May 2012
5 posts
5 tags
Oi, insurance companies!
For various reasons, my better half has a load of (tiddly) pension schemes. Each one sends out an annual statement. Almost without exception they are laid out thoughtlessly.
Take this one from L&G. Of the 9 pages, 3 are almost entirely blank. That wastes paper & energy. And is also a pain in the arse when I come to scan the document - a near-empty page is as much effort as a full one.
...
3 tags
Some lines upon the characteristics of Greek...
There was a young man of Corfu Who desperately needed a poo He forgot all the rules About paper and stools And ended up blocking the loo
Mark Iliff - May 2012
1 tag
Beaches with a dress code
I was on one of those beaches with a dress code the other day. It was very unsettling.
On the kind of beach I prefer, clothing is there to do a job: dark lenses, thick soles, wide brims. On the other kind, people highlight and emphasise their erogenous zones using flimsy bright fabrics. And they make their kids do the same, which is particularly unsettling.
The awful thing is that this...
4 tags
“She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by...”
– PG Wodehouse - Jeeves and the unbidden guest
4 tags
Why the "localism agenda" is tosh
To the politicians who witter on - ahead of Thursday’s local elections - about localism and giving power back to communities I have two words: postcode lottery.
As long as people consider it unacceptable for healthcare or education standards or the postal service or rail fares or anything else to vary across the country, central government will take an interest. Will have to to remain in...
April 2012
1 post
2 tags
“And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living...”
– Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
March 2012
3 posts
2 tags
Innumeracy is cool
Tweeted by Will Smith (@Will_Smith) on 19 Mar 2012:
Think of a number. Double it. Add six. Half it. Take away the number you started with. Your answer is three. Mind=Blown
Unless he’s being ironic - and there are no indications of that - he is amazed that (2x + 6) ÷ 2 = x + 3
He’s parading (or feigning) innumeracy like a badge. He’s role-modelling innumeracy.
Why?
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1 tag
Storytelling / Andrew Stanton
I hate it when somebody tweets a link to a TED video. Because if I like them ~ and why would I follow them if I didn’t? ~ then I’ll probably like it. And probably spend time I haven’t got watching the vid.
That happened today with Andrew Stanton’s TED talk on storytelling (NSFW).
Were the 20 minutes well spent? Well at least 14 were. Including this great line:...
1 tag
Overformatting
1 I was reading The Merchant of Venice. 2 I was reading ‘The Merchant of Venice’. 3 I was reading The Merchant of Venice.
The man who cannot see that No 1 is the best-looking, as well as the sufficient and sensible form, should print or write nothing but advertisements for lost dogs or ironmongers’ catalogues: literature is not for him to meddle with.
— George Bernard...
February 2012
2 posts
2 tags
Person of enhanced brevity...
…is so much nicer a euphemism than vertically challenged, don’t you think?
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6 tags
Why can't I put this on my census form?
Let’s not be English, French or German any more. Let’s be European. No, not European, let’s be men. Let’s be humanity. All we have to do is get rid of one last piece of egocentricity - patriotism.
- Victor Hugo (1802-85)
I found this is Stephen Clarke’s surprisingly affectionate “1000 years of annoying the French” (ISBN-13: 978-0593062722).
I...
January 2012
3 posts
2 tags
“Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers”
– placard of a protester against the Nadine Dorries bill (photographed in the Guardian)
1 tag
Chronicle of a reticent clack.: English... →
maloriebrooke:
Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart,…
“Luck is probability taken personally”
– Anon
December 2011
3 posts
4 tags
4 tags
Guardian knot
This is the process for placing a death notice in The Guardian:
spend 15-20 mins scratting round their website. Find nothing except 2 email addresses that look vaguely relevant (obituaries@, classified.advertising@)
write to the email addresses
when they reply, discover that actually you need a different address altogether: announcements@guardian.co.uk
email your copy
when you get an email...
Teaching & learning
“Are you offering to teach me something?” “Teach? No,” said Granny. “Ain’t got the patience for teaching. But I might let you learn.”
— Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
November 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Quote flipper: now in my lab
Those of us who labour over hot code know that one of the most tedious tasks is to pick over a string converting ” to ’ (or vice versa).
