It Is What It Is

Stumble PONPONPON

2011-11-21T17:17:00.001Z

The other day I got my first message sent to me via stumbleupon. Stumbleupon, for those of you who don't know, is a service for sharing things on the interweb that you've stumbled upon, hence the name, and for stumbling upon things that other people have stumbled upon, also hence the name. It's stumbling upon in the vernacular, you don't nearly trip up or anything. As no-one had ever sent a message to me from there before it was quite exciting. Who could it be?

Hi..dear....nice to see you .

What's this? Who is this? My mother? My mother doesn't really talk like that. My sweetheart? I don't think I have one. Maybe I do and I forgot? I hope not, that would be quite shameful. Perhaps it's just someone who talks like that. I know, here's a brilliant idea - why don't I just read on and find out?

i really wonderful to got your address and so sorry to bothered you.

Well, whoever you are, perhaps you are wonderful, but you haven't got my address, as far as I know, or surely you wouldn't have sent me a message from stumbleupon, a very unusual choice of means to get in touch with me. There are plenty of others, easy to find. But don't worry, you didn't bothered me.

My name's Heaven_Ou.I am a Chinese,and i have been do foreign trade business several years ago.

Oh really? I hope that was a good time for you.

I work at Chinese government,lead a super-work-team all around the world.

That sounds fantastic, you must love it!

I have a beautiful dream,

That's wonderful, what is it? World peace? An end to hunger? No more reality TV?

I want make our website more and more reputation.

Let me stop you there a moment, Heaven_Ou. I have to say the phrase 'paucity of ambition' cannot help but leap forth from whatever part of my mind it hangs out in when it's not needed. Your beautiful dream is that you want to make your website more and more reputation? Well, what is it? Maybe I can help if it's my kind of thing.

Maybe you can help me to make noted in your business relationship.

Well, maybe, come on, tell me what it is.

China is the biggest manufacturer in the world,everything is better quality and better price.

Really? I'm not so sure. As for quality, well... I've been eating a lot of noodles from various Asian countries recently, and none of them have been from China, but if they had, I'd have been thinking, as I ate them, "I hope these aren't full of lead or cyanide or something!" Now, that may be a little unfair - but it's not entirely unfair, is it? And as for price, isn't India cheaper? I'm sorry, I don't want to burst your bubble, carry on.

and this time more and more the original manufacturer come together and cooperate to government make this website. So we have so many kinds of products for exports. And I think you can just do it with us,and we will be all benefit.

Well, it's possible, but I don't really do sales-type stuff, I think it's unlikely, but let's see what you've got.

Our Products :Diamond powder,LED lights,Drilling machine,Medical instruments,New material,Electronic components... etc.

Whoah whoah whoah there, Heaven_Ou! I really think it's sounding like you have incompetently in your task contacted, in a random manner, a random person who has no particular suitability to your needs at all, in fact I think I'm probably less useful for what you have in mind than the average person! Diamond powder? I don't know anyone in the mining business, and if I did I don't think they'd want to buy crucial materials in such a strange way. LED lights? I don't know anyone that needs a lot of those. I could give you the number of the bike shop across the road, but I'd have to look it up, and you could do that. Drilling machine? See diamond powder. Medical instruments? Good grief, no! If I ever have to undergo surgery again I very much do not want the surgeon to say "I'm going to be using a scalpel I bought from some bloke on the other side of the world who randomly contacted someone I know on stumbleupon." I'd leg it! Unless I was unable to leg it and that's why I needed surgery. Then I'd drag myself out of there on my elbows or something. New material? Well, you have given me some new material for It Is What It Is! Do you see what I did there? No, probably not. I have no idea what you meant by 'New material' but I'm fairly confident that it's not that. Electronic components? If I know anyone that needs electronic components I'm sure they like to do their own research online and find the best price and quality for their needs and means. I have to admit that I might be able to sell some etc., it's hard to refute it if you're not more specific.

China is the best development and beautiful place in the world!

Possibly true! But I don't see what that has got to do with anything.

Cooperate with us and make yourself more important in the life!

Is that a threat? Like 'cooperate with us and make yourself more important in the life, but resist and I think that you will find things not quite so agreeable'?

sincerely hope to got your response through our gmail account and best wishes to u.

Thank you for your best wishes, but I don't think I'll be responding directly. Best wishes to you as well.

