Tied up or tied down?

Mr Romney's latest little catch phrase seems to be spreading all over the internet. I am not impressed. I have often (I hope you were paying attention) complained about units of measurement that give no idea about the size or volume.

One often hears such guff as “an area the size of seven football fields”, as though all football fields are the same size. Or multiples of the height of Nelson’s column, as if any of us actually has a clue as to its height; or fucking care, for that matter.

Now we have the next leader of the free world (pause while you laugh at that phrase), a man whose IQ is in the same ballpark (how big is a ballpark?) as that of Dubya, measuring women by “binders-full”.

I am aware that I am not the only one who will be deconstructing this phrase, but you chose to come here, it ain’t my fault.

How big is a binder? All the references I can find on-line indicate that none of the women I have ever met would be small enough to fit into one of them, and, as a rule of thumb,  I prefer women to be whole rather than chopped up (apart from Thatcher).

How big is a woman? Unless my eyesight is much worse than I feared, my observations lead me to believe that the size of the human female varies considerably. I will say no more, as I do not wish to cause offence (since when? Ed.).

What is the need to put women in binders? The whole concept is steeped in sexism. You may call me radical, but I believe that ladies should be allowed as much freedom as men, at least up to the point that they start to post pictures of cats on facebook.

No, Mitt, you have presented a useless and sexist, possibly misogynist, analogy. You appear to have all the credentials to take over running the USA and continuing to help its downward plummet in the opinion of the rest of the world.

*****

Comments about binding women will be subject to deletion, unless they are very funny indeed.

Whips

I have been encouraged by a young gentleman, who, in order to protect the innocent, I shall merely refer to as Steve Lovering, to write to a chap who has recently been under the spotlight from our intolerant press.

I was pleased to compose this message to Andrew Mitchell, the government chief whip.



Andy!

I read in good old Bill Deedes's Telegraph about your current tribulations with the fuzz. 

When I was a lad, somewhat younger than you are now (I am guessing - unless the massive responsibility you carry as a member of Her Majesty's government has aged you 30 years), I, too, was falsely accused and spent several hours in the company of some uppity young whippersnappers at Crewe nick. 

Their manners and general demeanour was somewhat short of that displayed by good old George Dixon, who was still appearing weekly on the electric television at that time.

Fearful for my safety, I played dumb, and adopted the air of one for whom the modern world was completely baffling, and before midnight they let me out (although they didn't give me a lift home).

My advice would be to do the same in dealings with them. If you are not sure how to "act dumb", then at the next cabinet meeting observe messrs Gove or Hunt and follow their lead.

I have never had any altercations with the Met, who I believe are somewhat suspect, despite the efforts of dear old Bob Mark the Goodyear tyre salesman. I applaud your efforts to put them in their place. These people are public servants after all. I am disappointed to learn that they did not offer you a lift in a Z car.

Stick to your guns, there's a good chap.

I shall be very upset, however, to hear that you have broken a bone or two falling down the stairs at Bow Street.

Yours for good old fashioned decency and keeping the commoners in their place,

Scurra

Unrealtors

Someone has been using my email address again. This time I find I am on the mailing list of some estate agents from Lexington, North Carolina.


Here is my reply:


Thank you for that, I am touched by your kindness.

Lexington certainly seems like a funky place to dwell.

My first concern about moving there is my commute time to work. Google maps won't give me directions, but one website indicates that the distance is just over 3900 miles. What time do you think I would have to leave my new home in the morning in order to reach work by 9:00 a.m. (British Summer Time)? Are there any direct buses. Unless Mr Liddle, (my geography teacher in case you didn't know) was lying to me, I believe that in between the two locations there is something called the Atlantic Ocean, the most notable characteristic of which is the dampness. Are the buses of the Lexington public transport system fully amphibious? Do they have a good wifi connection? 

Of Lexington itself, I know little. I have friends in North Carolina, however. Dear Mountaine is currently building a new house there, so it must have some good qualities, and my young friend Adam likes it so much that he has taken a job in Alaska. Perhaps I can enter into a carpool arrangement with him.

You mention in your nice message that "there are real human beings" behind the website. You may have meant this to be reassuring, but I confess to being mildly disquieted. I infer that there may be some human beings in the vicinity who are not real, and can only guess as to what this might mean. Are these beings benign or dangerous in your view? Is there an easy way to discriminate? I am beginning to think that whoever used my email address to sign up to your mailing list may have been more than a little rash. If you find out who it was, please advise them to stay where they are. I will think over the whole project and get back to you.

love and peace

Customer services

I felt obliged to contribute the following comment to the facebook page of novelist Harlan Coben. Please do not make my mistake of following this sordid path of addiction. 


