This Is This

What if a massive election victory took place during a landslide?

That would be a nightmare for the headline writers.

There are certain colleagues of mine who attend morning meetings with a coffee bought from Starbucks. They like good coffee and that’s cool. But I have a sneaking suspicion they think it projects an air of discerning taste and affluence, because the drink costs two pounds fifty (about $4) a cup.

They think:

“I am wealthy and I don’t have to drink the evil office coffee.”

I think:

“What time do you call this? It’s 10am and either you’ve been out to get a coffee, in which case do some work, or you’ve just turned up, in which case you have more money than respect.”

Also, by 10am, I am on my third cup of stale, freeze-dried ordinary cooking variety coffee, so I am a little agitated.

Unlike some people, I have no problem with Starbucks. They are a multinational greedy company, but they employ thousands of people and they make good coffee. Nescafe, the brew of choice stocked by my office, are also part of a multinational (Nestle) and employ thousands of people, but they make very shit coffee. It tastes even worse the way I drink it: no milk, no sugar - black none (also known as a Woopie Goldberg).

I should ask work to get in some decent coffee. And Fair Trade stuff. Decaf would probably be a good idea, too.

11 year old has been banned from driving

This made me laugh. I bet the kid doesn’t care, because he’s too young to get a licence anyway, so the ban is meaningless. This will only add to the boy’s delight.

He’s probably the biggest wise-ass in the world.

Parents: “Right - that’s it young man! When we get home, you are going straight upstairs and you’re not coming down.”

Kid: “Fine. But you do know we live in a bungalow.”

Interactivity and community elements fall are a part of every good website. And even though this isn’t one, I have added a poll. Please vote on this important issue which affects us all.

Five Things I Should Know How To Do And Can’t

1. Play chess

2. Remember basic details when telling a story

3. Roll my R’s

4. Bake

5. Look interested when I’m not

Five Things I Shouldn’t Know How To Do But Can

1. Read upside down just as well as the right way up

2. Whistle REALLY fucking loud

3. Swim without using my hands

4. Find North using a watch and the sun

5. Play the mandolin

I have this nice image of me doing all of the above at the same time.

I’m reading one of those airplane safety leaflets, trying to get my bearings while I tread water, keeping morale of my fellow ill-fated passengers high by playing the intro to Maggie May while whistling loudly to attract the attention of any nearby ships.

What? It could happen.

One tricky thing when speaking another language is how to pronounce words that come up in your own language.

For example, if an Inuit* is speaking to a Spanish person, does he pronounce his home town of Juneau as “Juno” or “Yuno”?

It’s a tricky one.

I was once looking lost in a jazz record store in Nice when the salesman asked if he could help me.

“Avez vous du Sonny Rollins?” I said, pronouncing Sonny Rollins in an English accent, because that’s how you say Sonny Rollins.

“Comment?”

“Sonny Rollins, il joue le saxo tenor,” I expliqued.

He looked perplexed. I thought for sure a jazz record store would know who he was. All the other records were there: Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, King Oliver, Sarah Vaughan - all that jazz, but I couldn’t find Sonny Rollins.

“Sonny Rollins,” I said again, but he squinted at me and went to get someone else.

They both squinted at me as I said it again, then they looked blankly at each other.

I know, I thought. “Sun-EE Reau-LEENSZ”

“Ahh, Sun-EE Reau-LEENSZ!” They said, “Mais oui, on a. Don’t Stop Zee Carnivale!”

So you see, just because you’re right, it doesn’t mean it’ll get you anywhere.

*Many Inuits consider the name”Eskimo” offensive. It comes from the language of the Cree tribe further south, where it means “eater of raw meat”. It’s a generic term for one of the tribes of Native Americans who live in the far north of the continent, but Inuits, like their Yupik neighbours, don’t like the term.

Everyone’s got their comfort zone and everyone should leave it once in a while. I’ve got mine. It isn’t much, but I like it. Keeps the rain off and it’s a place where I can do what I choose and be myself. But everyone has to leave it.

