Top 10 stupidest "Top 10" lists of 2008

1. Children's Books - most kids I know are far more interested in comics, DVDs of Mary-Kate and Ashley and their PSP than whatever some overpaid literati thinks is a suitably meaningful, artistic and slightly offbeat children's book. I mean, the absolute top story is called "The Pencil" and is a desperately overcomplicated meta-story-within-a-(crap)-story. The chracters in the story decide what happens! Gasp! How empowering and philosophically interesting! And if you are five, how boring, confusing and stupid. I'd rather have an actual pencil.
2. Reasons Women Can't Drive - Hey, why don't you get four lame cliched jokes about women, realize you can't think of six more, so restate the first four in a few slightly different ways. Then throw in casual references to "your girlfriend", illustrate the list with pictures of incredibly hot girls, and jack off to fantasies of them being impressed by your driving skills and, er, "wit".
3. Holiday Web Threats - Uh, you do get the concept of "Top 10" lists, right? Man you must have been bored to come up with this one.
4. Most Violent Video Games - actually quite a cool list, but either gaming PR is even more insidiously twisted, cunning and brilliant than the worst end-of-level boss OR this woman is a moron who has just given kids a great way to pick which games to buy with their Christmas cash. Best descrption: "Blitz the League II" -- Steroid and drug use is encouraged and wins are celebrated with hookers. That sounds awesome.
5. Top 10 lists - LifeHacker takes self-referential to whole new heights. I wish this was a parody, but it's not. They have listed their top 10 of their own top 10 lists.
6. Startups worth watching - now, by the law of jinx, at least 7 of these are guaranteed to appear in all of the the 2009 "Whatever happened to..?" lists. Fon, LinkedIn and AdMob might do OK, but hey - can LinkedIn really still be called a startup?
7. Websites - Gah! Stop trying to boost traffic to your friends' boring websites in the hope that they'll do the same for yours. Example: if part of the description of a website is "provides unparalleled coverage of transportation and planning issues in New York City" it is not one of the top 10 websites of 2008.
8. Least Stolen Vehicles - apparently people don't steal large shiny SUVs (usually in shades of red) sold by companies with big ad budgets. Who knew...
9. Best bartenders in Chicago - if they were that good, they'd be in New York.
10. People who died in 2008 - gets cool points for utter weirdness, but seriously folks... a Top 10 list? For dead people?

Mishearing fish

Twice in the past week I have misheard ordinary phrases as fish-related. I think this may be the beginning of a fish-related time in my life. I know, deep, huh? Sometimes these things are not just coincidence. I think they may have been whatever the aural equivalent of a Freudian slip is. (I guess I should have mis-spelled that as oral. At least that's what your mother said.)

So, seeing as you're so curious, here were the phrases:
Mackerel conference (actually MacWorld Conference). I did wonder why my friend was suddenly so into mackerel, but hey, he works at Apple and they're all pretty weird.
You're a doctor not a cod - obviously meant to be "God". Or maybe not... are cod particularly useful in first-aid situations?

However, neither of these are as bad as when I mis-read a line in a blog post about particle physics as "Large Hardon Collider". Man, that image had me laughing so hard coffee came out of my nose. And I wasn't even drinking coffee.

PS sorry for the holiday hiatus, but I was too busy getting drunk to avoid talking to my mother to write any blog posts.

Stupid things people say are like sex

BlackBerrys No. BlackBerrys are far superior. I wake up in the middle of the night, roll over and check my BlackBerry EVEN when I am too tired for sex. If I had to go without one or the other for the rest of my life... no question. Luckily, most Blackberry addicts didn't have sex very much before RIM introduced the little electronic temptresses anyway.

Marketing The kind of people who want to do it think that they are better at it than they are. They are actually only successful because they are slightly more attractive than the rest of the human race, and have a natural talent for bullshitting. Many people have come to the conclusion that the entire thing is a total waste of time.

Programming A comparison which I am sure will cheer up a lot of lonely computer engineers, until they one day get lucky, have sex with a real live person, and realize that it is actually NOTHING like programming. The quote is from Linus Torvalds, which suggests that somewhere in Scandinavia sex is a undertaken simultaneously by a vast number of volunteers for little or no reward other than their own satisfaction and bragging rights, and many people believe that one man is ultimately directing the entire process. Which leads me to conclude that either: a) Linus Torvalds has some weird sexual fantasies or b) he got it confused with religion.

Writing Petition Denied. Invalid Similie Alert. (I write pretty much every day, trust me on this one)

Physics This one only gets consideration because Richard Feynman said it, and he is one of the few physicists that I not only suspect has had sex, but probably does so with some regularity. (I'm not the only one, if this is any indication). Thus, I accept this similie with the clarification that they are both things that Richard Feynman is good at.

Salsa - well obviously. It involves grinding your crotch into a member of the opposite sex, getting hot and sweaty, tripping over your feet because you've had one too many mojitos and ending up doing it with your original partner's less attractive friend by the end of a relatively depressing night that was only livened up by watching a few people who were really, really good at it.

Artseal Plaquemount Winner of the Most Unquestionably Ridiculous Similie Award. (Narrowly beating Ted Stevens' wonderful "The internet is a series of tubes" argument for network neutrality)

Snowstorms (unattributed) -you don't know how long it will last or how many inches you will get, but make sure you have your chains with you just in case.

Note: These are Similies. Not metaphors. Not analogies. Similies. OK?

Relationship exit strategies (for girls)

MBO
Your SO is sick of you nagging and telling him what to do. He wants to be independent and run his own life, and so he tells you to get lost. Unfortunately he is only able to do this with substantial outside backing and logistical support (probably from his mother).
It is highly possible that his new strategic vision will involve a couch, some PBR and Guitar Hero. He will almost certainly be a prime target for a hostile takeover in the near future by some agressive Carl Icahn-type girl who will insist on a new haircut, new wardrobe and have him marched up the aisle within 6 months.

Sell to a strategic investor
You feel that his value on the market is far less than his value to someone with a different set of purchasing criteria, who can realize synergies that you cannot. Good example: if he's Jewish, let a Jewish girl have him. The bonus in terms of potential Mother-In-Law relations is far, far higher for her. Ditto letting your useless American boyfriend marry an immigrant who needs him for visa purposes.

IPO
You feel you taken him from his growth phase to maturity, but want to liquidate your investment and be free to pursue other options. The opportunity cost of sticking with him is high, and you think a spell on the open markets will force a little discipline. Don't stick around unless he's genuinely a cash cow.

Flipping
You're in and out as fast as you can - buying in on a downswing (probably catching the guys in a moment of alcohol-related lust and/or loneliness) and always confident you'll find someone happy to take him off your hands afterwards. You minimize your investment and certainly will not have wasted any of your time cleaning his apartment or teaching him how to cook*.

Note: it's always easy to find a sucker, the hard part is finding another one (so make sure you're not sucker #1).