The part of Heaven_Ou in the audio version of this was read by brendadhill off of the twitter.

see you around

First Pop Song Of The Day - Stumble by Emily

Second Pop Song Of The Day - PONPONPON by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

Reversing Lorry Syndrome

2011-09-10T21:59:00.001+01:00

Do you like your shoes? I hope you give credit where credit's due - gravity. If it weren't for gravity being how it is your feet wouldn't be how they are, and your shoes wouldn't be how they are if you had feet like a chicken or a sensorite or a donkey or what have you. They wouldn't fit. They would be different. Perhaps, had alternate footage led you to be wearing shoes that had developed in an other way you would like that too, possibly even more, but my point still stands it was about whether you like them as they are now, in their own right, whether they be the best of all possible feet is neither here nor there.

The other day I was briefly tempted by what I soon realised to be a revolting houndstooth jacket. It was not a close shave, I saw it for what it was before I'd even touched it, let alone picked it up. This was a jacket which even in whatever part of the twentieth century it originated would have been the province of those utterly without hope. Some might feel that I should have bought it, and worn it to show that I am wounded, but there's no need to rub people's face in the full horror, is there? It's not decent.

On Tuesday on the train I was surprised to hear a jaunty tune. Not just any jaunty tune. A very particular jaunty tune. It's one that my phone plays, but only in one very specific circumstance. It plays that tune when it's telling me that it's gonig to shut down in thirty seconds because the battery's low. As such, the jaunty tone seems completely misplaced, and rather insensitive. The jauntiness seems somewhat mocking, as if to say 'you can't use your me anymore, that amuses me!' Or perhaps it's smug, as if to say 'that'll teach you to let me run down!' I think my old phone was a little like that, but not to the same extent. If we recklessly extrapolate, based on this sample size which is too tiny to infer anything at all from, in a few years time when my next phone bails out on me it will say 'ah-ha-ha, fuck you!' in Jack Nicholson's voice while doing so. But I'll deal with that when it comes, I'm not going to worry about it too much in the meantime.

Some people have been asking me to explain It Is What It Is titles more often. Reversing Lorry Syndrome is, of course, a reference to Reversing Lorry Syndrome, which is when a lorry reverses.

See you around

Just One Of Those Night Things

2011-06-13T16:56:00.000+01:00

This is a thing I just wrote spontaneously last night on twitter, in fifteen tweets.

Balloon manimal still causing accumulation of envisaged excursions for every time antecedents proceed to process present past sediment through arches into tunnels over bridges an expression of something that didn't matter to the grapefruit man any more than it did to me nevertheless something was undoubtedly occuring after all something always was but at any one time most books are not being read and most says are not being said a pragmatic convenience to refine the ambience first there was then that and then you know the rest all the bricks in all the buildings in all the towns and in the country the midnight collieries and dawn refineries are all just there cooling towers chimneys postboxes payphones bandstands pavilions gates and fences this is a field you remember dimly those are the trees you walked past that is the grass you lay upon there is the bench where you thought about something unbearable now forgotten and still the shops open and close and the deciduous shed and blossom and a new television show will be good and a team will do well after languishing long the river is not particularly high or low tonight it may be more or less cold than we'd expect but none of us are going to check it's darker than it is in the day it carries your footsteps away I don't want to hear that banjo right now I'd rather be lost in a book when I was younger or doing whatever it is I do when I'm older cruising the space lanes with Kemlo showing them all coming back as a hero waking and forgetting what no longer happened sailing down the neural pathways of the owl or the pussycat either will do and you may change the quince if you prefer I spoke to the man about the thing and he said to tell you it won't be a problem a breakdown in communication the articles weren't stolen nor were the prepositions and suddenly we heard a crash I think I heard it first you saw my face and turned round but soon it was gone and everything carried on. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this thing you should maybe do something or not it depends.

Pop Song Of The Day: Talaagh (Googoosh)

Batchelors Boy

2011-04-06T07:30:00.004+01:00

You only get a hug, arooga-rooga, from a Batchelors mug. That's how the tune in the advert went. Oh, how I hate that arooga-rooga, even though it's been decades since it was taken off the telly for cruelty. What were they thinking of? What were they taking us for? The sort of people who would think "ooh, listen to that, arooga-rooga, I must buy some of that cup-a-soup". Who the hell would think like that? I've never ever heard of anyone being like that. It beggars the belief of beggars with beliefs. Arooga-rooga, oh, get lost, and take your arooga-rooga with you. And bury it, in twenty metres of concrete, and have a big barbed wire fence, and signs saying WARNING - CONTAMINATED WITH AROOGA-ROOGA.

