Because it wouldn’t be Christmas without it. “I am playing all the right notes…”
Month: December 2009
Historicals
1899: Thanks to limited diet and inadequate sanitary conditions, diseases were more virulent in Victorian times. They were also taller and had haircuts and shoes. Here we see a cluster of the highly contagious, and often lethal, smallpox virus trying to look innocent in a corner.
Island in the Sun
So this is how I want my 2010 to look. How’s yours shaping up?
Ode to Joy
Mee mee mee mee mee. Meeeeee mee meee meee mee. Mee mee.
The Science of Music
A proposed series of experiments designed to test the scientific validity of Britain’s songwriters.
Experiment 1.
THE HYPOTHESIS
That the lyric “slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball” is not only coke-addled, cod-psychedelic whimsy of the very worst kind, and so irritating that I’m still furious about it 14 years after I first heard it, but that it’s also unworkable in a universe of Newtonian physics.
MATERIALS
Noel Gallagher, 1 Cannon, 1 Cannonball.
METHOD
We set Noel Gallagher walking down a hall as slowly as he likes. We load the cannon with gunpowder and a cannonball. We aim the cannon at Noel Gallagher. We fire the cannon.
PROBABLE RESULTS
General fun and merriment at the very least.
CONCLUSION
Somebody really needs to fund this experiment, in the interests of expanding human knowledge, and in the interests of expanding Noel Gallagher’s surface area all over a corridor. Come on!
FOLLOW-UP EXPERIMENT:
HYPOTHESIS: “You and I are gonna live forever.” MATERIALS: Liam Gallagher, 1 Cannon, 1 Cannonball.
ps this was my 200th post. Glad I used it for something worthwhile.
Song of the Year
Revenge. From the album of the year, Dark Night of the Soul by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and David Lynch.
Fact File #4: Christmas
Be careful what you wish for, Roy.
Christmas is celebrated around the world as the time of year at which we give thanks for the many excellent 3-for-2 offers in Boots and Marks & Spencer.
The tradition of eating a turkey at Christmas was started by a goose.
In one of the infinite number of parallel universes predicted by quantum theory, it really is Christmas every day, and Roy Wood is curled up in the corner of a tinsel-filled room surrounded by fake snow and children in chunky knitted woollen hats, and he’s weeping glittery glam tears and whispering: “make it stop, make it stop, please Jesus for just one day make it stop.” And then the kids start singing and the band begins to play, and he weeps some more.
More facts next time, fact fans!
Historicals
1889: The first photographic evidence of an attempted alien abduction. The tiny flying saucer made off shortly after the photo was taken, abducting the top of Mrs E. Langridge's head, which was flown to Venus for a probing. The remainder of Mrs E. Langridge was taken to a clinic in Bournemouth, and was also probed, enthusiastically and often.
Animal Testing Lab
with hilarious consequences etc…
Mele Kalikimaka!
Family Christmas, a heartwarming tale of loneliness and luaus, is currently being featured on the BBC Film Network website as part of their Christmas selection. It’s very short, quite sweet, and I got to buy a ukulele out of the budget. Pono!
Family Christmas on BBC Film Network.
Mele Kalikimaka and a hauoli makahiki hou!
Ramshackle Charm 