Economic Rap Video: Hayek vs Keynes

Who’s right – Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek or spendthrift Briton John Maynard Keynes? There’s only one way to find out: fight!

Except that it’s actually a rap-off between the two. Here’s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

Apple iPad vs Blu-Tack – which is more useful?

Which is more useful - iPad or Blu-Tack

I’m grateful to Halid Delkic, who sent me the above graphic earlier today. In fact, the above is incorrect – Blu-Tack will actually take a USB device. Indeed, it’s versatile enough to accept any connection.

Furthermore, Blu-Tack will work in most environments, won’t run out of power or crash just when it’s at its most useful, will fit any surface or space precisely, is compatible with PC, Mac or any other operating-system, is almost infinitely expandable, usable by young and old alike with no training, ultra lightweight and not cumbersome, won’t break and does not need to be turned off during take-off and landing. Although neither product will work underwater, Blu-Tack will work again when dry.

Oh, and for those who think the iPad is brilliant because the picture rotates to stay upright, let me just point out that it won’t work in zero-G. With Virgin Galaxy heralding in the age of space tourism later in 2010, Apple’s designers have at last shown themselves to be the has-been bunch of atavistic future-phobes that they really are.

David Attenborough Spoof TV Trailer

I co-wrote this quick radio sketch with Nathalie Turton and Dominic Vaughan in November 2009. It is performed by me. The remit was to write an over-the-top trailer for a TV programme. For more of Nathalie’s work, go to: www.lollyandnat.com

The sketch is available to listen to at the bottom of this page:  www.markspeed.co.uk/Stand-up-Comedy.html

Computerised Cancer Screening

The NHS today announced plans to introduce computers to help doctors screen for cancer. Brilliant – advice on diagnosing complex cancers from a machine that can’t even tell whether it’s got a virus.

Mousepad for Onanists

Mousepad for Onanists

I would like to thank my Belgian friend Alexandre Paternotte for sending me this photograph of a mousepad for onanists and sex-pests. It would seem that there’s a piece of technology to satisfy every taste.

Crisis in Teaching – Alleged Attempted Murder of British Pupil

I’m shocked and appalled by reports that a science teacher allegedly attempted to murder a 14-year-old pupil in Mansfield yesterday, writes Sir Victor Punchbag-Gribble. This is clear evidence that teaching standards have fallen to unacceptable levels in the last few decades. In my day, any teacher worth his salt would have been able to finish a child off with a single blow. Failing that, a coup de grâce with a pointer would have been delivered.

In the rare instances where a teacher had been incapacitated in the fracas, the form captain would have been expected to finish off the offending pupil. Of course, school rules would have demanded an immediate inquiry in such instances, since it’s normally the head boy who enjoys that privilege. However, the board of inquiry would almost certainly have found that the form captain was acting correctly in ensuring that justice must be seen to be both swift and final.

Discipline at St Mephisto’s was strictly enforced, with what are now deemed to be minor offences – such as walking on the grass, or the late return of a library book – punishable by the public amputation of a limb. Whilst it was not uncommon for some pupils to be reduced to mere torsos, the library was extremely well stocked, and the grass on the school lawns was much, much greener than its withered and trampled inner-city cousins of today. As for the most disobedient boys, let me assure you that they became much better behaved after the removal of the last of their limbs. The exception to that rule was Peter ‘Howler’ Thompson, who had his tongue cut out for the offence of screaming during the amputation of his left leg; the last of his appendages to be removed. Halcyon days…

Gordon Brown’s Candid Interview

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is all over the news this morning due to his frank interview in today’s Guardian. Apparently he wants to go into teaching after he leaves office. Not for him the high-flying job in charge of the World Bank he was apparently offered a few years ago. Not for him the dazzling array of high-profile international advisory roles of predecessor Tony Blair. Indeed, Gordy even goes on to say that he would happily give up the trappings of power. The poor man says that he’s been hurt by the personal attacks on him. How easily he sweeps away the personal attacks on others; most notably the Damian McBride affair earlier this year.

Am I being too cynical when I see this as yet another attempt by this unelected buffoon to ingratiate himself with the public? “Give me a chance,” is the whining undertone. “I’m not enjoying this. I’m only doing it because no one else wants the job, or is even up to it.” Don’t be taken in. This man spent ten years as Chancellor undermining Blair, finally ousting him in a coup. He wanted this job more than anything else in his life.

And how genuine is his claim that he’d like to teach? Think about it: what, exactly, is the man qualified to teach? He’s got a PhD in History. Here’s his thesis title: The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918-29. You’d not be far wrong if you were to accuse him of being up his own arse, then. Given that it was his economic policies that got us into this mess, you would have to presume that teaching Economics is certainly out the question.

Why doesn’t he ‘do the right thing ‘ (to use his well-worn phrase) and take himself up on his instinct to walk away from the trappings of power? It would be the greatest service he could do for his country.

Harrow Controlled by Vampires – Definitive Evidence

London was shocked by this blog’s revelation that the borough of Harrow is a safe haven for vampires. Your intrepid reporter has once, again, chanced on a few pieces of seemingly unconnected information and mapped out the big picture that no other website dares to publish!

The first thing that raised your correspondent’s eyebrows as the complete lack of garlic in some garic bread served in the local Pizza Express in early April. Yes, there was butter on the hot bread, which looked perfectly normal at first glance. However, not one shred of garlic could be found on it, or the pizza that followed. Suspicions were raised further by the Chinese restaurant on Headstone Road, pictured below.

Suspicious Chinese Restaurant

Note what it says on the sign: no eggs, no onions, no garlic, no animal products. A Chinese restaurant preparing food with no onions or garlic? Quite literally, absolutely unbelievable. And here at Bizarre World, we just weren’t buying it.

Examining the evidence, we have two restaurants in Harrow serving ethnic food in which garlic is a staple ingredient, but without the garlic.

The final damning piece of evidence is that the London Borough of Harrow claims to be the safest borough in London. And just how do you think a borough like Harrow can possibly be so safe? Easy: vampires patrol the streets at night, detering burglars and muggers. The local branches of Pizza Express and the above Chinese restaurant provide sustenance the fearsome creatures or, perhaps more likely, are where they sleep at night.

Bizarre World did not bother to contact Harrow Council yesterday for comment.

Graffiti Puzzler

This photograph was taken not a hundred yards from my home. Was the person writing the graffiti dyslexic, or is this an example of just how far the standard of English has fallen — that your average vandal can’t spell the most basic of offensive words? What hope for society if the latter is the case?

Evidence of falling literacy standards is evident in graffiti

Brixton Redevelopment an Amazing Success

ambeth Council is declaring its pavement-widening programme in Brixton an ‘amazing success’.

“The work, originally scheduled to take up to eight weeks, is now in its twelfth,” explained a delighted council spokesman. “Planning it for the winter was a stroke of genius, because it’s meant maximum discomfort and inconvenience to bus passengers, as well as car-users. Bus passengers now have to make a cold, wet journey on foot to a bleak and exposed nowhere place near Windrush Common to wait vainly for their delayed and over-crowded buses.”

The original plan was simply to widen the pavements in Brixton to give bus passengers coming out of the Underground station just about enough room to move. However, the council has claimed unexpected success in disrupting passenger journeys on the north-bound side of the A23. “As a traffic-control measure it’s a greater success than we’d ever dared to hope. Now that the width of the lanes has been restricted so severely, congestion is so bad that passengers have to disembark outside the Council offices and walk to the station to have any hope of getting to work on time.”

Meanwhile, there has been an unexpected boon to Brixton’s alternative economy. Drug-dealers outside the Underground station now have extra room to push skunk and weed. “Business ‘as never been better, man,” explained one dealer, who refused to give his name. “There’s so much room I and I was tinking of getting a stall for me skank.”

Brown Murder Plot – Police Have More Supsects

Police were last night seeking the arrest of a large number of people in the conspiracy to murder British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“He’s the most unpopular man in Britain,” said a police spokesman. “Even his own party hates him. We therefore have to take threats to his life seriously.”

No shortage of suspects

Police believe they have a full list of suspects who want Brown dead. “We have a copy of the electoral roll,” said the police spokesperson. “We know where everyone lives.”

Psycho Buildings – a truly Bizarre World

I was lucky enough to visit the Psycho Buildings exhibition at the Hayward Gallery yesterday. The most bizarre installation – and therefore the one which appears in this blog – was by Austrian collective Gelitin.

Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title [sic] turned one of the gallery’s outdoor sculpture terraces into a 1.2m deep boating lake, complete with a floating dock and several weirdly-shaped two-person rowing boats. When I arrived, the queue was estimated at about twenty to thirty minutes. However, rain showers meant that the exhibit had to close. Yes: health and safety regulations meant that a water-based exhibit was closed by – er – falling water.

I waited nearly an hour to get in, and was glad I did. The boats were extraordinary in themselves: about a metre deep, half a metre wide, and perhaps 1.5m long – like sitting in a tea chest. For stability and buoyancy there were outriggers with floats made from large water cannisters.

Gelitin's rooftop boating lake, Hayward Gallergy

I set off for my voyage with a complete stranger, whose husband and daughter were in another vessel (pictured). We agreed that it was the most fantastically surreal experience – rowing a misshapen boat across the roof of the Hayward whilst Big Ben chimed three, the London Eye turned, trains rolled into Charing Cross, and the Thames slipped by.

Of the hands-on installations, the second-most-fun was Tomas Saraceno’s Observatory, Air-Port-City; a large inflatable dome. Going into the dome wasn’t the fun bit – going up onto the top of it was. Sadly, the surface had been worn so much that it had lost a lot of its clarity. But floating above the observers down below was curiously relaxing (health and safety restriction – no sharp objects; not even a watch. And no one under the age of sixteen).

To my surprise, there was a queue for Venetian, Atmospheric, 2007 by Tobias Putrih. The work was a temporary cinema showing short movies about other artists’ takes on architecture. Putrih’s ‘biomorphic’ (no, really; that’s what he calls it) design disappointed, and the transition of the ceiling from sky-blue to night with stars didn’t work (clue: turn the red safety lights down. Oh, we’re back on frigging health and safety ruining exhibitions again…).

Some poncy middle-class ex-hippie pseudo-artistic (not that I have anything against them) jerks left just a minute after parking their arses in front of the screen. (Why bother, you shallow oafs?) I caught Chris Burden’s Beam Drop, and I knew I was amongst friends in the back row when we howled with delighted laughter as one titanic steel beam after another was dropped at random into a bed of wet concrete to convincing and comic clangs.

Do Ho Suh deserves an honourable mention for his Fallen Star 1/5, which was a one-fifth scale model of a traditional Korean house crashing into the house he lived in when he first moved to the US. The interior detail of the apartments in the American house was wonderful in its detail (complete with mini packets of Ritz crackers). Rachel Whiteread could have learnt a lot from it: her exhibit, Place (Village), consisted of three hillsides of dolls houses in a darkened room. The houses were lit from the interior. It would have been far spookier if Whitread could have been bothered to put in the same amount of effort as Do Ho Suh, and furnished the interiors.

NB: When I first posted this, I was honoured to receive a comment by Chris Burden himself. Unfortunately this was lost during transfer to new hosting.

The Pygmy Forest

This afternoon I crossed the Hacienda Bridge over the Russian River for the first time (oddly, I’d kayaked under it months ago).  We stopped to collect tea/coffee in the picturesque town of Guerneville and then went on to the Sonoma coast.

 The Sonoma coast

I’d driven up Route 1 from Thousand Oaks to San Francisco three years earlier and seen Big Sur.  The Sonoma coast is on a par, and is much less developed because it’s that much harder to reach.

We stopped in Gerstle Cove, Salt Point State Park.  There’s a peculiar local ordinance banning mushroom gathering on the seaward side of Route 1, so we stopped in the State Park on the landward side.  Shannon went mushroom-hunting whilst I went for a run up to the Pygmy Forest.  The Pygmy Forest sits on a beach from the Pleistocene era, which has been raised up by the violent faulting activity in Northern California.  The growth of these ancient trees has been stunted by the poor, acidic soil.

As I ran back down the trail into the ‘normal’ forest I could hear pinecones and acorns falling.  In American parks at this time of year it’s possible to be wonderfully alone with nature in a way that one can’t normally be in the UK.  Off to the left I heard a rustling in the leaves but ran on.  A huge buck deer trotted across the path in front me just thirty feet ahead and disappeared back into the forest.  I stopped to look at it, and it turned to look at me, just thirty yards away.  Then it turned to face me.  I wasn’t sure whether it was going to charge me, because I noticed a smaller deer deeper into the forest.  What was remarkable was that the simple act of turning to face me made the animal almost invisible against the trees.  I stood still for four or five minutes, as did the deer: I was keen to see which of us would blink first.

Spot the deer

After a minute or two of staring, my eyes began to see it as a kaleidoscope of green and brown just a few feet from my face.  It was a remarkable effect, and if this was how the Native Americans viewed the spirit world in their trances.

The deer looked away first, then back at me.  There was an element of trust, so I took the chance to take some photos.  It moved into a shaft of light, and suddenly became visible.  An acorn hit the ground to the left of me.  It was time to run on.

Dog Gone, Part II

We visited the pound again on Monday, looking for Skip.  The pressure was on because Zoe was due back with us that evening.  The same dogs were still   Buster Brown’s tennis ball was missing, and he looked at us mournfully.  He’d been in nearly two weeks.  I saw his ball in the sewage gutter some way off.  Shannon retrieved it, washed it and popped it back in his cage.  “It breaks my heart,” I said.  We hugged each other as we leave the facility.

I went out again for another reconnoitring run on Monday afternoon, calling his name and looking on the grass verges, checking further towards Santa Rosa, rather than Forestville.  I passed another fresh roadkill deer, and even a little finch.  The verges on River Road are near-vertical, because the road is built on a causeway above the Russian River flood plain.  I noticed that – despite the slope and the likely 55mph impact to the animals – their bodies were all within a few feet of the road.  The road itself has a reputation as a killer, and I passed a shrine to Luis C—-, a teen driver.

I told Shannon later that the distance of the animals’ bodies gave me hope in a way: I would have seen Skip if he’d been killed.

Zoe’s face was red when Shannon brought her back from school that evening, but she was composed as we ate dinner.  “She’s taking it really well,” I said.

“God, you weren’t in the car the first twenty minutes after I broke the news to her.  She was beside herself.”

After school the following afternoon we put up day-glo posters with photos of Skip on them.  “I miss him so much,” said Zoe.  “He’s like a little brother to me.”  Shannon and I look at each other and cringe.

“Hey, Zoe,” I said.  “You know how we’re going to get the FBI in on the search?”

“No.”

“We’ll tell them that there’s a terrorist called Jack Russell on the loose and his codename’s Skip.”  She giggled, and I wondered how much more she’d suffer.

Three days later he’d been missing a week and we were all missing him.  We were lying in bed that evening I broached the tricky subject of What To Do If Skip Doesn’t Turn Up.  “I don’t know how long we give it,” I said.  “But Buster Brown’s sheet said he’s good with kids.”

“Yeah, he’s a cute dog,” said Shannon.  “I’d want another Jack Russell, though.”  Silence hung for a minute.  “You said you’d had dreams about him the last three nights.  Don’t you think that’s a good sign?”

“Yeah, they were really lucid dreams.  I don’t know what to make of them.”

Dog Gone, Part I

Skip the Jack Russell disappeared on the night of Thursday the nineteenth.  He had disappeared before, but usually it had been when Shannon was travelling and the person responsible had not fed and watered him properly.  “He’s smart, he’s with neighbours,” said Shannon, to reassure herself as much as anything else.  “He’s probably sponging food off them.  He’s a very smart dog.”

We called his name along the driveway, and she checked with the neighbours at the bottom of the hill, who’d been known to take him in.  We widened our search but there was no sign of him anywhere.

The following day we went to the dog pound in Santa Rosa to see if he’d been brought in.  Shannon had retrieved him from there twice before, at great cost.  As we waited to be given access to pound, we saw a dog being handed over by its owner.  It whined and howled as it was dragged off into the cold concrete cellblock.  Presently we were allowed access, the pungent smell of urine and faeces assaulting our noses.  Each block had two rows of three-by-four feet cells with bars at the front.  Our hearts leapt a little as dogs Skip’s colour came into view in the individual cells.  And our hearts broke a little each time we saw perfectly loving and loveable dogs abandoned to the lottery of lethal injection.  There were half a dozen dogs we would have loved to have given a home to.  “Did you see that lively brown dog?” asked Shannon.

“You mean Buster Brown,” I said.  “He picked up a tennis ball and bounced it just like Skip.”

