02 September 2009
Daily Chat 02/09/09
The Great Fire of London began on this day in 1666. Apart from that, nothing worth mentioning, as near as I can tell. Boring celeb birthdays: Keanu Reeves, Lennox Lewis and Salma Hayek. Nothing going on but obscure Roman Catholic saints days, too. Ho hum. Here's some funkiness for your Wednesday:
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What's with the Guardian and meerkats? Even Stephen Fry's at it now - '...can represent the glory of creation quite as aptly as a meerkat or an orang-utan.'
ReplyDeleteIn search of the planet's most endangered species
@scherfers:
ReplyDeleteHe's a terrible old pseud, that Stephen Fry. Not in a bad way, but as the years pass he seems to be becoming more and more a caricature of himself.
Anyway, just been watching highlights on the news of Libya's 40th birthday party. Blimey. Maybe Tessa Jowell should have a word with Col Gadaffi, see if he's got any ideas about 2012. Although I imagine you wouldn't want to be standing under the fireworks when they go off...
Swifty,
ReplyDeleteHe can sure do smug. Like him though.
@colin:
ReplyDeleteThe "silly old woman that I am" schtick he does is starting to grate on me a bit these days, if I'm honest.
That black taxi road trip round the US was a particular low, I thought.
Swifty,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, but the Paddington bear thing he did was good.
I like the way he dosn't glory in his enormous intellect, or patronise anyone.
ReplyDeleteVari,
ReplyDeleteHow true.
Hem hem, I shouldn't worry your pretty little head about such profondités Vari, if I were vous.
ReplyDeleteGaudeamus igitur, juvenes!
I always thought Fry was a bit over-precious about macs but it turns out he bought one of the first in Britain. I want a navigator phone for the hills and someone suggested looking at Fry;'s blog about smartphones and my goodness the guy knows his stuff - not blinded to the drawbacks of the bloody iphone either.
ReplyDeleteAm no fan of meerkats - their bands always have weak members the others take turns in bullying - almost as bad as schoolgirls.
juvenes - I wish.
ReplyDeleteApparently he was quite big mates with Peter Cook - I think he's trying to measure up, will never happen.
Vari,
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find he is trying to measure up to Oscar Wilde, like me.
Hah!
ReplyDeleteI was trying to measure up to Dorian Gray, unfortunately, I didn't have a portrait in the attic.....
I'm trying to flog Jessica my Bootfair piece, ain't going to happen.
ReplyDeletecolin: What, you too? I even went so far and wrote a play as bloody awful as "The Duchess of Padua". (It's quite possible that I wrote more than one, to be hondest.)
ReplyDeleteHands up everybody who is or was trying to measure up to Oscar Wilde.
elementary-watson,
ReplyDeleteI'm more like that Whistler bloke who used to pinch his stuff. Very difficult to shoehorn into cif though.
Course it won't happen, she has no actual power to make it happen, her authority extends as far as advising you to submit to GH or MS.
ReplyDeleteDon't be misled....
Vari,
ReplyDeleteNo, not holding me breath.
Off to the shops now.
I'm too good for Aldi but not good enough for Waitrose. Thank God for Tesco.
Is Jay around? His girlfriend is on the Kate Clanchy thread dropping some right clangers!
ReplyDeleteChrist, that Graun CiF site is buggy. Lo-o-o-ong loading times, weird lock-ups, crashing browsers...
ReplyDeleteAnything remotely interesting going on over there which it's worth my while crashing my browser twice for?
The GF does seem to have got out of bed on the wrong side today!
ReplyDeleteYeah, she's back on top form. Top quality man-bashing and Brit-bashing at the same time. That's two of her favorite subjects - we're only missing a diatribe about the fucking hateful Russians.
ReplyDeleteScherfig - I'm sure you're just the one to push the Red button.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I threw that towel in a long time ago, thauma. £5 says if you mention how much the Russians love their children, she'll go ballistic.
ReplyDeleteNo need to link to the Sting song, but you might mention the musical feminist 'genius', Madonna :0)
Madonna - *spit* - I couldn't manage that, even for a good wind-up.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I'll have to retract my statement about the Russians loving their children. It seems they treat them like animals -
ReplyDeleteevidence
Hey, don't bash Madonna, she's really not bad. She's like a white, female version of Michael Jackson, only without the career phase where the music was interesting.
