ΠΟΥ;

I BET NO-ONE KNOWS WHERE THIS WELL-PLACED LIDL EMPORIUM IS LOCATED?

Clue: Lost Continent.

ekathimerini

news from publishers of semi-return, details to follow.

PEDANT FAIL

Prescriptive vs descriptive

Proofreader’s honour

Promethean Egotism

Utility-maximising Old Soak

Two interesting articles in the Financial Times that caught my eye, and not just for buttressing the paper's always spot-on profile of a Big Swinging Dick in the News.

Sins of the Tiger Mothers

Madame Chua sounds absolutely ghastly and the sort of pig-headed lunatic martinet I saw all around me in Hong Kong.

Thank Gawd my own Mama wasn't/isn't like this or I'd be rich focused talented determined ... all that stuff that gets you to be Top Gun Right Stuff Top Honcho creep.

"US pedagogues and parents certainly have a lot to learn from Ms Chua. Westerners underrate the effectiveness of rote learning, and underestimate the amount of material their children can absorb.

“Nothing is fun until you’re good at it,” Ms Chua insists (wrongly), adding (rightly) that “to get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences”.

Her problem is rather that she confuses her own Promethean egotism with an ambition for her daughters.

They – with good reason – have a hard time distinguishing it from rivalry, bullying or even enmity.

They call Ms Chua “insane” and compare her to Voldemort. Her own mother tells her she is going too far. The problem is not Chinese and cultural, it is American and personal.

Ms Chua is trying to protect her immoderate ambition from scrutiny and judgment by misrepresenting it as an ethnic peculiarity.

Contempt for others is the foundation of the hyper-vigilant child-rearing that Ms Chua practises."

Priced Out of Stupor

~ Negative own-price elasticity across time ~

"I don’t want to romanticise life as a rough-sleeping bum. It gets cold and lonely. I’m not sure what is keeping my underpants together, though I’m sure they wouldn’t survive contact with suds and warm water.

But my boozy existence has a cool, calculating logic.

For sure, not everything is perfect. But I’m a rational addict; a utility-maximising old soak. I drink because it makes sense to do so – by following an ex-ante optimal inter-temporal consumption plan, as they say.

Speaking of which, let me crack open a bottle of strong cider ... that’s better.

Where was I? Oh yes: you see, every drink I have contributes to my stock of addictive capital. I feel bad if I drink, but I feel worse if I don’t.

Alcohol thus acquires what another drinking buddy once told me was a negative own-price elasticity across time."

PRANK

~ Unwanted container dumped in front of office ~

One of those pranks so skilled and funny that one doesnt need to recommend it.

In fact, move on - kill this screen - this is too funny for you. Perfectly good Punch cartoon just up the road.

Actually, this was submitted by Badass for further forwarding so's I could pretend it was my discovery and have Prankesta Groupies swarming all over me.

Loipon, you KNOW it's gotta be funny.

These jokesters are heros, as is Badass for submitting it for inter-galactic circulation

SKITS & SKETCHES

Empire puffers I wish I'd come up with.

[Courtesy of Lord Moss of Ma Wan.]

BOMBAY MEETS BRUM

~ Call centre fail ~

"Very sorry, sahib - perhaps is loosening in translation.

Am I understanding that you are interrogational as to where is being your stuff?"

"Jawohl!"

Send for Wells.

NAFF

Luverly word, 'naff', and even lovelier the way Ronnie leavened 'Porridge' by turning it into a 'naffing' oath.

Good piece by the Spectator's Wiki Man:

"Americans get by without the word ‘naff’, and this may partly be because the concept is less useful to them. One of the gratifying things I noticed when I first visited the United States was that the middle-class English practice of demonstrating how posh or clever you are by affecting disdain for popular tastes doesn’t apply there in the same way. Visit the home of a Harvard professor and you’ll find cupboards full of Pop Tarts, a whirlpool bath and a massive fridge that makes ice.

These differences are particularly pronounced in attitudes to technology or labour-saving devices, which the British affect to hate. It is a badge of honour among some of my London friends not to own a microwave. Likewise the gas barbecue, an utterly brilliant device, is for some reason considered dubious."

AUSSIE?

Nah, mate, that wimpy shrimpy's not from anywhere near Down-Under.

" ... a bit of teasing about his nationality has led to a race row ... suing bosses after accusing colleagues of racist comments – including constantly greeting him with ‘G’day, sport’.

... on a ‘cocktail of anti-depressants’ ... asked fellow wardens to stop making Australian jokes, but they continued."

[My emboldenment]

Struth, wait til the Murdoch/Packer scribblers get hold of this ...

And no sooner said than ... the hawk-eyed Sinbad is right there with a HeraldSun link plus some suitably robust comments.