I changed my run that afternoon to accommodate wide sweeps of town.  I ran through the neighbourhood calling Skip’s name.  I ran up and down Trenton Road and River Road, hoping I’d not find his remains.  There was a deer and a dog, but no sign of at all of Skip.

“This is my fault,” wailed Shannon.  “After the last time I should have had a new collar and a chip inserted.”

“He’ll turn up,” I said.  As I stacked firewood that evening I put logs in the pile that I’d thrown for Skip just days before.  I wondered whether it was bad karma to be burning them.

“He’s out there,” said Shannon, fighting back tears.  “Something tells me his story’s not over yet.”

To be continued…

Halloween — the American Dream

I had my first proper American Halloween (Hallowe’en for Brits).  You can’t grasp that $4.96bn figure for their spending on the event until you see it in on the night.

First up, there’s this curious salutation that people start using first thing in the morning: “Happy Halloween!” they cry to each other.  Two days ago I ran past the local high school and the same greeting was on their announcements board, in letters nearly a foot tall.  Surely ‘Happy Halloween’ is an oxymoron—isn’t it supposed to be anything but happy?

Zoe is with her father this week, so we had to pick her up.  But she was already out trick-or-treating with her friends Jonah and Scout.  We met them out on Mirabel, a quadruple cul-de-sac neighbourhood that could pass for a movie set.  And there weren’t just a few kids—hundreds of them roamed free in the darkness dressed in elaborate costumes.  Many had blue or green glow-rings around their necks so parents could keep track of them, all of them had swag bags full of goodies.

Many of the houses had gone to town to celebrate the evening, decking out their houses with fake spider-webs, pumpkins, life-sized horror mannequins—even a smoke machine.  The Speers—owners of the main local grocery store—had a complete mock graveyard lit by a strobe light.

I was asked by friends how it compared to the UK.  Although it’s only taken off in England in the last decade, when I was a five-year-old in Glasgow, and at primary school in the North East of England, we had something much akin to it—but nothing on that scale, and no one would ever have decorated their houses so elaborately for the event.

“What I find amazing,” I said to Scout and Jonah’s mother, Lauri, “is that America is the most practising Christian country in the world by far, with church attendance up around fifty percent.  Yet no one celebrates this very pagan festival the way America does.”

“It’s very American,” she said.  “Any excuse for a party—that’s the American dream.”

Royally Scared

Our Front Door, Hallowe’en

This year, Americans are forecast to spend $4.96bn (£2.61bn) on Halloween, versus £120m ($200m) for the UK.  “It’s the second-biggest celebration after Christmas,” said Shannon.

Zoe was throwing a party for her friends the Saturday before.  Shannon is a Halloween veteran, and has been throwing them since Max (now 16) was three.  On Friday night after our weekly bookstore and dinner trip we stopped off at Joann’s Fabric’s in Santa Rosa to get material for Zoe’s costume.  She pointed out the perfect quarter moon on the way back.

“It’s going to be very scary tomorrow night, Zoe,” I said.

“I like being scared,” she said.  “But I don’t think you can scare me.”

“I’m going to make you pee your pants,” I said.

“No way,” she replied.  “You could never get me that scared.”

“Oh, we’ll see,” I said.  Moments later I had an idea, and chuckled.

“Oh-oh,” said Shannon quietly.  “He’s got something planned, Zoe.”

Just days before, Zoe had told us that she’d seen the ghostly vision of a king and his entourage in the forest adjacent to the house.  She said he was on a quest to find his missing daughter.  I was going to capitalise on her vision.  I laughed myself to sleep that night as I thought through the details.

Whilst Shannon and Zoe were out getting party supplies the following morning, I gathered several cubic feet of leaf litter and made it into the shape of a fresh grave a little way out into the woods, under a gnarled oak.

The kids arrived in late afternoon and so did my helper, Matt – father of one of Zoe’s friends.  Shannon, ever-resourceful, had managed to buy a fake gravestone.  At half-six Matt and I went out to the ‘grave’ and he dressed me in bandages and toilet paper.  In the ten minutes it took, the darkness thickened.  I lay down on the ground and he covered me with leaf litter.

“As soon as I leave, the maniac who’s been watching us will kill you,” said Matt.

“Farewell, then” I replied.  My nose immediately began to itch but I couldn’t move for fear of revealing myself from under the leaves.

Eventually, I heard the distant sound of adult and children’s voices.  I knew that Shannon – an expert storyteller – would have pumped up her audience to maximum fear levels.  I’d asked her to tell the kids that the king looking for his daughter had pined to death and been buried here – and that his grave only appeared every hundred years.  I learned later that she’d invoked the king’s spirit by getting the kids to chant his name, and blow out a candle.  Several kids refused even to be left in the lighted kitchen without an adult, let alone venture out into the darkness.

After another minute I heard Matt pretend to come upon my grave.  Through the leaves over my eyes I began to see the blue light cast by the storm lamp.  My heart beat faster – when to spring my surprise for maximum effect?

I heard the crunching of leaves next to me.  Zoe’s voice was near and the light was dazzling through the gaps in the leaves covering my face.  If I didn’t move, I’d be uncovered.

I reared up through the leaves and roared.  I’d forgotten how deafening the screams of ten-year-olds are.  Shannon said it went on for 12-15 seconds.

I went to bed tired, but satisfied at a job well done.  At one o’clock the following morning we were woken by Zoe at the bedroom door.  She was having nightmares about the story.  I’d passed my first American Halloween with flying colours.
The ‘grave’ I rose from

Dog Gone, Part I

Skip the Jack Russell disappeared on the night of Thursday the nineteenth.  He had disappeared before, but usually it had been when Shannon was travelling and the person responsible had not fed and watered him properly.  “He’s smart, he’s with neighbours,” said Shannon, to reassure herself as much as anything else.  “He’s probably sponging food off them.  He’s a very smart dog.”

We called his name along the driveway, and she checked with the neighbours at the bottom of the hill, who’d been known to take him in.  We widened our search but there was no sign of him anywhere.

The following day we went to the dog pound in Santa Rosa to see if he’d been brought in.  Shannon had retrieved him from there twice before, at great cost.  As we waited to be given access to pound, we saw a dog being handed over by its owner.  It whined and howled as it was dragged off into the cold concrete cellblock.  Presently we were allowed access, the pungent smell of urine and faeces assaulting our noses, the barks and whines echoing around the bare room.  Each block had two rows of three-by-four feet cells with bars at the front.  Our hearts leapt a little as dogs Skip’s colour came into view in the individual cells.  And our hearts broke a little each time we saw perfectly loving and loveable dogs abandoned to the lottery of lethal injection.  There were half a dozen dogs we would have loved to have given a home to.  “Did you see that lively brown dog?” asked Shannon.

“You mean Buster Brown,” I said.  “He picked up a tennis ball and bounced it just like Skip.”

I changed my run that afternoon to accommodate wide sweeps of town.  I ran through the neighbourhood calling his name.  I ran up and down Trenton Road and River Road, hoping I’d not find his remains.  There was a deer and a dog, but no sign of at all of Skip.

“This is my fault,” wailed Shannon.  “After the last time I should have had a new collar and a chip inserted.”

“He’ll turn up,” I said.  As I stacked firewood that evening I put logs in the pile that I’d thrown for Skip just days before.  I wondered whether it was bad karma to be burning them.

“He’s out there,” said Shannon, fighting back tears.  “Something tells me his story’s not over yet.”

To be continued…

Maximum Competition

We were about to go out for an afternoon run, having been delayed by numerous calls.  The phone rang as we were leaving the house.  “Forget it,” said Shannon.

“I think you should answer it,” I said.

It was her 16-year-old son, Max, who lives with her ex-husband.  Things have not been great between him and either parent recently.  “We’re going for a run,” said Shannon.  “Fancy coming?”

Max and I had not met, so this was a big step for both of us as he jumped in the back seat ten minutes later.  We shook hands.  He began talking about relationships, and I turned almost every sentence he spoke into a double entendre, some of them Shakespearian.  Max is extremely intelligent, and a very accomplished lyricist, so I felt it was deferential to him in a way.  Shannon kept cackling with laughter and he eventually admitted defeat, hands on his head.  The ice was broken.