(Left-wing/ liberal alternative versions:

• Recycle
• Compost
• Incinerate)

* I had a much better "teaching him how to XXX" there, but it was, well, XXX rated. I'm feeling family-friendly today.

My top ten favorite bitches

Bitches are underappreciated. Here are my top ten:

Joan Collins
Marquise de Mertuil (Les Liasons Dangereuses)
Whatever Sarah Michele Gellar's role is in Cruel Intentions (see above)
Madonna (when talking about any of her exes)
Marissa Mayer - she dumped Larry Page. Awesome.
Judy Dench as "M"
Queen Elizabeth I (Virgin queen my ass)
Paris Hilton
Perez Hilton
Sarah Palin

Yes, I am allowed to mix fictional and non-fictional characters. As I have said before, my blog - my rules.


People who didn't make it:

Anyone who wears a t-shirt which says "I'm not a bitch, I'm THE bitch" (who isn't a cute gay boy)
Angelina Jolie: just waaaay too crazy to be an actual bitch
Whiny women who have the power but waste it moaning about their weight, their desire to do good, or both (Oprah, I am looking at you)
Sarah Palin's daughter

Excuses, excuses

I started about five new posts last night in an energetic stream-of-consciousness ramble which may or may not have been related to the extremely good Bordeaux perched right next to my laptop.

Luckily for you guys, when I checked this morning I decided not to post any of them.

You get this instead. Highly recommended.

Regrets... or not.

Two things people never regret - going bankrupt and having a Brazilian. At least according to a popular UK online discussion forum. And yelp.

Is this the opposite of "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone"? Meaning, you don't know what you wish wasn't there until it is forcibly removed by bailiffs/ ripped from your stinging skin with hot wax?

Silly Friend's love life - The Story Continues...

... with yet another demonstration of cliched* assholery.

Friend "K" (nothing like Kafka's hero of the same name, except a tendency to find herself in odd situations and occasionally screw wait staff) was in town for a visit. K is small, cute and blond with big brown eyes and an incredibly competitive nature. She flirts with other people's boyfriends in front of them, and with other people's husbands behind their backs. Some people might say she is a bit of a bitch, but I am actually a huge fan of hers, mainly because I think most of the guys she flirts with are complete dicks who need to have their dickishness revealed to the world. You could almost call her a public service in that sense (as opposed to the sense people have called her that in the past). She is also married now, which does allow a bit of leeway in the whole "it was just flirting" argument.

So, silly friend and K head out for drinks and SF (silly friend - decided acronyms should be fairly distributed) starts getting some unprecentented and slightly flirtatious texts from MLS (the manipulative little shit - see earlier posts). A few mojitos down K contrives to "jokingly" hi-jack SF's phone and text MLS back to come join them.

He does so, and predictably proceeds to flirt wildly with K, who loves every minute of it, despite having heard many long and complex stories of his confusing and evil ways from SF. SF herself watches them, drinks more and gets extremely depressed, having talked herself into a corner by asserting too many times that she and MLS are "just friends" and that she "really doesn't think of him that way". She even starts to try to convince herself that she is "glad he is enjoying himself" because she "likes to see him happy". Pathetic much?

Night ruined. For me too, because the moment she told me the story (late-night drunken call just as I was enjoying a cigarette on my balcony) I got so angry with both of them that I had to have three more brandies to calm myself down.

Epilogue: MLS, on next meeting with SF, tells her that he thinks K is a bit of a prick-tease. SF revels in this, under the erroneous assumption that this somehow makes her look better in comparison. (Quick note: guys only call girls they like prick teases). Nothing has been learned.

* should have an acute accent on the "e", but I can't get it to work. Forgive me. You probably don't care much anyway. It wasn't important.

*Please assume an acute accent on that "e". Can't work out how to do it with this damn software.

Dear Tech journalists: you are not writing sci-fi

Why do they try and make every article sound like a science fiction novel?

Like this one discussing Zoetrope - the headline is "Back button to the future". Talking it up or what? It archives web pages. Big bloody deal.

Or this one: Teleporting Becomes a Reality. Like fuck it does.

At least this one just blatantly references Star Trek in hyping up a relatively untested ultrasound device. However, I seem to remember the version that they had on the Enterprise cured pretty much every non-plot-essential injury or illness in seconds. You've got a long way to go, baby.

So, Tech Journalists, Tech news sites (I'm looking at you Engadget) and Tech bloggers (you know who you are), please start looking at exciting new scientific developments with more critical eye and CHILL THE FUCK OUT.

Now, when someone invents a functional hoverboard, then you're allowed to let loose with the hyperbole. Until then, tone it down, OK?

Short stories

So, in my quest to decide whether I can get away with meaningful shorter posts on my blogs (OK, maybe not a quest: I don't have a sword) I discovered the twitter short story contest: fantastic idea! A story in just the 140 characters you are allowed in a twitter post.

My attempt:
If anyone ever really knew what was going on in other people's heads, they would probably kill themselves. At least I did. But I didn’t consider what happens when you die.

Unfortunately that is 141 words, but I don't want to change it. Hey, my blog, my rules. (Having a word limit is an amazing way to fine-tune prose, though, as anyone who has ever had to write a business school application will tell you.) But the problem with a lot of these entries is that they read like the intro to a story, rather than a full story arc. Does that imply that a good story intro should give you enough to be a full story, or just that these entrants didn't really get it?

(Of course it is now obligatory to reference Hemingway's "Short story in 6 words". So I won't. It's pretty cool though.)

Life vs. Blog

I haven't posted in a really, really long while. There are three decisions I need to make:

• Do I sacrifice quality for quantity/ regularity? Probably no.
• Is it OK to occasionally let my blogging lapse because the rest of my life is busy? No, I either give it up or make a commitment to post regularly.
• Can I substitute the occasional short, pithy post with my longer stories..? I think I need to experiment here.

OK, I guess there is one other - can I post a bunch of random internal-monologue-type questions about how bad I feel about not posting, and get away with this being counted as a genuine post?

I'm thinking yes...

T-shirt slogans

So, in my last post I mentioned one of my favourite T-shirt slogans ever: "I listen to bands that don't even exist yet". I've come up with a few more of my own.

• If Jesus loves me, why doesn't he ask me out?
• Evolution is a theory? So is gravity, now go jump off a bridge.
• Make like the Dow Jones. Get down.
• They may be real but they're still expensive (ladies only)
• Election rigging is for losers.
  

OK, lazy post, I admit. I've had a heavy week. Maybe I should move on to bumper stickers next...