I may have expressed my distaste for the arooga-rooga before. It clouded my vision to such an extent that I was unable to see the big picture. That simple, hideous line, which someone was presumably paid to write, has other things wrong with it. Firstly, the mug. There are TWO things wrong with the mug alone! Both connected with the compulsion to rhyme something with hug, however poorly! Why that should have been a non-negotiable I don't know, but we'll come on to that. Firstly, the product is called Batchelors CUP-a-soup, not MUG-a-soup! They thought it was worth diluting the brand like that for that rhyme. Do you? No, of course not. Secondly, they're selling what you put IN the mug - why neglect it in favour of bigging up the vessel? Do you get adverts saying things like "Buy a McDonalds hamburger, it comes with a bit of paper round it?" or "Ragu pasta sauce - it's in a jar? No, you do not. Because it would be bloody stupid!

To permit such atrocities they must have been pretty hung up on keeping the hug bit. But why? Neither soup nor a mug ever give you a hug, not even if you're on drugs or psychotic or something, you would just be thinking that that was happening. And I've never even heard one report of anyone thinking such a thing was happening. Not for any reason. So, to say 'you get a hug from a Batchelors mug' would be complete rubbish. So why would they say that? It's a cliché, but one has to wonder - what were they on? I've not heard of what drugs would lead to that. Charlie Sheen wouldn't come up with that. But they said ONLY. You ONLY get a hug from a Batchelors mug. WHAT? There's only one possible explaination. They developed, or came into possession of, a very bad computer program that was supposed to write adverts, and were somehow committed to use the results, however unsuitable they were, perhaps because of a Faustian pact, or trouble with the unions. I cannot think of anything else that would have led to such a risible advertisement appearing on our screens.

It makes "Nobody makes soup in a cup like Batchelors Cup-a-soup" seem like genius, even though I could pick holes in that too.

That's all from me for now

See you around

Pop Song Of The Day: Trembling Blue Stars - Cold Colours

Sushi Scoop

2011-02-21T21:44:00.000Z

Why do people scoop awards? I don't mean that, what I mean is, they don't scoop them, so why do people say that they do? They say that all the time, don't they? But it doesn't happen. Anyway, I read that that David Sushi scooped an award for best acting on a film with acting or on a telly programme with acting, I forget which. But I bet there was no scooping involved. He probably got up there and did a little speech, thanking his mother and his agent, and all his fans who make sure people don't get his name wrong: it's not David Suchard, like the chocolate, it's not David Sachet, like a little paper bag of salt, it's David Sushi, as in rice. Anyway, no scooping. Why do they say that? Perhaps originally they used it when someone won a lot of awards, trying to paint a picture of them putting their arm around five awards they've won, all lined up on the rostrum, and scooping them into a carrier bag, to take home on the tube, if it's in London, or the limo, if it's Hollywood. I don't think you get awards anywhere else, do you? Unless it's like... do they speak of people 'scooping' concrete industry awards and the like? They probably do, in the trade rags. Anyway, it wouldn't happen, they don't get given awards for different categories at the same time. They'd be getting up to get each one separately, doing a little speech, and then taking them back to their tables - because that's what they do, don't they? They sit at round tables. The actor, or whatever, and about five henchmen. Maybe including the producer or something. Anyway, they'd take each one back to their tables, leave it there or pop it in their bag. Then sit there until they get called up for another. They can't stay up the first time and say "I'll just hang about here in case I get another one, save me going back to my table". What if they all did that? Imagine the crowd up there! What they might do, is, because there's all this talk of scooping awards, that might make them leave them all on the table, just so at the end they can scoop them into their bag, thinking 'heh, I'm scooping my awards'. But the talk came first, it's nonsense. And anyway - my point was, is, you don't scoop a single award.

Libya, Yemen, Bahrain... with all that distraction, thank goodness the BBC still has space to report the really important stories. This story is so humbling that I'm just going to read it out without comment and leave it there. It almost redefines what news is:

Tesco garage petrol sign targeted by pranksters

Eagle-eyed motorists were in for a surprise when pranksters tampered with a petrol station price sign.

The 24-hour Tesco garage in Fleetsbridge, Poole, Dorset, was targeted on Sunday morning.

The unleaded petrol price was changed to 25.9 pence per litre and the letters LOL - which normally stand for Laugh Out Loud - were written below it.

The normal price of unleaded petrol at the station is 125.9 pence per litre. Tesco said it had corrected the sign.

A spokesman said: "Staff corrected the sign as soon as they were alerted to the prank."

The spokesman said it was spotted on Sunday morning and no permanent damage had been caused.

