Movie producers! What is wrong with you? Your heads are addled with novels and poems! You come home ever evening reeling, unable to think straight, and you sign off on the most incredibly idiotically cyclopeanly bad movies ever conceived in that reechy thought-womb you call a skull. And here I sit, wasting my mighty, mighty thoughts on protecting the public from their own stupidity, when we, that is, you, Mr. Moneybags, and me, the virtuous youth (and I don't mean that in a dirty way) with bright eyes unspoilt by decades of disillisionment, could be doing something about it. I have a great idea for a movie. It involves a troupe of Chinese acrobats who travel to a medieval Spanish city, and, through clever use of special effects, pose as demons to rule the town in conjunction with its Mohammedan lord. There are also Jewish alchemists. Call me!

What the hell is this? I'll be impressed when it's not some light particles, but a cloned baby. And not just teleporting any cloned baby, but a cloned baby with a huge cyclops eye. Also, teleport it to Mars. I'm not having any damn super baby steal my woman. And why can't I get any Tang 'round here? Damned reds!

I'm sure that this has been sent 'round the web, but we'd like to do our part for the cause, the cause being, naturally, France-bashing. Check it out. Of course, as Tolkien would have pointed out with sadness, there's a reason we have all these Latinate words.

Random quotation of today

[From a letter to his wife Dora] Perhaps the absence of feminine society is also at times more tiring than one imagines. I need a woman to bring out the best in me. However I am advised that in Paradise I shall have 70 houris all to myself including if desired one of my wordly wives. In the circumstances I have not a wide field of choice, but it may flatter you to know that on mature consideration I would like you to share the honour with the other 69.

H. St. John Philby, December 2, 1930

Behold the gallantry and charm of a fresh convert to Wahhabism.

Philby's biography does make for fascinating reading at the moment, as he was an influential dark horse in the formation of the modern Middle East after WWI. Particularly singular was his instant infatuation with Ibn Saud. But austere and brutal Arab leaders seem to exert a continuing influence on westerners disposed to treachery.

Situations In Which It Is Acceptable to Eat Someone.



I. They are dead, through no agency of your own.

II. They are comatose, through no agency of your own.

III. They are in a deepest period of the sleep cycle, through no agency of your own.

IV. They are babies or children without speech.

V. They are looking the other way and not engaging in rational thought.

VI. They are so stupid as to prohibit them being considered an agent.

VII. They demonstrate fuzzy-headed liberal thinking.

VIII. They deserve it.

UPDATE: IX. They are mad.

Flaunting one's ignorance online is a powerful stimulus to research. Worthy culinary tribute to an illustrious hero, or affront to downtrodden Chinese and chickens? You decide.

Well, Odious and I have acquired a weblog. It was inevitable in the long run. In regard to any dreariness, typos, or offensive rhetoric, we will be entirely unapologetic. Our dreary interests are our own, and no one need indulge us in them; typos just seem to happen; and offensive rhetoric is a dying art, may we rise to the challenge. Similarly, we currently have no forum for comments, and do not intend to provide one. Unlike some, we have the trappings of busy lives (i.e. jobs, unpleasant ones) and have many better things to do than attend to the unsolicited opinions of strangers. E-mail too is likely to go unread, and almost certain to go unanswered. The flow of information here will be one way; those who desire their own soapbox can, thanks to our current freedom and technological brilliance, easily acquire one.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Odious' and Peculiar's excellent day, allow us to endorse to following. I. Bass Ale. II. General Tso's chicken; we don't currently know who he was, but if his chicken is any indication, he was a man an ell long. III. Gin and tonic; brands are unimportant, but the concept built an empire and won the hearts of the tasteful world. Cheers.

Had the Marquis but been more incitive,
the maiden, though innocent, might've
drunk gallons of gin,
pierced her breast with a pin,
and surrendered to needs appetitive.

Instead he was dull and corrective,
and so, in a manner rejective,
she picked at her food
and tried not to be rude,
while thinking all kinds of invective.