Asking for it

Walking past a 7-Eleven today, I noticed a large sign in the window promoting their coffee cup poll on the election. The simple idea is that you buy your coffee in either a red paper cup with 'McCain' written on the side, or a blue paper cup emblazoned with the name 'Obama', allowing 7-Eleven to get free publicity by figuring out the broad voting preferences of people too lazy to make their own coffee and too poor to go to Starbucks - a key demographic if there ever was one.
Of course, the real point here is that you get to walk through the streets proudly declaring your political affiliation, which I believe is the twenty-something equivalent of wearing t-shirt with your favorite band on it - or at least, the current cool "favorite band' in your high-school, because teenagers rarely have independent musical taste (unless they identify with a particular sub-group and wear the appropriate band t-shirt to retain their rank in the group hierarchy. It is actually a wonder some of these bands release music at all, when simply by producing the right kind of t-shirt they can leap in popularity: any band whose t-shirt involves a weird symbol on black with gothic writing will become the in thing for the goths, even if they actually play light jazz. The only truly appropriate t-shirt is this). This is essential in attracting an appropriate mate, reinforcing your membership of your social group, and announcing that you hold the ‘correct’ opinions. (That goes for both the coffee cup and the band.).
My problem with this coffee-cup thingy is, however, that I am currently in San Francisco. Did 7_eleven even bother stocking any red cups here? If I went in and tried to order one, would the poor guy serving* look at me blankly and mumble something about having to check out the back? If I even managed to purchase a coffee in a red cup, how far down the street would I manage to get before some SF nutjob charged up and accused me of being a fascist, pro-life, gun-toting creationist? I’m guessing less than three feet, depending how many of SFs homeless I have to walk round on the way.
Anyhow, seeing as I actually can’t vote here, I have a cunning plan: next time I go to Starbucks I will give my name as ‘David Cameron’ so they scribble that on the side of my cup and I can walk around the city proclaiming my actual intended vote. At least in that situation I am relatively safe in that anyone who understands the reference and can work out my political views from it is probably polite enough not to mention them.

*OK, 7-Eleven may be self serve. I don’t know. I go to Starbucks. Or Peets. Or make my own damn coffee in my very fine French Press.

Foreign girlfriends and babies

While out for a drink recently in the UK with several couples that I hadn't seen for a while, I was struck by the remarkable similarity in the behavior of two of my recently married male friends. Not all that odd, you might think, except that in one instance the guy was interacting with his 10-month-old baby, and in the other with his new Japanese girlfriend.

The problem being, of course, that said Japanese girlfriend couldn't speak English (although apparently she was fluent in Korean, which is less than helpful in a North London pub) and is also small and cute. There seemed to be an equal amount of petting and babytalk going on in both cases, as well as the quite excruciatingly embarrassing ‘ Talking for her’ habit. Please envision:

(Girl points, turns to Daddy/Husband with a happy and slightly expectant look on her face)
HIM: She likes your shoes, that’s what that means. (smiling sickeningly into her face) You like shoes don’t you? (To me again, rather unnecessarily). She likes shoes. Especially brightly colored ones. (Back to her, incomprehensible babble and kissing)
ME: Right. Excuse while I get slammingly drunk.
(A short while later)
HIM: … so she’s doing really well. Aren’t you? See, she understands a lot more than you realize. Don’t you, sweetheart?

I think the main thing that bothers me is how much both of these guys seem to like the role of adored protector, and having someone to fuss over, teach and, well, dominate. I’m not sure if it is more disturbing in the case of the child or the girlfriend, but I must say it does always seem to be men with insecurity issues who go for the foreign girls. Or maybe they just don’t seem as boring in a different language…

Darwinists Hastily Hide away a Fossil...

The title of this blog is not, as I thought when I first saw it, some kind of mneumonic or amusing acronym. It is an actual quote from this website which contains one of the most self-defeating and ridiculous critiques of evolutionary theory that I have ever seen. The page simply drips both stupidity and casual grammatical errors: "[Darwinism] convinced people they were descended from ape-likes".
This article is utterly unscientific and contain no citations (although there is an amusing list of links including such wonderful titles as "A Historical Lie: The Stone Age". Skipping over (for now) the fact that it should be An Historical Lie, I find denying the concept of a time when human beings used stone tools a little far-fetched, even for a religious nutjob.) or basic references to some of its claims, even the ones that are technically true (Piltdown Man was a hoax, just not by "Darwinists"). One of their links also cites surveys showing that 92% of French people don't believe in evolution (French people don't believe in anything) and 88% of Danish people disagree with the statement "Human Beings Are Descended From Apes". Discarding for a moment the possibility that the Danes were thrown by the Unecessary Over Use Of Capital Letters, the likelihood is that their superior scientific education allowed them to spot the trick question: Humans and Apes may have had a common ancestor, but there is no line of descent. Takes more than that to fool the Danish. Must be the pastries.

Or perhaps I have missed the point of this article. Perhaps by simply existing and demonstrating their utter lack of intelligence the authors hope to refute Darwin's theory. How can people this stupid have been allowed to a) live b) reproduce c) have unsupervised access to a computer?

For a much more educated discussion of evolution, full of handy ways to shut up creationists, try here or simply get yourself a decent education. Not in Kansas, ideally.

Evolution is a Theory. So is gravity. Now go jump off a building.

Top songs about California

Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Best lyric: "The sun may rise in the East, at least it sets in a finer location". Fuck you, Boston, you suck.
What this song is really about: People in California have more sex
What liking this song says about you: You moved to California to get more sex, but you picked SF not LA and so are stuck with tech geeks, gay guys and zero single girls

Los Angeles Waltz (Razorlight)
Best lyric: OK, not a lyric, but the fact that this track actually is in classical waltz time, so you could actually imagine an old-time couple dipping around a ballroom to it - until you get to the line 'It's been such a fucked-up year'
What this song is really about: Nobody is ever actually from LA
What liking this song says about you: When you are tired of LA you are tired of life. If you like this song you are either a) suicidal or b) about to move to SF

Fake Tales of San Francisco (Arctic Monkeys)
Best lyric: "You're not from New York City, you're from Rotherham"
What this song is really about: Guys will say anything to get into a girls panties. Nothing new there.
What liking this song says about you: You know where Rotherham is. You have never been to California.

California Girls (The Beach Boys)
Best lyric: "The mid-west farmers daughters really make you feel alright" Talk about damning with faint praise...
What this song is really about: California girls put out
What liking this song says about you: You would like to think you have enough experience with women to be able to have an opinion on these stereotypes. You are nostalgic for a California that never existed, and even if it did, only did so about thirty years before you were born...

California Love (2Pac feat. Dr Dre)
Best lyric: "Let's show these fools how we do it on tha West side, Cause you and I know it's tha best side" Fuck you Boston, you suck (did I say that already).
What this song is really about: California knows how to party
What liking this song says about you: You are not a Gangsta. You are not a baller. You are not a Playa. You wince when it gets to the line 'Now it's 95" because it reminds you of how old you are. You love California better than your own mother.

