squawks are playing, there should be a bucket chain standing by to throw ice-cold water on Pete Carroll every time he does a pitch invasion with a spurious moan.

Storm Warning

The Packers fans are not grumpy this week after their team beat the Chicago Bears but they expect their gang to play like pillocks next week, as they have been doing on alternate weeks, to make up; and the rest of us are ready to duck.

New Rule

Foreign aid should be for disasters only. And self-inflicted disasters like electing and sustaining a corrupt regime don't count. And no country with a space programme gets any. Ever.

Not expecting that!

The pilot of The Persuaders! was on last night – filthy rich Lord Sinclair & Danny Wilde setting the world to rights – and it was in wide-screen. Which I found surprising as the series dates back to 1971/2. A masterpiece of the restorer’s art.

Just what we need

Channel 4 is threatening us with a TV show about the plague panicdemic assaulting a care home. Groan. But we don't have to watch it. Hooray!

Putting the ‘dim’ into ‘dimension’

The phrase ‘not fit for purpose’ takes on a whole new dimension when you apply it to the idiots @ the British Library, who are trying to connect the poet Ted Hughes with the slave trade because it’s the current fashion.