I left mine this weekend and I’m not just talking about looking out the peephole into the corridor, or dialling nine to get out. I mean about walked out the door, went down to the lobby, smiled at the doorman and bye bye Marriot Clifton Towers. I mean “travelcard-not-valid” left my zone.

This weekend we went to a fundraiser posh meal organised by Wife for the school of Son, 5.

Zone 1- To The Nines
Wore a suit. Yeah. I don’t wear a suit to work and I so seldom wear them that the time before this I dug out the suit and there was a funeral service booklet in it from last winter.

Zone 2 - Bought A Stranger A Drink
I bought a beer for the DJ and sent Wife over to give it to him. On a normal day, you wouldn’t get much change out of a million for how good she looks, but when she gets dressed up to go out, you’re talking about eight or nine figures.

Zone 3 - Squared Up
I walked past a drunk guy who caught my eye and said, for no reason: “Fuck off.”

Normally I would walk away and think “wanker”. I was by myself because wife was talking to her friends and I don’t think he was with anyone. He just wanted to see my reaction. On any other day would be the old “retreat and think” tactic. Never fails. Then again, never anythings.

So I turned to him and said: “What?”

He said it again: “Fuck off.”

I took two steps up to him and saw he’s about 6 inches taller than me.

I looked at him and asked: “What did you say?”

Him: “What?”

Me: “You said something. Maybe I didn’t catch it, because of the music, but you said something to me.”

Him (hesitating): “Uh - what?”

Me: “What did you say?”

He paused and tried to think of something else in a predictable drunk way, and slurred: “You enjoying yourself, pal, eh?”

Me: “Yeah. Oh yeah.”

I clicked my beer bottle against his wine glass and look at him. He paused and looked a little embarrassed before he said: “Good.”

Zone 4 - Getting Down
I finished by beer and danced with Wife. Third time in my life ever and not the last.

Zone 5 - Chipping In
I hit the blackjack tables (second time ever and not the last) and tripled my (fake) money, ending with more money that anyone on the table and winning with the best cards for the last hand of the night.

I would not normally do any of these things, but there they were. Out the comfort zone, turn left at anxiety, go straight past familiar and you’re there.

I should read my horoscope this week just to see what it said. I haven’t read my stars since I was a kid. I don’t believe in any of that rubbish. But then again, I would say that, cause I’m a Sagittarius.

Computer works now. Woo hoo!

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I was in a company meeting yesterday which was 5 hours long. After that amount of time, speeches just became a bunch of words.

To pass the time I set myself the challenge of writing an alternative speech. To make it more interesting I had to stick to the following rules:

1. I can only use the words and phrases used by the speakers.
2. I can only write my speech while the speakers were giving their presentation. Everything would have to be done “as live”.
3. The words and phrases I write can only be used in the order in which they were spoken by the speaker. I can only splice words out, but I can not rearrange the order of their words.
4. The only editing I am allowed to add is punctuation.

I have no idea why I do these things. I am a word geek.

Here’s the end result:

In 1991, we released 7 billion shareholders. They weren’t hugely sexy. Some will die. Mistakes happen, but the price is very high. It’s a challenge to us all.

Thank you.

The new format of The Guardian? Loving it.

I am hooked. It folds up into A4 nearly! They have Doonsbury! And Nancy Banks-Smith! And crosswords I can almost do!

But…

Sam Wollaston had a bad case of the Mondays in The Guardian. On Monday. When he said in The Guardian:

I was never big into Swallows and Amazons - horrid little posh children sailing their horrid little boats round the Lake District and speaking their weird language. “Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won’t drown.” Hurrah for father! Oh shut up, go and drown in ginger beer, the lot of you. Didn’t they have PlayStations in those days? What Titty, Roger and the others needed, apart from new names obviously, was a bit more attitude. Hurrah for hoodies!

