alexsarll: (howl)
Alex ([personal profile] alexsarll) wrote2006-02-01 11:01 am

How do you fly this bally thing?

January's done, children. We've swilled the last of that sour vintage, 2005, from our glass, and now we can make a proper start. I thought that perhaps I was just more cheerful because I'd been envisaging a world under my ruthlessly benevolent rule on the way to the station, but even without me, things are looking up. The oil industry's monkey has urged an end to oil addiction and, even more cheeringly, one of Blair's more idiotic ideas, that abhorrent Religious Hatred law, has just gone down in flames! And Blair even pulled a Galloway and missed a vote whose result he could have changed! IN YOUR FACE, LOSER! YOU AND YOUR MAD GOD ARE BOTH GOING DOWN!
So yeah, I'm feeling cheery.

Couldn't be doing with The Damned Don't Cry; it's not a patch on the song which took its name though amusingly, like Visage, it features one R.Egan. I think Mildred Pierce was the only Joan Crawford film I needed to see. I was much more impressed with The Lonely Guy; it seems very dated now, but it's still a reminder of how funny Steve Martin used to be. Strange thing is, I know I've seen bits of this film before (my parents were great fans), but I honestly don't know whether I saw the whole thing as a child or not. If I did, it was certainly at an age before anything but the ferns made sense to me.

In Mad Science news: skiing cures the deaf and transplanting the ovaries from a sheep and a pig into a 28-year-old female patient to see what effect, if any, it had on her sexual preferences will, surprisingly enough, not produce good results. NB: latter link contains pictures of oldskool Russian gays which are mostly hilarious, but may be non-work safe for some.

The news of Berlusconi's vow of celibacy is good simply because it means that a bad man isn't getting any. But by focusing on the comparison of politicians to athletes, I think this article totally misses the point as regards the potential benefits or otherwise. Politicians need some of that competitive urge, to be sure, but they ought primarily to be thinkers - and as the idiocy of most monastic philosophers shows, and Cryptonomicon reminded me, thinkers are not at their best when they're backed up.

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 11:49 am (UTC)(link)
Oh gosh, how grim. Poor woman.
I hope they took them back out again. Otherwise surely her body would have rejected them, no? Bodies have difficulty not rejecting organs that come from the same species even.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 11:52 am (UTC)(link)
There were some bloody peculiar transplant attempts, back in the day. I believe pigs were one of the more common sources.

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 11:53 am (UTC)(link)
Prob cos a pig's organs are mostly the same size as human's.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 11:55 am (UTC)(link)
We have a lot in common with them, really. As Churchill said, "Dogs look up to a man. Cats look down on a man. Pigs, pigs are equals."

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 11:57 am (UTC)(link)
I love pigs. They seem very nice animals.
I didn't know that quote.
I remember reading Orwell's Animal Farm when I was a young 'un and feeling quite sad that it was the pigs that betrayed the farm.

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 11:56 am (UTC)(link)
Medicine was quite odd anyway, wasn't it? Still is, really.
I am reading a book about English folklore at the mo, which includes stuff about folklore medicine - all quite odd beliefs.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 12:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I always carry a conker in my pocket, against arthritis.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 12:16 pm (UTC)(link)
So says the folklore, and my dad reckons it helped his...

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 12:23 pm (UTC)(link)
So you always have a conker in your pocket?
I suppose it would also help if you needed something quickly to buzz at a new bug.

I had a conker in my pocket for ages for some reason, and I don't have arthritis. Do you think the two are connected?!

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 12:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Could be, couldn't it?

It has been Proven By Science that my head is tougher than conkers.

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 12:28 pm (UTC)(link)
That sounds like an experiment the Russian Communist Scientists might have conducted.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
The friend who 'conducted' the 'experiment' did have a sneaking admiration for Stalin.

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)
By conduct the experiment, do you mean they hit you on the head with a conker?

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Indeed. I felt a light tap, and then heard "You b@st@rd, that was my best conker!"

[identity profile] my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 02:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Haha! Well, serve them right for throwing it at your bonce then.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2006-02-01 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)
This was no mere throw, this was a proper swung-on-string-as-in-game-of-conkers attack!