OUP America's 2009 word of the year: 'Unfriend'.

So, without drum-roll, fireworks or further-a-fanfare, here it is! The Oxford University Press America's 2009 Word of the Year: 'unfriend'.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”

Whilst at first glance a lazy construction, simply just gluing the prefix 'un' onto the noun - when to convey the meaning properly one would write "to remove from one's 'friends' list" -, no doubt it shall escape in the wider lexicon with as greater ease as it has assumed itself into the vernacular of the 'Yoot' and all Web2.0 applications, like Facebook, Twitter et al.

Mind you, no doubt someone in Dr Johnson's time wrote precisely the same sentiment when the word 'deflower' first violated the dictionaries of English. Speaking of which, in his time, perhaps this new word would have then been rendered 'unbefriend'.

OUP America's 2009 word of the year: 'Unfriend'.

The Ballad of Paul Clarke's Shotgun...

In the last few days, places like Twitter and other blogging sites have been jumping with the news of, and subsequent discussion about, the treatment of one Paul Clarke: a former soldier in the British Army, who, apparently, found a discarded shotgun and handed it in to police. Sadly for him, neither the police to whom he took the gun, nor the Crown Prosecution Service*, believed his 'just found it' story at face value, and consequently arrested and prosecuted him for possession of an illegal (i.e. unlicensed) firearm.

[*the CPS, the body responsible for recommending whether a case is in the public interest to warrant any prosecution or not - the US equivalent would be the District Attorney's Office].

Not that I want to turn this into some for-or-against gun lobby affair, but some readers will already be aware of the (certainly by international comparison) draconian gun-ownership laws under which we operate here in the UK.

In short, what this means is that, in applying for a firearms license, unless you can meet a long list of stringent safety and psychological interview & evaluation criteria - you aint getting a firearms licence; and being found to be in possession of one without a license renders said possession a criminal offence. These laws were introduced by successive UK governments after tragedies like the Hungerford Massacre, and that at Dunblane.

No doubt, after reading the above local newspaper coverage of the case, you may feel Mr Clarke was harshly treated - opinions, certainly legal opinions, differ on this point; and so it's at times like this that I've found no better source of sifting through the voodoo and blather to cut the chase on a given case than Jack of Kent's blog on UK legal matters: an oasis of calm in the heat of "but what about...!" type debates and contentions.

Finally, and pulled straight from Jack's blog on this very case, is the tale, as retold by 'Ivan', which perhaps more than anything gives a clear indication as to the straits faced by someone entering the UK whilst already being in possession of firearms, say from a country where obtaining a firearms license is a less taxing affair.

Enjoy!

['Ivan' wrote]: A friend of mine once had approximately the following conversation with a work colleague who had just come to Britain from South Africa. This took place before the latest change in the law which brought in such draconian penalties for possession.

(South African): "I hear on the grapevine you are quite a crack shot at clay pigeon. I wouldn't mind having a go at that."

(My Friend): "Of course. I'll introduce you at the club, and you can hire a gun and have a go."

"Well I could just bring my own. I've got a nice shotgun."

"You've got a gun? How did you get that? It took me ages to get a licence."

"I just put it in the container of furniture and other stuff I sent over from South Africa. How do I get a licence?"

"I think what you should do is take the shotgun around to the police station, explain the situation, and they'll probably look after it for you while you install a gunsafe, apply for a licence, and all that."

"Does that go for my handgun too?"

"No. You aren't allowed to keep a handgun at home, but you can keep one at a gun club. Change my first idea. Don't take them to the police station. Call the police, and ask them to come round to you."

"And my sub-machinegun?"

"Oh dear. Better idea. Don't call the police at all. I'd go out after dark and drop them all into the canal if I were you."

The Ballad of Paul Clarke's Shotgun...

Z-list "slebs" on 'Reality TV': a rant

Now how on earth did I missed this...?