Hey hey hey Hey HEY.

Wishing death upon kids, even fictional onces, because of their social background? Offensive class distinction? Imagine any other paper, even The Telegraph, writing:

I was never big into Kez - a greasy little working class kid with a greasy kestrel wandering round the estates of Barnsley and speaking his weird language. “What’s up then? What’s a matter with you Kes?” By gum, lad! Oh shut up, go and drown in cheap bitter, the lot of you. Didn’t they have rugby in those days? What our Billy and Jud and the others needed, apart from new names obviously, was a bit more refinement. Hurrah for wellies!

It seems that you can be as politically incorrect as you like in the UK about gingers, posh people and Americans, but in my view this is no different from laughing at gay people. Just because a sector of society is not downtrodden or is a majority, it doesn’t mean you can attack them.
Is it OK to comment on a conference of successful Jewish business leaders and make anti-semitic distinctions? No. Is it OK to make jokes about overdressed punters who pay eight pound for a small glass of Champagne at Ascot Opening Day? No. But you could imagine The Guardian doing it.

Take the piss out of people for how they behave by all means, but don’t laugh at who they are. The Guardian needs to fuck off sometimes.

Love the new format, guys. A4 folded nearly. Du ist ein Berliner.

Son, 5 (Playing with toy helicopter) (To helicopter pilot): “Seriously, we need to rescue the good guys.”

Me: “What was that?”

Son, 5: “We need to rescue the good guys.”

Me: “No, the other thing.”

Son, 5: “What?”

Me: “Seriously.”

Son, 5: “Oh. Yeah.”

Me: “I didn’t know you knew that word.”

Son, 5: “Seriously?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Son, 5: “Oh.”

Me: “What does it mean?”

Son, 5: “Well, just like, when someone can’t do something.”

Me: “Like how?”

Son, 5: “Yeah, like - ‘He seriously can’t do it.’ ”

Me: “OK”

He goes back to rescuing the good guys.

I realise that there is a five year old who has started talking exactly like me.

It will cheer up your whole day if you ask someone from Newcastle to say the following words to you:

Taramasalata

Kawasaki

Conjunctivitis

I am glad the cricket is over so I don’t have to hear that Lou Bega clip which Channel 4 played before and after every ad break. It took to most annoying part of an annoying song and played it every 20 minutes for three days. The song is, of course Mambo Number Five.

It is bloody dreadful. Face-meltingly bad. War criminals in The Hague are having their sentences reduced on the technicality that Lou Bega got away with writing this without going to jail.

I wonder how awful Mambos One through Four were and how they could possibly be any worse.

I was looking at my search referrals the other day (note to self: Get life) and I saw that someone translated this site into French through Google.

It looked cool. The header said:

C’est ceci.
Ce n’est pas autre chose.

I can imagine a young Jean-Paul Belmondo saying that in a black and white movie featuring rainy streets, Gitanes and a Citroen DS.

Google translator is cool - whoever it was (merci et bienvenue, cher lecteur) was reading about the Singers post from a few days back. I tried google out myself, and translated the French words into German, German to English, and back into the German then back to English again. Here’s what happened, with original text below.

1. Dave Gilmour - Floyd Rosa - only of somebody which these expenses could sing to resound always well have the English accent snob and that.

2. Not To Feel The Charles - nothing god. Why is what cooks its voice that it turns over to he’s in the place with you?

3. Neil Finn - Narrow Place - the voice most variable top the world, my opinion.

4. Cutters of the Ben - to be auditiv molten dark drills of the chocolate in accordance with Toblerone. Fact.

5. Phillips-Throat - Clip The Wet Pinion - to see Neil Finn. Moreover, Tilbrooke of compression supersaturates.

6. Bob “of Hite-Baer” - Heat In Cases - the best voice in the blue ones. Woolfe-Schrei takes care, attaches of Broonzy-Rechnung with the graver.