Jimmy Skillings, who spotted the prank and took a photograph, said: "I know petrol prices are a joke but this is funny

"Whoever did it sure has a sense of humour."

that's all from me for now

see you around

Game Of The Day: Othello

Song

2010-12-20T04:59:00.000Z

A lot of people say to me, Larry, where do you get your ideas from? And I say 'my names not Larry. It's Keir. You've never called me Larry before, you've always called me Keir.' And they say 'never mind that Larry, you don't mind if I call you Larry, do you? I feel I have to call you Larry, because, well, you smell like a Larry.' And I say 'I'm going now, because you're kind of freaking me out a bit.' I don't really. That would be rude. So I lie and say I've got to go and catch a bus. So if you're ever talking to me and I say I've got to go and catch a bus, that's just me lying to try and get away, so grab my collar and don't let go. If I really did have to get a bus and you make me miss it I'm sure I'll be understanding. After all, it will have been my fault for writing this.

Why should people sing for their supper anyway? That's stupid. If you want to have a sing, that's fair enough, as long as you're not annoying anyone. Or, if you are, it's because they have poor taste and they'd enjoy it if you were less ace. Anyway, sing, fine, unless I'm trying to play Operation or something any you're distracting me - but if you want some supper, you can probably get a loaf of bread for twenty-nine pence or something, and have some toast. It seems like a bit of a convoluted system, to sing for your supper. And would the people who are providing you with supper, or the means thereof to buy it, be completely willing, or would they be feeling that they ought to, or that there was social pressure on them to do so, but actually, on some level at least, resenting it? It's a very bad system. The only way it works is if they really want you to sing and you'd happily do it for nothing but you wouldn't mind a bit of supper, but they wouldn't feel comfortable having you sing for them and giving you nothing in return, but by giving you a bit of supper they feel okay about it, even though they should be paying you properly. And even though no-one involved in that setup in unhappy with it I am unhappy with it, as the audience are fooling themselves.

that's all from me for now

see you around

Intoxicant Of The Day: Removal Of Painfully Uncomfortable Shoes

Romantic

2010-10-29T17:58:00.000+01:00

Romans! You know the Romans, eh? Not people that live in Rome, now. The olden days Romans. With their centurions and their sandals and their throwing the Christians to the lions, oh yeah, gladiators, but not like Mel Gibson, he's a knob and anything he believes is automatically wrong. Yeah, the Romans, we did them at school. Did they have baths? I rather think they did. I don't want to say too much about them or I'll start getting them mixed up with the Greeks. Anyway, we learned all kinds of exciting stuff, but it seems that that wasn't the half of it. I saw a headline that said "Headless Romans in England Came From "Exotic" Locales?" Wow! Never mind where they came from! Headless Romans? We never heard about those! Why am I imagining one of them going about swinging a sword? I wouldn't think that that goes with the territory of being headless. I wouldn't think that if I had no head I'd automatically start swinging a sword around, and I don't think it's because I'm not a Roman. I'm glad I'm not headless. I like having a head. I wonder why the word 'exotic' in the headline is in scare quotes in the headline? Perhaps it's because of the idea the the concept of exoticness is in itself a bit racist, dusky maidens and all that. I don't get the impression that these headless Romans were dusky maidens. It says that some of them 'likely' came from as far away as Eastern Europe. Is Eastern Europe exotic? Why don't Lilt adverts feature scenes from Gdansk then?

According to an infuriating story Emotion Processing In Brain Is Influenced by Color of Ambient Light, Study Suggests. Why is it infuriating? Apparently they listened to angry voices or neutral voices while being exposed to blue or green light. With the blue light some responses were increased in the brain and some interactions were too. But - was this a good thing or a bad thing? Was it "hey, I'm all together about this angry voice and it's not going to get me down" or was it "waah, this neutral voice makes me so sad?" I would have bought a blue light bulb when I was out if I'd known, but I couldn't take the risk, maybe I'd have been better off with a green one.

And finally, the leader of Harrogate Borough Council has defended his decision to go to a fancy dress party as Adolf Hitler. It was a bit of fun. He is cross that the images were taken from his Facebook page. He said that was a total violation of his privacy. That's an interesting use of the word 'privacy' there. Personally I like to keep the things that I publish and things that are private separate, I find it similar that way. If I take some private candid photographs of myself and publish them, on my Facebook page, or on billboards, or in a full page ad in Take A Break, people might ger the wrong idea and think they weren't private.

