Barack Obama

O Mac, O Barbara B, Caramba Barrack Obama-arama!
Cobra bark, Crab roar, Ram baa, Boa moo!
KABOOM! arab car bomb. Boo arab mob. A crack boom, Obama coma.
A karma crack.

Fortunately, I have noticed that initial suggestions that all reports on the activities of President Obama would only be permitted to use letters that appear in his name have been denounced as Republican scare-mongering.

Lester Holt's debut album

Track listing:


1. Critic, unless he's Right.
2. Safe, unless he'll Bite.
3. Never, unless he Might.
4. Eclipse, unless it's Night.
5. Buzzard, unless he's a Kite.
6. No hard hat, unless on Site.
7. Socks, unless they're White.
8. Your round, unless you're Tight.
9. Minor Disagreement, unless it's a Fight.
10. Classic Album, unless it's Shite.
11. Seven Wonders of the World, unless there's Eight.
12. Funless, unless Sunless.

With thanks to Jasper.

Fantasy Monarchs

In case of a plague, nuclear disaster or Prince Philip finally flipping and going on a rampaging murder spree, I've checked to see who we may be left with as monarch. Here are some of my personal favourites with their current position in the line of succession.

6. Queen Eugenie
21. King Xan
29. King Cassius
40. Queen Zenouska
53. Queen Tallulah
55. King Maximilian
104. King Dimitri
121. King Boris
162. King Pius
168. Queen Xenia

Not forgetting of course, you may notice at number 483, King Philip, who must have picked up something from his wife in the last 55 years.

Also, here are some near misses from the past ... these people reached the number 1 spot, but for one reason or another never became the monarch. With one misplaced arrow/bullet/poisoned apple we could have had:

Queen Matilda - became heir in 1120
King Eustace - 1135
King Arthur - 1189
King Alphonso - 1274
King Roger - 1382
King Humphrey - 1435
King Arthur II - 1486
Queen Frances - 1558
Queen Sophia - 1702
King Ernest - 1837

Loads of Balls

You may notice that Statmeister Wah is following the World Championship snooker, which may, or may very well not, be of interest.

Name That Cricketer

Whilst I was in the gym on Tuesday morning, I noticed a man sheepishly walk in carrying a cricket bat and wearing one day cricket pyjamas. He proceeded to enter a gym studio room, one with the walls all covered with mirrors, and practice posing his cricket shots. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't name him. Perhaps you could suggest who it may be based on my observations?

• Tall, at least 6 foot 4 I think
• Black
• Fast bowler's physique
• Considers batting an exercise in looking stylish
• Reminiscent of a younger Chris Lewis
• Shaven headed
• In West London the day before the start of the cricket season
• Tendancy to leave preparation until the last minute

A Sign From Above ... Interpretation Needed.

Wow, a cat in my onion. Quick, let me stick it on ebay before it dries out.

A Conundrum for you

Yesterday's final Countdown number game was a tricky one, as you can probably gather from Carol's confused look in the above screenshot from the programme. However, it is possible to solve it, although I don't give anyone much of a chance of achieving it in 30 seconds.

So, what is the solution?

Squawk

Apparently the Wandering Albatross can fly continuously for as much as 10 years, turning its brain off one half at a time when it gets tired.
pic 1 : Improbably large Wandering Albatross chick interviews Sir David.
pic 2 : Mid flight, due to land 2014.

Legs, Drugs and Cuts on Beds, Bucks and Herts

Whilst enjoying today's North Circular traffic jam, 3 Counties Radio's travel alert cut in. After the usual "bit of a queue", "running fairly well", "High Street busy" rubbish they tantalised us with what was to come up.
"Stay tuned as we will be discussing jodhpurs and haircuts, and of course there will be the live link-up with Bogota Radio". Sounds like quite a line up. Unfortunately my radio returned to normal programming, but I think I may have missed out. My jodhpur knowledge is slim and Bogota at 3 a.m. must be bursting with activity.

Did she really just say that?

Marian Cotillard, winner of Best Actress of the Year at the Oscars for her role in "La Vie en Rose" (appropriately an anagram of "Eloise Raven", as it is a film about Eloise Piaf who was often known as the Raucous Raven due to her extraordinary singing voice) announced during her acceptance speech, rather rudely I thought, that "It is true, there is some mentals in this city."

Green? Don't bank on it.

Having noticed HSBC focussing on how green they were trying to be in their recent advertising campaign (including their "sale" ... how can a bank have a sale??), I realised that they obviously had something very important to tell me when I received 5 pages of typed A4 plus an explanatory leaflet a few days ago.
So, the letter was to do with my overdraft facility. I have had an overdraft facility with HSBC ever since I was at university, and nothing has changed about it for at least 10 years.
Blah, blah, blah, overdraft, blah, blah, blah, review, blah, blah, blah, interest rate, blah, blah, blah ... Ah, here it is ... Your overdraft facility will remain the same.
Now HSBC, don't you think you could have mentioned this on one corner of my statement? emailed me about it? left a message on the internet banking system I regularly log in to? Or even just presume that I would realise that if not told of any changes then I would realise that the status quo remains?
I suppose they know full well that inertia will keep me as their customer, so this needn't really concern them.