Blood oath! Talk about spineless of any breed or bracket - spazzetta Geoffreya Stephens would dishonour a sloth with his feebleness.

CHRIS JEFFERIES STILL A SUSPECT

Jefferies looks no weirder than I.

I hope when all's said and thoroughly naffed over by the incompetent Filth that he sues the buggery out of them.

As a devout moccasin toter, I thoroughly agree with the Speccie's Toby Young that 'moccasins dont make one a murderer.

Saliva - am i being thick? Saliva was found on the hapless murderee. Would that not help save the Fuzz excess wankery such as holding Jefferies?

PC Packing: Also, I see we're now to have armed Filth cruising the tube trains. There will be blood. Someone reaches for a iPhone or a packet of Polos and blam they're dead.

TEXTING AND WALKING

I can't abide texter-walkers, loud cellers, cellers/motorists, celling and queuing ... all that stuff.

Actually, I did wonder about the legality of the CCTV recording being shoved on Youtube. She sues.

She's still a silly cow.

Pig! Pig! Pig!

I ran over the cutest little black dog on Sunday last, 0 mph just before Σαρόκο Square, en route with maman to church.

I saw it, it was trotting one direction then turned back under my wheels. I stopped literally over it and got out - to much hooting from the Greeks behind whose way I was blocking for mere trivia. It was dying in my hand and then dead by the time I laid it on the side of the road right outside my driving school, messrs Ginis.

I looked round for the distraught owner to blast them even as they blasted me. No one, but I reported it to the police who took details. If the tragic loss is reported, the shouting match will be scheduled.

Terribly sad and affected me all day.

After leaving maman at the church, I cruised on and collected the Jan 8 Spectator whose Charles Moore diary had the most wonderful entry:

"Thanks to the recommendation of Humphry Wakefield, the father, among other distinctions, of the deputy editor, I have just finished the best book I have ever read about what it is like to be a dog. Called My Talks with Dean Spanley, and written by Lord Dunsany.

The author suspects that a dry old clergyman called Dean Spanley has a secret. By means of getting him to drink plenty of Imperial Tokay, he discovers that the Dean was, in a former life, a dog called Wag.

Under the influence, the Dean becomes, in reminiscence, a dog once more. Wag/Spanley reports so well what it is like to be ruled by smell, and how dogs, because they worship human beings — ‘the Wise Ones, the Great Ones’ — feel the need to protect them by barking fiercely at risks they don’t appreciate enough, such as traction engines.

Here is how the Dean conveys the wonderful pointlessness of canine pleasure:

"‘So we [he and another dog] came to the pig’s house and looked in through his door at him and shouted, “Pig!”.

He didn’t like that. He looked just like a pig; he was a pig; and he knew it.

He came towards his door saying silly surly things in a deep voice. You know the kind of talk.

And we just shouted, “Pig. Pig. Pig.” Both of us, for nearly half an hour.

It was perfectly splendid and we enjoyed it immensely.’"

You know the kind of talk. Absolutely splendid, and I have ordered a brace forthwith to compensate for the inevitable theft from the parlour jakes.

BITES RAPIST TONGUE OFF

~ consensual ~

Silly moi, at first glance I thought she'd chomped a racist's tongue orf ... yahh - babe bites bonker.

Still, livelier than baddelaisian Nun's bones in priest's satchel.

I mean, phooey to dat bones dry bones relic number.

Tongue-in-cheek stuff

I would not have spotted this but for the wonderful WhatsUp-Corfu whose listings have transformed my days.

AA

One shouldn't mock but click on the AA headline and look at the upper left spelling of '-mous' as in Anonymous

Alcoholics Anonymus

~ -mus, by God ~ MUS ~

I mean that's the sort of thing *I** do, par exemple:

"Must finish AA website for the morning - or is it Al-Anon? Can never remember which is which.

Ah! That's where I left my cigs. Don't suppose I had a drink going - right, concentrate - touch of Campari and focus.

Anonymous - or is it two Ns? OK, I know it's total three Ns, what I mean is, is it two Ns after the A?

Nah, doesn't look right."

And so forth - but the idea of misspelling Anonymous just cracks me up.

Someone like me, Exhibit A tippler in obvious dire need of AA's ministrations ... summons up couraqe to admit to his own soakiness ... comes across details in helpful blog

("Blimey, this is the last place I expected to find anything actually useful")

Clicks on link - first thing he sees ~ they can't even spell fronking 'Anonymous' correctly.

'Verrr' enc'rr'g'ing'

[Really, this is how I slur after a fifth of Jim Beam]

'Don't reckon I'd get to Level 3 wi' thish lot.'

Contact details: AA (Alcoholics Anonymous)
(English-speaking group meeting)
Every Saturday at 18:30 in Corfu Town
Contact 694-489-4484 for more information.

Before he left for Corfu

[he held a goodbye dinner]