Going back to Houston, to get me some pants

Just spotted a very improbable musical parallel. Anyone else see a similarity between the opening 10 seconds or so of these unlikely bedfellows?








Perhaps I'm on my own with that one. Happy Christmas!

I don't think Biddy Baxter would approve

Found crumpled in the wastebin at White City*:

"Get a cat"? Don't they already have one?

A crueller person than I who watched during the 1980s might add 'Bring Joey Deacon back'.



* not really. Think I picked this up on the street on the way home.

You're a bum, you're a punk, you're an old slut on junk

I refuse to switch off the life support on Blog Party (there's life in the old blog yet) and continue to keep things ticking over for the time being with a drip feed of little morsels.

Like this photo from Kuala Lumpur (no time like the present eh? I only took it in April 2009!). Can't see this clothing brand ever achieving global success:

Apparently they do a fine line in knickers and gruds

Death Race 2011

Some of you will be aware of this, others may not. If you fancy getting involved, drop me a line; if you're appalled at the very thought, well, best look away.

With one month to go in the current round, it's time to get ready for the 2011 game. For those who are new to this, here's how it works:

- Pick 10 people who you predict will die between Jan 1 and Dec 31 2011. Male, female, young or old, they just need to be in the public eye (so you can't pick the old geezer who lives down the road. Unless that happens to be, say, George Cole from off of Minder)

- You'll then score points for every correct prediction. It's 100 points MINUS their age. So Bernard Matthews (80) would have got you 100-80 = 20 points; John from Jedward would score 100-19 = 81 points. Anyone aged 100 or older gets you 1 point.

- The player with the most points as at midnight 31.12.11 is the winner.

- When you've decided on your squad, send your list to me by Dec 31 2010. I'll collate them and then distribute to the other players once we're underway.

- After a bit of arguing this year, there are no restrictions on picking people with terminal illnesses/prolonged vegetative states etc. Although having been asked by one imaginative player, there is one restriction: you can't pick anyone who is on Death Row/condemned to death by stoning etc etc.

- No cost to enter. As a result there's no great prize, but I am working on something special.

- And don't feel you need to leave it til the last minute. Get your lists in as soon as you like and if one of them kicks it before the end of this year you can of course replace them.

Remember - I must have your lists by Dec 31st!

Pip pip!

You can't be too careful

Sign o' the times unfortunately

Laureatta Lynn

Today we think of David Cameron,
For alas, his father is gone.
I wonder how it feels,
To be born with no heels,
And be continually looked down upon.

They don't mackem like they used to!

The rumours are true..... we ARE sponsoring Sunderland this season!

It's good to talk (on the bog)

I was disappointed to see such limited options in that vote currently open on the BT website (don't forget to vote, imaginary family fans!). At the very least, I'd have liked to have seen the following available to us viewers eagerly awaiting the next development of the story:


Not sure how they'd crowbar some phone references into #3... though I'd like to see them try.

Modern life is rubbish

Sainsbury's, Leeds, 29.7.10



You wouldn't get that at your local high-street baker's would you? Oh hang on, they're all shut because everyone goes to the supermarket. Alanis Morrisette should write a song about situations like that.

Also this reminded me of the time I got fired from the butchers for sticking my johnson in the bacon slicer. What happened to the bacon slicer? She got fired too.

Points make prizes

The 'big year' is a term used in the birding community to refer to an attempt to see as many different species as possible within that year. Turns out it's also a film due 2011, starring Tombolablog favourite Rosamund Pike and rather less promisingly, Jack Black. I've been meaning to blog about this for months now, and still haven't properly got around to it. But I have been able to bash out a simpler, sort of related one. Hurrah! And here it is.

Over roughly the same period [that I could have done a Big Year - bird tally, not film], we stacked up an impressive tally on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. There are plenty of academic papers about this, but I'm using Claire Rayner's Marriage Guide as my source text. As indeed I have almost daily since purchasing it a couple of years ago.

No longer appears to be in print, so check out those charity shops!

I'll let Ms. Rayner explain:

"In 1968 American researchers devised a system for assessing stress effects of life events and their effects on health. They gave numerical values to various experiences and found that a total of 300 points or more in any one year gave people an 80% chance falling ill; a score of between 150 and 300 gave a 50% chance of illness."

Between Jan 2009 and Jan 2010, we've notched up several of those on the list. Let's do some totting:

Marriage: 50 points
Change to different kind of work: 36 points
Change in living arrangements with spouse/partner: 35 points
Taking on a large mortgage: 31 points
Change in residence: 20 points
Change in social activity: 18 points
Change in number of family reunions: 15 points
Vacation: 13 points
Christmas: 12 points

Total: 230 points. Eek!

Taking the pith

Unusual sighting at Leeds rail station yesterday morning: two people wearing pith helmets. They were both dressed in what can perhaps best be described as 'colonial chic'. Just needed a blunderbuss and perhaps a massive butterfly net and they'd be set (it reminded me of something from Tintin au Congo). Presumably they were heading for the airport and exotic holidays, rather than the mean streets of Kippax.

The sound of one hand clapping

I tweeted something on Saturday (that's right haters, I've succumbed. Deal with it.) and fully anticipated that it would become a sensation, zoom around the world, and by this morning I would be in the Metro, with Stephen Fry praising my wit.

No, Akira said it was horrendous and that was that.

But I'm proud of it, so here it is again (slightly revised) for posterity!


Sorry to see that Star Wars again missed out of the Queen's Birthday honours list.
How much longer must we wait for Obi-Wan Kenobi OBE?

HOOPOE!