ReplyDeleteAnd she changed a whole nations view of gypsies, just with the power of one charismatic sentence....
ReplyDeleteMaybe she's more like Bono?
Ah go on someone, it can't be too difficult to shoehorn Madonna of all people into a discussion on childcare and nannies................
ReplyDeleteBombs away!
ReplyDeletePluck it - Cif seems to have gone haywire again.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the bomb?
ReplyDeletepresumably relating to Madonna and childcare?
ReplyDeleteRussian au pairs. Apparently they are superior.
ReplyDelete@thauma:
ReplyDeleteLooks like we shall never know - Pluck's marvellous Sitelife social media platform has seized up again.
DoS attack from Finland.
ReplyDeleteI hear Madonna has one.............
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've got this one ready to go, but the bomb-doors are jammed.
ReplyDelete'Madonna's nanny was Australian, and when she tried to quit, she was sacked on the spot. Apparently she just wasn't up to the 24/7 demands. I'm surprised Ms Ciccione hasn't tried a Kosovan. They are, by all accounts, super people and wonderful carers. Russians are also much sought after.'
Now that the air's a little less blue around here; I had actually managed to start reading that Kate Clanchy drivel (BTW Cath, if you're reading, great comment regarding otherness) & the bloody thin;gs become inaccessible again. At least I know it's not only me that's having problems with Cif.
ReplyDeleteWhy not go the whole hog & mention Karelian Russian carers?
And lob in a reference to modern-day Finns lacking a bit of sisu - that always gets them going.
ReplyDeleteThe guardian has started to notice re-subtitled Downfall-clips ... and somehow, they've become less interesting as a result.
ReplyDelete@elementary:
ReplyDeleteWhat a weird coincidence - I was just loafing around the culture section, saw Tim Jonze (crazy spelling, crazy guy!) opining on Oasis with that Downfall clip, and thought "oh shit, that's another of life's pleasures diminished".
“Sorry, commenting is not available at this time. Please try again later.”
ReplyDeleteReally don’t know if I can be arsed, TBH.
BTW, has anyone else noticed there’s more and more adverts for AutoTrader on Cif? Seems like even the one profitable part of GMG needs a little boost...
Swifty: Yesterday, Catherine Shoard claimed that a Downfall clip on the "avatar"-trailer is the most accurate criticism of it on the net.
ReplyDeleteOne article referencing these clips would have been acceptable, but two in two days? Too much.
Wonder whether the commercial giants at the Graun ever bothered to insert any penalty clauses against lost revenue/brand damage into their contract with Pluck?
ReplyDeleteOr did they just adopt the PFI route, chuck their hands up when the contracts got a bit hard to follow, and signed on the dotted line without reading the tricky legal bits?
Don't understand why it takes them so long to fix these problems. Surely a quick service re-start should take care of it?
ReplyDeleteOn culture there is a piece on Billy Childish.
ReplyDeleteI once shouted at him from a car window.
colin: Was it something along the line of "Stop being so goddamn childish, Billy!"?
ReplyDeleteThe guardian has started to notice re-subtitled Downfall-clips
ReplyDeleteOh, good heavens. They jumped the shark with Hitler finds out his subtitles are wrong and that was posted nearly a year ago now.
"Has one of them hinted the plain bird is a lesbian yet?"
elementary-watson,
ReplyDeleteNo, just the usual;
"Oi Billy"
He has spent many years backing shyly into the limelight and dresses like a recently demobbed First World War soldier so as to pass unnoticed.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOf course what I meant was:
ReplyDeleteAll your base are belong to us.
I wonder what the Finnish is for:
ReplyDelete"I've kidnapped your hamster, if you want to see him alive again ban Thaumaturge and Traneroundthebanned from commenting on your website"...........
Dot, I think it's Valtiollinen Poliisi 4u.
ReplyDeleteIn the future we will all speak Engrish.