Jordan: apparently every inch the equal of Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart...

For those of you reading who may not have heard of her, Jordan is a pneumatically-titted UK 'glamour model' with [purely ghost-written] literary pretensions - think Anna Nicole Smith, but without the MENSA credentials, talent or social grace, and you'll be in right neighbourhood.

There are other differences, of course.

Whereas you or I might have our car serviced every 10,000 miles or so, instead, she has another breast augmentation done, to her existing G-cup, at one of the many drive-thru von Zeppelin Maintenance Depots in LA - a habit now second only to her penchant for Botox touch-ups, collagen abuse and cosmetic surgery on those finicky bits behind the ears which no one else sees any way. They've even invented a genre and styling for her: 'Chav Chic'; and one to which Julie Burchill has duly managed to rattle-off a dozen tomes in praise. Mind you, our Julie knows about these things; what with her living in the tortured ghettos and mean streets of leafy Brighton & Hove...

So what's wrong with Jordan?

To the extent that she's made her entire reputation by selling her near-dirigible breasts as the sole reason to notice her, I guess nothing. It's hardly a new method of self-promotion, is it?

No. The reason I mention her is that she's emblematic of all that is tragically samey and predictably uninspiring about the cheap populist, mass-produced and celeb-obsessed dross which has become the mainstay, and chief output, of UK commercial television; with it's stockpile of otherwise arresting titles like 'Celebrity Wife Re-grouting', 'Celebrity Goat Husbandry', 'Dancing with Celebrity G-Spots on Ice', 'Celebrity My Left Testicle Plays a Gershwin Medley Whilst Doing The Ironing' (actually, that would be one for which I'd stay in and watch), and other, seemingly endless talent-free fare.

The depressing thing is, it is precisely that: endless; cheap to make and easy to sell to advertisers; with a ready and ever eager slew of viewers who've an apparently bottomless appetite for just about any old tat to which a 'reality' claim can be slapped. Couple that with a herd of 'slebs' so unassumingly famous that they've managed to remain under my radar for the duration of their entire careers and you've apparently the recipe for a 13 week fan-doting TV series. Or is that just a long-winded way of saying 'lowest common denominator TV'?

But let's be honest for a minute - just how 'real' is so-called 'Reality TV', anyway - when, in reality, hardly any of it so much as skirts the circumference of being real. Should we have a quick think...? Hmmmm...?

Well, unless you've either undergone SAS selection, or unfortunate enough to have been captured by the Khmer Rouge during the murderous reign of Pol Pot, when was the last time your life got so 'real' that you were gagged and bound, like some willing dominatrix fodder, before being nailed to a board, suspended beneath a helicopter, and then dragged upside-down through a crocodile-infested swamp in a jungle, whilst being force-fed worms and other items not normally found on a Michelin-starred menu? In all likelihood, probably never, right? In which case, surely there's a potential breach of the Trades Descriptions Act in that 'reality' claim somewhere?

Are there exceptions to the rule? I'd be lying if I said no.

I'll confess I'm one of those folks who enjoys watching annoying Z-list "slebs" make utter arses of themselves for the viewing masses; and all for the chance to reboot their all-but-moribund (otherwise they wouldn't be on the show in the first place) careers. If forced, I can watch it for, ooh... minutes, as this is the only time in their fleeting careers when we're ever, in all seriousness, going to get the chance to see them as they really are: warts and all, sans make-up, and without their standing coterie of fawning Green Room-gofers.

Do I love seeing the expression on their faces change after being told that they can't have their own way? That they're not going to get any hot food for the next two days as a result of making a complete jakes of the tasks needed to win food-stuffs? Seeing them so paranoid because - heaven forfend - someone else in camp was "talking about me!"? And then, after only 20 minutes of being 'on set', on the first day, sat round a log fire, treating each other to their back-of-a-cereal-box cod-psychology & rhetorical mantras about "we've just got to remain positive, innit?", whilst giving each other pep-talks on the only jungle survival techniques their brains have managed to retain from the rushed briefing given to them by the programme's Production Assistant, only 15 minutes before being cast to nature's elements?