It Is What It Is is a well-kept secret, but it's not private. You can tell who you like. But it's your responsibility. Perhaps show it to someone you want rid of? If you want rid of them they must be rubbish, and probably wouldn't appreciate it and would think it was strange, so it might work. Anyway, I must get on - wine night!

that's all from me for now

see you around

Opening Sequence Of The Day: JOLH-TV

Yoohoo've Got Mal

2010-10-27T16:06:00.001+01:00

Stop the presses! Holdy the front pages! I know you've all been fretting. "Where is It Is What It Is? Why has he abandoned us?" Well, after I got back from down south there simply wasn't any news for a long time. But now the BBC brings us something tremendously important. I have been recalled to active service now that I've seen the tremendously important headline "Yahoo Mail gets it's first major revamp in five years". Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking three things. 1. "What? No fucking way!" 2. "Fuck me, Yahoo Mail's getting a revamp? I'm going to have to have a lie down" and 3. "Yahoo Mail? Oh yeah, my grandfather told me about that when I was a kid, I think. His grandfather told him when he was a kid that his grandfather used it when he was a kid."

It sounds a bit of a nightmare to me. Listen to this. "At the centre of the revamp is a plan to make the communications system much more compatible with social media. This means users can post updates to Facebook and Twitter without ever leaving Yahoo Mail." Without ever leaving?!!! What? What if I want to leave? Is that allowed? Do I need permission? Will we be seeing tweets and Facebook status updates saying "Help, I must never leave Yahoo Mail, you've got to help me?" I'll be alright, I never go to my Yahoo Mail. But these poor people. They will be able to look at photos from Flickr or Picasa or videos from [[YouTube]] right there in their inbox. But they'll have to be in their inbox, won't they? Otherwise it's not an inbox. Perhaps they'll be making Facebook status updates saying things like "please email me something to look at, I'm so bored and I've got to entertain myself without ever leaving Yahoo Mail." You see, I don't have that problem. When I want to look at things on the internet I leave my email and go somewhere else on the internet. That way I can see what I like without begging someone to email me it. And once I'm somehere else, why would I want to go into my email to update twitter or facebook, or watch a video?

"People spend more than 300 billion minutes a month on Yahoo Mail" said Yahoo senior product manager Dave McDowell, lying to BBC News. I don't believe anyone spends that much time on it, that's a ridiculous claim. I worked it out, even if someone was constantly on Yahoo Mail for the whole month they'd have to go back in time to the start of the month and do the same again, and repeat that thousands of times. Who's going to do that? That's more than five hundred thousand years a month spent on Yahoo Mail. I worked that out too. Well I'm certainly not going to do it. Some people don't even believe I'm going to live that long!

that's all from me for now

see you around

Place Where Anything Can Happen Of The Day: Vegas

Cor Me Dave

2010-10-15T17:26:00.000+01:00

Women - your suffering is over! "David Cameron to announce PMS solution next week" declared the headline! I must say, this is a surprise. A bolt from the blue, as it were. I hadn't heard anything about this. A cure for PMS! This is revolutionary. I wonder how long they've been working on that? Strange I haven't heard anything about it before.

He's not just going to say women should go on the pill, is he?

He is, isn't he! What's that about? Is he wanting to go on some debauched sexual marathon, working his way around the country? Or something like that? No, that would be absurd! Is it an over-elaborate ruse to get his wife to go on the pill? Don't be ridiculous!

It's to save money. If all the women go on the pill in a few years time he'll have saved a fortune on child benefit. If people are stupid enough to elect him again next time, and they were stupid enough to elect him once so I can't be confident that they won't be stupid enough to do it again, he's going to start saving a fortune on schools. He's got the whole diabolical plan all worked out. I knew he was a rotter, but this is something else!

...oh, the PMS in this story is the Presbyterian Mutual Society. So forget everything I just said. Sorry about that!

Dog people, what is wrong with you? A dog in Manchester has had gender realignment surgery to improve its chances of finding a home, as people that were interested in adopting it changed their tune when they found out it was a hermaphrodite. People supposedly like their dogs to be interesting. They go to great lengths to breed them, for instance, so that they have beautiful red feathers, even if the trade-off is that they are consequently genetically unable to recall pin numbers containing a five. But a hermaphrodite? Nah. What's the problem? Did they think that they'd have to get it done twice? The vet would have given them a special deal! It's all about supply and demand, and vets can't get enough hermaphrodite dogs to operate on, they're mad for them. Oh... it's worse... it says they made it clear to people that once the dog was settled they'd cut its man bits off for free, but they still didn't want to know. They just didn't want it in the house with the full set. Do they think it's contagious? Did they think they would start growing the full set themselves? Sort yourselves out, dog people!