ReplyDeleteThey've just posted an article by Sonia Sodha. Her only previous contribution? Where Intervention is Welcomed: We should learn from Finland where teachers are trained to spot child abuse and instigate a procedure to deal with it
ReplyDeleteEn tiedä, Dot. Anteeksi.
ReplyDeleteAh good, they've now posted "Commenting is off". That usually means it'll be back up in a few minutes.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they've only just come back from lunch and noticed....
Andy: Just a quick drive-by to say no offence taken/sulking - just v busy start of term and haven't been online to check/post.
ReplyDeleteGood choice of music today!
Did you know that ...
ReplyDeleteThe Finnish word for soap-seller "Saippuakivikauppias" is the world's longest palindrome.
Afternoon people
ReplyDeleteComment is Fuxx0rd, it seems. Ah well. I have a bit of work I should be looking at anyway.
Anything else exciting going on?
I have kept away from the nanny's thread so far because.. *cough* I used to have an au pair when my boy was little. There. All my fucken street cred has gone out of the window now hasn't it.
BUT.... I paid her at least 20 quid more than the going rate per week, she was banned from doing housework because I wanted to make sure she spent her time with Pete, and she became a real "member of the family" - outings, sunday lunches round my parents' house, family holidays with us. My conscience wouldn't let me treat her like the paid help. We are still good friends, although we don't see her much cos she met a scots bloke who is on the rigs and lives in Aberdeen now.
I hope that goes some way to excusing me from being a vile person. Sigh.
I'll get me coat...
Have they thought of renaming Pluck? I can think of at least one practically homophonic alternative ...
ReplyDelete@LordS:
ReplyDeleteI like palindromes. "Rotas Opera Tenet Arepo Sator" was one I was taught in Latin at school. Otherwise known as the Corinium Acrostic.
BB - I hope you are properly ashamed of yourself.
ReplyDeleteBB - Only if you paid the same sort of rates to the butler & chambermaids -:)
ReplyDeletethaum - I had no other choice at the time otherwise I'd never have done it, but I'm glad I did because it gave her the opportunity to come over here before her country was in the EU and it was an experience she enjoyed as much as we did.
ReplyDeleteI was working full time, studying part time, my husband had had a multiple by-pass and was off work for nigh-on 6 mths and we were too far away from my folks for them to pitch in on a daily basis. And all the nurseries round here are private - airline employees get subsidies, so they rack their rates up to the max.
@BB:
ReplyDeleteDid you pay for her to go on hols with you on top of her wages?
I only ask because my sister was a nanny for a while, got dragged off to the South of France with the horrid Notting Hill family she worked for, didn't enjoy it much at all (the kids apparently were the archetypical upper middle class brats, sorry, free spirits expressing themselves).
BB - no need to explain ... ;-)
ReplyDelete... If I ever had the misfortune to find myself be-sproggèd, you can bet your year's salary I'd find a nanny or au pair somehow!
ReplyDeleteIt’s amazing how the standard of comments on Untrusted goes up when Comment is fucked...
ReplyDeleteLordS: I don’t want to nit-pick, but perhaps you mean the longest single-word palindrome?
Swifty’s is obviously longer than yours (ooer, missus), but if we’re allowed to use Latin, I’d nominate
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Which, as all classical scholars will know, means
We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire
It’s also the title of a film made in 1978 by the Situationist Guy Debord, but I’m sure everyone knew that...
Swifty - yeah, she came to France with us and loved it - got to know one of my friend's daughters out there and they still keep in touch too. (In fact, we paid for her to come over to France the year after she left us, too, after her UK visa had run out cos she couldn't have afforded to come under her own steam. We "invented" an urgent need to have someone to "keep the lad busy" so she wouldn't feel like it was charity.) :o)
ReplyDeleteGP01
ReplyDelete"BB - Only if you paid the same sort of rates to the butler & chambermaids -:)"
I wish.... if I was rich enough to afford butlers and chambermaids they would be the best-paid in the country!
My nana was in service to the Duke of Buccleuch when she was a lass. Funny the difference two generations can make.
I have a second cousin who used to be a servant of some kind for the Queen Mum - he went on to be major domo for Aaron Spelling and then became a priest in LA. Weird.
