She is…

 Amanda  Comments Off
Jun 272007
 

yay.jpg

My coworkers convinced me I was mentally ill today because I used the term “franking machine” which they claim does not exist. The more I said that “franking” was actually the right word, the more it reverberated in my head and just sounded utterly stupid. Apparently, I’m meant to be calling the f***king machine a postage meter. I wonder why f***King was so offensive that it evaded american office supply linguistics. Just an FYI in case you ever find yourself slowly wasting your life away in a US conference room where the geographical placement of the f***king machine and its impact on the billable hour is discussed at length.

 Posted by at 11:29 pm

a little closer to Cliff

 music  Comments Off
Jun 252007
 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they want to feel a little bit closer to Cliff Richard. It happened to me in 1987, but I rode it out. Maybe I should have done something about it, but I didn’t. It’s water under the bridge now. However, if that impulse should strike you, don’t panic and tug on a pair of leather trousers and catch the first plane to Portugal, instead do this — sign up for a personalised Cliff Richard email address courtesy of the man himself (Cliff Richard):

Exclusive personalised email

  • Tired of a complicated email address you and your friends just can’t remember?
  • Need more features from your email like webmail, bigger storage and protection from spam?
  • Want to stand out from the crowd?

If you’re bored with your long and unwieldy free email address, or would just like to feel a little closer to Cliff, you can now enjoy the prestige of your very own personalised Cliff email address.

Choose from the following great email addresses …

YourName@MyCliff.com
YourName@cliff-fan.com
YourName@Move-it.bz
YourName@LivingDoll.co.uk


Only US $29.95 per year
Approximately GBP £15.50

© 2007 Cliff Richard Organisation.

Thirty dollars a year? How reasonable. Maybe this year’s grape harvest isn’t shaping up too well.

Popped Clog: Bernard Manning

 popped clogs  Comments Off
Jun 192007
 

Fat man dies. Big fat racist man dies. A few years ago, I bought a tape of his live act and listened to it in the car. The two things that stood out were i) how good a singer he was; and ii) how surprisingly bad at telling his own jokes he was. He kept putting “fucking” in the wrong places in his sentences, ruining the rhythm for the sake of making it sound rude. He was like a less good Jim Davidson. A slightly nicer, slightly more racist Jim Davidson. Fatter too, of course. Worse hair.

Manning was the voice of racial distrust, and however kind/generous/twinkly he was (take your pick from the obits), it’s hard not to feel glad that such a foghorn of bigotry has finally been silenced.

Here’s a typical tribute:

Frank Carson, on The Comedians with Manning, said: “People that misunderstood didn’t have a sense of humour. He used to make gags about the Irish to me. When I’d come into the room he’d say ‘does anyone smell Semtex’ and I wouldn’t take offence.”

Still funny after the 10,000th time of telling? “Eh – we’ve got a Paki gentleman into tonight! Can we get a light on him? There he is. So who’s looking after the shop?” etc. etc. night after night after night after night. Shut up.

Oh good. He has.