This is so funny. I mean, look how far we have come ... you could never have run this in the TLS back in my day; prolly not in yours neither. I must send this to David Lodge. It has shades of Philip Swallow in 'Changes Places.' Do you remember? He trades places with Morris Zapp who ends up staying with Mrs Swallow (long story) and Phil with Desiree Zapp (longer still) and one day Phil is having a crap and he comes across a damning review that the cuttings agency never included and which Philip is convinced was penned by Prof Zapp. Oh lord, and the reviews I used to do in my idiot show-off youth, really harmful ones that affected how many copies the book trade might have subscribed. Or pseudo witty ones to make my mates laff down t' Groucho. I'm surprised someone didn't top ME.
Heavens mallarkey!
They book Russell Brown (nice one, Britney!) to host the MTV knees-up and then whinge when he does his thing.
What did they expect? No sympathy, I'm afraid.
Wonderful Christian chatup lines I cannot wait to test on the local Anglican community.
Isn't that the title they always go for? 'Harvest Yield' or 'Fruits of the Land' or some such?
Anyway, this isn't at all what I'd even notice on a table or altar *except* this is all from our own land and gathered by Yours Truly for Tassia to make into some scrumptious nosh for me and my mates when Maman goes tripping the light fantastic next week with the visiting Synodians.
By the way, I am told that Corfu is the first ever non capital city to be chosen as venue for a Synod. What? What's a Synod? I thought everyone knew that (Quick, Eric, fire up Wiki)
Letter to Athens News.
"A symptom of British depression
I THINK there's a deeper problem in this [in reference to British citizens' alcohol-fuelled nights in Malia, Crete, as described in Sex on the beach, published on August 22], not least because the English have been getting plastered and misbehaving for centuries, millennia, even. The only difference is that in the era of mass tourism we've started exporting it abroad. I think it speaks to a general unhappiness in a culture built around the denial of pleasure, whereas the Greeks, like the Spanish (I lived in Andalucia, Spain, for the last eight years before moving to Greece this past spring), live in a culture of the celebration of pleasure, which is why they don't get off their faces every night due to depression, desperation or boredom, and usually prefer an iced coffee. It's an entirely different mindset to the one that sends Brits abroad to get wrecked.
I think we also have to factor in the complicity of travel companies - the BBC Radio 4 show "You and Yours" featured a recording of a holiday representative offering people alcohol at breakfast time - and also the bar owners themselves, who, as has been recently reported, sometimes resort to flogging toxic industrial alcohol as "vodka" to make more money. Hence, the appalling story of the young guy who literally drank himself to death on Crete recently. If bar staff told people they weren't going to serve them because they were obviously drunk already, maybe some of this misbehaviour wouldn't happen. There's also a class subtext at work here, and I think it's a little more complex than oiks running wild on the islands. If you've ever been to Gaucνn, in Andalucia, you will probably have seen the British upper classes behaving just as badly."
`Shades of Borat.
Actually i have a very BIG problem with the language I'm assaulted with these days.
I phoned Barclays bank to make a simple transaction and got the usual runaround i now take for granted.
Finally i get some girl who does what I called in for.
"Thank you. Very efficient." One has to praise them to the skies for the most basic operation.
"Not a problem," she responds.
"I know that. I was thanking you for doing your job and I'd be worried if customer service at that basic level did indeed pose any sort of a problem."
Pause.
Not a problem, i was assured.
Actually, that turns out to be exactly what you can do - and thank you Mr Rod Liddle (that's him over there) for confirming it.
Aug 31st Sunday Times, page 15 Comment .
I quote, and you can read the rest because it gets better with his dig at building societes.
"What qualities do you think women look for in men, according to a recent survey? GSOH? Hung like a gibbon? Unending fidelity? Caring, consensual and deeply committed to combating global warming issues, with a wind turbine nailed to his forehead?Nope, none of those – all they want from their man is huge amounts of money. That’s number one on the wish list, just ahead of “someone who’ll listen, okay?”, which we men all have to do anyway because there isn’t any choice.
Meanwhile, men want a woman who will just shut up from time to time and maybe look after the kids, if she’s got a moment between thinking about shoes and watching Sex and the City.
So, in 250,000 years of evolution, nothing whatsoever has changed."
Well said.
Same old same old ... grammar goofs ... solecisms anon ...
Sing it out, children. "Oh solecism mio".
I know, not very funny but, like my beach buddy Canute, I keep the faith.
I keep quoting the ace Rod Liddle at people and telling them that I steal most of my best lines and topics from him so, to keep myself honest, I'm shoving this link up so I won't plagiarise *quite* so much.
He writes for the Spectator and it's 50/50 who I turn to first, Tamzin or Rod.
Taki seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Then I find he writes for the Sunday Times, so now we take that, too.
From what I hear from the grumbling classes out here, he speaks for England.
For me, too.
Comment comment: Eagle-eyed Anon's comment won't mean much because I've hastily corrected the goof but I had referred to him as RoN throughout. A bit bloody stupid - not to say unconvincing - to praise a scribe to the heavens when I can't even get his naffing name right, and Anon has me bang to rights.
In fact, i went down to brek and asked my mum (and A.N. Other who happened to be here) how they called him and they both said Ron, so go figure. And Ron's such a uncool name in this household - my dad was ever Ronald and only Gan Gan called him the monosyllable moniker.
What's scary is how fast Ron Anon got onto me.