Your chocolatey unhealthy yums are safe! The dispute at Tunnock's is over, so no more strikes for now and you don't have to hang onto the stockpiles of Tunnock's teacakes, caramel wafers and those coconut ones anymore, supply is guaranteed, you can eat them all now. I'm not suggesting that you do, of course. It Is What It Is is into health and that. Eat an apple or something. Yeah! And if you've any chocolate you want rid of - I can probably find a good home for it.

I've had some enquiries about me doing video versions of some 'classic' issues of It Is What It Is - I dunno - I don't like the idea of proclaiming any of them to be 'classic'. But if anyone requests a particular one I might do it. No promises.

that's all from me for now

see you around

2010-09-29T05:00:00.001+01:00

INT. LIVING ROOM - MID-AFTERNOON

               The living room is peacefully shady. Through the French
               windows behind is greenery and a sunny day. In a high-backed
               armchair is a NEWSREADER, still with a youthful air about him
               in his late forties. He is off-duty, he is wearing a maroon v
               necked jumper over an off-white open necked shirt. He is
               talking to an interviewer who is off-screen to our right.

                                   NEWSREADER
                         I have this funny little thing, a
                         sort of fantasy you might call it,
                         but it's not really, it's not like
                         I really want to do it - I think,
                         wouldn't it be something if I
                         didn't say anything, if I just
                         looked at them, right into the
                         camera, and they looked into my
                         eyes, and the whole of the six was
                         just me doing that - It's
                         ridiculous! Obviously, there would
                         be another newsreader, and they'd
                         cut away from me very quickly, and -
                         anyway, why would I want to? I
                         don't know where it comes from,
                         don't remember - I have a theory,
                         when I was younger there was a time
                         when I used to feel very sorry for
                         myself at times, I was a bit
                         foolish back then, part of why I
                         think it comes from that time is
                         that when it comes into my head it
                         feels like it would be a very
                         profound statement, but of course
                         it's not, and I know it's not, you
                         couldn't get more trite - and
                         perhaps one night when I'd drank
                         too much scotch my sozzled mind
                         came up with this thing, and the
                         state I was in, it made quite an
                         impression on me, I probably
                         thought "yeah, I'll show them!" or
                         something ridiculous like that -
                         but even so, I don't know why it
                         still comes to mind sometimes
                         nowadays - I'm very happy now.
                         Curious thing, the mind.

Vulcan Brain

2010-09-23T07:08:00.000+01:00

Coming up, a Beatle brain and evil volcanos, but first - are you secure? What is the government up to with the private security industry? They're planning to abolish the Security Industry Authority, which regulated bouncers and that, because they claim that the industry is cool enough to be able to regulate itself, and there's no way it would get taken over by organised crime or anything like it would do. What is their motivation here? It wouldn't save any money, the SIA is self-financing. Is George Osborne wanting to come round your house demanding money with menaces? Are they after donations from El Grande? It's hard to think of any good reason why they're doing this. Can you think of any? Please, let me know if you can.

Is Paul McCartney thick or hip? I read that he's having his entire library digitised - music, artwork, photographs, paintings, videos...notice anything missing there? Yeah. Unless they've just not mentioned it, Paul McCartney's library doesn't contain any books! Clearly he prefers watching monster truck videos, and probably Jeremy Clarkson's Top 10 Funniest Genocides from Poundland or something. Or... he's a man of the future and he consumes a lot of literature but it's all on a Kindle or something, he's saving paper, good fellow. I hope he's not got severe dyslexia or something - I wouldn't make fun of that! You've got to believe me! I had no way of knowing! How was I supposed to know? He never mentions it, does he? If he'd said "ooh, I've got severe dyslexia" I'd have known not to put my foot in it. Anyway, they're going to keep it all in a cloud, so I suppose it's good that there aren't any books, they'd fall through, wouldn't they? Well done Paul. Hang on a minute - paintings and videos and stuff would too, wouldn't they? Oh, I give up.

Now, I know you're probably thinking that volcanos are lovely things, and they wouldn't hurt a fly. But news just in says that they killed off the Neanderthals! I think it's only too clear what happened. The right wing press of the day colluded with evil forces to brainwash people into hating the Neanderthals, then the goverment abolished that Volcano Regulation Authority and the volcanos went and murdered them all, and the people said 'hurrah!', because they had been taught that the Neanderthals all had ten babies a year so they could send them out pickpocketing, even though it wasn't true.

I'm going away today and I'm not back until late on Monday. If I had to guess I'd say you probably won't get anything more here until after that. You might be lucky though. You could check the tumblr (link on left) there might be some images or videos or something there.

that's all from me for now

see you around

Milky Drink Of The Day: Calpis

Nice Cave

2010-09-22T05:20:00.000+01:00

There's a load of amphibians that might be extinct, right? So they're trying to find them. There's this salamander that hasn't been seen since 1941. They found it! In a cave in they had to abseil into. In Mexico. And it hadn't been seen since 1941. When it was discovered. In a cave in Mexico. Maybe I'm just being nasty here, but could it be that they haven't been looking in inaccessible caves in Mexico all that much? I don't know. It's hard to know when you've got the right balance between naivety and cynicism. Just kidding! I'm obviously right.

In 2013 BBC1 is going to go live for a night, according to a news. This is to mark the sixtieth anniversary of some royal thing when a lot of people watch the telly, because people used to like royal things, except It's A Royal Knockout, and also the BBC's last year at Television Centre. It might be worth watching. Someone might say 'bum' or something. No-one did during the royal thing, but it's not too late for someone to say it this time - it's three years away, plenty of time to arrange for somebody to say 'bum'. Apparently earlier this year some shitty soap did a live episode to celebrate its 25th episode or something, and they got a bit of a taste for it. I don't know if anyone said 'bum' in that. Programs used to be live all the time in the olden days, but no-one said 'bum' in those days. They started pre-recording programmes when people started saying 'bum' because they got nervous that someone might say it on the telly. True story, that.

We're going to discover a new habitable planet by May, that's a fact! Well, maybe. "There is a little wiggle room" said the lead author. There is a 50% chance it will be discovered by May, 66% by the end of 2013 and 75% by 2020. They used scientometrics, the scientific study of science itself. I'd never heard of it - sounds made up, doesn't it. They admit their formula is a bit optimistic and doesn't take acount of some factors. "It's not a scientific result, it's no a discovery, it's just something to spark discussion" said the co-author. Well done to them, I say. I normally get cross when scientists put out a press release overselling some load of rubbish and the scientific press laps it up, but these ones are pretty much coming right out and saying it's a load of rubbish but they'd like some media coverage anyway, and they're getting it. I wouldn't say they've oversold it, they've not really claimed that it's of any value, and they still got their non-story placed. Respect to you, Samuel Arbesman and Greg Laughlin!

Feta Menace Of The Day: Panda

Snake Grass

2010-09-20T05:00:00.000+01:00

A load of plants are a load of bollocks! Pardon my language, but I was horrified by what I read. They've been making out that they exist when they don't! They're saying "yeah, I'm this plant, amn't I not?" Well, no, you're bloody well not, you're some other plant, you yourself don't exist! They reckon that there's actually a third as many as they thought there were, and they're going to work out what's what and tell us what the real ones are and what phoney names the ones that were pretending not to be them used. It's better for working out what's endangered and that. But might there be a downside? I mean, we don't know the reason for the pretence. Maybe there's some stigma attached to some plants. There was no wordplay there, just ignore the botanical meaning. Some of these plants were trying to make a new lives for themselves, where they wouldn't be prejudged, and we come along and ruin it. Shame on us!

There's a lot of criticism of the government's plans to cut back the National Health Service to kill off the poor quicker. Some of this criticism is justified. But it cannot be denied that there is a lot of waste in the NHS that can be cut. How else do you explain the fact a fifty million year old snake is being given a CT scan? "Oh, you rotter," I hear you say, "why do you hate snakes? Snakes have a right to exist." Oh, hold your horses, you. It's not about that. I'm not bothered about it being a snake. My problem is that it's been dead for millions of years. There's no point running expensive tests on it to find out what's wrong with it - what's wrong with it is that it's been dead for millions of years - it's not coming back. It's fossilized, that should have been a clue. What a waste of money. Now, if a bloodsucking fly had drunk its blood and then got preserved in amber, it would be a different story.

And finally - my brain is great! Here's why. I was reading a piece I had set aside to cover on It Is What It Is. It was about the brain, how a certain part of the brain is more developed in people that are better at introspective, reflective thinking. People who assess their own decisions in a more awesome manner than others. As sometimes happens I read the piece and in the end decided that it wasn't worth covering after all. But then I realised, that was just the sort of thinking that they were talking about, so then it was worth writing about!

that's all from me for now

see you around

Has Somebody Put Something In My Drink Car Of The Day: Honda City Manhattan Hi-Fi

Jonny Greenpeace presents Radiohead vs Paul Daniels - Pearls Of Wisdom

2010-09-18T16:19:00.002+01:00

Listen!