Hotel California (The Eagles)
Best lyric: "She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends". So, the hotel's run by a fag hag, makes sense.
What this song is really about: You can get some really, really good drugs in California.
What liking this song says about you: You are a) suicidal, but not quite far enough along to listen to Elliott Smith or b) you are a teenager experimenting with smoking banana skins and dried oregano and believing yourself to be a major force in some kind of drug counterculture. Give it a few years, and you may well move to category a).

LA is my Lady (Frank Sinatra)
Best lyric: "And love's kept me cool in July and warm in December". Cool in July? Clearly he means San Francisco...
What this song is really about: You can get some really, really good drugs in California. (Ref: I get no kick from Champagne - you know what that song is, about, right?)
What liking this song says about you: You are my grandfather, you don't get the drug references and you still call Sinatra 'Ol' Blue Eyes'. Get away from my blog.

Under The Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Best lyric: "she kisses me windy" WTF???
What this song is really about: Death or drugs. Not sex.
What liking this song says about you: You are learning to play guitar.

The Hippopotamus Doctrine of free markets

In light of the events of the past few weeks, I feel the need to come to the defence of free markets everywhere. My interpretation of free markets can pretty much be summed up as "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen". Caveat Emptor is also a good rule.

Some illustrative examples:

• It's worth what someone will pay for it. Stop bleating about how you 'lost' a quarter of the value of your home when the market crashed. You still have the same house, and you weren't going to sell anyway because you just repainted the hallway, your kids have exams soon, and your wife would want to move closer to her Mom who you can't stand.
• If your economy is imploding, move somewhere it isn't. Like Mars.
• If you don't like your roommates because they keep stealing your milk/ coffee/ boyfriends then move to a new apartment. Don't keep putting up weird notes everywhere, that is just sad.
• If you don't like the crime rate/ ethnic mix/ noise levels/ Gay pride festivals in your area, move somewhere else. There is in fact somewhere just as cheap that you could move to. Unfortunately it's in Tucson. The commute may be tough, but hey...
• If you don't like your boss/ coworkers/ commute/ hours/ uniform/ nametag/ desk height then get a new job. Nobody made a law that you are entitled to a job you like: someone is willing to pay you to do something their way, and you can either accept or fuck off to Tucson.
• If you want banks, you're gonna have to pay for them. Big time.
• If you want the money more, you are going to pay a better rate of interest. Or deal with bigger baseball bats.
• If you think the weird moose lady is scary, don't vote for her, even if you are against same-sex marriage and sex education. Really, which would be worse? Having to cringe and hide behind a tree whenever you bump into foreigners after her latest public demonstration of idiocy ("Hey, Kim Jong Il, glad you're feeling better. You're really darn short aren't you? Which bit of Korea are you from again? The one we like or the evil one with nukular weapons?") or having your twelve year old daughter not freak out and try to commit suicide when she gets her first period?
• If you bought a house bigger than you could afford, don't be surprised when someone takes it away.
• If you think the beer is too expensive, or the service is too slow/ rude/ ugly, get the hell out of my bar. You're in my seat. Yeah, I'm starting something. You have a problem with that?

Note: No, since you happened to ask, I don't have any qualifications in economics, political analysis or finance whatsoever. Guess how much of a shit I give? a) none b) fuck-all

Vanilla is a flavor

I feel sorry for vanilla. It has somehow been demoted as a flavor.
Just because you can now get fifty-seven varieties of Ben & Jerry's each with up to seven ingredients (banana and caramel ice-cream with chocolate-covered fudge chunks, toffee popcorn pieces and a swirl of chocolate sauce...) doesn't mean than the good old standbys (strawberry, chocolate) are given any less shelf space, except, for some reason, vanilla. It is the ice-cream that you serve with pie or other desserts, because it won't clash. It is the non-flavor.
The word vanilla is even used as a euphemism for missionary position (read, "dull") sex.
The vanilla bean used to be considered an exotic and subtle spice, highly prized, used in sweet and savory dishes alike, and even in perfume (still a great way for girls to get attention from guys, especially if they are slightly hungry at the time). What went wrong?
I blame Mr Whippy (or even US Mr Whippy) for creating the most incredibly bland, articificial and boring ice-cream in the world, and insisting it is vanilla-flavored.
So, I propose that from now on, if something is boring (especially sex-related) it is called Mr Whippy, not vanilla.
Hmm, I can see how this idea may have some drawbacks...

Silly friend's love life proves age-old truth

There is a fantastic song by Airhead called 'Funny How' which has the lyrics:

"Funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you, funny how the ones you don't do"

This observation, nay, truism, has been shown to be correct in thousands of scientific tests across the world, and holds just as true for boys as for girls. I believe it is related to the "Law of What He's Got", otherwise known as "Everybody Acts Like a Toddler", and is related to the extreme rise in desirability of anything which you thought you had, and now don't. OK, in psychology it is actually called the Scarcity principle, but I like my names better.

Anyway, the most recent update in the silly friend's love life (read all about it here, here and here) is a perfect example of this. She met, through a common friend (not a mutual friend: see here for pedantic explanation) another guy whom she had liked for a while, but who was only recently single. They spent some good times together over a series of weekend, flirting like crazy and generally irritating grouches like me who are not keen on PDAs (both the electronic devices and the public groping, as it happens).

The result of this situation was that for a week or two my friend was walking around with her head in the clouds about New Guy, and therefore not responding with as much enthusiasm as usual to the sporadic communications from the other guy (MLS or manipulative little shit, as he shall now be known). MLS has reacted by upping the frequency and intensity of his chat, and even telephoning her directly, twice, to ask her out for dinner. I find it hard to believe that his increased amorousness is anything other than the realization that his favorite fallback ego-stroker was drifting away, but she (and several of her other silly friends that she has enlisted in the attempt to make me believe that he really is The One) sees in this turn of events important signals that there is real potential here. This is mainly because the situation with New Guy didn't work out, so she is now in need of someone else to daydream about while not doing any work.

I am certain that MLS will undoubtedly shy away again in response to her newfound interest in him, canceling a few dates at the last minute and starting to drop the names of other girls into conversation, unless she can somehow keep up the pretense of not really caring and having numerous better offers. Fat chance.

So turns the Wheel of Life.

Hurricane relief reaches new levels

Watching CNN ('America's most trusted news source' - which strikes me as rather like being 'America's least unhealthy bacon double cheeseburger' or 'China's least underage gymnast) this morning, I was impressed by a very authoritative-looking chap in army garb explaining how much more directed, efficient and precise the response to Hurricane Ike was than to Hurricane Katrina (mental note - does this odd 'naming hurricanes' thing have an effect on childrens names? I'm sure Katrina is a less desirable name down in New Orleans now...).

He went on to give examples:

• If people need blankets, we can get them blankets
• If people need food, we deliver them food
• If people need ice, we make sure they have ice

Hang on a minute. Ice? Because in the aftermath of a hurricane it is really important to have properly cooled drinks?