7. The Honest Bar of Levon - volume - and has a small raspy number. It resembles he’s speaking to you, after it saved your life.

8. The Ben Yields - to have clearly with the bell, and by making the song is essential more, like it does it.

9. Maynard James Keenan - Tool - easily and nasal and him work of one shouldn’t in the hard rock, objective him thus.

10. Randy Travis - Mr Darcy of the national music. It resembles he’s hardly taken to suffer, around the words statement an objective lakonisches him with in the value your hearing one moment it.

11. Kings Staatsangehoeriges Cole - you smooth better impossiblement and the signs a noise of word. Something sings you to him includes/understands of pink of ear resounded of Trompeteen.

12. Steve Earle - me wish that I be able to be have the fine sourness which resounds to have something fine with all.

The conversation went like this:

Colleague 1: I’m running a race to raise money for the Dian Fossey Foundation. Will you sponsor me?

Colleague 2: What do they do?

Colleague 1: They are dediated to the conservation and protection of the endangered mountain gorilla.

Colleague 2: Sorry, but I only support human charities.

Colleague 1: But the gorillas need our help as well.

Colleague 2: Maybe, but what about Cancer Research? That saves people’s lives. What about Save The Children?

Colleague 3: What about saving the monkeys?

Colleague 2: Sod the monkeys, I’d rather save the children.

Colleague 3: Dave, there are millions of children. Kids aren’t endangered, the gorillas are. It’s a numbers game. Save the monkeys.

Colleague 2: I don’t care. I’m saving the children.

(Colleague 1 walks away)

Colleague 3: All I’m saying is do the math. Lots of children, dwindling monkey numbers.

Colleague 2: I’m saving the children.

This is what happens when you approach a busy newsroom and ask for sponsorship. Humour as black as coffee and everyone’s got an opinion. The moral of this story is “Do not approach a newsdesk on a Friday if you’re looking to save monkeys.”

Choose your own adventure:

Be like Dave
or
Save the monkeys

I have mixed feelings about people at work when they ask me if I will sponsor them.

No, wait.

I am a decent person, but I know a bit about what is going on and if I want to give people my money, I will. I would also like for people to tell me about which causes need money, so I can see if I can help them. But I won’t wait for someone I’m not really that close to to stand at my desk and tell me that our employer has given them the time off to do something more fun than working (that they would probably have done anyway) and for them to ask me to give money for their chosen cause. Not mine, theirs. And while they are off raising this money I am sitting at my desk earning money that I will later give to them to give to the charity I have not considered giving money to.

I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I am a nice chap. People who don’t normally use the words “nice” or “chap” even say: “That Cliff - nice chap.” I am civil and mild mannered and compassionate. Fuck you - I am.

On a monthly or annual basis I give to Amnesty Interational, Cancer Research UK, The Western Front Association, The Tibet Foundation, Free Tibet Campaign, and theTricycle Foundation. This year I also gave to the Tsunami Appeal, The Sudan Crisis, the Tibetan children’s school and orphanage in Dharamsala, The Tibetan Community of London, the Wat Arun temple in Thailand, the in-law’s church and Breast Cancer Research. I give second hand clothing and sellable cluter to Oxfam and the British Heart Foundation and I buy books and gifts from their shops. I give money at my kid’s school fundraisers so they can buy computers and build gyms which may or may not be complete before my kids leave school, but other kids will benefit from them. I recycle ALL plastic, paper, garden waste, tins and glass. I sponsor my friends when they do cool and selfless things.

But collecting at my desk for an activity for something else? Well, you know what I’m saying and don’t pretend you don’t.

Or technically: Twelve People Like Whom I Wish I Could Sing

Computer still broken - another list.