We reached the canal and got out of the car.  I slipped a lead on Skip but he was only wearing a flea collar.  It fell straight off so we had to leave him in the car.  We set off running, and I left Shannon and Max to talk at their own pace.  After quarter of a mile I heard thundering footsteps behind me on the gravel.  I knew who it was before Max steamed past me.  When I passed him a couple of hundred yards further on he was doubled over, recovering his breath.
He stayed for dinner back at the house.  “I gotta find something I can beat you at,” said Max.  This was the genetics of Shannon’s competitive ‘Willinuts’ side of the family expressing themselves.

“You don’t have to,” I said.

“How are you at baseball and basketball?” he asked.

“We don’t pay them in my country.”

“So I bet I could whip you at a few moves, right?”

“No, because I simply wouldn’t play you.”

“So could we play a game like soccer, which you do have in your country?”

“It’s not a game I’ve ever participated in, so I’d not do it.  I run and I do triathlon.”

“You could learn American games like baseball and basketball, since you’re in this America.”

“Did you know that they originated in the UK?  Baseball is called ‘rounders’ and is played by girls.  Basketball is called ‘netball’ and is also played by girls.”

“What?  No way!  Basketball has some really mean and vicious moves!”

“You haven’t met many British girls, have you?”

We said our friendly goodbyes and Shannon took him back to his father’s house.  I guessed Skip must have gone with them in the car because he wasn’t in evidence.  She came back half an hour later.  “Did Skip go with you?” I asked.

“No,” said Shannon.  “He must just be out and around.”  I had a bad feeling about it before we went to bed.  Skip habitually chases after the car when either one of us is in it, and he’d chased us the three-quarters of a mile down the drive the previous day.  He was nowhere to be found the next morning.
To be continued…

The Beast of Orchard Lane, Part III

I wanted to resume running down Orchard Lane into Forestville, rather than having to go out in the car for a run.  Shannon gave me a can of Mace from beside the bed.  “Use it,” she said.  “A friend of my mother’s got attacked last month by a Rottweiler when he was out running.”

I told her stepson Jonathan about it later and he laughed – typical of Shannon to have some Mace by the bed.  For me it was a very American experience, given that it’s illegal in the UK.  He told me he’d been chased by the dog a few times on the way to a friend’s house.  “So one day I was on my bike and the mutt was chasing me,” said Jonathan.  “I drop-kicked it in the head and it never bothered me again.”  I was heartened by his information but still dreaded any confrontation with the Beast.

The first three times I ran down the lane the Beast was in its pound, and tore up and down in frustration, barking.  I should mention that its pound is above head-height on the road, and that that’s often where it ambushes from. It is, to say the least, unnerving.

Yesterday I was running down the lane and noticed that the Beast wasn’t in his pound.  My heart sank, but I was glad I had the Mace.  I heard a loud bark up at his owner’s house and we made eye contact at fifty yards.  He bounded down the hill towards the pound.  Seconds later he was above head-height, barking ferociously.  I ran on, not wanting the confrontation.  I slipped the button of the Mace around to activate it.  The dog leapt down onto the gravel and began running up behind me.  I turned, stopped, and pressed the trigger on the Mace.  A feeble spurt came out no more than six feet.  The dog stopped a safe twenty feet away, barking.

I turned and began running again.  I had failed to release the Mace fully into the ‘armed’ position.  My heart was racing.  I hated myself for any harm I might do to the dog.  I turned again and it stopped, barking at me, well within range of the Mace.  I realised that it might just be chickenshit after all, so I didn’t use the Mac.  Instead, I turned back and began running down the hill again.  The Beast took after me once more, barking.  I knew what to do.  I turned back and ran towards it, not even saying anything.  It turned tail and ran back up the hill.  The point proven to myself, I disarmed the Mace and continued on my run, ignoring the chickenshit Beast, which chased after me some twenty yards behind, relieved I’d not harmed it.

See also:

The Beast of Orchard Lane, Part II

The Beast of Orchard Lane, Part I

The Morning Catwalk

We got up extra-early this morning because Zoe wanted to go to the café before school.  I’ve been short of sleep this week and could’ve done with a lie-in, but I’d showered and had breakfast by 07.15.

Shannon and I were talking about her family’s new hotel complex up in, Sisters, Oregon, so she ignored Zoe’s plaintive cries from upstairs.  “Mom!” came the repeated call, with an occasional “I need help!”

I watched the minutes ticked by, and Shannon called off the trip to the café due to the time-pressure.  I put the kettle on for some tea whilst Shannon went up to see what Zoe’s problem was.  She came back down a couple of minutes later.  “A roomful of clothes and nothing to wear,” she said.

Zoe came down a few minutes later wearing a two-piece grey tracksuit.  Shannon gave her a shawl so that she could dress as a Gypsy fortune-teller for the Hallowe’en event at school today.  I sat down at the table with Zoe as she tucked in to her French bread and Shannon went to get dressed for the school run.

I was making some toast for myself when Shannon called “Babe!  Can you come here a second?”  I went through to the bedroom.  Shannon was wearing an orange top with a flower motif.  “Does this look okay on me?  I’m worried I don’t have enough of a tan to carry it off.”

“It looks great,” I said.  “A roomful of clothes and nothing to wear, huh?”

Dodgy Driving II

We have Shannon’s daughter Zoe with us this week, and she asked that we ‘walk her into class’.  (Rather than dump kids at the school gates, parents are encouraged to walk their kids into their classroom.)  We were up just after seven and out of the door at half-past.  It was a foggy morning – typical of Sonoma County at any time of year, though much chillier than the summer – and it was the first time I’d driven Zoe.  I neglected to shift the Durango into a lower gear and we accelerated down the steep, twisting drive.

“Slow down!” called Zoe from the back.

“But we love roller coasters,” I said.

“I’ve not got my seatbelt on and I’m sliding all over the seat.”  I waited as she clipped herself in.  “Ready!” she said.

I slewed the car around the steepest of the hairpins, the back end skidded but still the tilt alarm didn’t trigger.  I looked over and smiled at Shannon.

We went to the Front Street Café and played cards for forty minutes.  As we went back to the car Zoe asked if either of us had her bag.  We didn’t.  I went back to the house, surprising a large deer on the driveway.  I picked up Shannon at the café and we drove to the school.

“Reverse back into that space,” she said.  “Zoe hates me parking in it.”

I slipped the gear from D to R and looked over my shoulder.  “There are no lines.”

“They haven’t painted them yet.”

I started reversing.  Shannon said something I didn’t catch, my foot slipped on the brake and the car nudged back into the signpost.

“Ha-ha-ha!” she said.  “Oh, at last you’ve made a mistake!  Let’s see what damage you’ve done to your car!”

We went to the back of the car.  The wheels were a foot from the kerb, and the rear bumper was six inches from the sign.  The protruding towbar had hit the metal post square, and there was no damage to anything.  “I didn’t realise I had an eight-inch towbar protruding from the back.  I was miles away from the sign.”

“Damn!” she said.  “I just cannot believe your luck.  Damn, damn, damn!  But I’m going to blog this and have my revenge at last.”

 ”I’ll blog it first, you watch me.”  Less than two hours later and my blog is posted, hers is not.

Diablo Range garter snake

I was on the return leg of a run along an irrigation canal yesterday afternoon.  It was a another hot afternoon, and the path had been quite busy.  On the dust and loose gravel a few feet up ahead I saw what looked like the black and yellow lace of a climbing boot.  Something told me it wasn’t what it seemed.  When I was a couple of paces away, it sprung to life.  I slowed down and watched as it slithered off into the grass.  I reflected that if Shannon had been with me she’d have touched it for luck.

“I saw a garter snake,” I told her when I got back to the car.

“Wow!  You and your animal magic again, huh?  Did you touch it?”

“The garter snake family contains some of the deadliest poisons in the world.”