Mr Coben. You may well feel self-satisfied each day as you study your bank statement or stare out across the vast acres of your estate, but I think it is time to draw attention that your success is accumulated by exploiting the health of those, such as me, who lose sleep reading your works. Last night I was kept awake until 1 a.m. finishing one of your books. How am I meant to function today? I had planned to watch a rugby international, and a full day's cricket. I doubt whether I will be able to stay awake through it all. As you recline on your couch, stuffed with 20 dollar bills, and have your entourage of young assistants massage away the stress of worrying what you are going to buy next, spare a thought for those of us, elderly, sleep deprived addicts who make your exuberant life style possible. Consider, if you will, the novelist Ms Cornwell. She manages to make a tidy living without ever disturbing her readers. They know from the outset, that in the climax to the book, her heroine is going to be tracked down by the villain, almost killed, and only saved by some arbitrary intervention. There is no need at, say, 10:30 p.m. to think "I wonder what happens next?" because it is the same in all the rest of her books. You, on the other hand, seem to think it necessary to combine wordcraft, humour and originality in your tales. It really won't do.

Adipose and happy to remain so

Like most sensible people I will be staying well away from London during sports week.


It appears that you can't even have your picture taken without some corporate fascist or other imposing their fearful publicity on you, and inflicting you with the company of some self-promoting half wit.


Please do not view this link if you are of a nervous temperament. One poor boy is reduced to tears by the ordeal. I was bereft. Something should be done.

On your Marx

It has been very difficult to avoid making cynical comments about the Olympic Games, and falling in with the expectation to be negative about what could be a great sporting event. However, the title "Olympic Games" should not be confused with the games that were conducted every four years some time ago, where athletic prowess was recognised and applauded. 


The greatest damage done to the Olympian ideal was not the various forms of cheating, principally narcotic related, but by the complete dominance of the corporate sector, in some of its ugliest forms. Usain Bolt's records will never be beaten, because by the next Olympic Games, there will be an enforced half-way break in track events, where the competitors have to consume the produce of the sponsors and sing the McDonald's national anthem.


The London games would be much more of a spectacle if we could be guaranteed not to see the festering corporeal mass of Bozza sticking his gnarled proboscis in at every opportunity.


This little essay gives some idea of just how rancid this obscene circus has become.

I have made reference to what I would like to see as an opening ceremony elsewhere. For the closing ceremony, can I suggest that arsewit Coe should be seen putting on some trainers (adidas, of course) and then set off running, with instructions to keep running in a straight line, and not stop. 

Happy and glorious

My attention was drawn to an article in the Torygraph this week, reporting that Liz refused to confer the knighthood on Mick Jagger, and got some other parasite to do it. She apparently disapproved of his anti-establishment views (later exemplified by his note of congratulation to Bozza on winning the mayoral election).

This is the woman who, a couple of months ago, entertained members of the “royal” family from Saudi and Swaziland. While, therefore, we might applaud her disapproval of a prancing, self-absorbed, overblown performer who has produced on average one decent song a decade these forty years, we might also question her choice of dinner guests. (Although anyone who has dined with Phil the fascist over the last 60 something years on a regular basis might be considered to have already scraped the bottom of the barrel in question.)

What planet is she on? That is not a rhetorical question, as I can provide the answer: the wrong fucking one. If, on the other hand, the cost of transporting her and her cohorts to Neptune proves to be excessive then what should have happened is that the recent ridiculous display of stupidity on the Thames should have started at Putney, and gone down river, turned left in the North Sea and continued to their new home at Svalbard. I would even be satisfied with her being allowed to buy a bijou bungalow at Bexhill on Sea – “Dunwavin” -  together with whichever of her family she could bear the sight of – Phil, Ann, Pippa Middleton and her arse, Kate Middleton and her arse (William).

I can already hear sounds of dismay and outrage from the brigade of soppy, silly sods who pressed their smelly bodies up against each other to cheer the spectacle of a deranged octogenarian and her throwback kin standing in a boat. “What would we do without her? What about the tourists and the income they bring?” I can hear them asking. These questioners are probably the same dim bunch who read the Daily Mail each morning and are incensed by the vast numbers (7) of illegal immigrants. Can they not see that inviting folk who are dim enough to spend their annual leave gormlessly gawping at a load of old buildings are hardly prize captures? Is the gene pool not already so shallow that the risk of any of these meandering morons breeding while they are over here is not worth taking?