Giving drivers a brake

I've been thinking about car taxing. With petrol tax becoming increasingly difficult to put up due to the ridiculous levels already reached, the government is understandably looking to other ways to increase the tax burden on drivers. Often we hear of road pricing being mooted in various forms, but I think that that is a rather untargeted tax. The real scourge of driving is wasting petrol. Petrol tax already penalises wasting of petrol through using an engine that is unnecessarily powerful, so now we need to penalise the other great way of wasting petrol: Braking.
Every time you brake you are wasting the petrol just burnt, so surely we can deduct directly from drivers every time their brake pedal is depressed. I've noticed in motorway driving it is not necessary to brake more than about once every fifty miles, though some drivers seem obsessed with whizzing up so close behind others and then jamming their brakes on. Braking tax would also target the other scourges of the driving world: the school run drivers, the nip down the shops drivers and the tailgaters.

Yummy

Today a delicious lunchtime snack for you to enjoy before the end of the sprout season.

You will need :
12 small/medium brussell sprouts.
Fake butter.
Pinch of salt.
Two slices bread with bits in.
West country cheddar dip.
Packaged ham slices.

Cut sprouts into quarters.
Add sprouts to lightly salted boiling water and simmer for 5 mins.
Melt fake butter spread in frying pan.
Fry sprouts for 5 minutes.
Butter bread.
Add Ham to one slice of bread.
Add West Country Cheddar spread to other slice of bread.
Spread sprouts out on top of the ham.
Close your sandwich and enjoy.

Rules clarification required (iii)

I've been watching a bit of tennis recently and I've noticed that accurately deciding whether a ball was 'in' or 'out' seems to have become a major issue, with Hawkeye playing its part, when someone can justify the cash spent to implement it.
But is the following 'in' or 'out' in a singles game?
Apologies for the colour and accuracy of the picture ... the red bit is the contact the ball makes with the ground while bouncing. At first look it would appear to be out; it has bounced just missing the junction between the baseline and the sideline. However, as far as the baseline line judge is concerned it was clearly in, and likewise the sideline judge looking straight up his line would call it in. Could the umpire overrule? Unlikely that he could see it clearly enough to be sure, and even if he could, how can you 'overrule' if neither of the line judge has made a mistake that needs to be over-ruled.
If it is on a Hawkeye court, would Hawkeye rule it out? If Hawkeye is not employed, what is the correct decision?

Heath Ledger

Sadly, an actor died yesterday. I have no idea who Heath Ledger is, apart from the fact that he was in a movie called "Breakback Mountain" about gay cowboys, so I was pleased that Five Live were going to enlighten me by interviewing some fellow actors.
On being asked about the news, Morgan Freeman said "I've never met him, so I guess I'm feeling the same as the rest of you about this."
Was Jack Nickolson going to be more informative?
"I once nearly drove off a cliff. I had to get up in the middle of the night and I live up in the mountains and I nearly drove off a cliff 50 yards from my house. I never met him either."
And that was it. I remain unenlightened.

An Oddie Menu

Whoever's idea it was to invite Bill Oddie to be the star guest on the live Saturday Kitchen programme yesterday and then have the first celebrity chef cook duck for him should be awarded some sort of prize. Surely the expression on his face, the "I'm NOT eating THAT" and the comments on the merits or otherwise of shooting wild birds can't have come as a complete surprise to those involved in the programme.

Snoopy

Google are snooping on the whole world, and it's brilliant. Via map searching on google you can find satellite images of anywhere around the world, and you can spend hours doing your own snooping.

Anyway, while hunting for North Korean concentration camps I noticed this lovely pink volcano on the China/North Korea border.

Apparently it is Baekdu Mountain, and in the middle of it is Heaven Lake, one of the highest crater lakes in the world. I fear it may only be pink because of camera problems, but that doesn't really matter. I think the image above must have been taken in summer, rather than at this time of year when the average temperature there is a somewhat chilly -24C, which would suggest that the picture should be just a blanket of white.

New Year's Resolutions

The whole New Year's Resolution thing is clearly tedious and pointless. If you must change something in your life them do it straight away rather than waiting for January the first ... and why make such a big deal about it, do you really think the world is interested?

On the other hand, here are mine.
1) Update blog at least once every week. (Phew, nearly failed that already)
2) Reduce email inbox to less than 1000 items.
3) Stop whinging about Indian food/restaurants.
4) Go to the gym at least once a week unless away on holiday.
5) Boycott Robert Mugabe, should he come to visit.
6) Paint the kitchen.
7) Eat more apples.
8) Don't take up smoking.
9) Avoid the cliched belief that any list has to have a round number of items.