Today’s Quotation of the Day:
It seems that the Republican Party in the United States has made an audacious bid to retain power by running Mr Burns and Marge Simpson as candidates for president and vice-president.
[John Doyle, TV critic, in his 2 September 2008 column]
Well it cracked me up, anyway.
Yesterday we were briefly in Rochester and stopped to have afternoon tea (well, tea and cake, not the full works with cucumber sandwiches, scones and jam, vicars, etc.) in the cathedral tea shop. I ordered a coffee for Noreen and a large pot of tea for me only to be told:
I can’t do you a large pot of tea, but I can do you a pot of tea for two.
Duh?!
Misty over at Momentary lapses of insanity has come up with some absolute gems of proofreading errors, all of which are perfectly OK according to Microdaft’s spellchecker. Her list includes these classics:
Mrs X lived in a charming country cottage, almost completely covered in hysteria.
Paul was overjoyed at the opportunity to be reunited with his long lost brothel.
Her train of thought was cuddled to say the least.
A large croup had gathered by the monument.
They managed to get themselves the lead prat in the play.
Alice somehow managed to get her knickers in a twit.
The farmer won the prize with his fine new bollocks.
Poof reader required, contact …
Another wonderful quote from a correspondent just now on the BBC News Channel, vis-á-vis some political tribulation or other:
[The Labour Party] conference will be an extremely febrile week.
I heard this on today’s BBC Lunchtime News from Rt Hon. Keith Vaz MP:
There is an economic tsunami coming over the Atlantic.
An interestingly picturesque, if apposite, way of expressing the current economic difficulties.
This is today’s Quotation of the Day entry:
If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.
There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!
[George W Bush, during a 2004 videoconference with national security and military officials. Quoted in Lt Gen Ricardo S Sanchez’s memoir, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story an at www.mydd.com/story/2008/6/2/114955/1042]
I was going to say this is scary, but it isn’t; it is obscene (and that’s a word I don’t often use). What price democracy and Christian tolerance now? Anyone still like to argue that Dubya isn’t dangerous and bigoted?
Wu-Wei is the Taoist expression for the power of positive not-doing. It is the action in non-action, the knowing in not-knowing, the something in nothing, the doing in not-doing. Wu-Wei is following the way of the water, the way of the wind. It is the not absence of action, but it is the absence of trying. Wind is never still, but it has no intention. Water ever seeks its own level, but not on purpose.
[from www.foolquest.com/zen.htm]
Connioseurs of 1970s UK police soap operas will remember the refrain “Let’s be ’avin’ you” when an arrest was about to be made. Our attention has been drawn to an example not of nominative determinism, but of locational determinism – the existence of a police facility on Letsby Avenue in the Yorkshire town of Sheffield (it’s right next to Sheffiled City Ariport). Sadly there is as yet no news of an “Onyer Way” or “Evenin Hall” in the vicinity.
[HT Feedback @ New Scientist]
The “Feedback” column this week’s New Scientist contains this item …
Thanks to Terence Dunmore for alerting us to a report in the 11 June issue of Professional Engineering about the UK’s new Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (WEEE regulations). It warns readers: “If you are a producer of WEEE, you must make sure it is disposed of in an environmentally sound manner, including the treatment, reuse, recovery and recycling of components where appropriate.”
Dunmore is puzzled. “Isn’t the local sewage department already doing just that?” he asks.
Life must be understood backwards … but it must be lived forward.
[Soren Keirkegaard]