sweet effay

He’s so fixated with his identity as an ‘intellectual’ that he’s incapable of real thinking, something which must necessarily be mediated by practice.

A top interview which I found via Loki. Definitely worth a look.

As we head into the realms of becoming-bird, courtesy of the H5N1 virus (although don’t you have to bathe in infected chickens’ blood to actually catch the thing?), it’s heart-warming to see reciprocation in the other direction as the ravens follow Sir Walter Raleigh et al. into jail at the Tower of London. A shame for the ravens, but obviously this is vital for national security as if there are no ravens at the Tower, Blighty is set to fall into the hands of Muslims, Communists, or the like.

I have always been impressed by the lateral thinking of the individual who solved the raven problem in the first place. You can just imagine, the monarch holding court at the Tower back in the Dark Ages, when a messenger comes rushing in:
“Your majesty, I bring grave news from your sorcerer. He has been in communication with the Spirits and they have told him that if all the ravens leave the Tower, your kingdom will fall!”
Much consternation as news spreads through the kingdom, and the king calls a special meeting of his wisest councillors to discuss what can be done about the problem. They are all shaking their empty heads miserably when the youth who serves the wine pipes up.
“Sire, I know a way to ensure your kingdom never falls.’ Cue much hilarity and insults from the councillors. “Silence! Let the youth speak.” calls the king.
“Well sire, if you clip the birds’ wings they will never be able to leave and so, long as you maintain a successful breeding programme and have an emergency quarantine plan should ill-humoured poultry arrive from the East, then fair Albion will last until the Final Trump is played.”
Amazement all round, hearty congratulations, and the young lad is immediately made Baron of Crawley.

Sadly though, it’s generally accepted that the raven legend was made up during the nineteenth century (undoubtedly by a Gothic revivalist; you know what Goths are like about ravens). After all, who would have bothered about ravens in the medieval England when the Tower was home to bears, lions, and anything else that enterprising travellers thought of picking up abroad to bring back and amuse the folks back home with?

You've probably seen this in the press: The government's latest attempt to make us feel patriotic and special about English culture is to get people to nominate and vote for things they think are most iconic about our glorious heritage. So what should win? Something which makes us feel proud to be English, obviously, but what could that be? Afternoon tea? The village cricket match? Fuck all that. How about a bunch of long haired, mentally deranged musicians, many of whose proficiency for drug abuse far outstrips their proficiency on their respective instruments? I know there will be readers out there expecting me to plump for Stonehenge, but what's the bloody point of going to Stonehenge if Hawkwind aren't playing there for free? Yes folks, it's true: You can vote for Hawkwind as top English icon. I know you'll all want to, so here's the link to help you on your way.

This looks great: A new strip in The Beano about a Scottish problem family called 'The Neds'. They have children called Asbo and Chavette! Sheer genius. I'll be checking it out down the One Stop as soon as possible.

Of course, the interesting thing is it sounds like something that Viz would run. Viz imitates The Beano, then The Beano imitates Viz. You could get half a term's worth of cultural studies teaching out of this one.

In case you are wondering why the Scottish press is getting so worked up about Neds, check out this fine site, which will give you an insight. I particularly like the term 'wee cheeky Ned', which I would attempt to use whenever possible, but suspect that it only works in a Scottish accent.

I must confess that I'm puzzled as to why The Daily Record ran this story in its sex and health section. Perhaps you could get the second half of the term's cultural studies teaching out of the answer...

This forum where student doctors try to out gross each other with their experiences on emergency wards is the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Some examples:

After you bring your 775 lb body to the ED to w/u a foul odor from your rectum and upon examination (with one person holding up the left buttocks with all his might) a lost television remote is found abscessed inside your gluteal fold, by all means, ask if you can have it back because you were tired of changing channels with your cane and by throwing objects at the television.

When your 15yo daughter gives precipitous delivery to a bleating, underweight infant 30 minutes after presenting to triage c "gas pains", you should run around the department loudly yelling, "I don't know what y'all did or who that baby is, but my lil' girl warn't pregnant when she come in here"

When you cut off your penis to show your ex-girlfriend you won't take her dumping you lying down, please tell us where we can locate said appendage BEFORE you try and puke up the answer

Spent an intresting morning up the hospital today: I had my hips x-rayed from various angles and then went to see the consultant. As they do, he posted up an x-ray of my pelvis on the monitor, and then proceeded to talk me through it. However, my attention was immediately distracted by the large mass apparent in the centre of my pelvis: it took me several seconds to recognize it as my genitals. 'My God,' I thought 'I'm hung like a horse!' It turns out that having an outline of your penis superimposed on your bare bone structure messes up the proportions to such an extent that it makes you look like a fairground attraction. I seriously considered asking the consultant for a copy so that I could get T-shirts printed up, but then decided he might think I was a bit weird. I was also too shy to ask him exactly why the radiographer had taken a photo of a perfect outline of my genitals against my bone structure but, seeing the way it turned out, I can't say that I blame her....