I wish I could sing like:

1. Dave Gilmour - Pink Floyd - Only someone this cool could sing with a posh English accent and still sound this good.

2. Ray Charles - God damn. Why what is it about his voice that makes him sound like he’s in the room with you?

3. Neil Finn - Crowded House - The most versatile voice in the world, in my view.

4. Ben Taylor - The aural equivalent of melted dark Toblerone chocolate on strawberries. Fact. Next.

5. Glen Phillips - Toad The Wet Sprocket - See Neil Finn. Also Glen Tilbrooke from Squeeze.

6. Bob “the Bear” Hite - Canned Heat - the best voice in blues. Howling Woolfe with range, Big Bill Broonzy with punch.

7. Levon Helm - The Band - Honest and a little raspy. He sounds like he’s talking to you after saving your life.

8. Ben Folds - Clear as a bell and making the song matter more than he does.

9.Maynard James Keenan - Tool - A little thin and nasally and it shouldn’t work in hard rock, but it so does.

10. Randy Travis - The Mister Darcy of country music. Laconic, he sounds like he’s barely bothered to say the words, but it’s worth your while hearing them.

11. Nat King Cole - Impossibly smooth and makes any words sound better. Anything he sings you hear through rose-tinted ear-trumpets.

12. Steve Earle - I wish I could be as sure about anything as he sounds about everything.

Computer still broken, so here’s a list in the meantime. But by god when the machine is back and working I’ve got a great idea.

Songs are a very personal thing, too, so when I say I wish I’d written these, it’s kind a little unfair, of like saying “People I would like to have as my dad…” I’m glad these people wrote these songs:

Distant Sun - Crowded House

Signed, Sealed, Delivered - Stevie Wonder

God Only Knows - Beach Boys

My Traveling Star - James Taylor

Up On The Roof - Carole King

Georgia On My Mind - Ray Charles

Wind Cries Mary - Jimi Hendrix

Allentown - Billy Joel

All This Time - Sting

Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tenile

I realise the people credited didn’t necessarily write these songs, but you know. There are many more songs, some even from this decade, that I wish I had written.

If you ask me, doctors shouldn’t even be allowed to keep hippos.

My computer has died.

A computer barely alive
Gentlemen, they can rebuild it
They have the technology
They have the capability to build the computer
Cliff’s computer will be that computer
They can make it better than it was before
Better. Stronger. Faster.

Until then, blissfully short posts.

So The Guardian has dropped its broadsheet style in favour of the tabloid format. This is good, because I associate broadsheets with big leather armchairs in gentleman’s clubs in The Strand which is the only place where there is enough room for you to read them, given the wide berth needed to turn the page of an A2 newspaper.

Sorry, it’s not a tabloid. The format is called a “Berliner”. It is slightly bigger than a tabloid. They will be quick to point that out. Like when we say: “Hey, nice apple pie” and the cook says: “Actually, it’s a tarte tatin” and the rest of us are all like: “Whatever, it’s a pie with apples in it.”

It’s really more like a small broadsheet. It’s a fun format, because when you read it you feel really big, like a giant. Try it.

Maybe that’s part of the idea. The Guardian wants to make its readers feel bigger. “Roar. I am a big giant. I read news and know world. I smell the blood of an Englishman and I can read about implications for public sector workers in Society pages.”

I shouldn’t knock The Guardian. They gave me a job for two years where I held the unique and enviable position of having the desk closest to the nearest pub.

I am more disappointed that they have changed their trademark logo on the masthead from “The Guardian” to simply “the guardian”. I liked those italics at the beginning and I used to pronounce them. I thought it gave the paper that little bit of exclusivity. A little thing that the French call a certain - um, er - … I don’t know what. But conversations went like this:

Someone: “I read about that in The Guardian.”

Me: “What, The Guardian?”

Laugh? I did, thank you.

Italics change the whole feel of a title. This is This.

See?

It would be great tomorrow if the traditional tabloids like The Sun and The Mirror changed to a broadsheet format with the headline: “Ha ha.”

And The Guardian could reply with the headline: “Bugger.”

