Meenzer

I'm sensing an assault on Eggheads at some point. (Or Only Connect if we're being proper cerebral and that.)

I applied for that one precisely because the form was really short. ITV, after all. (that and I was drunk)

We've considered applying to be on it but the application form is massive and generally ridiculous.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/quiz/2013/dec/23/1?CMP=twt_gu

On the first of four trains that'll eventually ferry me to deepest Lincolnshire, felled trees permitting. Still, at least there's this: http://whoishenrykelly.tumblr.com/

Taxi-driver Santa in "taking the long way round" shocker

Flights to Faro, Hamburg and Berlin, tickets to the Cardiff cup game and a Dar Williams gig, a new coffee machine and bean grinder, a new Foreman grill and some prescription swimming goggles. I know how to live.

http://citycyclops.com/7.31.13.php

Got in plenty of reading on holiday this last week, though several books were lugged back again untouched. Stephen King - 11/22/63 I'm not sure what happened on the eleventh of Februfebruary 1963, but there's a man who seems determined to stop it. An easy, barrelling read as you'd expect from King - suspend your sci-fi "but but but..." kneejerk reaction to all the time travel stuff and there's an effective and affecting story underneath. A bit uneven - is it a time-travel romp? a "what if?" alternative history? a nostalgic romance? it can't seem to decide - but just right as a poolside page-turner. Douglas Coupland - Player One I'm not sure what happened on the ninth of November 2001, but Coupland seems to think it's the only thing of importance in the last decade and a bit. The book? It's Coupland, innit, same as ever, you either like/get/tolerate it or you don't. I appreciate it insofar as I bounced off it at an admiring angle without really engaging with it. Some cute insights, often way too cute for its own good, but ultimately the fact that the word count is (by definition) limited helps it come across more sharply than most of his recent output. A reasonable diversion. Jonathan Wilson - Inverting The Pyramid Eduardo Galeano - Football In Sun And Shadow Two of the four football books that Lewisham Library furnished me with for the trip (the Glanville World Cup history and I Am The Secret Footballer will have to wait), and both well worth the effort. I've been meaning to get round to the Wilson for ages, and for all I like his football writing generally, for some reason I was worried it would become too technical and stat-/theory-heavy when paired with the topic of pure tactics. Nonsense, of course - Pyramid could scarcely be more readable and deserves the plaudits it's received over the last few years. Galeano is a Uruguayan football purist with a very clear sense of what he likes and doesn't like, and Sun and Shadow is basically a collection of short essays on the theory, history, practice and standout figures from a century of the game. When the prose flows, it really flows - but there are a few horrible translation bloopers that I struggled to get past. Hire a proofreader who knos a thing or two about football, for heaven's sake! (I'm not saying it has to be me.) Robert Wringham - You Are Nothing Intriguing little book detailing the near-misses of the near-epic comedy troupe Cluub Zarathustra. Rather like that book on Chris Morris from a few years back, it suffers from a certain distance from its subject and is probably closer to an extended university dissertation than a Serious Intellectual Tome, but it'll be of interest to fans of 90s post-alternative comedy and its various strands and offshoots.

An emoji nativity.

Let's say we both posted it. (It was definitely me.)

With Anglo-German ears, that Nelly Furtado song from the Euros in Portugal sounds like it's saying "Cum on my Fotze, cum on my Fotze". Which is nice.

You're a bit early for Pancake Day.

The Big Pink Stiff One is genre-defining. Rude Kid at his finest.

You mean Maften.

You're below the poverty line, though, so it's natural you'd notice the difference.

Mine has increased by no more than a few quid since 2006 (I was in Germany before that), but they've achieved that by closing half the libraries and not cleaning the dogshit off the streets any more.

Previous page: people talking about what you can do with sprouts This page: "So I've been looking into what you can do with sprouts"

The latter being a Lib Dem policy anyway and one that the Tories would have gone nowhere near if it hadn't been for the coalition.

*sniffs the air* Why, that thur smells like a straw man approachin'!

Aye. Worker impotence being institutionalised, health care for all being dismantled... it's almost like the lot in charge are ashamed of some of the best things we've achieved as a country. I can thoroughly recommend volunteering to help out at the local food bank, incidentally. It's a good deed, it gives you a real insight into how things actually are on the ground, and most importantly it's unpaid so it doesn't compromise your proximity to the poverty line.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iain-duncan-smith-leaves-commons-debate-on-food-banks-early-9013917.html

Bet you I would

You absorutery right.