Of course all of this frenzied celebration is beauteous to Slimy Dave and his mates. Heaven only knows what new ways he will find to shaft the underprivileged while they are distracted by the jubilee and the bloody Olympics. Bloody Olympics. I have an idea for the opening ceremony – let’s set up a table in the middle of the athletics arena and have Bozza and Bollocky Coe dine on McDonald’s and Coca Cola until they fucking burst. I would watch that.

Rest in peace

My very clever friends at Science Daily (much too frequent in my view) report that they have found bones under a floor in Bulgaria that may belong to John the Baptist.

They do not mention who or what he was baptising under a floor in Bulgaria, but that is not the only flaw (geddit?) in their preposterous argument. They say that the bones are from the period in which he would have lived.  According to calculations there were about a hundred and fifty million living at that time, so quite how they have narrowed down the odds to it being Johnny the water fetishist we are left to speculate.

This is the problem that I found myself faced with. I am firmly on the side of the fence of those who are fairly convinced that evolution is a proven fact. I don’t really care too much about it, but have no problem in accepting evidence as evidence. On this side of the fence live most of the scientific community. There are large proportions of the scientific community who decry the views of those who believe that God created the earth about 6000 years ago. They view these people as silly or deluded. They are entitled to that view, but hardly enhance their reputation or credentials by conjecturing as to the identity of some poor bastard having a quiet kip near the Black Sea, and saying that there is a chance that these may be the remains of someone, let alone someone whose existence is in question.

In short, which side of this pointless argument contains the larger proportion of silly buggers?

Now, if these people were really smart they would do a DNA comparison to determine the identity of JtB. I can help them here. I have in my loft the incisors of his brother Eric, and somewhere in the vicinity a tupperware container holding the pickled spleen of his dear old gran.

In loco parentis

This evening I was in receipt of an invitation to attend a “catering meeting” from a group of people who appear to be governors of a primary or infant school. I, of course, felt obliged to decline – one can only give so much – but am now feeling a little sad.

In mitigation, regular readers (a Mrs Trellis of North Wembley) will be aware that I scarcely have time to eat, what with constant demands for my participation in one project or another. This summer has, of course, had more than the usual degree of lunacy associated with the correspondence. I think that Camilla has been on the telephone five nights out of every six since October, each call with a more preposterous idea. Somersaulting down the aisle at the service (6^th November), doing a duet with Grace Jones (January 17^th), spiking Philip’s Wincarnis with drain cleaner (January 23^rd) (she obviously found some other poor sod to do that). It culminated with her (May 5^th) trying to enlist me, Gary Lineker, Shakin’ Stevens and Oliver Letwin to dress up as Somalian pirates and attempt to capsize the barge. She is quite good fun most of the time, but when you’ve missed four episodes of Emmerdale in a week, while she guffaws down the electric telephone sounding much like a pregnant rhino with laryngitis, it does become a bit tiresome.

Then it was some unctuous cove from the Football Association, name of Bernstein or some such (and I only entertained his calls because I assumed he was one of Leonard’s family and wanted me to conduct Candide again). Could I travel with the team to Eastern Europe and give some of my inspiring talks, he wanted to know. “I could, old egg, of course I could. But I won’t” (He didn’t like this). “Tell you what,” I conceded, “You teach them the alphabet, and I will teach them tactics”. I haven’t heard since.

The biggest sodding nuisance of all, and this, I fear, is why I have been sometimes curt in my correspondence with others, has been that irritating little tit Coe and his floppy haired pillock of a mate, Bozza. Will I give out the prizes, will I sing the anthem, and will I act as host to various world leaders and other VIPs. Will I buggery, I told him. That is the edited version. What I suggested he do to Boris, and with what equipment, would result in an event that would make the Olympics worth watching. I doubt, however, whether it will come to pass.

So, members of the school catering committee, I apologise for my brevity, but hope you will be able to sympathise with my plight. I am hoping that the kind people who are my closest associates on this heavenly little corner of the electric internet will leave some comments here that will inspire you to excel in the field of juvenile catering. So, come on, gang. What suggestions do you have for satisfying the discerning palates of the youngest generation?

Just in case that, like me, you missed all this shit

As an early morning treat, Liz was cheered up by looking at some really old dudes.

The first really feeble assassination attempt of the day.

Mick wonders how many more fucking boats he has got to look at, and whether anyone would notice if he slapped the really annoying tart clapping in his ear.

Sophie gets very excited, as she spots the Queen. Shortly after this photograph was taken, Mick had to be dragged off of her throat, as she asked for the third time who was in the boat.

Liz did not feel inclined to embrace Cammie's imprecation to "look at the tits on that".

Charles is visibly tense as he prepares for the musical chairs final.

Charles wasn't entirely sure what it was, but was still fairly sure that there wasn't any "dozy tart" on the table.

