Britain's 2012 Olympic Mascot
Sheepish Return to Form
Jan 2009
Well, dear friends, where to begin? Firstly, apologies for neglecting you all for quite so long. It's been nigh on three years (for shame). We haven't been particularly busy in the the interim - a few changes of address and professional status notwithstanding.
And a belated Happy New 2009 to one and all. We here at MK had a very low key holiday period. We saw in the new year in by writing the word "festive" on a grain of rice and walking around it clockwise, sniffing a bottle of gin.
Boiling Hot & Stunned
April/May 2006
Word reaches us that Ben Elton is collaborating with American writer Stephen J. Cannell on a musical, based around the theme music from 70s TV cop show The Rockford Files - not based on the show itself, mind you, just the theme. James Garner has described the project as "goddam harf assed", and who are we to disagree with the great man? This latest lumpen offering does rather beg the question: has Ben Elton's brain finally and irrevocably turned to shit?
On this day in 1947 ESN British daredevil and adventurer Charles Dunston was killed attempting to ride over the Horseshoe Falls in Niagra in a modified biscuit barrel. No footage of the event survives sadly. But at the subsequent public enquiry, the investigating coroner memorably described Dunston's terminal stunt as "foolhardy in extremis and predicated on the meanest intellect imaginable".
Win one for the Zipper
January/February 2006
We've been hitting the on line poker a tad hard this month. So much so in fact that we've had to sell our houses to realise "flop" funds. If this becomes a problem, however, we'll almost certainly stop.
There's an almighty brouhaha surrounding post-skinny-tie, teenage ubergroup Arctic Monkeys at the moment, isn't there? We're all for them, here. The album's tremendous. However, they won't survive this intense media scrutiny for more that 20 months we reckon. I suppose society gets the journalism it deserves.
And while we don't wish to sound like music snobs (God forbid), why would so many people like them? We at Misery Kippers think they're great as I say, but then we would, we have impeccable indie credentials. But the metropolitan pop buying public's preferred genre is dish washer safe R&B, so why the sudden interest in thin boys with guitars? Hype? You'd have to suppose so. It's got that bad that the soul girl older sisters of former school friends, who thought anyone who liked Geno by Dexys Midnight Runners was a dangerous subversive, now feel sufficiently emboldened to presume to tell me why Alex Turner is Britain's foremost poet.
17/8/2005 - The english A-level results are out tomorrow, and if we've done as badly as we suspect we have, it's off to the school of hard knockers for three years. Blast.
We at misery kippers should like it to be known that we are afraid of the terrorists, but, like Richard Prior, we have a cool run. So Londoners' morale will not be unduly affected by the sight of us weaselling at speed from sites of possible attack.*
Perhaps due in some small way to the work of the terrorists, we've also been struggling to sleep of late. We've compiled a list of the likely causes for this:
- Fear of a Black Planet
- Nightmares brought on by cheese eating grin shortly before retiring
- Wind in the pillows
- Pigeons dancing in the rafters
- Overly ebullient banter from presenters of "Good Morning, Addis Ababa" on the BBC World Service (it kicks off at 0315 hours BST for Christ's Sake). Abebech Bogale's "honk if you love Jesus" phone-in is deserving of especial scorn in this regard.
* if things get any worse, however, we'll be forced to customise our hastily purchased bicycle with a beak & feathers
This week's Harry Potter™ cryptic sudoku clues:
- The sound of a badger hiding some mints - strong ones.
- A dunce with a brolly.
- Plate is to plating as conker is to ?
and...
Put your counting hats on (that's right, isn't it?) and see if you can't help the boy wizard to solve this week's teaser. There's a bag of gas and some edible knickers for the winner.
last undated during: February 2006