Lording It Up

2010-09-17T11:10:00.000+01:00

I heard it again on the radio this morning. 'Drug lord'. Not 'drug baron'. It was a different person too. Did I miss a meeting, or a memo? Has there been a revision of style guides? What next, are they suddenly going to start calling media moguls media mongols, as if they never did any different? Perhaps there was concern that they had been giving free publicity to The Barron Knights, or sixties crime drama series The Baron. But perhaps there's something dodgy going on, perhaps now they're giving free publicity to Peter Lord, the... maker of bits of eighties school uniforms? Or seventies sports jackets? I can't quite remember. I think it was some sort of olden days apparel, anyway. What was Peter Lord a vendor of, and when? It's on the edge of my awareness, like Toru Okada's Thieving Magpie. I could ask the twitter, now, as I'm writing this, but I prefer to ask you, and leave it unknown within the context of me writing the piece.

Service has been a little patchy lately. It is returning towards normal but might not be helped by the impending double wine night. Because I am away next weekend and can't do wine night on either the Friday or the Saturday I am doing a double wine night this weekend, the Friday and the Saturday. It's not just me looking for an excuse, one of the regulars can't make the Friday this weekend. But it will be a hinderance to normal It Is What It Is service, potentially. But maybe not, as I have been prioritising getting to sleep at a vaguely sensible time over always having this ready to go for 5AM the next day it will be less affected by me sloping off to bed due to wineage without having written it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I have an excuse for a couple of days for the patchy service you've been getting anyway.

I need a different relationship with time to that which we have to realise my full potential. I just have too many great ideas to do them all. I was talking to someone earlier about a film idea I had some years ago I've done nothing about - basically I come up with a load of good lines, separate ones, and film each in a different place with a different performer. I don't think I even have any lines yet. I haven't done any more work on my Bucks Fizz cover. And now I am seriously threatening to do a remix of something featuring Paul Daniels talking about WD40. Perhaps I could kill two birds with one stone (sorry birds) and use some loops I took from Radiohead's Pearly* and only made a rough sketch out of. There's no footnote, that asterisk is part of the title you ignoramus. And while we're at it, it's not Asterix. That was the occasionally racist comic character. Or was that just Tin Tin? No, i think it was both of them. Anyway...

that's all from me for now

see you around

Traffic Copter Of The Day: KIRO Newsradio 71

2010-09-16T16:07:00.000+01:00

Are you a terrorist? Or just stressed out? A computer can tell from your face! I Hope the software what I read about is available for home use - it could be quite handy if you're having an existential crisis and you don't know who you are. Or amnesiacs - they should use it on them! When I say amnesiacs, I obviously mean people who have no memory of who they are, "I've got some bad news for you Mr. X - we've got your test results back and you're a pope." I don't really think it would work on amnesiacs - I think if they have no idea that they're a pope then they computer won't be able to tell from their facial expresion that they're the pope. So somenoe could be hypnotised to not know that they're a terrorist the cabin crew offer start trying to sell them shit. So, it wouldn't work it's a waste of time. But perhaps the computer could tell if people were hypnotised, and not let them on? That wouldn't be very fair on someone who had been hypnotised to deal with a fear of flying though. Perhaps they could be hypnotised at the airport under security agency scrutiny - but they could have been previously hypnotised to realise they were terrorists once the cabin crew started selling them shit whenever they were under a state of hypnosis to address a fear of flying. The fear of flying would probably even be a fake one induced by hypnosis for these nefarious purposes. So forget it, University of Texas. You're wasting your time. The whole thing's ruddy ridiculous.

A spider has been discovered that makes webs that are twenty-five metres across. And a picture caption says 'the spider's web dwarfs scientists'. Well, you'd expect that, wouldn't you? I mean, these are human scientists we're talking about. It's not been discovered by whale scientists. The spider is, of course, just doing it to show off, but I think that's fair enough, after all, it's quite impressive. Some of you show-offs (I'm addressing humanity here, not It Is What It Is readers) might want to think about that - if you want to show off, have something that warrants you showing off about it. Something that's twenty-five metres across and is still a spider's web, that's good. Something that's a mile long and isn't really a pizza, not so good.

I read that the Mexican drug lord El Grande had been captured. I had two thoughts on the matter. Firstly, what a crap name. It's like if he'd called himself Mr. Big. Or a boxer calling himself Mister Muscles. Secondly, I thought, drug lord? Whatever happened to drug baron? Are they different things? I would have thought the drug baron was the top dog, and they seem to be saying that this feller was top dog. It is that most drug barons are drug barons, but the top three or something are drug lords, that a drug lord is a sort of superbaron? The article didn't say. I expect. I didn't read it, but I'm pretty confident.

that's all from me for now

see you around

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