As had been feared, Fergie gatecrashed yet another event.

Stop press

Can I ask you all to get in touch with your compassion and spare a thought for poor dear Brian Leveson. Prayers, if you are of that disposition might be appropriate. I do not know what the man has done to be punished so severely.


For many months he has had to listen to the outpourings of some of the most odious, criminal and slimy sectors of society day after day, with only the occasional comic interlude. 


He has barely had time to wash the odour of Blair out of his clothes before he is sent back into the fray to deal with Gove and May.


I shall endeavour to find some suitably nourishing vegan snacks to send to him in the hope that he can struggle through. 

Up against the wall

Grinning vile bastard rubs stomach in anticipation of massive dinner at the taxpayers expense, while Philip invites another foreign Johnny to pull his finger.

The group photograph of some of the world's leading wastes of space. Some of these people have been thrown out of their own country, others are merely  figureheads, and a small minority are fascist dictators. We welcome them all, torturers and sadists it matters not a jot.

Andrew politely asks whether there is room in the harem for a couple of frisky wenches that he wants to offload. Meanwhile Beatrice assumes that the Middle Eastern woman is a domestic servant and asks her to vacuum the curtains.

"Yes! I know! All I did was dress up as a nazi and the shit hit the fan, and here's you publicly executing people for witchcraft and nobody says fuck all! Amazing!"

"And remember to put the bloody covers back on the sofa before you leave"

"No, really, you can have them for free. No other bugger wants them."

"No, it's perfectly OK in this country for ginger people to walk around without tea-towels on their head! Crazy!"

The king of Swaziland is offended to be told that he is not the most despicable bastard at this gathering

Unless you have a first in PPE from Oxford, you will probably not understand this.

Each year on 23^rd April, it seems that I am obliged, in the face of continued diarrhoea in the media, to make clear the following carefully argued and philosophical points.

St George’s Day – fuck off.

Proud to be English – fuck off.

Isn’t it time we had an English national anthem – fuck off.

Our national heritage – fuck off.

Our country’s better than your country – fuck off.

Our country’s dad is better than your country’s dad – fuck off.




Addendum:

A friend has pointed out that PPE is not available at Cambridge. So I changed the title. I am grateful for corrections.

Another discussion of matters probably better left undiscussed.

In general, I have to confess to be very rarely afflicted by boredom. I exercise what freedom of choice that I have in order to avoid being in situations that provide no interest, and have very seldom found myself short of things to do. Indeed, I am so blessed in this regard, that God, in His infinite compassion, has provided me with a wife, and I know that she is ever vigilant and has a fairly extensive list of things that she believes I could be doing to counteract boredom. The only difficulty in all of this is in persuading her that the things on her list are significantly less interesting that those on my already full catalogue of projects.

I therefore struggle to understand how my friends in the scientific community manage to invent new and arcane ways to spend their time, rather than tackling the important issues facing our race such as poverty, pollution and Mitt Romney.

The remainder of this article is concerned, to some extent, with Thingy. Those of you with an immature viewpoint should not proceed further, I am not here to titillate. (Continues to write in the forlorn expectation that there is an audience left).

I do sometimes struggle to find a subject with which to entertain my readers (aMToNW), and thankfully my friends at LiveScience.com are usually on hand to provide evidence that this is indeed Kali Yuga, and as Valmiki noted in the Ramayana, “There’s nowt so queer as folk”.

Some deluded bastard has decided to investigate colour preference, specifically in the matter of female genitalia. I will pause for a moment while you read that again.

The researchers first needed some similar, non-pornographic pictures of female genitals, a task that was "quite difficult," Johns said. Finally, they found a website set up so that women could anonymously submit photographs of their vulvas as part of a project meant to educate women on the diversity of genitals and improve self-esteem. The researchers picked four similarly angled photos and retouched each of them into pale pink, light pink, dark pink and red.

(Have you had your vulva retouched, missus?)

I have never, in my existence, known a woman daft enough to fall for that. There have been some women of my acquaintance with a fairly open attitude who wouldn't mind shagging anyone, either because of their kindness or their needs, but any woman gullible enough to believe a man telling her that they wanted intimate photographs for scientific research is a danger to herself and in need of severe protection.

There is no mention, at any stage, of any of these researchers questioning the usefulness of their project.  If you have dipped into this little corner of the internet previously, you will have gathered that I am not of a typically scientific disposition. Indeed, much of my experience of boredom is centred on the hours I spent in chemistry, biology and physics lessons at school. So distorted was my experience of time during physics in particular that, perversely, I could have developed an acute interest in the subject and gone on to win a Nobel Prize by explaining how several lifetimes seemed to pass in the time it took Mr Sutton to say “magnetism”. I cannot, therefore, empathise with these people, and remain perplexed by their behaviour.