I see you baby, shaking that brass

One of the highlights of the Tombola year this evening: the Whit Friday brass band contest. We'll be listening carefully for unusual covers. I predict a few airings of 'Three Lions', and in previous years we've spotted 'Simply the best', 'Let me entertain you', and my personal favourite, 'Sexbomb'.

I live in hope of hearing this though:

but has he read the tiny text that said to disconnect?

As promised, I've had a trawl through the Tombola television archives for some previously unseen snaps:

I don't understand how a heart is a spade, but somehow the vital connection is made

Just had a call from the team behind popular, seemingly never-ending BBC4 brainiac quiz, 'Only Connect'. The first series is being aired again from next Monday (31st May) and they wanted to check that there was no reason why our team couldn't be shown again. None that I could think of, aside from an unwillingness on my part to relive the whole, humbling experience. Maybe this time we might win.

I'll try and dig out some exciting, backstage pics from the day.

Footballers not going to the World Cup joke #1

What do you call a French footballer who is very itchy?


Karim Eczema

Church advertisement idea #1

We're still awaiting the commission to do those witty ads outside of churches. But it's surely only a matter of time with gems like this:

30 century man

Today's playlist: 30love

• Octopus - If you want to give me more (really only for the first 10 seconds or so, but I must have played it on Apr 13 for the last 13 years now).
• The Verve - A new decade

and definitely, categorically, nothing to do with the fucking muppets :(

Handy Meeples*

Blues ponder their next move

A word in praise of the mighty game, Carcassone. We were given the starter pack + two expansions as a wedding present, and our initial bafflement rapidly gave way to joy and a creeping obsession, along with a desire to spread the word further. Chances are that if you've spent more than twenty minutes in mine or CP's company over the past twelve months then we'll have tried to tell you how amazing Carcassone is. There's a strong chance that we'll have whipped the board out and played you, or just gone ahead and given a pack to you as a gift.

Our pack recently accompanied us to Egypt where we could fit in a crafty game and dodge the wonky hotel evening entertainment. We've also found ourselves fitting smoothly into conversations in game shops and being referred to as 'gamers'. Still don't understand the Count expansion though.

Loads of stuff here: http://www.carcassonnecentral.com/


*Wasn't he the last person to interview John Lennon? [tenuous local DJ pun Ed.]

Until tomorrow Venn

Something for the weekend: two snaps of graffiti, displaying varying levels of imagination...

Hey Dirty, Tombola got ya money

Announcement:

"Attention penny pickers! Tombolablog is launching its own fiscal stimulus!
Over recent years I have developed a bit of a reputation for a nifty knack of spotting money on the street. And I'm not talking about the odd coin, I mean notes, and fairly regularly too. A clinical psychologist once told me that I must be depressed as I found cash as a result of looking down so much. That was during a social occasion and I wasn't paying for the consultation. There's actually a long-forgotten blog detailing my exploits in logging what I found over the course of a year*. So (and I'm sorry for putting this up 3 days late), I'll be totalling up any cash I find over the course of March. Quantitative easing of the pavement. My mum's doing the same and we'll see who has collected the most at the end of the month. And then buy a couple of packs of Space Raiders and a Freddo. If you too are happy to fish 2p coins out of dirty puddles by the side of the road then please join in!"


*I even had a grand plan to write to a paving firm to ask them what materials they use when paving the streets and I was going to link this to the old panto nugget that London is paved with gold etc. But that bastard Time Waster Letters has surely put paid to any innocent stunts like that. Pizza Express never wrote back neither.

Middle of Torode

Never one to let go of an idea in spite of having already choked the life out of it, here is another exciting bingo game!

We're big fans of Masterchef here - I have to confess being practically moved to tears a couple of years ago when one guy made some amazing cakes and the mega, multi-Michelin-starred chefs all told him how great he was and he started crying. Amazing. It may not be possible to increase my enjoyment of the show any further, but I'm going to give it a bash. Here are our bingo cards, which we shall be using during one of this week's heats...

BINGO DOESN'T GET TOUGHER THAN THIS!

Famous jive

Here's something interesting: I have busted some jive moves with the person responsible for exposing the MP's expenses scandal.

She was on the first jive course I did, back at South London Pacific, in April 2006. This was of course back in the days when our elected representatives and their families could merrily watch porn films, build home extensions, and make donations to charity (see #6) and then claim it all back while we were none the wiser. I've just reread the entries from the time and she wasn't the one with the cat ear headband.

A dramatisation of the whole story of it (the battle for access to expenses claims, not being whirled around the dancefloor by me) is on BBC4 tonight, as I type.

Pharoahe Bonk

We recently had a very nice trip to Egypt and here, for your enjoyment, are some jokes that I made up while I was there. CP found them all, without fail, utterly hilarious:


What do you call Rolf Harris' gang that he has in Sudan?
Rolf's Khartoum Club


What do you say to someone who has fallen in the river and then claims that they don't need help?
He's in denial!


What do you call Rolf Harris' gang where he writes your name in hieroglyphics inside a sort of ovoid shaped outline?
Rolf's Cartouche Club


Did you hear about the dyslexic Council person who got in trouble for popping everyone's car tyres?
He installed cactis in the road [instead of cat's eyes]


What do you call Rolf Harris' gang for elk-like animals?
Rolf's Caribou Club

[please stop - Ed.]

Hanky pancake nohow

Ok, so I put this up in 2008 - Tombolablog: now into our 4th year! Time really flies when you're writing sporadic rubbish - but it warrants a return.

Enjoy your pancakes readers!

Tuppence a bag

It's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend, so get those binoculars on standby. Here's what we spotted* in our garden in November**


* Not all of those sightings are considered reliable
** There are some shopping list items on there too