Watched The Manchurian Candidate yesterday, it was a really engrossing film. Missed England v Holland though. The next game is far away in February!

Nothing much to write about today, so I’ll set my readers a challenge. Can anybody write a song about mozarella to the tune of the great dance-floor favourite “Hey Macarena!” by the pervy Los Del Rio. I’m obviously envisaging something along the lines of “Hey, Mozarella!”, but you can do the rest.

Still reading Catch 22. Two lieutenants are ordered to take Major Danby outside and shoot him.

The two young lieutenants nodded lumpishly and gaped at each other in stunned and flaccid retulance, each waiting for the other to initiate the procedure of taking Major Danby outside and shooting him. Neither had ever taken Major Danby outside and shot him before.

And here’s another good one. Yossarian runs to the hospital with a “liver complaint” whenever he doesn’t feel like flying bombing missions and being shot at.

Yossarian owed his good health to exercise, fresh air, teamwork and good sportsmanship; it was to get away from them all that he had first discovered the hospital.

One company was offering me a “fantastic boneus!” Bone us? Hmmmm……

I saw an article in The Independent recently titled “America’s Worst President”.

Three of the six contributors chose George Dubyah Bush, while the remaining three mentioned some other person, and then spent the entirety of the allocated space explaining why Bush should not be chosen as the worst president.

Yesterday’s Manchester Evening News had this thought by William Hazlitt (1821) – “No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.” The same might apply for greatness or unparalleled distinction in any amount of things; idiocy, unworthiness, arrogance, etc.

I have some little-known nuggets of information about other great Americans.

While in term as President, George Washington’s policy towards the Native Americans is clearly demonstrated in this statement:- “The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more.”

President Thomas Jefferson said “This unfortunate race, whom we had been taking so much pains to save and to civilize, have by their unexpected desertion and ferocious barbarities justified extermination and now await our decision on their fate,”

whereas President Andrew Jackson believes “They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favourable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.”

Sounds familiar?

A team of researchers from Manchester University led by Dr. Piers Robinson has found a large bias against critics of the war during the “conflict”.

Dr. Robinson said “Coverage overwhelmingly reflected the official line in the moral case for the war. More than 80% of TV and press stories mirrored the government position, while fewer than 12% challenged it. Most reports did not discuss humanitarian operations at all.”

Meanwhile, in my calendar of forgotten English by Jeffrey Kacirk, I find the word ‘Cooping’, which I thought was the term for barrel-making.

Apparently, it is “Collecting and confining [voters] several days previous to an election in a house or on a vessel hired for the purpose. Here they are treated with good living and liquors, and at a proper day are taken to the polls and “voted, “ as it is called, for the party.” (James Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms, 1877)

Rather dodgy, you might say. But Kacirk says “As Bartlett’s definition suggests, politicians once routinely provided free alcohol to voters, a practice called “treating.” In fact, the lion’s share of George Washington’s recorded election expenses, when he ran for Virginia’s colonial legislature in 1758, went towards the purchase of spirituous liquors used for cooping.”
 

Shasha took Ali and I in her car to ASDA and InStore so Ali could buy some stuff for his new place. We both buckled ourselves in tight, and crossed every crossable part of our body. And we made it there AND back safely. The Gods must have been smiling!!

Naw, she’s not that bad. She’s now a Confident, Mature Young Woman Making Things Happen and Moving Forward In Life.

If one (or many, for that matter) were to ask me which film from a bygone era (though not black-and-white film; I simply don’t see the point when I have colour vision) I would like to sit down and watch in its entirety, it is doubtful whether my memory would have recalled this brilliant film. However, this is precisely the film I should chose if the choice were given me, simply because it is firmly based on a brilliant, engaging plot, and the story-telling is concise while the pace is engrossing. And Edward Fox plays a calm, collected, suave assassin without resorting to any overt theatrics, while Michel Lonsdale’s almost hound-like, plodding Inspector Claude Lebel is wonderful to watch.

My (gorgeous) readers may be more familiar with a more recent remake of this film, that went by the name “Jackal” and had Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier hunting Bruce Willis. And this may well serve admirably as a comparison case; where this hollywood version had shootouts galore, the original Jackal is only shown shooting one person, an unfortunate gendarme, before he is mowed down by his antagonist the Inspector Claude Lebel (and there I ruined the plot for you).

The screenplay was adapted from the book of the same name by Frederick Forsyth, of whom I am a big fan. The film remains truthful to the book, and is much the richer for doing so. And a bit of gratuitous nudity never goes amiss, I daresay. 

Made using a special spicy ‘Laziza Qorma’ sauce bought at Worldwide. Cooked at Ioannis’. Eaten by us. Watched ‘Catch 22’ after that. Then Tinks drops in. Wine aplenty.

Worldwide is a unique oasis; a supermarket that stocks all kinds of great foreign foodstuffs. Indian, West Indian and Caribbean, Middle Eastern, etc. Fresh fruit and vegetables, a butchers at the back that dice chicken exactly the way you want it. And situated right where it is needed, in the multi-cultural (ok, mainly “Asian”) Rusholme.

Badminton has left me with aching muscles again; we (Jill) paid £6.90, which is one hour’s hire charge for one court, and we played on two courts for two-and-a-half hours. There were very few people crazy enough to be at the Sports Centre at 9 a.m. on Saturday.

Yossarian is a bombardier in WWII. Obviously, he’s tired of flying missions and being shot at. He approaches his squadron commander.

“I don’t want to fly milk runs. I don’t want to be in the war anymore.”

“Would you like to see our country lose?” Major Major asked.

“We won’t lose. We’ve got more men, more money and more material. There are ten million men in uniform who could replace me. Some people are getting killed and a lot more are making money and having fun. Let somebody else get killed.” 

“But suppose everybody on our side felt that way.”

“Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn’t I?”

This twisted logic is a hallmark of this book. The much-used phrase “catch 22” comes from the title of this book, and can be understood by reading the excerpt Ioannis has blogged about.

Oh, and a salute to Homer’s “motivational skills”

“Everybody says they have to work harder when I’m around”

Hats off!

I got two visits to my site over this past week (3rd-9th) looking for mega mammaries. Now, I may be wrong, but I don’t recall having written any post relevant to that particular topic. Tell you what, I’ll do a search now.

later Nope, just as I thought. This is the first post dealing with the issue of mega mammaries. (See how I used subterfuge to add the word ‘mega mammaries’ into my blog so people now looking for it will come here. This tactic is similar to the one channels four and five use after 11 p.m. to show naughty clips while pretending to “analyse the life” or “go behind the scenes”. Not that I’m complaining)

Ioannis has written about the Argentinian movie we watched yesterday on his blog, so I needn’t bother. It was called Bombon:El perro. That’s all you need to know. We each had our drug of choice, Ioannis with codeine, Ali with wine, and I with Stella. Plus pizzas on a conveyor-belt.

I updated my Google Analytics to see if my “goals” are being reached. Since I am not a commercial website (apart from tracking all your bank accounts and siphoning money from them in small, unnoticeable amounts) I set my goal as the URL of my “About me” page. Therefore, the aim of my website is now officially to get people interested in ME, so they want to find out more about ME, and they click on the link that goes to the page “About ME”

I’m reading Catch 22 again after Ioannis reminded me of it. You’re going to see loads of quotes from this crazy book in the near future.

Thanks for the CV. Do you have a potfolio of we sites. I look forward to
you’re response…..

…ends up in my e-mail box. Should I even bother to reply? It seems the onus is only upon applicants to make a good impression and check their spelling and grammar.

And here’s a big lie: An add for a “Business Development Executive” says:-

Please note that this is NOT a Sales job. Previous experience of cold calling, telesales, lead generation, Tele-research would be an advantage.

As part of my entertainment quota, I shall give you an interesting article from the BBC about English mixing with Hindi. All of it is true; I used all of these as a kid. And I learnt that Stepney comes from a brand of tyre in Wales.