“I’m pretty sure rattlers are the only poisonous snakes in California.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

Diablo Range Gartersnake in shallow water

I found the correct species on the internet last night.  It was a Diablo Range garter snake (Thamnophis atratus zaxanthus).  The young are born in the early autumn and are of the size I saw – around ten inches.  If threatened they may strike repeatedly, excrete faeces and a pungent musk.  They might also hide at the bottom of the nearest pond because they’re semi-aquatic.  I was surprised by that last fact, but its canal-side habitat made perfect sense.  For more information go to http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/t.a.zaxanthus.html

I wonder about my apparent propensity to see a lot of wildlife – I’m becoming known for it in Shannon’s circle of friends – and whether it’s being in California.  However, running on Tooting Bec Common in broad daylight two or three months ago I had to side-step a stag beetle nearly two inches long as it crossed the path.  Stag beetles are an endangered species in Europe, and South London is thought to be the only major colony in the UK.  I guess what helps in spotting these creatures is to be out a lot, and to keep your eyes open.  But so far as the apparent fondness animals seem to have for me, I have no idea.
See also Crawling King Snake

Dodgy Driving

A month ago I sold out my beliefs and paid $4,000 (£2,200) to have Shannon’s Dodge Durango repaired.  I’m now the not-very-proud part-owner of an SUV, whereas in London I refuse to own a vehicle on environmental (and economic) grounds.  Faced with accusations of hypocrisy before leaving the UK, I pointed out that we do get floods, mudslides and rock-falls in Forestville – the rain is seasonally heavy and we’re in a very active earthquake zone.

Last Friday we went to the insurance broker and managed – after much fiddling with the computer system – to get me onto the policy.  That afternoon, Shannon insisted that I drive the Durango for the first time.  Being a Californian, she’s confident in her own ability…but not anyone else’s.  Although I have only driven in the UK twice this century, my previous job entailed a lot of driving in the States on business – though it was all in compacts (cars, not cosmetics, British readers please note).

“Oh, I can’t wait to see this,” she crowed, strapping herself into the passenger seat.

I turned the ignition on and reached down with my right hand for the gear stick.  My hand waved at air.  “Where the fuck’s the gear lever?”  I said.

Shannon doubled up with laughter.  “Great start!  Oh, that’s fucking classic – that’s going straight in an article!”

I saw the PNRD21 indictor on the dashboard, the orange indicator on the P.  Still laughing, she tapped the stick to the right of the steering wheel.  I pulled it towards me, moved the indicator to R and reversed the car so that it was pointing down the drive.  Mimicking her driving, I flicked it into D and slammed the accelerator down.  The wheels spun on the gravel and we barrelled down the driveway, bouncing over potholes.  “Howdya like that?”  I asked.

I looked over to see her holding her mug of coffee at arm’s length out of the window.  “Stop!” she yelled.  “You don’t know how to drive one of these things – you’ll crash!”

“Don’t like it much the other way, huh?”  I said.  I stopped on the tarmac on the communal driveway, at the top of the half-mile of hairpin single-track mountain bends that would take us down to River Road.

“Serious advice,” she said.  “Save the brakes.  Take it out of drive and put it in a low gear.”

I switched it from D to 2 and set off down the roller coaster driveway faster than even she would take it.  She held her mug out of the window again muttering expletives.  I took a racing line around the tightest and steepest of the hairpins.  There was silence and I knew what we were both waiting for: the dashboard ‘tilt’ danger warning, which activates every time she takes the corner.  We emerged onto the final straight without the alarm sounding.  “See?” I said.  “And I took that faster than you.”

“Okay, okay,” she said.  “You do a better line than me, I’ll give you that one.”

I pulled up at the junction with River Road.  It was a hill start to cross over one lane of 55mph rush-hour traffic to join the highway.  “Big test, baby,” she said, gloating.

A gap appeared on each side and I squeezed the accelerator.  We powered across and headed down the highway.

“Good job,” she said.  “Most people would have kangarooed that one.  Okay, I admit it: you’re a good driver.”

Two days on, and unfortunately she’s begun to enjoy being driven.  “I like this,” she said on her way to the café this morning.  “I get to read and drink my coffee.  Yeah, I’m getting to like this a lot.  It’s doing wonders for my serenity and productivity.”  It was then that I realised that going for groceries had ceased to be an ‘us’ event that she enjoyed.  It’s now a ‘me’ event.  So much for the four-wheeled freedom that I had craved….

You’re a Loser, Charlie Brown

One of many Charlie Brown statues, Santa Rosa, CA 

We were driving in downtown Santa Rosa after dark on Shannon’s birthday.  Zoe had had a long day at school and parking places were in short supply.
   “Why do they have so many statues of Charlie Brown?” asked Zoe.
   “Charles Schulz, the guy who wrote the cartoons, lived in Santa Rosa,” said Shannon.  “That’s why they have all the statues of the characters.”
   “Yeah, I know.  But why do they have so many of Charlie Brown.  He’s boring.”
   “So is Linus,” said Shannon.  “He’s uptight.  And Lucy’s a bitch, taking that ball away.  In fact, all the Charlie Brown characters are jerks.”
   “I like Snoopy, though,” said Zoe.
   “Yeah, Snoopy’s cool,” said Shannon.
   “And I like his bird-friend,” added Zoe.  “What was he called?”
   “Woodstock,” I say quietly.  I want to tell them that my friend Lucy stole the show as Woodstock in the play Snoopy! a few years ago, but I am spellbound by this glimpse into the American psyche.
   “Yeah, Woodstock.  He’s cool,” said Zoe.  “Why can’t all of the cartoons have been about Snoopy and Woodstock?”

The only Woodstock statue in Santa Rosa, CA
   “Well,” I said.  “Millions of people all over the world loved Charlie Brown.”
   “Yeah, but why?” asked Zoe.
   “I guess they must have seen something of themselves in him,” I said.  “He spoke to them about their own experiences as a child, and maybe even as an adult.”
   “Well he was a loser,” said Shannon.
   “Yeah, he sucked,” said Zoe.
   As a depressed child I identified strongly with Charlie Brown’s depression.  Every time it rains on me I still think of the cartoon where it rains progressively harder on Charlie Brown before he says, ‘It always rains on the unloved’.  “Charles Schulz was certainly a very successful American,” I said, keeping my thoughts to myself.
   “Charlie Brown sucked,” said Zoe.

Of Cats and Women

Shannon, her mother and I went for a hike and then a run in a local nature reserve yesterday.  Unfortunately, the sun-bleached maps and brief trail signs led to us being a little off-course when we came back down off the mountain, so we had to skirt around the edge of it.  We found a short-cut through the forest and had gone perhaps a hundred yards when Shannon – who was on point – said “I see I bobcat!”  We stopped behind her and looked up the trail to see a large, dark cat disappearing round the corner.  “You sure it wasn’t a household cat?” I said.  “No,” she said, ”I actually think it was a mountain lion cub.”  “It wasn’t a bobcat?” asked her mother.  “No,” said Shannon.  “The tail was too long.”

We ran further along the trail and saw it again.  It stopped and looked behind us.  A shaft of sunlight through the trees lit its fur better, and we could see that it was mottled.  “It’s a large domestic cat,” I said.  “No, look at how thick-set it is,” said Shannon.  “It’s not a bobcat?” asked her mother.  “No, look at the tail on it, Mom.  Bobcat’s have short tails.”  The cat padded on and we followed, but we couldn’t see it on the path ahead.

We reached the point where I’d last seen it.  I looked through the scrub and saw that it was perhaps thirty yards downhill, waiting to break cover onto a larger, gravelled trail.  I was reminded of disputed footage of the Beast of Bodmin Moor, and the analysis of body-tail-leg ratios.  I could at last get a proper perspective on it because I could see it against the type of leaves on a bush right next to me.  There can’t be many domestic cats with such thick legs and large paws, and with a body a good 18 inches long.  And its head was not bulbous like a domestic cat’s – rather, it tapered to a head from a thick neck set on broad shoulders.

“It’s a cub,” said Shannon.  “So its mother may be quite close by.”  “Yeah,” I said.  “And junior’s leading us right into an ambush.”

The coast evidently clear, it set off on the main path, and we scrabbled down through the bush to follow it.  I ran up ahead and saw it disappear into a dense thicket that looked like the kind of place an animal would call home.  A bird began an incessant alarm shriek for the benefit of the neighbours.  We ran back to the car.

“Do you know how rare it is too see mountain lion?” said Shannon.  “I’ve never seen one before,” said her mother.  “I suppose it’s just par for the course for me, isn’t it?” I said.  “He has this thing with animals,” said Shannon.  “It’s amazing.  Tell Mom about the time you had a fox run with you in London.”  “It’s not just animals,” I said.  “It’s women too.”

Street Drugs ‘Best Buy’ Guide Published by Government

 Official UK Govt Street Drug prices, 13-09-06. Copyright Guardian Newspapers.

London, UK.  The British government has published a ‘best buy’ guide for street drugs in the UK.  The table above gives drug users a handy pocket-sized guide to drugs prices in the UK — an absolute must for addicts planning a weekend away, or for drugs tourists to the UK.

Wizarre Borld found a spaced-out junior health minister willing to talk.  “This official ‘list price’ for street drugs is part of our anti-crime initiative.  Many drugs users are hopeless negotiators, and often a dealer will overcharge them when they’re desperate for a fix.  This price comparison chart will enable users to drive down the costs of their substance abuse.  And lower costs means lower crime levels because addicts’ habits will be less expensive to feed.  This is a win-win situation because it absolves us from having to do anything long-term to support anyone.  This is free-market economics at its best.  In the future we envisage moving to a weekly price list, broken down by specific neighbourhoods.  Ultimately, we would move towards spot prices on each street corner.”

My Psychic Washing Machine

  My Psychic Washing Machine (which also looks quite psychedilic)

Stick with me — this one’s off-the-wall even for me.

When my machine breaks down I have a mixture of dread and excitement.  I’ve owned it for nearly 14 years, long enough for man and machine to form a bond.  Every time my employment status changes my machine will develop a fault: I kid you not.  The scientists amongst you will rightly point out that I must treat it differently after the employment change — what those of us in the know would call ‘researcher bias’.  This isn’t likely, since the machine sometimes develops the fault a day or two before I know my status is going to change.

A physician friend told me a while ago that in medical knowledge “Once is a case, twice is an interesting coincidence but three times is a syndrome”.  So I would guess that five times must a strict rule.   Last night’s breakdown on Friday 13th was due to my having left my job on Wednesday.  Luckily, I’m in control — so it’s mainly excitement I’m feeling.

Bush Fails Turing Test

Bush – a twit?

Leading researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) at MIT were surprised today when George W Bush failed a Turing test.  The incident happened when the President was touring the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after making a speech hailing the technology.

British computer pioneer Alan Turing proposed that an independent observer would observe a conversation between a computer and a human.  If the observer can’t tell which one is the computer, then the computer must appear to have the same intelligence as the human.

“It was quite embarrassing,” said one observer.  “We set him up at a terminal with our latest AI programme.  The President asked a few basic questions of the software, beginning with ‘How are you?’ Within a few questions, President Bush was hopelessly lost.”
Here is the transcript of the interaction:
Bush: How are you today?
Computer: I’m fine, thank you.  How are you?
Bush: I’m totalisingly fine.
Computer: I beg your pardon?
Bush: There will be no pardonifications.  Justice will be done.
Computer: I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Bush: I said there will be no pardonifications.  Executise everyone on death row!
Computer: Help!  Someone get me away from this maniac!

Family Planning Advice

Many thanks to my former colleague Will Hau for this photograph.  You can see more like this at www.markspeed.co.uk.

Entertainment — My Arts!

Last night I had one of life’s pleasantly surreal experiences.  I went up to Little Venice, near Maida Vale to see a show called Entertainment — My Arts! by the Blag Theatre Company at the Canal Café.  Nothing too surreal about that, you might say (though most Londoners might be unaware of their city’s Sunday night fringe scene, and this beautiful venue in particular).  What was so bizarre was seeing a friend for the first time in 15 years, right there on stage.  The only contact we’d had were emails in the last month after I’d tracked her down.

I recommend you see the show, which is a parody of musicals from Andrew Lloyd-Weber to Disney’s Mary Poppins, with a special dig at the awful Les Misérables.  The founders of the Blag Theatre Company are veterans of some of the West End’s biggest hits and the writing benefits hugely from the intelligent insiders’ insights.  I missed part two (separate show), which is a swipe at film and television celebrities.  Blag are playing Sunday nights at the Canal Café to October 22nd, £10.50 on the door.  You can find them at venues throughout the South East throughout the year. www.blagtheatre.com.  Believe me: it’s much more deserving of a good audience than any of the shows it parodies.

And there was Lucy in the limelight, fifteen years and two children since I saw her at her wedding.  And she was just so… quintessentially Lucy.  There are people who give up and conform, become grey.  Happily, Lucy and her husband David are living full Technicolor lives and it warms the heart to see that.

As I waited for her afterwards I witnessed a minor miracle.  A middle-aged American male was waiting beside me.  It transpired that he had turned up on spec to this obscure venue on his last night in London and seen his old university friend Ricky on stage.  They’d not seen each other in 25 years.

Bizarre Search Terms Part I: Grammar and the Alphabet

The first 3-4 months of this blog have been a revelation.  It’s provided me with an insight into the searches people conduct on the internet.  You wouldn’t believe some of the search terms that have led people here.  I’ve categorised them into several parts.  Here are the first few, with some comments:

Crimes that start with the letter D  This is reminiscent of the AOL user who was caught searching for the means to murder his wife.  But what’ this user up to — planning on starting an alphabetical crime spree?  Note that this would-be criminal mastermind was methodical enough to capitalise ‘Crimes’ and the letter D.  Furthermore, he’s almost written a sentence  — be very afraid.

cartoon character letter h  This user is possibly related to the nutter in the previous search.  But his lack of capitalisation and laziness in not forming a sentence shows this one to be quite harmless.

english language becoming worse satire  Oh dear.  This dimwit bemoaning the deterioration of the English language is too lazy even to have bothered to capitalised the proper noun.  The irony of his search for a satire on the subject ending up as the object of mirth is probably lost on him.

male slang usage letter H  What is it with the letter H?  This query is almost certainly by someone who isn’t hip to the lingo, but is desperate to catch up because his position depends on it.  How do I know?  He’s doing it methodically.  If he had any sense he’d go to an online slang dictionary, so he’s obviously someone who isn’t that in touch with the way search engines work — someone familiar with technology but who has yet to master it.  Given that this query was done on October 1st, the day the Conservative Party’s conference opened in Bournemouth, I’d sugest it must be none other than David Cameron, Conservative Party Leader, desperately seeking a bon mot for his speech.

1,000 Hits

Yesterday afternoon I logged in to find that I’d received my 1,000th hit on this blog.  This news came just the day after I added a clustrmap [sic] to my site.  With hits coming from as far away as Bulgaria and Australia in the last two days, my main audience is mostly the UK and the USA.  Now that I’m finished the novel, and just about to finish full-time work, look out for an increase in content.  Later today, or maybe tomorrow, I shall be writing a blog on the weird search terms used to find my blog.  I promise you: you will be amazed.  Many thanks to my growing readership for your support — you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Talking to the Neighbours

Living in London, I don’t talk as much to my neighbours as I did in my Northern youth.  I had my annual conversation with one of my more talkative neighbours on Sunday morning.  Here’s a snippet:

Neighbour: How did you get on in the [London] marathon this year?

Me: I didn’t get a place.

Neighbour: Oh, are there are a lot of entrants?

Me: Yes, it’s three times over-subscribed.  But I did run the Edinburgh Marathon in June.

Neighbour: Really?  Was that the same sort of distance?

I kept a straight face, honestly I did.  Hmm… I wonder if Sir Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile because he was doing a half-mile race?

On Finishing a Novel

At 13.40 this afternoon I finished writing the first draft of the novel I’m submitting for my MA in Creative Writing. At 83,500 words, it’s not the longest I’ve ever written. But it’s the most commercial, and the first I’ve written in 17 years. It’s only the first draft, and there’s a lot to do before I begin the laborious and heart-rending process of trying to get it published, so the journey’s far from over.

How does it feel?  It’s always sad to lose something that’s been a big part of your life for so long, not to have the characters talking to each other in your head, or reminding you to write specific things about them when you’re trying to concentrate on something else. But it feels great to have it out and onto the page. And it’s even better to know how much enjoyment it’s going to give its readers.

I’ve never before let anyone read anything I’ve written until it’s finished, but this time I read out ever chapter to my girlfriend as I completed it. A little after half-six this evening — half-ten in the morning for her in California — I read out the final paragraph to her. She loved it.

My web stats suggest that the satire on this blog has gained quite a following. The better the stats are for my blog, the easier it’s going to be for me to sell this novel to a publisher. So if you’ve enjoyed the blog, please recommend it to your friends, or put an RSS feed from here to your own blog. What’s in it for you? Well, there’s this wickedly funny novel about free internet porn movie downloads, hot sex and betrayal that will just blow you away — and if you support the blog, you’ll get it into a bookshop near you soon!  Many thanks for your support.

Islamic World Runs Out of Effigies, Flags, to Burn

There was widespread panic across the Muslim world yesterday after Friday prayers as stockpiles of effigies ran out following the Pope’s apparently anti-Islamic speech in Germany last month.

