annafdd

I went out to find two books at Forbidden Planet. They didn't have them - they are both books by Brits (Jo's Farthing and Charlie's The Atrocity Exibition, both to be presents), and they are about England, but they are not to be found in London.

I tried Waterstone, but the nice terminal for finding a book in any of their branches that was on the ground floor at Piccadilly is no longer there. Murder One would have had them I'm sure, back when Murder One stocked SF.

Anyway, I bought Wintersmith, of course, and succumbed to the whole Studio Ghibli at half price offer they had at FP (although despite having mountains of the DVDs, every single Pricess Mononoke had been sold. Who knew it was so popular?).

I also started browsing Banksy's Wall and Piece, and realized what it was about finally and why did I keep seeing it around (Blackwell's seemed especially keen on it, as well they should). I decided to buy it but didn't want to queue again at FP so I walked to Waterstones, under the pouring rain.

On the way I passed the theatre where they are showing Spamalot, and found myself laughing out loud at the posters outside ("Funnier than the Black Death", "Amazing 3D effects!", "With a cast of under 100", "Includes 19 songs performed nowhere else on the London stage!").

Then I bought the Bansky book (along with a Le Carre' - my renewed pleasure in reading Farthing has spurred me into finding other good reading material, and although Le Carre' is a bit hit and miss for me, when it's a hit it's, well, it's, it's more of a wallop, really). I retired to on of my favourite restaurants, Maroush V, and started reading it, and laughing out loud, all alone at my table. It was too big to keep on reading it at the table, so I took out "The Corporation", a good book to make you angry at the world, and had some fabolous food, and then took the tube back and laughed some more at some of the most ironic, pithy and cute Banksy pranks.

I love this city. It makes me laugh.

It takes my mind off the fact I have been trying to not face for several days now - I skip blog posts, I try not to listen to the news - the USA legalizing torture.

Updated to add: yay, Waterstones got itself free from Amazon and now they have online availability service! and they have Charlie's book in Oxford Street! yay!

Ok, this is more what the nuts argue: there are perfectly sane conservatives around. I mean, not that I have met them, but I'm sure there are. Anyway:

Liberal: The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: No, it doesn’t.

Liberal: Yes, it does. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: What about Guam? What about that Guam, huh? Or the Virgin Islands?

Liberal: Those are territories, not states. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: Oh, so you’re saying those don’t count?

Liberal: Yes.

Conservative: Oh, so the people there don’t count? They’re not good enough, huh? I thought you liberals wanted everybody to be counted.

Liberal: No, I said the territories don’t count as states. The USA has fifty states.

Conservative: You’re really something, you know that? You liberals are always going on about how all of us conservatives are racists, how we don’t care about anybody but people who look like us. But you don’t even want to count the blacks who live in Guam as Americans.

(more)

We have been trying to help and he won’t let us. We are all appalled and aghast, it breaks our hearts to see him hurting you like this, and you not fighting back, you just take it and take it as it slowly spirals down into the pits of hell. What will it take America, will you let him kill you before you’ll kick him out? This is not rhetoric America, he is killing you every day you stay with him. If I had described your relationship with George to you back when you were still with Bill you never would have believed me. He degrades you in little increments, every day he erodes your assets as well as your dignity, your reputation, your legacy and your life America.

In other news, coming back from the mall today I was listening to the radio and this woman on the radio was telling us how concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands is dramatically on the increase, especially in the USA but more generally in Europe and all the Western World.

Via Making Light, who got it from somewhere else:

Essentialist Explanations

Some highlights - but honestly, this is just skimming the top, go and read them all:


English is essentially bad Dutch with outrageously pronounced French and Latin vocabulary.
--Eugene Holman

English is essentially a language that uses vowels no other language would accept.
--Luís Henrique

English is what you get from Normans trying to pick up Saxon girls.
--Bryan Maloney

Written English is essentially a variety of Old French invented by somebody who spoke only Saxon and read only Latin.
--Basilius

English is essentially a West Germanic language that's trying very hard to look like a Romance one.
--Andreas Johansson

American English is essentially British English without the funny accent. [Or is that Canadian English?]
--Aleks Dubh

American English is essentially Irish English as spoken by non-native speakers.
--Benct Philip Jonsson

New York City Syrian Jewish English is essentially Arabic curses and bad Ebonics spoken with a Brooklyn accent.
--Steg Belsky

Spanish is essentially Italian spoken by Arabs.
--Benct Philip Jonsson

Mexican is essentially Castilian Spanish as spoken while excreting hot peppers, therefore without the superiority complex.
--ilvi & Ivan C. Amaya

Italian is essentially bad Latin.
--Eugene Holman

Spanish is essentially bad Italian.
--Eugene Holman

Italian is essentially Latin as spoken by people who were shouting at their slaves all the time.
--Benct Philip Jonsson

Italian is essentially Tuscan dialect as spoken by a Lombard.
--Luca Mangiat

[THIS IS SO TRUE!]

Venetian is essentially Spanish as spoken by people not smart enough to discover America.
--Marco Cimarosti

Lombard is essentially Italian spoken with German accent and English grammar.
--Marco Cimarosti

Lombard is essentially French as spoken by Italians who don't know French.
--Marco Cimarosti

Piedmontese is essentially French as spoken by Italians who only know French a little bit.
--Marco Cimarosti

Ligurian is essentially Sicilian spoken with a Portuguese accent.
--Marco Cimarosti

French vocabulary is essentially English minus a few obvious germanicisms.
--Andreas Johansson

All Romance languages are essentially the same. Except French.
--Andreas Johansson

French is essentially Latin forced to comply with destructive sound changes and German influence.
--Trebor Jung

French is essentially an attempt by the Dutch to speak a Romance language.
--Danny Wier

French is essentially a language that elides everything that doesn't get out of the way fast enough, and nasalises everything else.
--Peter Bleackley

This is from filkerdave

the Wit (52% dark, 17% spontaneous, 16% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 83% on dark You scored higher than 0% on spontaneous You scored higher than 16% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating