Tuesday 22nd April 2003
On the 10th April I said I had trouble believing a certain web page was genuine. That's because it isn't - thanks to Tom Watson MP for gently putting me straight:
" "WATSON, Tom" wrote:
It's a spoof. Relax. Not even an MP could do something as dire as my teens section with a straight face.
Tom "
Ah well, once again I fall victim to my own naivety (see my belief in the Law hoaxes below). Having a quick browse around the rest of Tom's site, despite any rash generalisations about MPs I may choose to make in the future, I found it very engaging and picked up a link for this news story debating who has the best beard. While it intrigues me that the Beard Liberation Front appear to go for beards of the ginger variety I think some consideration should have gone to Brian Blessed, surely a candidate, along with Rasputin and Moses, for Best Beard Wearer of all time. However the BLF have given extra marks for being an anti-war beard wearer, and I have no idea of Mr Blessed's politics in that respect.
If your beard curiosity is not sated by learning about the BLF, this quiz is a good challenge for the first day back after Easter. Well, it beats struggling with EC Merger Control Regulations anyway.
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Monday 21st April 2003
Disaster! Paramount appear to have stopped showing Seinfeld every day at 9:30pm. I am at a loss at what to do - would you believe that often I would spend the whole day looking forward to that 30 minute window in my life? I don't think even the repeats of This Life on BBC2 can make up for this. The Simpsons is always on before I get back from work, and watching anything else is, much of the time, akin to repeatedly stabbing a rusty compass in my eyes. I may be forced to do what those unwashed children always suggested in the Why Don't You? theme tune (surprisingly I can't find a single link to that show)- meanwhile, however, I'll be encouraging others to sign the Seinfeld online petition.
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Friday 11th April 2003
As, like most pages on the internet which serve no purpose, this little corner of Paste is an egotistical and self-centred (stop me if I'm being tautologous) exercise, I propose to start building up a little gallery of people with my name (yes, this idea is completely unoriginal and passe, but godammit, so am I most of the time). The first guy is a dead US general from the Civil War.
He was born in 1811 and died in 1886. He fought in the Mexican War and then was a Union quartermaster in the American Civil War, apparently.
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Thursday 10th April 2003
I'm having trouble believing this is genuine. Stop Press, members of parliament are 'cool', 'down with the kids' and very very 'patronising'.
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Wednesday 9th April 2003
On Saturday I went to London Zoo with Claire and Jim. The last time I visited was years ago but recently have done 'the Scotsman's Zoo', which consists of wandering around the fence peering at what can be seen from Regent's Park - it's not bad actually - Camels, Bongos, Wolves and, um, Cows are all visible for free. But of course, it's only when you pay you £12 to get in that you can see the monkeys - and it's them that people seem to be obsessed with these days - whether its Satanic looking midget primates, stealing food from each other and persecuting birds trapped in their cage, Chimps wanking, Tamarins picking their nose or Orang-Utangs baring their arse at you to make you go away (actually this happened to me at Dublin zoo, rather than London) monkeys (and by that inaccurate description I mean the whole gamut of primates, apes etc) are always the crowd puller.
And my favourite discovery on Saturday was a kind of monkey called a potto. These live in the bunker under some monkeys and rats called 'Moonlight World', which contains nocturnal animals, and is just slightly too dark inside. I knocked over a couple of children in there - not because I couldn't see them, but it was a good excuse. The Potto are nocturnal, furry strange bush baby type creatures, small with cartoon-cute faces and disproportionately long and skinny limbs. They move very slowly and gracefully and when clambering over each other they appear to be engaging in some slow motion capoeira, except not as wanky. There was one hanging upside down behind the glass, that unfurled itself, until its whole body was dangling from the roof, like a bat. Then, liked a stoned, but proficient, acrobat it spread each limb out in turn, stretching and turning, as though moving underwater. Finally after it had finshed doing this, it brought its whole body up again into a furry ball, still hanging from the roof.
My perennial favourites - apart from the urang-utans - were also in residence: Two beautiful tigers, but miserably imprisoned, and the penguins. The zoo however, seemed a bit tired - it lacked a certain buzz, despite the hoardes of ill-mannered and care-free children, whoses parents did not appear to mind as they dropped litter on the floor, feet away from rubbish bins or banged impatiently on the glass of whatever animal's attention they demanded. And the aforesaid tigers, other big cats and large animals are a depressing sight in their glum enclosures.
One of the things the zoo is lacking are elephants, removed recently after a keeper was crushed by one. That and that they don't have enough room for them - which, although I missed the grey leg-faced men, I found quite reassuring.
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