the greatest game show ever

game shows are universally dreadful. they are hosted by grinning pipsqueaks who ask dumb questions and offer tacky prizes. it's all carrot and no stick. idiocy isn't punished. that's why the game show featured on the chuck jones toon "the ducksters" (1950) is so good: it's entertainingly cruel, arbitrary and punitive.

here the host, daffy duck, interrogates the contestant, porky pig:

daffy duck: i will now play a passage from a famous opera, you must name the opera.
porky pig: but... but i'm weary.
daffy duck: listen carefully!
(plays a single note on the piano).
daffy duck: and there you have it! now, what's the opera?
porky pig: "c-cavalleria rusticana"?
daffy duck: audience?
audience: "rigoletto"!

genius.

a gap in nature

when a chap has died after a long life, most of it spent buzzing along at the top of his professional tree, there really isn't anything to repine about. it's what most people would probably want for themselves: a long and illustrious innings and all that rot. so there's no reason to blub about the passing of the great english stage actor, sir paul scofield. but his death does leave a gap in the theatre, if not a "gap in nature" (to borrow a resonant phrase from "antony & cleopatra").

all the great names have gone out: ralph richardson, john gielgud, alec guinness, laurence olivier, richard burton, ian richardson, paul scofield. only ian mckellan is left. the english stage has had a twilight of the gods. don't expect to see such abundant talent again.

though thankfully there is still scofield's terrific performance as the elder brothers in the bbc dramatisation of "martin chuzzlewit". watched it again the other night. splendid stuff.

exemplary

in a command performance of queenbeeism demi moore told david letterman her beauty regimen involved bathing in turpentine and, afterwards, having leeches applied to herself. what, not impressed? "these aren't just swamp leeches though," she assured letterman, "we are talking about highly trained medical leeches." (i wonder where these leeches did their residency? johns hopkins?) anyway, hats off to old ms. moore.

as women are the most mimetic of creatures, copying whatever diet or health fad the stars du jour are reported to be doing, we can realistically expect to see oodles of women inspired by moore's example. hopefully teenage girls are right now making the necessary appointments to be feasted on by leeches, stung by jellyfish, or bitten by fruit bats in the expectation of acquiring glamorous looks and perfect well-being.

two ladybirds, bonking

currently reading

who needs george eliot?

the fabulous fox

the scope and exercise of royal power has been in remission for 4 centuries now. though the concept of a "royal prerogative", or exemption from the constraints of ordinary laws, still endures. it does. really. only it is no longer possessed by the crown. it has passed instead to basil brush. and why not? after 40 years of unsurpassable and unparalleled cheek—as cheek goes, it's quite as good as that given by mr toad to the constable in "wind in the willows"—the fox has earned it. he can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants, about whomever he wants. defamation doesn't apply.

unfortunately the northants police aren't awake to this. they've just dispatched a "race relations officer" (could only happen in england) to investigate basil's disparaging (and hilarious) remarks about new age travellers. a group more accurately described as "bums" or "thieves".

this enquiry is daft.

basil is funny. and gypsies are filthy. we don't need police to tell us this.

this controversy will probably remind literate observers of the incident in jane austen's "emma" (vol.3, ch.3) where harriet is terrorized by nasty gypsies. another case of good being waylaid by evil.

find sommat else to do, mr plod.

science is a laggard

plodding, slow-witted science has a habit of ponderously confirming what our quicker intuitive senses have long understood. to wit: a scientific study (admittedly using a small sample size) has ok'd the existence of "small man's disease". what a revelation. who hasn't been irritated by the upstart antics of undersized men? the findings were reported in an english daily. how appropriate.

the system works

4 million victorians are expected to be obese by 2020. hooray.

slow melt

39º today. 39º the other day. 41º tomorrow. some autumn. i guess we should thank china—proud owner of the world's dirtiest economy—for these meteorological treats. a bit more of this and home swimming pools could become popular again—water restrictions notwithstanding.

gin is the thing

james bond represents a cod sophistication. his preferred drink, the vodka martini, is one of the vilest concoctions ever made. and is pointless in any case. the martini is perfect. can't be improved upon. and is best made with bombay sapphire.

thin stew

the booker prize has been doing business for 40 years. that's 40 years of heaping over-praise on very modest (and sometimes very bad) novels. now they're soliciting the public's opinion as to which of the prize-winners is the best. but there's a hitch. none of them are literature of the first rank.