I have a vision of a couple out on their porch relaxing with a nice cocktail, then saying 'Dang, we're out of ice again. Honey, can you call the army and tell them to bring some by on their way over to building shelter for all the people whose houses were wrecked. Oh, and if they could pick up some pretzels too, that would be great'.

Republicans

I guess I can’t ignore this whole political shitstorm much longer, although it is somewhat (f this is a word) overblogged. POW/MILF jokes aside, can I just say that both tickets seem full of shit and I’m heartily glad I’m not eligible to vote. If I were, I would probably decide on the day to vote with whichever party looks like it’s losing, in the interests of fairness. As someone said (note to self, look up quote when sober) democracy isn’t the ability to vote in the people you want running the country, it’s the ability to vote out those you don’t. But as Bush is on his way out anyway, no need!

On another note, the British comedian Russell Brand has been being criticized recently for some very ‘ill-thought-out’ remarks at some music awards thing. Firstly, can I say from personal experience of the thoroughly obnoxious Mr. Brand, he was probably high as a kite on a combination of narcotics and his own foul ego at the time. Secondly, as a Brit he really didn’t have a clue how stupid, inflammatory and downright offensive most Americans would find his words. Lastly, many people in Europe are under the impression that all Americans hate Bush as much as they do, and are therefore all pretty sure that the US will not vote Republican again, just to make absolutely sure nothing like the last eight years will ever happen again. Oh how wrong they are.
Question: would the much-sought-after naked pics of Sarah Palin cause her popularity to go up or down? Answers to the usual address, where they will be ignored.

When fashion sense goes wrong

People can dress well (gay men). people can not give a shit how they dress (lesbians, computer programmers) but the very, very worst fashion crimes are those pulled off by people trying to be fashionable, and failing miserably.

I mean, stonewashed jeans and a slightly faded Pantera t-shirt, or badly-fitting black pants and black button-down shirt are never going to land you on the front cover of Vogue, but people will walk past you without wincing, which is more than can be said for mullets, puffball skirts and pre-teen girls wearing glittery pink eye make-up (tip, girls - if even Barbie looks embarassed to be seen in it, it's too girlie).

The sad truth is that it is always the people who are trying really hard, reading fashion magazines, hanging out at sample sales and scouring blogs for details of the 'must-have hits of fashion week' (awful, awful phrase) who will end up looking like utter prats. They will hear that shorts are in, platform shoes are 'so now' and you literally have to be seen in a to-die-for silk blouse with bow detail, they will wear them all at once, probably with some kind of overdone bouffant hairdo and 'statement' make-up. They will look terrible.

My no-fail fashion advice - just before you leave the house, look in the mirror and if you think you look like last month's Vogue cover, go change.

Derivative versus influence

I notice, and I am vain enough to think that some of my readers may also find (actually, I am vain enough to think I have readers, and am diligently failing to install Google Analytics in order to maintain this illusion) that my ramblings vary considerably in voice and style depending on what I have been reading recently. Given I try to read only the finest quality literature, smut and other blogs this should be a good thing, but I have occasionally allowed myself to be a little lazy and actually continue an argument or thought that I read somewhere else, written by wiser fingers than mine. I am not going to stop doing this, as I’d run out of ideas way too fast, but I would like to apologise.
Which I have just done.

A slinky on an escalator

A perpetual fun machine..?

Ooh, but the timing issues. Disappointment, by definition.

Oh, the horror! Life without Google

"When Google Owns You" So, some guy is devastated when he is locked out of all (yes, you read that right, ALL) of his Google accounts.
Oh come on. Suck it up. You lose access to your Google for a day. What happens?

• You miss a few emails from your friends about some party they're having: they'll call you or something. Or you can stay in. Or go to a random bar and pick up a stranger for a night of wild sex. Whatever.
• You miss your update from the various stupid websites that you never read anyway, but always intend to 'get around to'. Try a book.
• You can't update your blog for a day or so. Well, honey, neither can I half the time, but I'm blaming that on Grey Goose, not Google.
• You lose access to the Google spreadsheet you and your housemates use to keep track of who bought the Tide and toilet paper. Pin your reciepts to their door and take the money out of their wallet. You don't live with uptight people, right?
• You can't check on Google analytics to see who is reading your blog, and you've been noticing for a while than one of your fourteen regular readers is from Korea, and you suspect it is a cute Korean girl who likes your picture, so you've been dropping some cool references to Asian pop stars in and are dying to see if she read them... You need to get out more. Really.
• Your photos should be on facebook or on your wall.
• Your groups won't notice you are gone.

Face it, the only Google apps that are necessary for life as we know it are maps and search, and you don't need an account for those.

If I lost access to facebook for a day, though... no, I can't even picture it. It's too painful.

What's in a name?

Hippopotamus. I am not fat. I don't have unusually large teeth (although one at the front sticks out a bit). I like water, not so much mud.

My name is an homage to British comedians, writer, actor, asexual and all-round bloody genius Stephen Fry who wrote a bizarre, sick and hilarious book called 'The Hippopotamus'. The eponymous hippopotamus (oh, how much should that be the start of a poem?) is an alcoholic, lecherous old (male) hack/poet. I am, or aspire to be, at least three of those things.

Repeat, not fat and muddy. Also not in Africa.

Why oh why...

... are contact lenses sold in identical packaging to pregnancy testing kits? This seems extremely odd, and opens the manufacturers of both products up to numerous lawsuits due to a mind-boggling range of possible misadventures.


I first noticed this walking past a small billboard on the subway, which displayed a longish, flattish white cardboard box covered in subdued yet supportive blue graduated lines, and the obligatory attractive yet responsible-looking young woman (you can tell she was responsible because she wasn't blonde, wore minimal make-up and had a thoughful expression). However, on second glance, I became very concerned for the youth of today, given the tagline: 'All-day comfort, daily use'.



On prolonged inspection it became clearer that the product being advertised was not, in fact, a pregnancy test, but a package of disposable contact lenses. However, if my 20/20 vision was fooled, I can only imagine the confusion of someone with poor eyesight. They may well only realize their mistake at the checkout, when they recieve a disapproving look from the lady behind the register who pointedly suggests that maybe they want to pick up a few packs of condoms, 'to prevent it happening again'. Is this a throwback to the days when young boys were told masturbation would make you go blind? If so, surely advocating safe sex is an odd moral gear-change: 'No, dear, playing with yourself is wrong, you should go and have actual sex with some emotionally vulnerable girl. But do use a condom. Oh, and here is some of that KY jelly with the warming effect...' (which is another odd product to buy, given it is usually sold next to sanitary products, which meant for years I thought that it was intended to help with tampon insertion).