Do I love it? Hell yeah!

And now, after having already completed one tour-of-booty on the show in 2004, Jordan, whose breasts are so large they've been allowed their own post (zip) code and require their own seat when flying, embarks on her second course of "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" in the Australian jungle; the same place she met her now former husband, Peter Andre.

So I'm wondering, in signing the contracts for appearing, whether she'll insist on a pre-emptive prenuptial divorce clause, prior to meeting any of the male members of the cast? Let's face it, it'll save time. Mind you, she's not really looking her best these days, after all 'the work' she's had done - no doubt it's a different kettle of fish for any potential jungle husband to see his bride-to-be without any of her usual caked-on warpaint and looking like a sulking Ethel Merman most of the day. I reckon it may just dampen their ardour a touch and see her leaving the show without a husband! What will Hello! magazine spend its budget on?! They've nothing in the diary, wedding-wise, until one of David and Victoria Beckham's kids ties the knot!

There is an upside, though. The prospect of seeing another series of this starve-a-sleb on commercial TV makes me eternally grateful that I can now Sky+* the entire thing (is that a bona fide verb yet?): record it and then fast-forward through as much of this full-contact adult-crèche thing as I like, missing all those damned adverts (*for North American readers, think TiVo)! Happy days!

Things are looking up already!

Now, about that show where a left testicle plays Gershwin whilst doing the ironing...?

Z-list "slebs" on 'Reality TV': a rant

'Prog Rock' explained in 5 minutes

CLICK ON EITHER PICTURE TO ENLARGE

'Prog Rock' explained in 5 minutes

Even more Twitter gags

Russia launches a nationwide campaign 2 curb excessive drinking plaguing the country. Step One: Raise the legal drinking age from zero

Saturday Night Live (SNL)

20 years since the Wall came down. On this auspicious day our thoughts go out to every member of Pink Floyd

David Schneider

Michelle Obama on Sesame St 40th anniversary show. Gets a little tense as Bert & Ernie ask why her husband's dragging his feet on gay marriage

Conan O'Brien

I like to imagine that weird flattened parting in Simon's hair is created by a lackey violently farting across it backstage before each show.

Charlie Brooker (on X-Factor's Simon Cowell)

Investigative journalist help request No:2453. Anyone got a RT on their timeline of @GaryDelaney's "Old MacDonald had Tourette's ee-i ee-i c*nt"?

David Schneider

[Carrie] Prejean sez she's been "Palin-ized", which may be defined as "having been exposed as a self-worshiping nobody with delusions of adequacy".

Michael McKean (Spinal Tap's 'David St Hubbins')

"A mule kicked Uncle Bob once. Broke his ribs. He punched it in the face.. My point? You have an ingrown fucking toenail. Stop bitching."

shitmydadsays ('Shit My Dad Says' - Justin Halpern)

Even more Twitter gags

Catholic Priest in 'MILF' action!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Catholic Priest in 'MILF' action!

Fox News proves to be unseasonably bad...

Some of you may remember my earlier piece about this bastion of unvarnished fuckwittage: Can Fox News really be considered a 'News' entity?

Well, in the form of Sean Hannity, it seems that they've now gone and added grist to the mill of those who frankly can't see them as anything other than the bigots' comedy-of-errors they are - as they've committed the cardinal sin for a 'news' channel, and become the news...

So what was Hannity's mistake? Well, in the interests of accuracy, it wasn't really a 'mistake', as that implies some element of the accidental, or something not done purposely - which would be the polar opposite of what Hannity pulled.

