Craig Bellamy in June 2006, on signing for Liverpool: “The fact that it was Liverpool made it impossible for me to turn them down. As I’m a fan, it doesn’t matter what club I was at. I could never turn Liverpool down.”
Craig Bellamy in August 2010, on signing for Cardiff: “I’m thrilled to be coming back home to Cardiff and am excited at the prospect of wearing the shirt and playing for the club I’ve supported since I was a boy.”
And they say that footballers are mercenaries who will play for anybody that’s prepared to pay them stupid amounts of money…
The funniest thing I saw tonight at the zoo was when some guy turned to his mate and told him a fact about gorillas. He seemed so proud of his little nugget of gorilla trivia until the other guy replied “Yeah, I saw that episode of QI as well”.
Shot. Down.
Today’s Pearls Before Swine.
Anything American that mentions “fanny” is so much funnier for Brits, believe me.
The sheer level of tongue-twistiness and willingness to butcher the English language in search of an acronym is one of the things that amuses me about US legislators. It caught my eye again in a story about a new piece of legislation that will render ineffective any judgments against US writers that are sued for libel, should the US consider that judgment to go against First Amendment principles.
The legislation in question is called the SPEECH Act, which stands for the “Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act”.
Seriously.
I love how they have quite obviously decided what the legislation is going to be called, and then made some words fit, even if they don’t exactly flow or give any indication as to what the Act is about. A true backronym, if there ever was one.
A similar example is the USA PATRIOT Act, which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act”. The USA doesn’t even stand for the usual USA! And who could vote against something called the USA PATRIOT Act?! It’s just some absolutely stunning propaganda.
There’s plenty of argument about the actual merits of both Acts, and I can understand why the US viewed the SPEECH Act as necessary, because the British libel system is one of the most defendant-unfriendly systems in the world, but I prefer to just concentrate on the convoluted way in which these names are created. To my mind, it’s pretty funny.
taking [my cousin] to gatecrash a funeral
The girlfriend’s last message to me on Gchat before signing out.
We have my cousin staying with us this week, and doing work experience at the girlfriend’s newspaper. She’s evidently getting a bit of a crash course introduction to the world of journalism…
Whoever he may be, “man” has had a busy day…
Either that, or the BBC News website needs some variation in its headlines.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Streets - Fit But You Know It
30 Day Song Challenge - A song that makes you happy
There are loads of songs that put a smile on my face, usually because the lyrics are funny, or because they remind me of a happy time. Seeing as there’s an entry for the latter a little further down the 30-day song challenge list, I’ve chosen a song that really makes me smile just because of the song itself.
I’m a huge, huge fan of The Streets, and this is one of his happiest, boppiest, singalong tunes that just makes me chuckle every time I hear it. Skinner paints a picture of a scene so vividly that you can’t help but be swept up in it all.
The opening lyric gets me on every listen: “See I reckon you’re about an 8 or a 9 / Maybe even 9 and a half in four beers time.” It’s genuinely funny, and that type of humour continues through the rest of the song, with some great wordplay around the concept of “rude”, and the final twist in the last verse.
A genuinely funny song.
49 plays
The Poke has come up with the solution to the Daily Mail’s secret editorial formula, which dictates the content of the newspaper each day.
It’s tremendous stuff, with my favourite stations being “Immigrant Cancer”, “That Meerkat”, and “Romp”. For what it’s worth, I live at “Sex Education”.
Spotted in the gents’ loos at The Miller in SE1 last night.
Hate the new look. Will start looking elsewhere for my news content.
The very first comment on the BBC News editors’ blog, which attempts to explain the redesign of the BBC News website, and the new features contained therein.
Some people really do hate change, don’t they?