So, I am calling on those stalwart souls in P&G and J&J's marketing departments - please don't create any more daily moral quandries and quagmires with your confusing implications! Can we have nice simple slogans like 'Think you're knocked up? Check' and 'Can't read this sign? Buy me'. Plus some advice about how to keep enough of a grip on the KY jelly tube to close it when you just covered your hands in something designed to make them slippery...

Cuil - what was all that about?

Was this a case of great marketing (or at least better than the million other Google-killers out there) let down by insufficient hardware? I mean, the name (usefully appended with 'pronounced cool', to end the inevitable confusion from having such a weird name) has been all over mainstream media. I've watched with horror as completely un-tech-savvy pundits explain to their equally uncomprehending audiences the intricacies of why Cuil's search alogrithm/mechanism/program is better than Google, before giving up on even these vague technicalities and going with the 'bigger is better' approach and shouting about how many more pages Cuil has indexed than Google.
So I gave it a try, and typed my own name into Cuil (will 'Cuiling' oneself one day be as sad an admission of terminal narcissm as 'Googling'? I confess to doing it the latter fairly regularly. Will I go blind?). First shock: the results come up in clumps across the screen instead of a nice, sensible, scrollable list. I have difficulty processing this and want to run screaming back to Google, but I persist in the interests of research.
Most of the top row results are about sports teams with players that share either my first or second name, not both. There is one result in the middle of the page referring to a man with the same name as me that works somewhere boring (he usually comes up on my Google searches too). The usual Google top-spot comes somewhere down the left hand column, and is the homepage of someone with the same name as me who hasn't yet put anything but his/her name on it. My actual target (pages containing articles I have written for various print media) is right at the bottom on the left, and requires a bit of scrolling to read fully (I will charitably blame this on my small monitor). Not impressed.
I've also heard something about their servers crashing/not handling things, and an even more intruiging report of sports queries being re-routed to their cookery server (one imagines the server holding a wooden spoon and wearing a flowered apron...) but to me, failing to award my gems of literary and journalistic genius a top (or even second-to-top-row-third from the right) spot on their strange category-based results page gives me only one possible verdict: not cool. Google will survive (for now).

Update on the silly friend’s love life

He turned up to their last date and apologized for his appearance, saying he hadn’t been home yet. This was at noon on a Sunday. She threw out a few snarky comments about the previous evening, obviously fishing for details or, even better, denials. However, it was perfectly obviously he’d been banging some other girl all night, and he wanted her to know this. Just to mess with her further he began to flirt with her even more obviously than usual, including hand-stroking, playful shoulder shoving and standing indecently close behind her in line for the coffee they went for after lunch. She came home afterwards in a daze, high on sexual frustration and misplaced excitement, convinced even further that things were progressing well.
At the suggestion that she could, well, ask him what the fuck was going on (or even, at a pinch, whether he was actually single) she all but punched me in the mouth. She ‘doesn’t want to rush things’ (this from the girl who has been wondering if he would get on with her mother) and she is ‘worried she’ll scare him off’ (damn good job in my opinion). Clearly she isn’t actually sure, is terrified of rejection and the manipulative little shit knows this.
If I’m wrong I’ll be happy for her. No, really. I’ll even go to the wedding.

Virginity revisited

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Investment bankers

Too easy. Too, too easy. See leveragedsellout.com

So I’ll go for hedge fund managers instead.
According to a friend of mine who rarely lies (and when he does, does so very amusingly) it is possible to buy a t-shirt that says ‘Fuck me, I’m a hedge fund manager’. He has seen these being worn, with some success, in bars in New York.
Sadly I am too well acquainted with the New York bar scene to believe that they are being worn ironically. What I love is the potential different meanings of this t-shirt: on the one hand the supreme arrogance of insisting that young ladies go to bed with you on the strength of your job, but on the other it could be interpreted as a plea for an act of pity, like ‘kiss me, I’m off to war tomorrow’ or ‘please sleep with me, I have red hair’.

But my favorite is to imagine it as an expression of surprise, along the lines of ‘Fuck me, can you believe it? I’m a hedge fund manager! Me! Little old me! I don’t really know what a hedge fund is, I’m only 24 years old and I can’t even pronounce arbitrage!’. I await with bated breath the following t-shirts:

Hot damn, I’m a Senior Vice President
Whoops, I seem to be a Political Journalist
Shit, I didn’t mean to be a Venture Capitalist, it just all got out of hand…

Dance for Pedro

About a month ago I was walking through an airport (layover in Prague for some bizarre reason) and I saw a young girl of maybe eight years old wearing a t-shirt with the words 'Dance for Pedro' written on it. It was a plain white t-shirt with large red lettering, and looked pretty cheaply done. I could not work out what on earth it meant. It's been annoying me ever since, and the phrase kept popping into my head, particularly yesterday when I was having dinner with a friend of mine called Pedro (he assures me that there is no connection). So, in an attempt to exorcise this particular annoyance I am going to lay out all of the possible explanation that I can think of. If anyone reading this has any other explanation, or in fact some explanation of the true reason, please let me know.

1. Somebody called Pedro has some kind of terminal illness, and friends and family have arranged a sponsored dance to raise money for a cure/final trip to Disneyland.
2. The child has been kidnapped by a weird paedophile cult with a dancing fetish led by the mysterious and charismatic 'Pedro'.
3. The phrase is a tagline for an as-yet-unreleased indie film experimenting with some very strange publicity stunts.
4. The first in a line of ultra-hip t-shirts based on meaningless slogans. Very nihilistic.
5. Somebody called Pedro likes dancing, and this girl's parents are friends of his playing some kind of insider-practical-joke that I can't comprehend.

Competitive arrogance

It has been pointed out to me that I can be a little arrogant. The words big-headed, antagonistic, inflexible and conceited may also have come up.

The fact that many of my posts are tagged 'me' could be used in evidence.

I am flattered, but must concede that if you want to see arrogance taken to an art form, you should really read The Best Page In The Universe. In my incredibly humble opinion it is extremely funny.
The tagline 'This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.' should be enough to convince you.

The ongoing saga of my somewhat silly friend’s love life

Despite having been on several dates with a perfectly attractive, nice young man who has many interests in common with her, buys her dinner and compliments her ears she remains obsessed with the mental case who can’t seem to work out what a date is. He is, admittedly, quite charming in many ways but has dropped many worrying hints about other girls he has been on dates with (OK, she’s been dating too, but she’s usually polite enough not to mention it) and still hasn’t attempted to get into her panties.
In my book, not trying to get into a girl’s panties by date three shows that you are either a homosexual trawling for a new fag hag, a slightly bored insecure playboy who likes having fawning girls around even if he doesn’t find them attractive, or a terrified, if lovestruck, idiot. For some reason she thinks he is the latter, and even more bizarrely she thinks that this is a good thing. Silly, silly girl.