No, his actual mistake was in thinking that those damned pinko-liberal researchers on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show would miss a puff piece about Republican protesters "teabagging" (if only the Americans knew precisely what that means in UK slang!) in Washington DC; a piece which not only cobbled together footage of two different protests, whilst trying to pass it off as being one and the same event, but they even went to the lengths of trying to get viewers to believe that they were even in the same season. A leap, even for Fox - but one doing nothing to dispel the already solid reputation of its alter ego: Faux Noise.

So, with Edward R Murrow doing cartwheels in his grave, and without further ado, here's Jon Stewart calling out Hannity's deliberate and dissembling misdirection (what in plain English is called simply 'propaganda'):





And now, in a somewhat lame and palpably insincere attempt at a Rupert Murdoch-ordered rebuttal (to say nothing of epoch-redefining disingenuousness), here's Hannity back-pedalling like a JAMF!




Now, the observant amongst you will have spotted how Hannity actually brokers a new use and sense of the adjective, inadvertent here - you'll have picked-up that he uses 'indavertent' in the sense of "I'm a lying gobshite who's now been caught out and saying any old guff to try and cover both mine, and the network's worthless arses..."

All that from just one word - and let's be honest, you would have never had Hannity down as a closet philologist, would you? Mind you, if he can't even get his seasons right, what chance the language?

Fox News proves to be unseasonably bad...

Twitter's shitmydadsays gets own TV show!

For those of you who've perhaps not yet seen it, or don't use/bother with Twitter, you will have missed this.

There is a 'Twitterer', Justin Halpern, whose Twitter profile name is '@shitmydadsays' (shit my dad says) and who, as the name suggests, posts the barbed retorts and sangfroid observations of his father - and it has to be said that these invariably deadpan and litotes-laden laments are, by and large, utter gems.

Any way, it transpires that it's just been given it its own TV show on CBS in the States.

Here's a selection of the Tweets:

"Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."

"Just pay the parking ticket. Don't be so outraged. You're not a freedom fighter in the civil rights movement. You double parked."

"Does anyone your age know how to comb their fucking hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their head and started fucking."

"I didn't live to be 73 years old so I could eat kale. Don't fix me your breakfast and pretend you're fixing mine."

And here's a frank and funny interview with Justin Halpern, in which he explains the relationship and growing up with his father.

Enjoy!

Twitter's shitmydadsays gets own TV show!

Guy Fawkes' Night - 05th November

Every year, on 05th November, here in the UK, and maybe a handful of other still-participating countries in the Commonwealth, we celebrate (if that's the right word) the gruesome execution of one Guy 'Guido' Fawkes, an Elizabethan nobleman, soldier, adventurer, and politician.

Mr Fawkes' crime was that he did, along with certain notable accomplices, get caught up in The Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The Plot's central aim was to overthrow the government and assassinate the monarch by blowing up the Houses of Parliament, using a cache of gunpowder they'd manage to secrete in the labyrinthine cellars below the Palace of Westminster.

As events unfolded, the plot failed and, although he was by no means the biggest fish on the plotters' list by reputation, it was Fawkes who was to have lit the fuse, but was instead caught in the act. He therefore achieved notoriety and became, by association, the principal character of the Plot.

Fawkes was part of a Catholic uprising in England which, after Elizabeth I's death, had taken umbrage at the prospect of the Protestant King James I of Scotland ascending the English thrown (just for a change, by invitation of the English Parliament, not by force). James made no efforts whatsoever to ingratiate himself, or his court, to England's Catholics, and had a habit of imposing heavy fines on anyone who did not attend Protestant church services of a Sunday - thus Catholics saw any hope of their chief cause (that of 'toleration') slipping away with the arrival of the new monarch.

Duly pissed off, they chose the date of 05th November, 1605, for their Gunpowder Plot - the date the new King was to open Parliament, at Westminster (a role the British monarch still performs to this day, every year) - leaving the UK with the date, 05th November, forever tattooed on its collective psyche as one to remember for treason and retribution. Or at any rate, an excuse for a bonfire and knees-up.