And The Sun and The Mirror could then run the headline: “Actually, it’s slightly bigger than a broadsheet. It’s called a Lyonnaise”

I wonder if the headlines will have to be shorter, given the smaller format of The Guardian:

“It’s A Mess, Says Condo Rice.”*

*Condo Rice sounds like a microwave meal for one person. Or a kind of new food fad where dishes and property names are combined. Condo rice, flat bread, prefab potatoes and house wine. The possibilities are limited, I grant you, but this is an age of passing things where the things pass faster every time.

How many Freudians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Two.

One to hold the lightbulb, and the other to hold my penis, I mean, my mother, I mean, the ladder.

Highbrow AND offensive - a classic format which combines a knob gag with pyschoanalysis. Everyone wins! Spotted on Chase Me, Ladies.

October is on the way - I love October - the shadows getting longer, sunrise and sunsets to make the commute seem wonderful, the reflective sigh of nature feels like blissful solitude after all the guests have gone home.

I’ll fight anyone right now who thinks that October isn’t the fucking man.

This is wierd because I get/have depression, and it comes and goes. I never notice it leaving but can feel it coming on over weeks. I am pathelogically drawn towards sadness, melancholically predisposed. About every two years I find it hard to drag myself out of a real hole when the black dog comes calling for scraps.

So why should I be drawn towards the things that make me sad? Maybe it’s a pathelogical need. In the same way that happy people are drawn towards happy things. But you know, I love happy people. They are so darn perky.

I guess I love October because I am as flawed as any person, a paradox wrapped in a conundrum cooked on a griddle of riddle, served in a jus d’enigma with soupcon of je ne sais rien.

Other enigmae are:

I like crisp mornings but not morning crisps

I like the band Queen but not the Queen’s band

I like Jack Johnson, but not Johnson, Jack

I like first class but not class first

I like democrats liberal but not liberal democrats

I like broadband but not band broads

I like Supergirl but not girl supers

I like Inspector Gadget but gadget inspectors

I like Palmpilots but not pilots’ palms

I like winter wamers but not warmer winters

I like hot water bottles but not hot bottled water

I like shooting pool but not pool shootings

I like mall shopping but not shopping malls

I like Pride and Prejudice but not prejudice and pride

I like CDs but not DC

I like Play Station but not station plays

I like downtime but not time down

I fought the war on drugs.

I was in Baghdad. Or Basra. Someplace beginning with a B anyway.

I was so off my box, that’s really all I remember.

—
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I like the news. As it is with Huey Lewis, the news and I are synonymous.

It’s not an obsession, I just like to know what’s happening in the world. I am not a news junkie, I don’t have to have it on tap, but I do need bursts of news at least a few times a day.

These days that means news of the mobile, news on the radio, news websties, news everywhere, and it’s all there ready for me to pluck out of wherever.

I like having a break from news, but I do get itchy. Sometimes on holiday, I wonder out loud what’s going on.

“Well,” says wife, “right now we’re having breakfast with the kids and later on we’ll head down to the pool.”

“Not here,” I explain, “I mean in the WORLD.”

And then it hits me how careless that sounds towards them and how much I appreciate her for loving the man I can’t help being.

But every now and then, and to be honest it’s usually more “now” than “then”, I have to get up to date with a news bulletin. Bang. And I’m in sync.

I’m an info nympho and a bit of a whore. I will get news from anywhere and don’t have a favourite source. If I stick with one source, the familiarity breeds contempt. I’ll get frustrated with The Guardian’s liberalism (What if prisons do work?) and then I’ll switch to The Mail and enjoy for a while my shock recoil at some ill-founded right wing conclusion.

I like to be the first to sign someone’s leaving card. That way I can write “take care” or “all the best” before someone else does.

If a leaving card gets round the office before it makes its way to your desk, you can guarantee that someone else has already done the “take care” and “all the best” messages.

So you can either repeat what they put and look really insincere, or you can try and be funny.