in "sesame and lilies" john ruskin momentarily broke off denouncing modern life (a favourite subject of his) to draw a distinction between books of permanent value (like jane austen's) and those which are merely topical or readable (salman rushdie's—though then only sometimes). he called them "books of all time" and "books of the hour".

the problem with the booker prize is that it celebrates a barren period in english literature. despite the hub-bub, and the champagne-and-smoked-salmon of self-promotion, the booker prize has unearthed no "book for all time". or anything even close. so the survey of public opinion is futile.

much better to be honest about things, and withhold the prize until something of substance is written. however long that takes. but, then, the booker prize doesn't exist to celebrate art, but to encourage sales. so who cares?

overheard in the mall

teen 1: "what time is it?"
teen 2: raises arm and displays analogue watch.
teen 1: (none the wiser) "what's that in digital?"

loving-kindness

this week the st. francis of assisi award, for generosity of soul, goes to the girl who gave up her chocolate wombat to her pint-sized nephew. this is remarkable in so many ways. in the first place women don't voluntarily relinquish chocolate. it's not in their genetic code. and, second, these wombats are awfully hard to find. (just ask david attenborough.) an admirable gesture and all that but, personally, i think she's taking the sacrificial aspect of lent a little too far. though i'm sure the nephew in q. will be smiling about it.

sacked!

a female physicist working at the particle super-collider in geneva, for illegally taking home neutrinos from work. a forensic search of her apartment found a wardrobe full of them. she used to smuggle them out in her labcoat pockets. tisk, tisk.

why bother?

apparently there's a film version of "brideshead revisited" in the works, featuring emma thompson (presumably as the gelid lady marchmain). can't see the point. the 1981 granada version is near enough to ideal. the comparison is bound to be invidious. like that awful, miscast keira knightley "pride and prejudice". again, the bbc version made not long before was excellent. if the original can't be bettered, don't try.

i'd rather see waugh's "decline and fall" or "scoop" made into a feature.

the point of "brideshead", or one of the points anyway, was to show the awkward position of england's recusant catholics living "in partibus infidelium". living in protestant england, but apart from protestant england. strangers as it were in their own country. i imagine that's how all christians must feel in england now. especially having to witness the undergraduate antics of the archbishop of canterbury.

15 weeks

to get into prime running form before the "run melbourne" 10k on june 22. the distance is a lark, but the training required to run flat out for 40 minutes is horrible. still, it beats "drinking for england" as the saying goes.

the problem with hillary

yes, the problem with hillary has nowt to do with experience, or expectation (her belief that america owes her the presidency for not rocking the boat during bill's felate-gate boo-boos), or even competence.

hillary's problem is there aren't many people, bless them, who want a termagant in power.

there's a moment in "great expectations" where joe gargery explains to pip his sister's cruel nature. "your sister is given to government," he says. that is, the bossing about and hectoring of others (made worse by a flaunting tone of self-righteousness). that's essentially hillary.

simply regarded as a human being, hillary is a lousy specimen. that's an awful handicap in an election.

while the upside of an obama candidacy is the chance to finally leave behind the squalor and the squabbles of the 60s. something i'm sure we're all sick of. the culture wars are over anyway. look around. the left won. there's no culture left to speak of. instead we have the "turner prize".

caveat emptor

tried jalna fat-free natural yoghourt. double yuck. reminds me of something fielding mellish (woody allen in the movie "sleeper") said: "this stuff tastes terrible. i could have made a fortune selling it in my health food shop in greenwich village".

's wonderful

it's incongruous. though knowledge is more extensive, and more easily available than it has ever been, people have seldom been dumber. if only alexander pope was around today. it's a golden age of idiocy. just the other day a caller on a bbc radio show suggested gandhi's first name was "goosey goosey". a pity it wasn't. it's a great improvement on mahatma.

still, the thickening of the west has its sunny side. like this found notice for a missing cat. (i love the "not house broken" detail.) of course it's a brushtail possum (the chap deserves a citation for valour for picking it up—very sharp claws). just a wonderful moment.

there's always the chance the whole thing is a wheeze. but i'd like to think it's on the level. it's fun to live in a world where people can no longer distinguish cats from possums.

public-sector teachers everywhere should call a snap strike to celebrate the occasion. none of this would be possible but for them.

retard of the week

me. for my first car mishap. unassisted. while parking. while i was wearing my lucky red crocs, too...