Now it has to be said that the treatment Fawkes received at the hands of his gaolers - he was, after all, caught red-handed in the act of trying to light the bomb's fuse - was neither courteous nor subtle - John Webster would have definitely approved; indeed to suggest that it in any way took into account his considerations or comfort would be nothing short of gross exaggeration. Standard practice at the time for apprehended 'traitors' was to torture them mercilessly; thumbscrews and being stretched repeatedly on 'The Rack', until bones broke and tendons snapped, were merely an introductory aperitif to the main event of a traitor's death: to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Click HERE to see the picture of Fawkes' route to execution - this is The execution of Guy Fawkes' (Guy Fawkes) by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Visscher.

However, even with the prospect of such a gruesome end in mind, there is still a slight and comically amateur-meets-Heath Robinson aspect to Fawkes' failure to complete his one task in this entire endeavour, viz, to light the bloody fuse and get gone. He had, after all, spent 10 years as a soldier fighting for the Spanish against the Dutch, and acquired a good deal of experience with explosives, by all accounts, and yet when it came to the one thing he was asked to complete - to whole point of the assault - he made an unmitigated balls of it, and got caught.

It is, then, little surprise that the nation as a whole was encouraged to mock and make little of Fawkes, for his failure to perform his one assigned task; hence the rhyme has been passed down from generation-to-generation of British children:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Fawkes did, though, have the last laugh (if you can call it that): he leapt from the scaffold before the executioners could perform even the first part of his sentence (the hanging) and broke his neck; thus it was that Fawkes denied the hangman, and obviated a procedure which would, by all accounts, have smarted just more than a tad.

And so, having cheated his punishment, instead his likeness has been burned in effigy from that day to this - on Guy Fawkes' Night, or Bonfire Night, as it's latterly become known.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/guy-fawkes-protesters-fin_b_346720.html&cp

Not that most people in today's insistently secular UK have a tu'penny clue as to why Fawkes was considered a traitor; or why he and his cohorts tried to commit regicide: but they do remember that every 05th November they have carte blanche to build a bonfire and burn Fawkes' effigy on it - but in place of gunpowder, they buy as many fireworks as they can, the louder and more brilliant the better, and neighbours try and out-do each other as they re-enact what sounds like the artillery bombardment and cannonade from Battle of the Somme in their back gardens.

Still, it keeps them off the streets and out of plotting's way...

Post Scriptum: Ironically, 400+ years later, Fawkes has become something of a folk hero and came 30th in a BBC public vote for 100 Greatest Britons in 2002.

Guy Fawkes' Night - 05th November

Utterly meaningless axioms

If, like me, you read a lot, you'll have come across some of the more feeble-minded warblings of those prone to the extolment of both those latter-day diseases of relativism and equivocation - the desire, or in some a need, to try and reduce everything and everyone to the insane equivalence of the fallacy that "we're all the same, really...".

These people tend to rely a good deal of what they perceive to be 'universal truths' and received wisdoms, when ever engaged in exchanges with others - when if they actually had the smarts and took the time to analyse what they were saying, instead of trotting out cant in their usual trite fashion, then they'd perhaps see just how ridiculous some of their stock refuge lines are.

Here's an example of what I mean:

"Never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes..."

An utterly crass and banal statement - and one we'd all do well to ignore, wholesale.

Why?

Because, and working on the very simple logic that, I've never been either a paedophile or an eater of road-kill... and I judge, without fear, anyone who might do either to be in need of serious professional help... and I don't ever need to have walked a inch, let alone a mile, in their shoes to come to that conclusion.

Another fatuous therapy-speak axiom is:

"Impossible is an option - not a fact!"

Another example of unbridled bollocks.

Ever tried putting out a fire with gasoline? The fact is, it's impossible.

You see just how dangerous it can be to rely on clichés which don't bear scrutiny?

Utterly meaningless axioms