This is very risky. The one thing worse than being the Office Joker is being the guy who thinks he’s the Office Joker but is desperately unfunny.

The other alternative is to put something heartfelt. But then you risk looking shmaltzy, especially if the real Office Joker goes and writes something funny.

The best comment I ever got on a leaving card was from my previous job when a friend wrote: “With you out of the way I can finally get my monorail scheme approved.”

A leaving card went round recently and a collague was not sure what to write.

Colleague 1: Who is this for again?

Me: Sally.

(Sally was in charge of “Editorial Integrity”, a division which made sure we didn’t broadcast anything unsuitable for the audience. In a job where reporting the ugliness of life’s rich circus is often the plat du jour*, we have had many heated debates over what was and what wasn’t innappropriate material for family consumption.)

Colleague 1 (with scornful glee): Right, that’s it. I’m drawing a huge pair of tits.

Me: I wouldn’t do that…

Colleague 2: Don’t mention Chomsky either. There are already three references on there.

Me: To Noam Chomsky? Who gets three references to a social commentator and eniment linguist on their leaving card?? That’s so highbrow it’s insane.

Colleague 2: Apparently she likes Chomsky. She quotes him all the time.

Colleague 1: Oh right, that’s it. I’m definitely drawing a huge pair of tits. I’m going to draw a huge pair of tits and I’m going to write: “Have a Chomsky on that.”

Good thing it wasn’t Kant.

*”Life’s rich circus” is a dish best served cold. Preferably with relish.

A friend of mine was buying a gift for someone and he wanted to get something unique. He decided to buy a bonsai tree, and because it was a special occasion, he bought the largest one in the shop, which cost �200.

He now thinks it might be too big because it resembles a, er, tree.

I guess if anything can be learned from this it’s that “an expensive tree in a small pot does not a bonsai gift make”.

You know before when I said:

New Orleans isn’t pronounced “New orLEEEENS”, OK? It’s “New OR-lee-ans”. Three syllables. “N’Awlins” if you’re from there, but never “or-LEENS”. I don’t expect newsreaders to pronounce it like locals, but they should get it right. Don’t get me started on “Tchicago”, which drives me mad.

Well.

Reporters in the field (or in a boat above what was a field) are finally pronouncing it right, because they have been there long enough. OK, some are saying “New or-LEE-ans”, which is still fine, because they’ve got the three syllables in Orleans, but when they hand back to the studio, the anchor says: “Howard Burnell there in New or-LEENS”.

Don’t they know millions of people are watching?

What in the name of General Robert E. Lee are these people playing at?

The situation is clearly getting increasingly desperate. The man on BBC TV today called it “Louisi-ahh-na” with the southern English long “ahh” sound you get at the beginning of “m-ahh-rvellous”. Presumably the refugees were eating emergency “r-ahh-tions”.

And tonight, I heared that people have been evacuated to “HOO-ston” The BBC said “Hooston”, as in “Hooters”. It’s “HEW-ston”! As it “hew-miliate”. What’s next? “HOO-ston AHH-strodome?”

I swear I’m just a “MITCH-igan” from starting a storm of my own, and it won’t be made of water.

1. “It’s Official:”
Headlines which start “It’s Official:” bug me. If it’s official, just say it. “It’s Official: Monkies Faster Than Cossacks.” Normally this is used for things which you can’t quantify, so they stick the prefix in from to try and give it more weight. “It’s Official: The Glass Is Half Empty”

2. Headlines With Question Marks
“How Many More Lives?”, “Is She Really Going Out With Him?”, or “Is This J D Salinger In Angus Steak House?” Fuck knows, you tell me.

3. Tenuous Puns
“Jumping Jack Cash”, “Tom Snooze”, “Abra-Cadaver” - all wrong.

4. “Arguably”
Fair enough if you can’t quanitify it, like “arguably the funniest man on the planet”, but “arguably the fastest lap of the race” is rubbish.

5. The “Media”
The Media talking about The Media bores me to tears. They don’t need to talk about themselves. Imagine if you bought a book and openened it and it said “Here’s a book. You can read it, you might learn something. Books are great. Although some are very evil. The Nazis used to burn books you know.” Or if you went to the movies and the film started with two art critics looking discussing the role of cinema in society: “They sit there is a dark room and they seek something they don’t have. Maybe it is an escape, maybe the real word is the release from this temporary captivity. Interesting.” No, it isn’t. I watch TV and read papers and go online for information and knowledge and entertainment, not to think about why I am watching TV. Do these media people think about using the phone while they are on the phone?

6. Numbered Lists
“26 Steps To A Better You”, “60 Things To Do Before You Die” (these never include practical things like “scream for help” or “seek medical attention”), “1423 Signs You Have Too Much Time On Your Hands”

They ran out of S’s

We had a night of middle classery recently in the form of having friends round for dinner. Our friends live in Dubai and they said it cost �10 to fill up their 80 litre Dodge Titan Redwood truck.

I drive a 4×4 SUV thing and it has a 45 litre tank and it get about the same MPG as a family 4 door car, and it costs me �40 to fill up every week. That’s �160 ($272) a week to you. And I don’t even use it to get to work. That’s just school runs and shopping.

I know Tony Blair’s advisors read this site before setting policy, so I’m saying now chaps, it’s not on.

I know a lot has been said and written about New Orleans, but here are some more thoughts.

Because I used to live there, I find it hard to read reports of ungodly things happening in places I can remember walking down on the way to work. I was a producer for my first media job at WWNO, the local NPR-affiliated radio station. I can picture each street I read about in the news reports: Carrollton, Canal, Rampart, St Charles, Prytania, Esplanade, Claiborne. I lived on Audubon street Uptown across from the park and next to the Tulane and Loyola Universities and had many friends there. Each mention of a street brings to mind a place I used to have coffee or a big night out.

The events over the past week have brought out the worst in some people. Some folks can’t help themselves. This includes me and my pedantry. I’m nothing if not attentive to detail, and I can be a pain in the arse, so here are some gripes.

Misquoted
As the floods came in, the editor of the Times Picayune website ended an editorial on http://www.nola.com/ with the words “New Orleans is sinking… and I don’t want to swim.” Most New Orleanians know this is the chorus of a song by Canadian band The Tragically Hip, and using it in an article is a brave smirk in the face of adversity.

But the BBC folks read this and ran it as a prominent pullout quote in their lead article on their website: “New Orleans is sinking, says editor of the city’s largest paper.” Information isn’t knowledge - online hacks should never forget that. Speaking of which, listen to Fiddler’s Green by The Tragically Hip. It’s gear.

Mispoken
New Orleans isn’t pronounced “New orLEEEENS”, OK? It’s “New OR-le-ans”. Three syllables. “N’Awlins” if you’re from there, but never “or-LEENS”. I don’t expect newsreaders to pronounce it like locals, but they should get it right. Don’t get me started on “Tchicago”, which drives me mad.

Misnamed
No one from New Orleans calls it the Big Easy. That’s a name other people give it. Residents call it the Crescent City because of the shape of the river around the middle of town. Just like people from San Fransisco don’t call their city “Frisco”, the Big Easy is what travel agents and New Yorkers call it.

Mistake
The worst headline of the year appeared on Wednesday in the (London) Times which ran above a picture of the flooded city under the headline “Mississippi Drowning”.

This is bad for so many reasons:

1. New Orleans is in Louisiana, not Mississippi.
2. If they meant the river, which is the Mississippi, I think:”how can a river drown?”
3. It is a very bad pun at the expense of an emergency.
4. It makes light of the very serious subject matter of Mississippi Burning.

This, however, is an exceptional headline. Thanks to Kiwi Mike for spotting it.

Next week: “Tsunami”. It’s with a “ts”. “Tsuh” - “tsuh”. Try it with me…