Archive for March, 2009
UNBELIEVABLY it’s been nearly a year since I last bestowed upon you a week of the week, so this week it’s time for another week of the week to be manifested. This week’s week will therefore be a lovely week that will leave you weak at the knees. It is possibly the most varied week of the week so far, taking the week fan from the grandeur of Papal announcements and two wars down to the tragedy of one man dying whose first name and location remain unknown.
Our week of the week this week is 14-20 August 1898.
Sunday 14 August 1898 – the USA sends 11,000 troops to occupy the Philippines, a turning point that saw the end of the Spanish-American War and the start of the Philippine-American War.
Monday 15 August 1898 – Hugh D. Auchinloss, who would later be Virginia’s delegate to the Republican National Convention, celebrates his first birthday.
Tuesday 16 August 1898 – Pope Leo XIII issues a Quam Religiosa expressing his sadness at the introduction of a law in Peru that permitted civil marriage.
Wednesday 17 August 1898 – Mr. Price dies.
Thursday 18 August 1898 – Sarah McGlone, 60 years of age, falls down a well in County Armagh. Peter Hughes, a farmer, took great personal risk in being lowered down the well. He rescued her.
Friday 19 August 1898 – Science Magazine‘s latest issue is published, including an interesting article titled “Observations on Blue Jays” by Dr. Hiram M. Stanley on page 223.
Saturday 20 August 1898 – Sigmund Freud writes to Wilhelm Fliess, saying “Your lines have brought back to me the pleasures of my vacation.”
A rapturously joyful week, you will no doubt agree, and hoorah for that!
March 30th, 2009
Today I used the word ‘vestibule’ and giggled like a school girl.
Does that make me wrong?
March 19th, 2009
Good Afternoon and welcome to today’s nightly edition of Question Time. With me are two members of the public burning with desires to answer questions of a slightly significant nature that may touch on issues but really they don’t and we will thinly veil them with large words to make you think they do.
On my right, Kevin Head aka The Wizard. On my left, Chris De Mar “Bomb” Shell. Let’s begin:
1. Unnecessary roadworks months is well underway. Tell me, do you consider reams and reams of plastic orange borders a problem or a joyous scene?
2. Gentlemen who go to the toilet, see that someone else has been before them, flush the toilet, have a wee then flush the toilet again. Are you one of those people and can you defend the second flush?
Whip crack away. Whip crack away.
March 18th, 2009
Yes, theme tune fans! It’s time for another brilliant theme tune! Here’s where I bring you one and you can listen to it! Why? Mostly because this place is dead and that makes me sad! So here’s something to perk it up a bit as Da Beans approaches its third birthday!
Clicky clicky clicky this: UFO theme tune
Yes! It’s the theme music from Gerry Anderson’s UFO, first screened in 1970 and which has been mostly forgotten as a live-action follow up to things like Stingray and Joe 90 that nobody remembers much because it wasn’t all that good and nobody was sure if it was for kid sor grown ups. But what a theme tune!
As my Top Theme Tune of the Month, I award it seventeen annoying stars and my own personal “yippee”!
x17
March 16th, 2009
Living in Newcastle you do get a fair share of crazies coming up to you in the street. Some keep their distance and allow you to watch their madness from afar. Here are some of my favourites from the last few weeks:
- Crazy drunks with impressive yet dirty facial hair (at 7 in the evening).
- The strange man who works in the same building albeit on a different floor. When he gets into the lift he focuses on the bottom corner and refuses to look up. It’s the strained expression on his face that makes me wonder how much he hates social interaction.
- The drunken couple on the Metro; another classic example that unravels itself like a story. They both get on but clearly have had an arguement so sit at opposite ends of the train. After a couple of minutes the woman gets up and paces down the Metro and starts slapping the man. Then they enter into this bizarre display (on the seats opposite me no less) that looks as though they are trying to fight and f*ck at the same time, sometimes kissing, sometimes hitting. Twice they fall off their seats into a heap on the floor. I crank the Klaxons up to 10 and look desperately out the window.
- The dog with the huge p*nis (and flaunts it at you as he runs past).
My life would be so dull without them.
March 12th, 2009