Mind Reading, Half of a 90s Double Act, Lizard

Posted on July 10th, 2008 by Mr. Fatuous.
Categories: Inane Banter.

I was chatting to Mrs Fatuous over the dirty dishes the other days about the news that Gordon Brown wants us to stop wasting food. It’s very rare that we discuss the news as we both listen to different radio stations on the way home. You will not be shocked to hear that the news overlap between Radio 1 and Radio 4 is very small. Radio 4’s news doesn’t need quotes round the “news” part for a start.

I casually mentioned that Gordon wasn’t really talking to us but was in fact having a sly dig at John Prescott and his. “That sounds like the sort of crap you’d put on your blog,” she said, probably quite correctly.

And now we take a journey into my procrastinating little world and how it can come unstuck. If I have an idea suddenly I usually just write down a title to remind me then put off doing anything about it until weeks later when I finally get round to it. You’ll notice a general lack of biting, up to the minute, satire on this site. There’s a reason for that. Actually there are several reasons for that including a general apathy towards politics, lack of bite but mainly it’s due to me being too slow at writing this to keep up. I’d probably just be getting round to moaning about Maggie Thatcher by next week.

Anyway, I just wrote down the title which was “Greedy Gord Slams Spewy John” and then left it until I could build up a bit more meat around what was in essence a one paragraph post.

I downloaded a few podcasts on Wednesday to take to the gym to drown out the idiotic dance music they play there. It’s that remixed 80s song type of dance music that they play at the gyms all the time. As far as I can tell their only criteria for the music is that it must be crap and that the video must feature scantily clad fit young ladies. I’m assuming the ladies are there to motivate the wobbly women at the gym to up their game. I tend to listen to podcasts while staring at the videos in a desperate attempt to disguise the fact from my bored body that I’m running on the spot. I can’t even stare at the women on the video properly like a red-blooded male should. I keep getting distracted by Eggheads on the telly next to it. My love of lythe young ladies is overpowered by my desire to punch the smug one from eggheads in the face. I know they are all smug but there is one that’s smugger than the rest and you know who I mean.

I was listening to the latest Herring and Collins podcast when I heard Richard Herring make exactly the same point I had made days before over the kitchen sink. I was gutted. The podcast isn’t usually out until Friday by which time I would have finished the post so I could have crowed, quite incorrectly, how my joke had been stolen by less successful member of a cult 90s double act. Instead he had read my mind and then beat me to it by recording the podcast days earlier thus trumping me. I suppose I should be grateful it wasn’t 80s loving Andrew Collins who said it, not that I have anything against his abilities to remember every toy or TV show from decades ago. I’d rather it was the comedian of the pair that used his lizard powers to read my mind rather than the one who uses his lizard powers to recall that the Evel Knievel wind up bike toy only used to go about 5 inches from the red ramp before it fell over.

Now, thanks to my procrastination, my only hope is that John Holmes makes exactly the same joke on this Friday’s Now Show.

Breaking update - Andy Parsons made the same joke on Mock the Week. Get in!

Update 2 - I missed the Now Show so I’ll have to use listen again but Clarkson made the same joke in his column in Saturday’s Mirror. If you’ve seen the same joke anywhere else then let me know in the comments below.

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Swear O’Clock

Posted on July 3rd, 2008 by Mr. Fatuous.
Categories: Inane Banter.

Here in the UK we have a TV, and I presume radio, watershed. Before this set time swearing and nudity can’t be shown. This being the UK and not the rest of Europe this basically means there’s a bit more swearing and the minute possibility of a flash of breast about twice a year (not in fact a flask of hot steamy breast as the post originally said, thank you Dr Spam). This watershed is to protect the kiddiewinks and presumably other people who like to go to bed early. I like to imagine vicars get tucked up in bed with the bible around 9pm and everybody knows that old women go to bed around 8pm just so they can start pottering around at four in the morning.

There are a couple of things that bother me about the watershed though. The first is the time, not the 9pm time as that sounds relatively reasonable to me. My problem is what time does the watershed end? I’d imagine you could get a fairly racy film on at four in the morning but I’d be shocked if there was a torrent of swearing at six in the morning. Is six the cut-off point?

Secondly why is it time based? Surely it should be based on the audience? Big Brother is on after nine but, let’s face it, only appeals to children and the mentally challenged but it’s full of swearing. The money programme is on at an earlier hour but I doubt anybody under the age of 40 actually watches it. Songs of praise is on early Sunday evening but it’s average viewer age must be 70+. I think it should be perfectly reasonable for Aled Jones to exclaim, “Welcome to motherfucking Twunterberry cathedral, isn’t she a cocking beauty?”

Radio 4 could, in fact, sound like a Quentin Tarrantino film with no fear of upsetting a single child’s ears. Come on the Today Show, call Brown a wanker when he next dodges a question. I know Cameron is a twat, you know Cameron is a twat, let’s not hold back Charlotte Green, call him a twat to his little twatty face.

1 comment.

Childhood Etiquette

Posted on June 5th, 2008 by Mr. Fatuous.
Categories: Inane Banter.

I was watching some programme or other on the telly the other day and it had children on it. At the end the kids waved goodbye. They were doing the kiddie two hand wave thing where both hands wave maniacally.

Its a wave that only kids do. Adults wave with one hand. If an adult waves with both hands it usually involves the whole arm and it’s a way of getting urgent attention. If it’s not urgent then it tends to be a brief one handed wave of recognition. Young kids wave both both hands from the wrist.

What I can’t remember is what the cut-off age for two hand waving is. Other childish things have clear cut off points and anybody who crosses them gets punished. Woe betide the last boy in class to pee standing up. I still remember when clapping went from both hands together to one hand across the other. Anybody still doing the symmetrical clap got humiliated for, and I’ll warn you now the phrase used wasn’t very PC, spacker-clapping.

As far as I recall the twin waving didn’t have a humiliation stage so I’m not sure when the move to one hand waving came. All I know is that if you think you know someone and start waving then realise you don’t know them it’s far easier to turn the one handed wave into a nonchalant scratch of the head than the turbo twin hander. Maybe that’s the tipping point? Or maybe it’s when you reach pub age and the other hand is occupied with a drink?

Anybody out there have a school tease name for the two handed wave? Any adults still enjoying the two handed wave? How do you recover from it if you realise you’re waving at a complete stranger? Is there such a thing as an incomplete stranger? So many questions.

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