“It’s been a vintage year for effigy-burning,” explained one Islamic agent provocateur. “The publication of cartoons of Mohammed in Europe earlier this year gave us several weeks’ worth of burning as each country’s press dared to publish the pictures. There’s continuous burning due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has created a constant demand for effigies. Then the Pope came right out of left-field with his remarks from a fourteenth-century scholar, accusing the Prophet of spreading Islam by the sword. Now we’re out of stock and hoping that there’s not another incident like this before we’ve had a chance to get more supplies. It would be a severe embarrassment if there was another insult to Islam and we didn’t have any decent effigies to burn.”

Prices on the Islamabad Effigy Exchange peaked on Friday morning before afternoon prayers, with the spot price for grade-A flammable effigies nearly 50% above that for December delivery effigies.

In related markets, December contract Stars and Stripes are up 11% in the last week, whilst the pending retirement of Tony Blair as British Prime Minister has caused a 20% fall in the price of Union Jacks for delivery in May 2007.

Turkey ‘Should be at heart of EU’ says Sarkozy

In an apparent about-turn, French would-be 2007 presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to endorse Turkey’s entry into the European Union.

“Zis turkey ‘as always been at the ‘eart of Europe, and I want to keep eet there,” said the right-winger in an impassioned speech in Paris.

It was only later that it became clear that the turkey he was talking about was France. “Eet’s a disgrace that a country like ours with its low growth, high unemployment, crippling budget crisis, and a backward-looking agrarian population can stand in the way of progress by ‘aving a veto,” he said with a Gallic shrug.  ”Mais, c’est la vie.”

Brixton Fails Drugs Test

I’d told Shannon that in 2002 Brixton had pioneered the downgrading of marijuana on a national level.  She was amused to hear that even a guy like me — who looks every inch the off-duty policeman — is continually offered ‘skunk’ ‘weed’ and ‘marijuana’ every evening in the throng of humanity between the Tube station entrance and the bus queues.  She laughed her ass off at the prospect of hearing British guys offering her drugs, and couldn’t wait to hear it firsthand and flip them a caustic comment.

The first time we did the fifty-yard push through the crowd there was not one mention of drugs — no deep voices muttering those magic words anonymously but directly at us.  “It must be the time of day,” I said, disappointed.  “It’s lunchtime.”  The following day we emerged around four o’clock, to be met with silence again.  “You just wait until we’re coming back from Edinburgh late on Thursday night.”

That Thursday we emerged onto the street around half-seven, straight from King’s Cross.  “Prime time,” I said.  We walked through the crowds without a hint of interest from any of the usual suspects.  “I can’t believe it,” I said.  “I swear, every time I walk through there I get offered, and I look like a damned cop.”

“Maybe it’s me?” she said.  “They must know I’d just laugh and call them pussies.”

She got a taxi to Heathrow at six on the Sunday morning. I went over to water my parents’ plants and do their mail at ten.  I came out of Brixton Tube at half-eleven, the sun high in the sky. “Skunk,” said a deep voice.  “Weed,” offered another.

Humans ’Not as smart as we thought’, Conclude Dolphins

Latest research by dolphin scientists shows that human beings may not be as smart as had always been assumed.  “The human brain is much larger than we would expect for a mammal that size, so we had always thought that the spare capacity might be given over to sentience,” said Herbert Bottlenose, of the Aquatic University’s Terrestrial Science department.  “After all, they don’t face the complex three-dimensional world that we do, nor do they have to give over so much of their brains to interpreting sonar signals.

“We’ve been able to train them to give us fish for doing simple tricks like jumping through hoops.  But every time we try to talk with them they just assume we want more fish.  If they were really intelligent, then they’d figure out that we were actually trying to tell them something important.  We’ve been trying to warn them about global warming for years.  It’s their loss — after all, warmer and larger seas are great for us.  The only human who ever got it right was the late, great Douglas Adams.  It really won’t be that long before we have to say ‘So long, and thanks for all the fish’.”

This story is a riposte to this article about South African researcher Paul Manger’s work.

Blair To ‘Go With The Crowds Wanting More’

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s closest allies yesterday said that he is to ‘go with the crowds wanting more’.  Wizarre Borld’s opinion pollsters solicited the following suggestions this evening from our readership:

• The United States
• The Moon
• The guillotine
• The Planet Mongo
• Being fed to the lions
• Back beneath the stone he crawled out from under
• Swimming with the fishes (former Italian PM Berlusconi to help)

And, contrary to his allies’ opinions, definitely not:

• The House of Lords
• The United Nations
• Talk shows

It is interesting to note that Blair’s allies and our readership did agree on one destination: the Chris Evans Show on Radio 2.  Presumably our readership believed it would be interesting car-crash radio to listen to two self-obsessed has-beens toadying to each other.

Autism — Are Matzos To Blame?

On Radio 4 this morning I heard that men over the age of 40 are six times more likely to have autistic children.  The study was carried out by studying 100,000 births in Israel.

Here at Wizarre Borld, we regard it as our job to question the logic of apparently clear conclusions.  For example, we think it more interesting to reverse the argument and state that if you have autism, your father is six times more likely to be aged over 40.  So the question is not whether a man’s sperm degenerates with age, but what habits — dietary, lifestyle and even relationships — does a 40-year-old man have which makes autism more prevalent in his offspring?

And Lo!  On page 10 of today’s Guardian — i.e. just an hour after I heard the news on the radio — I saw that another study had linked autism to bacteria in the gut.  Glenn Gibson from the University of Reading studied the faeces of 50 autistic and 50 normal children.  He found raised levels of the bacterium clostridium in the faeces of the autistic children.  Gibson has now set up a study giving autistic children probiotic treatment.

The question here at Wizarre Borld is whether men over the age of 40 fathering children have dietary habits which cause raised levels of clostridium.  The only population where this age-related correlation has been proven to occur is Israel.  Could Matzos be to blame?

Man Stops at Red Light in South London

A man was arrested last night after stopping at a red traffic light on Streatham High Road.

“It was a shocking piece of driving,” said local pedestrian Ed Fuller.  “The light went amber and he braked slowly to a stop just a second after it had gone red.  He showed a careless disregard for his own street cred.”

Local police confirmed that a man in his early thirties had been cautioned in relation to the incident.  “He had stopped in the correct lane to turn left up into Leigham Court Road and was even indicating.  He didn’t think of the impact this would have on the shoppers waiting to risk life and limb to sprint across to the Somerfield supermarket on the other side. Many required treatment for shock.”

“If only he’d been the South Londoner driving the Smart-1 probe at the weekend,” said Wizarre Borld’s source at ESA.

Related news:

South London Cyclist Seen Using Road
‘Mistake’ as European Probe Crashes into Moon, Admit Scientists

‘Mistake’ as European Probe Crashes Into Earth, Admit Scientists

The European Space Agency (ESA) crashed the Smart-1 probe into the moon at 4,500mph in the early hours of this morning.  The plume of dust thrown up will enable scientists to analyse the chemistry of the surface material more accurately.

It was the first ion-powered motor ever used in the history of space flight.  Charged xenon atoms are expelled from the back, using electricity from solar panels.  The thrust produced is slower but steadier than conventional rockets, which give short, sharp thrusts that expend large amounts of fuel at a lower velocity.  The ion drive proved highly efficient and lightweight in powering the dishwasher-sized probe.

“Actually, the story about analysing the dust was bullshit,” said a spokesman for the ESA, speaking on condition of anonymity.  “We named it Smart-1 with our tongues firmly in our cheeks.  The trouble is that the steering’s a bitch.  And it didn’t help that the guy piloting it remotely was from South London.  If we’d known what reckless drivers these guys are, we’d never have let him near it.  Of course, he’s laughing his arse off and talking about meeting Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear.

“And the other thing is that it’s not just a dishwasher-sized probe, as referred to in our press releases,” said our source.  “It was, in fact, an actual dishwasher.  Europe has a dishwasher-mountain and this is the first phase in testing extra-terrestrial dumping of white electrical goods like dishwashers, fridge-freezers and washing-machines.”

There was further consternation at ESA’s headquarters this evening as scientists discovered that the absorption spectrum of the dust was identical with that of dehydrated blue cheese.

Related news:

Galileo Wrong, Church Right, Admit Scientists

Earth Not Really a Planet, Say Scientists

Lost Moon Shot Tapes Found

South London Cyclist Seen Using Road

Breaking news, Streatham Hill
Reports are coming through that a cyclist was seen using Streatham High Road, rather than the pavement.

“It was incredible,” said local resident Brian Stead. “He was perfectly polite to other motorists and didn’t swear once. But if he was hoping to knock pedestrians down, he was going about it the wrong way. And quite how he was supposed to steal goods displayed outside shops, or snatch mobile phones or handbags, I have no idea. The man’s clearly a maniac and has to be stopped.”

The Cost of a Private Education

I came across the website of Merchiston Castle School recently  The propaganda about the advantages of a single-sex boarding education for boys is a little dishonest; particularly for a school which prides itself on such a tough sporting tradition.  Indeed, the most recent research dispels the myth of the superiority of single-sex education.

I could find no mention of the school’s famous sons — perhaps because notoriety for alcoholism, psychopathic behaviour, drug-taking and wife-beating are all areas of excellence which tend to develop after one’s time there.

It was the headmaster’s statement that appalled me the most.  He said that ‘Boys need not be high jacked by a laddish culture’.  The word is actually ‘hijacked’, and it has been in common usage since the 1920s.  There are other obvious mistakes, such as the closing speech marks at the end of the first paragraph (the same person is continuing his speech in the following paragraph).  For a school currently charging so much and making such high claims for its educational standards, I’d expect better from its headmaster.

 Click on it to read it, if you can be bothered.

Inherited Scooby-Doo Fanaticism

My friend Simon and his family were over from Ghana.  They came back after an afternoon shopping expedition to Streatham.  Two-year-old Mya was wearing brightly-coloured Scooby-Doo sandals and was keen for me to admire them (see photo).  “Scooby-Doo!” she said and then ran off laughing.  The shoes squeaked loudly like dogs’ toys with each step.  “Uncle Mark!” she shouted as she ran, squeaking, back into the room.  For the sake of my sanity, I made a mental note not to get her excited whilst she was wearing those sandals.

I was agog at the extent of Mya’s enthusiasm, because her Australian half-brother who is seven years her senior is also a big Scooby fan.  Christmas 2004 in Ghana had seen us all watching a 24-hour Scoobathon with young William.  Then I realised that there must be a Scooby-Doo Fan gene — and Simon is obviously a carrier.

See also In Praise of Scooby-Doo’s Mystery Machine

The Design Museum, London — Review

I was hoping for an education in the contribution of good design to the ease of modern living.  What I got for my £7 was what design gurus would hail as landmarks or classics – chairs not designed for humans to sit in, and an aeroplane that wasn’t even designed to fly.  The Design Museum is so up itself as to be almost inaccessible to ordinary members of the public.  Indeed, the other visitors were mostly themselves design victims – their spiky haircuts and angular black-framed glasses made them dead ringers for the two much-ridiculed luvvies of the It’s Grim Up North London cartoon in Private Eye.

It’s little wonder that James Dyson resigned as chairman of the museum’s board of trustees after a few months, saying that it had become a ‘style showcase’, when it should be ‘upholding its mission to encourage serious design of the manufactured object’.

If you’re in London and you want to see stylish contemporary design with functionality in mind, my advice is to stick to the top end of Tottenham Court Road.  You’ll find Habitat and Purves & Purves don’t charge admission, the seating’s very comfortable and they’re not full of nerds.

This article was originally developed for Britain’s Most Disappointing Tourist Attractions in the G2 section of The Guardian.

Galileo Wrong, Church Right, Admit Scientists

This week’s downgrading of Pluto from its status as a planet was only a foretaste of today’s shocking revelation that astronomers have finally admitted that the universe outside of planet Earth is actually fake.

“Copernicus and Galileo were actually well-known hoaxers,” admitted Prof. Lowell of the Institute of Historical Astronomy — the only scientist willing to talk to Mark Speed’s Wizarre Borld last night.  “Of course, when the church authorities placed him under house arrest, conspiracy theorists seized on this as proof that he was right.  It all just snowballed from there.  Scientists — and particularly astronomers — realised they were onto a good thing.  There were grants, university chairs, then Nobel Laureates.  It was greed.  We kept having to feed the public’s imagination with ever-more weird and wonderful facts.  Our theories got ever more elaborate — eventually we ended up inventing preposterous things like ‘dark matter’ to try to make our theories work.”

Galileo – ‘Bit of a joker’

In fact, the ancient theories with their over-complicated movements of the planets were correct: everything does in fact revolve around the Earth.  After the astronomers admitted their hoax, NASA came clean about the structure of the heavens.  “It’s all crystal spheres, each one inside the other,” admitted a spokesman.  “The Russians were never in any danger of hitting the innermost sphere with Sputnik in 1957 because it was in a very shallow orbit.  But we did begin to suspect something was up with the first manned missions when some of the crew reported seeing what they thought were reflections.  You have to remember that this was at the height of the Cold War and neither side could blink first, although each side knew that the other must know the truth.  The Russians were the first to send a spacecraft round the back of the Moon.  It came perilously close to breaking the sphere which the Moon is attached to — if the craft had been any larger then they might have cracked it.  Both sides then worked together to produce fake photographs of the other side of the Moon.  There’s a reason you can only ever see that one side of the Moon that faces us — it’s stuck to its own crystal sphere.”

Copernican and Galilean theories had apparently proved that the complex movements performed by the planets could best be explained by the Earth and the other planets orbiting the Sun.  Scientists now concede that each of the planets is planted on its own crystal sphere, revolving around the Earth in an erratic manner.  “The only thing the ancients got wrong were the distances,” said a NASA spokesman.  “The Moon is quarter of a million miles away, the stars are just over three million miles away and the furthest crystal sphere containing the galaxies is about five million miles from the Earth’s surface.  In order to send probes to other planets we’ve had to use hi-tech glass-cutting equipment.  It’s only a matter of time before we reach the outermost sphere.  Who knows what we’ll find lies beyond that?”

 Moon landings ‘Not fake’

NASA was keen to point out that the lunar landings by the Apollo teams were real.  “Oh, we sent them there alright,” said the spokesman.  “But the whole one-sixth gravity is bullshit.  The guys would have fallen off under the Earth’s gravity but for the centrifugal force keeping them in place.  For the sake of the nation’s morale we couldn’t reveal that the whole triumphant space programme was only a partial success, so we had to continue to pump more federal dollars into it.  It was great for this country’s technological development, and provided employment to many highly qualified scientists and engineers.”

This publication understands that the stable nature of the spheres has been a boon for telecommunications and satellite navigation.  “It’s easy,” said a spokesman from the European Space Agency.  “You just have to get a rocket up there and then stick the satellites onto the inside of the sphere.  It’s a piece of cake.”

See also: Earth ‘Not Really A Planet’, Say Scientists and Lost Moon Shot Tapes Found

‘Mistake’ as European Probe Crashes into Moon, Admit Scientists

Passengers Found On Flight — Shock

A transatlantic flight from Heathrow was diverted today in a dramatic security scare.  “Somehow some passengers were able to get on board in spite of all the security measures and queues,” said an airline spokesman.  “Shocked cabin staff followed the correct procedure and ordered the plane to turn back.  Passengers are becoming harder to outwit — buying tickets, ditching hand baggage and subjecting themselves to body searches. But we will not let these people succeed.”

Harry Potter Better Known Than Parents

According to shock research just published by Bozgy International, 87% of American children could identify the boy-wizard Harry Potter — but just 50% could correctly identify both of their parents.  “Shift work and long hours are partly to blame,” announced Prof. Paula Fibber of the Institute of Fatuous Studies, which commissioned the research.  “However, we discovered that the real problem was that the children simply found their parents uninteresting.  It wasn’t just Harry Potter who beat parents in terms of recognition.  We found that pretty much every fictional character — including Mickey Mouse, Scooby-Doo, Family Guy and the entire cast of Friends and Seinfeld — had higher recognition than parents.  This is a damning indictment of modern American parents, who fail to capture their children’s imaginations.  95% of kids correctly identified that milk came from cows, but just 32% identified that it was their parents provided basic shelter, as well as luxuries like TV.”

In a parallel survey, only 11% of Britons could correctly identify Tony Blair as Prime Minister, with 93% saying that they would prefer Harry Potter to be Premier.  “We think this may be due to that British trait of being easily embarrassed,” said Prof. Fibber.  “What rational person would admit to having Tony Blair as their leader?”