Things I Have Learned This Week

1. This appeared on the BBC website for a short while the other day (thanks to  @timallenphoto on Twitter). 

That was quickly corrected, but today there is this:

Bit of a theme emerging there I think.

2. A small-time comedian bungled an attempt to hit Rupert Murdoch with a custard pie. Here, a veteran pundit gives his two-penneth:

3. Tweet of the week - this week from Peter Serafinowicz:

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This weekly update normally has 5 different items which are at least meant to be humorous, but I struggled this far against the awful backdrop of what happened yesterday in Norway, and now comes the news about  Amy Winehouse. I'm all out of silly jokes (temporarily), so here is Amy at her best. For what it's worth I preferred her first album to Back to Black. Rest in peace love.

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Vintage Video

#006 Elliott Smith - Miss Misery at the 1998 Academy Awards

Miss Misery was on the soundtrack of the film Good Will Hunting, which was nominated for the Best Song Oscar in 1998. Unfortunately there was the small matter of a song by Celine Dion from Titanic.

Elliott looks nervous as hell, maybe because he is being accompanied by a top-class orchestra, but the result is still a lovely performance of a great song.

Wish he was still around as I, like many others, only discovered him after his tragic death in 2003.

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Dessert Whine

They said it couldn't be done. After the astounding Frankenstein dish that was Chicken Tikka Lasagne, those twisted boffins at Iceland have come up with an accompanying evil dessert course:

Interested to hear from anyone who has sampled it. Do you feel a bit sullied? Or was it actually wonderful?

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Famous First Words

I've had a bit of a fad on examining song lyrics of late, and whilst I don't think it's essential to the writing of a great song to have great lyrics (for example The Stones' Satisfaction), it certainly helps. Those that I'm most drawn to are the ones that paint a vivid picture, and it is often the first couple of lines which help to set the scene for the whole song, to draw the listener into this little snapshot of a life.

Here are 10 examples of opening lines which I am particularly fond of, for differing reasons. In a couple of cases it's simply that they make me laugh:

1. Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence

Hello darkness my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again

2. The Jam - Down in the Tube Station at Midnight

The distant echo - of faraway voices boarding faraway trains,
To take them home to the ones that they love, and who love them forever 

3. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying,
Brother, brother, brother, there's far too may of you dying

4. Stevie Wonder - Living for the City

A boy is born in hard time Mississippi
Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty

5. Fountains of Wayne - Michael and Heather at the Baggage Claim

Michael and Heather at the baggage claim, tired of playing the waiting game
Every bag has got a different name, Michael and Heather may never get home again.

6. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Ohio

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio

7. Arctic Monkeys - When the Sun Goes Down

So who's that girl there? I wonder what went wrong so that she had to roam the streets
She don't do major credit cards, I doubt she does receipts. It's all not quite legitimate

8. The Beatles - Penny Lane

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, of every head he's had the pleasure to have known
And all the people that come and go, stop and say hello

9. Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro

Son, I'm thirty. I only went with your mother 'cos she's dirty
And I don't have a decent bone in me. What you get is just what you see, yeah

10. Ben Folds - Bitch Went Nuts

The bitch went nuts. She stabbed my basketball
And the speakers to my stereo

So those are my 10, though I could have come up with a lot more. How about yours?


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400 Quidditch?

To commemorate the release of the new Harry Potter film my eight year-old daughter has produced another of her fantastic pieces of art, which I reckon I should probably make available in limited edition signed prints.

I'm really thinking she could make us very rich if she could churn out 9 or 10 of these babies a day...

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