The royal family really are as tight as a ducks arse though - what we read in the press is no exaggeration.
I don’t want to nit-pick ...
ReplyDeleteYes you do. I would ;-)
Talking of Latin...
ReplyDeleteI've just been looking at some of the Vindolanda Tablets online.
What a fascinating people the Romans were. Even their mundane letters are interesting.
If I have to leave work early cos I'm bored, do you think I could get compensation from Cif or Pluck for lost wages?
ReplyDeletethaum - worth a try!
ReplyDeleteSwifty - I bloody hated Latin when I was at school. I am not sure I could bring myself to read it of my own free will now... bad enough that it is still bandied about a bit in the Law. argh.
Oh Dear
ReplyDeleteWhat can the matter be?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/8233786.stm
Hehehehe
@BB:
ReplyDeleteFunny, I was the absolute opposite. I loved Latin (and Greek).
Those letters from Vindolanda are just fantastic, though, whatever your thoughts on the language. A window on a world nearly 2,000 years gone.
'What a fascinating people the Romans were.'
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe, but what did they ever do for us?
(Thought I'd just preempt the other CCXLVI people who were going to say that.)
BB - yeuchhh!
ReplyDeleteOoh - ooh - I think comments are back!
ReplyDeleteNope - oh bugger it, I'm off home!
ReplyDeleteOops, there's an article about Canada being racist. Pretty weak stuff. No comments allowed, but what are the chances we'll see our old pal Halgeel84 there ? ... Oh look there's a bear with it's strides round its ankles, squatting among some trees....
ReplyDeleteHeh heh.
Love Canada, hate America, racism everywhere, everything the neo-cons' fault and what about Somalia?. Here's loads of irrelevant links....
ReplyDeleteThat's that sorted for Halgeel. (Gotta love her anyway.)
Funnily enough, all the ATL pieces seem to be available, it's just the BTL comments which are missing.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that it was the comments which were the site (as the name kind of hints), bit obviously I was wrong.
As the song says,
you can look, but you’d better not touch
(I know it’s not The Coasters, but I couldn’t find a decent version by them)
Let's try that link again, shall we?
ReplyDeleteyou can look, but you’d better not touch
I bet that girl at Leeds wishes she'd went in the woods as well BB...
ReplyDeleteReminds me, a mate once told me just after we'd been to Donington Rock Festival in 1982: they still had the 'long-drop toilets' - just six foot deep trenches with cubicles suspended on planks and 4x4.
He had seen a partly collapsed one structure, and at the bottom of the trench under the bit that had given away, and in a foot or so of ripening festival doo doo, were two Hells Angels, absolutely covered in sh1t, slugging it out with eachother...
Put him of his spicy bean burger it did.
Scherfig
ReplyDeleteThat's the girl. Impossible to hate, or understand for that matter.
Aww. Halgeel is ok. If I had been through what she seems to have been through, I would be mad as hell about things too.
ReplyDeleteInstead I am just...well... mad. %o)
Can't be doing with reading the article but no comments.
ReplyDeleteHehehehe - not a good week for the BNP. First the eejit that published their membership list online get off with a £200 fine, now Robert Bailey has been banned from driving - because of an evil conspiracy!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bnp-candidate-banned-from-driving-after-refusing-breath-test-1780590.html
"Bailey, who was a BNP candidate for London in this year's European elections, refused to speak when asked if he had had a drink.
He was warned that refusing to take the breath test could lead to prosecution and was seen on the footage replying: "I'm not going to do that."
The former Royal Marine, originally from Scunthorpe, told the court he believed he was being set up because of his political beliefs.
He said: "Well, I spent 14 years in the Marines and spent a good part of this working with the security forces and I know how the system operates."
He added that he believed he was under surveillance because of his political activities and that his phone and house had been bugged.
He said: "It adds to my belief it is a conspiracy against me, my party and the indigenous people of this country."
What a twat.
Does cif give a rebate to the avertisers when this happens?
ReplyDeleteSure stoaty, just like it says "sorry" when it deletes comments eroniously.. Arf arf...