I got so fed up with it that I built a little something to automate the task. Help yourself
“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.”
– Terry Pratchett, Snuff
“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can...”
– Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad
October 2011
2 posts
“this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to”
– Ashleigh Brilliant b1933
2 tags
Palayorno
Palone Ranger (Kenneth Williams): We’re at your command, me and my trusty palayorno
Wild Alf Pubes (Kenneth Horne): Palamino
Palone Ranger: Well any palayorno’s a palamino
Woman in saloon (Betty Marsden): Hello pardner, what brings you down to these parts?
Palone Ranger: I’ve got a lousy agent
Both from Round the Horne series 3 episode 19 June 1967 - repeated today on BBC Radio 4x
September 2011
2 posts
“If you’re looking for sympathy you’ll find it between shit and...”
– David Sedaris
Do I miss Facebook?
Who remembers when “Social” was about the warmth of human companionship?
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sedun:
No.
August 2011
1 post
1 tag
July 2011
5 posts
3 tags
“Humans, eh? Think they’re lords of creation. Not like us cats. We *know*...”
– Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
2 tags
Blanding iron
blanding iron n. Metaphorical implement used by those with more power than insight to remove class, style and personality from creative works that they commission.
Example: “Just got the draft script back from the subject expert. He really let rip with the blanding iron.”
1 tag
Sir Humphrey admits a mistake
Sir Humphrey: The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume; but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is...
5 tags
“It’s the chicken coming home to roost. … Every dog has its day, and...”
– Mark Lewis on BBC Radio 4, 15/7/2011 13.04
2 tags
Resentment
Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies
— Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
June 2011
1 post
2 tags
Power
When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow’s-point-of-view is seldom necessary.
— Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
March 2011
2 posts
3 tags
He ain't AV, he ain't my brother
Wasn’t too bothered about the Alternative vote referendum until I heard Lord Hurd claim - just now - that AV would be unacceptable because it involves “higher maths”.
I dread to think what he counts as basic maths. If his butler were away, could he count his own shoe laces? (Let’s take it as a given that he couldn’t tie them.)
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3 tags
Versi-terminal stem acquisition
= Getting the wrong end of the stick
February 2011
2 posts
2 tags
2 tags
Crass-selling
Crass-selling – The kind of excessive, illogical cross-selling increasingly seen in online shops. Especially those whose names contain the 1st & last letters of the alphabet.
January 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Capitalisation
Capitalisation is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse!
I don’t like reposting things that arrive uncredited but this is too sage not to pass along.
2 tags
iPhobe
iPhobe - person who thinks that one brand of smartphone is pretty much the same as any other
2 tags
Lazy journalists' plane story generator
Finely turned satire: www.radans.net/jens/planestory.html
Thanks to Flight Global
December 2010
2 posts
1 tag
2 tags
PEBUCK
= problem exists between user’s chair & keyboard
November 2010
1 post
1 tag
Big Bang in 8 words
In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded
— Terry Pratchett
October 2010
1 post
5 tags
A tour of Crete in limericks
Τυμπάκι
There once was a man of Glasgoo Who was feeling quite chilly just noo He felt so parky He left for Timbaki And his wife went to Timbaki too Mark & Naomi Iliff 2009
Μπαλι
There once was a woman from Bali With oodles of arms, just like Kali She could pleasure herself While dusting a shelf And riding to work on her Harley Mark & Naomi Iliff 2010
Αρμένοι
Armeni’s a fine...
September 2010
5 posts
1 tag
Assumptions...
…make an ass out of ump and tions.
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tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
1 tag
Maoirse dancing rocks!
1 tag
Gambogeaphobe
= one who does not delight in yellow from Tony Coe
Shame about my photo, then…
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1 tag
Great book for web designers & their clients
Notes on book design by Derek Birdsall
Some clients struggle to get their heads round the idea that the web is not a book. But it would be great if we all spent a little longer thinking about how a website could be more like a book.
Birdsall has designed some tasty books in his time, and this book is oozing with ideas that can make web pages - not just books - both effective and pleasing.
...
August 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Pendulo-gyratory arbitrage
= what you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts from me
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Er, hello
Is this thing on? One, two… one, two…
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