Bloody Marys

What is the plural for Bloody Mary? Bloody Mary’s? Bloody Marys? Bloody Maries? Either way, I apologise for writing the last blog post under the influence of too many of them. Won’t happen again. I prefer Bellinis before noon anyway.
It was only because I was on a plane. Hence the Square State Revelation: they are marked on the little map that shows you that you are flying in a plane that is approximately one-third the length of Nebraska.
You can get t-shirts that say ‘It’s Hip to Be square’ with pictures of Wyoming on them. Colorado must feel so left out…

More apologies…

… for my mix of British and American English spelling. I’m not from round here.

Tomato juice

Are the Mr & Mrs T who make really very good Bloody Mary Mix in any way related to the actor who played BA Barracas? I think we should be told.

Wow, Colorado and Wyoming are both completely square. That’s cool.

Campaign For Politeness When Reclining Airplane Seats (CFPWRAP)

I fly a lot. I am not rich enough, or at least not sufficiently adept at sucking the corporate teat (expense fiddling) to fly anything other than 'Coach' class (I prefer the British name - Economy Class. Tell it like it is, guys.). I often fly long-haul, and overnight, because I'm damned if I'm going to arrive at some fun and exotic destintation and go to sleep straight away, and I'm usually quite good at sleeping on planes. Especially if some complimentary red wine and a few Advil PM are involved.
However, one thing that keeps me awake is simmering anger, when the person in front of me has abruptly reclined their seat, resulting in (at best) the top of my newspaper getting scrunched or (at worst) my red wine sliding into my lap. I find myself frozen; quite unable to actually say anything to them, but too annoyed to ignore my irritation and go to sleep. The reason I can't say anything, of course, is that I also reclined my seat without a thought for the person behind me. (Have you noticed how the seats always snap back with a jerk? It is impossible to edge them back gently and smoothly, either to decrease the changes of wine-spillage or in the hope that the passenger behind won't notice...).
The other thing, unfortunately, that keeps me awake is niggling guilt: I just reclined my seat into some poor woman's face without warning, and she may well now be shaking red wine out of her iPod and resigning herself to irritation-related insomnia.
My first attempt at lessening the latter of these two problems was to cunningly wait for the person behind me to fall asleep, on the assumption that once asleep they will neither know nor care that the space in front of their face has just decreased by a good three inches, and so I can doze in guilt-free comfort. The efficacy of this approach was soon disproved after few flights sat in front of nutcases who were either severely insomniac or actually wanted to watch all four of the in-flight movies in succession (despite one of them being 'Stardust' and another being one of the later and crapper parts of the 'Shrek' franchise).
Then the solution dawned one me: politeness. Even better, obvious and loud politeness. By turning round and sweetly asking the person behind me if they minded me reclining my seat I could free myself completely from any pesky guilt, and even acquire a vague glow of moral superiority: of course I am far too well-bred a person to callously shove a chair-back into someone's face without checking with them first. This is civlization, for God's sake! Also, if done early enough and with sufficient volume, the person in front of me would overhear and, even if not moved to follow my example and give me enough warning to hold onto my wine, would at least feel guilty as inconveniencing such a paragon of compassion as myself.
This approach was modified slightly after my initial 'Excuse me, do you mind if I put my seat back?' was once answered with an utterly unexpected 'Yes, please don't.' So now my preferred phrase is 'Excuse me, I'm just about to put my seat back, OK?' which is enough of a question to be polite, but less likely to invite an utterly unreasonable refusal. Indeed, the looks and comments of surprised gratitude that usually follow this request-cum-advisory have led me to wonder why this is not standard practise.
I have therefore decided to use my immense influence and popularity for the good of mankind, and to start CFPWRAP (look at the post title for what this stand for, I can't be bothered to write it out again). So there, it's started, pass it on.

If someone wants to start a Facebook group encouraging people to inform the passenger behind them on an airplane before they recline their seat, please let me know if you do. WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

On a related note, there is a Facebook group dedicated to encouraging people to be more polite in movie theaters, but I doubt that it will generate the kind of momentum that CFPWRAP is bound to, given that a) they spelt movie wrong in the group name and b) they only have 107 members and the group I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head has nearly nine hundred thousand.

A step in the right direction

Oh at long last, the one application I really, really want: StupidFilter.

Apprently this project will eventually produce open source filter software that can be plugged into anything, and will automatically filter out stupidity and stupid people... or at least, that is how I want to read it.

I intend on getting it installed in the following places:

• My e-mail (incoming only - I want to be able to send stupid stuff)
• My front door
• In a five-foot bubble around me while I'm walking to work
• At the door of all my favorite bars
• On my underwear

Oh, and on a device attached to my phone, along with a minature breath-alcohol-level tester. Say NO to drunk dialling.

Love and stupidity

I am going to go out on a limb and say that pretty much all young men are assholes when it comes to getting laid, and most young girls are complete idiots when they are falling in love. Some of them are even aware of this, but somehow various combinations of hormones, alcohol and blind optimism keep them going right on down the same paths.
Take my friend, who for the sake of this blog we’ll call ‘my silly friend’. She has got herself into an idiotic ‘flirty friends that aren’t quite dating’ situation (her words, not mine) and refuses to take any of my fine, hard-won, gin-tinged advice.
My advice, of course, being DTMFA (with respect to Dan Savage).
The background: girl meets boy. Girl likes boy and thinks he is quite cute but, after a long conversation in a bar, maybe a little dull. Girl gets a little drunk at said bar and decides to give him a kiss goodnight anyway. End of story, for a while.
Girl and boy bump into each other at a few social events, and boy seems to be being very, very flirty. Girl things this could be fun and agrees to go on what she thinks is a date. Boy brings a friend. Oh, clearly not a date then. The sudden slap of rejection does what slaps often do to women and turns her on like crazy (fuck off, Mothers Against Domestic Violence, you know that isn’t what I mean). A series of not-really dates follows, with varying levels of flirting. She tries being cool, being unavailable, being very flirtatious, being quite ridiculously flirtatious and mentioning other men she is dating. He seems to be doing all of the same things (except the men part. That would be a different problem). What we have here is a failure to communicate. More to follow.

A Certain Number of Monks

Today I discovered the best collective noun of all time. OK, maybe it isn't the VERY best, but it is the only one that has made me laugh out loud through a mouthful of beer today.
It's from Somerset Maugham's 'The Moon and Sixpence' and is in the middle of a (hopefully) toungue-in-cheek discussion of the tendency of women to use tears to manipulate people (presumably men).
Anyway, the phrase is 'a sufficiency of handkerchiefs'. The olde-worlde-Englishness combined with the biting sarcasm are what got me. It may even make it into my 'top 500 amusing quotations' (TBD - although numbers 1 through 499 are likely to be from Oscar Wilde).