ReplyDeleteHah! I missed this bit on first read-through. Talk about adding insult to injury:
ReplyDelete"Prosecutor Adebayor Kareem accused him of refusing to take a breath test because it would have shown up that he was drunk behind the wheel. "
That must have pissed him off sooooo badly! :o)
Comment is fixed!
ReplyDeleteLooks like it was some fucker called traneroundthebanned who broke it, BTW.
He had the last comment on the Clanchy’s nannys thread before it went down, and the first after it came back on.
Bloody suspicious if you ask me...
I used to think halgeel was some kind of turing test. What was also unnerving (dunno what she's like now if indeed she is a she) is that sometimes she would write in lucid prose, at other times be totally incoherent.
ReplyDeleteBut I suppose that applies to all of us, depending on how far down the bottle we are.
I like tranaroundthebend, he has good taste in literature.
ReplyDeleteI hope it wasn't he who suddenly produced the hamster from his bum though.
ReplyDeleteStrict muslim, Edwin, so I think the bottle is not a factor. I still have a bit of a soft spot for halgeel, and defended her vigorously a few years back because of the abuse she used to get from certain posters. She has, however, blotted her copybook a few times, and can be frustrating and obtuse. I've opted out now, but I think she's a well-meaning person.
ReplyDeleteI defended her too scherfig, on several occasions, but some of her comments got just a bit too weird for me.
ReplyDeleteI also remember defending Tehrankid but then I saw one of her posts which was completely out of order. Not surprised she got her marching orders.
halgeel is in with the bricks I think, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the more 'flamboyant' posters were in-house gags!
Halgeel ? Seriously ?
ReplyDeleteIt's all about Islam and Somalia with that lass; it's always *all* EVERYONE elses' fault. Gets a bit tedious....
Unlike me, who is always brilliant and witty, even before having loads of gin.
;-)
Tehrankid was always on about the same tedious old message too I thought, a bit like Berchmans, but with a brain... My fave was Tinfoilhoodie though. Could *not* help but like him. Massive conspiracy nut / troofer, but thoroughly likeable poster...
ReplyDeleteBW: Unlike me, who is always brilliant and witty
ReplyDeleteME: I wish I'd said that, bitterweed.
BW: Don't worry, you will, scherfig, you will.
ALL: Ha ha ha! bitterweed, you're such a card!
Bastard.
ReplyDeleteRight, I'm off for my tea.
BW - it's past eight o'clock. It has to be supper, mate, not tea! ':o)
ReplyDeleteME: There's only one thing worse than being off for one's tea... and that's NOT being off for one's tea.
ReplyDeleteALL: Ha ha ha! Wonderfully witty!
BW: Bastards!
Sorry, bitterweed, here's a present for you:
ReplyDeletesad man's tongue
Voles and country music!
ReplyDeleteCan't get any better !!!
Scherfig, mate, back me up on this.
ReplyDeleteIn Northern Ireland, there are seven possible meals per day: breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, high tea, dinner and supper. Supper being a snack before bedtime.
All right, so the afternoon and high tea bits are nicked from English middle-class aspirationalism.
Still, there's no excuse not to be eating at any hour of the day.
supper at my grandparents in scotland used to be two rich tea biscuits with cheese and a cuppa before bedtime :)
ReplyDeleteHere's a present for you scherfers:
ReplyDelete(sorry, lost linky script thing temporarily)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s98vKkCV91w&feature=related
scherfig:
ReplyDeleteTo plagiarise dear old Oscar once is unfortunate, but to so twice in one thread is, to say the least, careless...
Back you up 100% here, thauma - the existential paradox of having cornflakes (or even porridge) for both breakfast and supper led to huge societal problems, but the principle of eating all the time remains sound. (As is well known, Tolkien nicked this idea for his hobbit lifestyle. I think CS Lewis told him about it in the pub.)
ReplyDeleteA haaandbag, Andy. How dare you?
ReplyDeleteScherfig - that is most probable and likely. For those of you who are ignorant, CS Lewis was from Norn Iron, so knew of what he spoke.
ReplyDeleteBB - your testimony backs us up also as we all know that Scots are really Irish.
Oh, and Andy - have just rebutted a ridiculous post by someone called traneroundthebanned on the Nanny thread.
ReplyDeleteNice one, bw. Staying with that vibe: gladiators
ReplyDeletethaum
ReplyDeleteapart from the red-headed ones, who are vikings!
I'm probably late to the party as usual, but have you heard Seasick Steve?
ReplyDeleteThere's quite a good documentary on him on BBC iPlayer too.
God I remember when I took my son to Florida when he was 5, to do the Disney thing (never again!), but with his copper red hair, everywhere we went women would stop us and rub his head and say "oh, your son has such beautiful hair".
ReplyDeleteSuch a shame that the main experience he has had here at home is to get the shit kicked out of him and be randomly abused for being a "ginger cunt". He has even had twats in vans roll their windows down and shout at him in the street. English people are such tossers at times, especially in the South East.
I did suggest we move to Scotland at some stage, with family up there an all, but he wasn't having it.
Apparently, the original red-heads were the Thracians (c. 500 BC) and then the Macedonians. Alexander the Great was supposed to be red-haired.
ReplyDeletethauma: have you?
ReplyDeleteI’ve been busy elsewhere recently so I hadn’t noticed, but I’ll be sure to check it out, I mean point it out to my friend so he can check it out ;-)
BB - I seem to remember a conversation on Cif quite a few months ago now where the subject of prejudice against red hair was discussed. Never having personally seen any of this, I was slightly incredulous, but your post about your son convinced me.
ReplyDeleteIt's so very strange - what the fuck is wrong with red hair? It's lovely!
Tristan fell in love with Iseult of Ireland due to a bird bringing him one strand of her chestnut locks, if Rosemary Sutcliffe had it right....
thaum - my lad has been bullied really badly in the past. Luckily now he is a bit older it seems to have abated. But he still gets the random "ginger cunt" comments from kids he doesn't even know in his school. I really don't know what it's about.
ReplyDeleteAbout a year ago I went out for a gal's night with a divorced friend of mine. We both got a bit lashed, and this rather good looking young chap was paying her a lot of attention. I was urging her to go for it. She was admittedly pretty pissed at the time and had no idea that she offended me, but she said "I can't! Look at him! He's ginger!"
WTF!
You must have seen this Katherine Tate clip. It made me laugh, but I wasn't laughing all that much
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhLIjlTNSk
BB - WTF indeed! I don't get it at all.
ReplyDeleteI may have thrown a few "carrot-top" comments my sister's way as we were growing up, but these were basically due to jealousy as her hair is a beautiful colour. I'm sure she took it in the spirit in which it was intended. We still get on, anyway!
Besides, as I've aged, my own hair has taken on a somewhat reddish tinge.... \o/
Andy - I take it you mean Ultima? No response indeed - perhaps she'll have a look tomorrow. I'd feel a bit guilty about baiting her (well, OK, I do) if she hadn't made a couple of nasty attacks on other posters, accusing them of being bad mothers etc.
Anyway, off to bed now - sweet dreams, all!
thauma: yeah, you’re right, I did mean ultima.
ReplyDeleteWhoops, don’t know how that happened.
The abbreviated versions of your names are kind of similar, but that’s no excuse.
And I think you should feel terribly guilty about baiting ultima, the poor dear.
I, of course, was merely agreeing with her and trying to support her ;-)
Night, mate.
Night thaum
ReplyDeleteLinky to that thread, anyone? I can't seem to find it.
'Tristan fell in love with Iseult of Ireland due to a bird bringing him one strand of her chestnut locks, if Rosemary Sutcliffe had it right....'
ReplyDeleteOh Sutcliffe was very good on details, even with mythical people! She got some big things wrong - like the 9th legion - but I expect she did that for the sake of the story and what a cracker it is too.
The nanny thread, BB? (Sorry, don't get the techy thing)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/01/nanny-womens-work-silence?commentpage=5
Clanchy’s nannys
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha
ReplyDeleteDidn't read all the comments, but the last little exchange between thaum and that nutter traneroundthebanned was pretty good.
OK folks - time I wasn't here!
ReplyDeleteNight night x