Thus began a short search for other amusing collective nouns, starting from this page, which is mainly just stupid ('an absence of waiters' for example).
However, the frankly weird suggestion 'an abominable sight of monks' reminded me of a good friend of mine who happens, through no fault of her own, to be French. She once translated the name of the Iowa city Des Moines for me: it apparently means 'a certain number of monks'. Not 'some monks' or 'a few monks' but quite specifically 'a certain number of monks'. I think that this would be a perfect name for an indie/punk band. Royalties to my usual address, please.

Ok, just spotted 'a whored of prostitutes'. Excellent...

Back rub

I really want a back rub. That would be really, really nice right now.

There is a fine line between a blog and random stream-of-consciousness, sometimes, isn’t there?

I want a definitive answer…

I fly a lot, and being a rather laid-back individual, I am a firm believer in remaining in my nice cosy corner next to a power outlet, near enough to the gate to make sure my flight doesn’t leave without me, tapping away productively until the very last moment. I then happily saunter along and take my seat on the plane without any of that tedious waiting around in line that other travelers seem intent on putting themselves through.
Very well, truthfulness has got the better of me. Perhaps nearer to the truth is that I am usually in the bar deliberating on whether I can fit in another martini in the six minutes before my flight is scheduled. Not that I have any doubts about my ability to drink a martini in this time, but sometimes the waitress will take several minutes bringing the damn drink in the first place, and I don’t want to have to leave my olive.
Either way, I am perplexed by the behavior of the throng of people waiting around the gate like starving men at a red cross drop zone, staring at the flight attendant and willing them to call their row next so that they can inject themselves right at the front of the line, make it through the gate and have plenty of time to wait in the gangway of the plane itself with the strap of their plastic bag full of snacks digging into their wrist while they watch a family of six try to fit their entire two-weeks-worth of luggage in an overhead bin.
Apparently this is the crux of the matter: overhead bin space. This is the rationale these people invent for utterly inconveniencing themselves, giving anyone watching them a stress-induced migraine and snapping tetchily at the flight attendant who has dared let those pesky freeloading first class passengers on first. They want to make sure they get space for their luggage in the overhead bin above their seat, and not be forced to (the horror) put their irritating little wheelie-case a little further down the aisle.
Rule 1: unless you are on an overnight trip, you should check your luggage anyway. Otherwise you’ll just have to lug it around the airport in search of the best bar, and throw out all of your toiletries that you forgot to decant into doll-sized bottles.
Rule 2: anything you need during the flight should be by your feet. If you insist on tapping away at a laptop, bringing your own snacks AND having several paperbacks then you can damn well have a cramped footwell. Deal with it.
Rule 3: what are you doing bringing your own snacks? You will be inundated with free peanuts, pretzels and small pieces of cheese-flavored cardboard. Enjoy them. The only thing worth carrying is a decent supply of water, since apparently flying is very dehydrating (as are martinis) and no airline seems capable of serving water in anything larger than a thimble.
However, I am prepared to accept that these people in hot pursuit of prime wheelie-bag-storing real estate do probably make the overall process more efficient than if everyone were like me and hung around until the last minute when the line had disappeared. Although, obviously, if we all did that then there would be no line. Would it be a battle of wills as to who could take it longest? Several of us gritting our teeth muttering “I will not get up yet” until the next person loses their nerve, dashes through and starts the final stampede.

So, I want a definitive answer – is it better to be on first, stow your bags exactly where you damn well want and sit comfortably in the plane waiting, or keep your territory at the gate/bar until the last possible moment?

I really need to start flying first class.

Book club recommendation

Instead of ploughing through yet another worthy 'Kite-Runner' rip-off (you know the type: based somewhere troubled and vaguely exotic, full of carefully designed easy-to-understand atrocities and injustices narrated by a disenfranchised minority/woman, with a dusty-looking matt yellow landscape on the cover contrasting rudely with the shiny metallic calligraphy-style title) I would like to suggest, if you steadfastly refuse to disband the club and actually admit that you don't like the other people and have nothing to say to them, that you read something good. Like this:
'The Meaning of Liff'
Or, alternatively, don't buy it and read the transcript here. Still funny, and means that you really have no need to have all of those annoying people sitting in your living room taking up valuable oxygen, coffee and finger food.
Written by the late Douglas Adams (Who wrote the steadily-declining-in-quality 'Hitchhiker's Guide' series) and some other individual called John Lloyd (incidentally the name of my first ever boyfriend, although almost certainly not the same person, unless he was substantially more witty, sophisticated and prolific at the age of 4 than 12).

Mutual vs. in common

OK this pisses me off so I'm just going to explain it once.

A mutual friend is when you and another person both like each other. Your friendship is mutual. I would highly recommend that you try and ensure that all of your friendship are like this, otherwise you are a bit weird.

A friend in common is where you and someone else are both friends with the same person. It is the most interesting thing about social networking sites (yes, more interesting then being a pirate zombie, if you can believe that).

Just because Charles Dickens and Facebook both seem to confuse the terms, doesn't mean I have to like it.

Does this make me a slut?

Some things that girls think make them 'a slut' but are actually perfectly reasonable behavior:

• Carrying condoms in your purse
• Carrying a toothbrush in your purse
• Keeping a spare pair of panties in your desk
• Going to second base on the first date
• Going to third base on the second date
• Having sex with a guy before he says 'I love you'

Things that actually make you a slut:

• Getting drunk and having sex with a guy you just met in a bar
• ... and his roommate
• ... on camera

Hope that clears things up.

Losing my virginity

My first blog post ever. Decided this was a better title than 'Test'.

So, three relatively random thoughts on virginity:

In popular culture, 'virgin' seems synonymous with 'young beautiful girl'. Major mistake. Look where biblical scholars mistranslating 'young woman' as 'virgin' got us: Catholicism.

Islam anecdotally promises 72 virgins to martyrs in heaven. Why virgins? Wouldn't they have more fun with 72 hookers? Or, even better, 50 hookers and two soccer teams so they have sport to watch while they recover from sexual exhaustion.
And please, spare a thought for the virgins. Where do they come from? I don't think sharing some psycho suicide bomber with 71 other virgins is their idea of heaven, so maybe is this their hell. What kind of virgins end up in hell? Presumably murderers, thieves and blasphemers, which doesn't bode well for the original martyr...
I'm just saying, these are the questions I'd be asking before putting on the semtex vest and strolling to the nearest cafe.

Here in the US teen abstinence campaigns are apparently huge (don't ask me, I've never seen the appeal) along with pledges, rings, pins, and anti-masturbation support groups (that last one seems kind of self-defeating, but hey...). Instead, according to this article, they all go out and have loads of oral sex (it seems Jesus doesn't mind that) and they unsurprisingly still have a high rate of STDs and teen pregnancy. To my mind, the religious campaigns against sex education in school make about as much sense as arguing that if you don't explain to kids that firing a gun at someone will kill them then gun crime will decrease...

The excellently and ironically straight-talking Dan Savage often has a lot to say about this. (His podcasts are awesome, especially when he's hung over).