The researchers then asked 40 heterosexual men to look at all 16 images in random order and rank them on a 0-to-100 scale of attractiveness. The results showed that instead of preferring red, the men actually showed the least preference for red vulvas.

Yes, they asked heterosexual men to show a preference for colour. There may be some heterosexual men who use words such as “fuschia” or “peach” when asked to name a colour, and there may even be a few who can remember the colour of their living room wall, but most of us, and I am of that persuasion, couldn’t give a flying toss.

Even if we did have a preference, how exactly would we choose a suitable mate? After a couple of chaste and successful dates does anyone believe that it would be appropriate to hand your companion a Dulux colour chart and ask her to circle the item most closely resembling the shade of her naughty bits? “Sorry, dear you’ve picked ‘Sumptuous Plum’ whereas I am a guy who prefers ‘Raspberry Bellini’, do you have a sister?” And yes, those are colours from the Dulux chart FFS. “Before I nip down to Boots and buy a couple of gross of condoms, would you mind if I took a quick shufty round your pubes to see whether it’s worth the effort?”

Perhaps I am just old-fashioned.  

May cause offence to excrement

In this ever-changing world, it is gratifying to see that the Torygraph maintains the traditions that have made it the watchword for bigotry and mendacity for longer than any of us can remember.

This sub-heading from their website is from today, not 1876:

“Immigration has made it harder than ever for parents to secure a place at a good primary school.”

 

Ignoring the fact that most parents, apart from Torygraph readers, do not need to be at primary school, it is nice to know that irrelevant differences between we citizens of the world will always be pointed out by the despicable Barclay brothers and their anus sucking lackeys.

 

They go on to highlight their story with this well-chosen photograph.

 

It is that poor white boy I feel so sorry for, obviously having to wait until he is almost pubescent before being able to attend kindergarten.

 

“Mind you”, said his mummy, “he is dumber than a sack of turds.”

 

 

Fuel for your bunsen burner

I am delighted to report that two stories from the Torygraph science section have attracted my attention today, my having been concerned for some time that scientists were running out of silly things to write about.

Story number one commences thus: “Dinosaurs laying eggs caused their mass extinction millions of years ago, scientists have said, while live birthing mammals went on to thrive.”

I could not be bothered to consider all of the detail – I am fearful of having my brain contaminated by these ramblings, but the essence is that whereas the larger dinosaurs became extinct after some catastrophic global event – a meteor hitting the earth, a Tory by-election victory, or the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar’s gt gt grandfather – the smaller ones failed to compete due to the relative size of their bodies to that of their eggs. Or some such bollocks.

Therefore, dinosaur junior’s health was threatened by being too small, whereas the same scientists would have you believe that our own young’s health is being endangered by obesity. Which one is it? And hurry up with your answer, I need to know whether to have an extra slice of toast for breakfast.

The second article, which I barely read at all, begins with the assertion that “Alcohol sharpens the mind”. It is a many a year since I imbibed intoxicants, so you will have to forgive my dull brain. Here I was under the impression that a few pints of Watney’s Red Barrel opened the gateway to fluency in speaking crap. I shall now make a habit of calling in at “The Twat’s Head” on my way home from work, downing six pints of mild, and then entertaining you, after all you are my best mate, with my newly found wisdom. I shall probably start with an essay on how marijuana aids the decision making process.

In which Scurra yet again expands the boundaries of taste.

In the news today, a team of 'government appointed' experts give the go ahead for fracking. I mean, who wouldn't put up with a minor earthquake or two if they could help some of Slimy Dave's mates get rich? And by 'government appointed' they mean lickspittle environmental fascists.

Last week it was Slimy Dave pressing for better relations with Burma. By that he meant licence to sell weapons to another oppressive regime, which is fine because they don't have much oil or anything.


I am tired of being in opposition, and have realised I must be wrong. I am looking for an opportunity to join the entrepreneurial culture. I shall be applying for a licence to open a slavery business in Henley on Thames. If I can  persuade the government that there is some good money to be made, I am sure that they will put aside any minor concerns about ethics. So, be on the lookout for any neighbours or friends who are young and strong (preferably) or maybe who just irritate the shit out of you. They don't have to be black, but as those people have it in their blood, I will be offering better rates. I will be round in my van in a few weeks to pick them up.

We paid for this, you know.

The Olympics began with the over-80s downhill chair tumble.

As George tried to catch a glimpse of Tony's cleavage, and Gordon used up  the twelfth of his twenty guesses as to who Sally Bercow was, Tony dreamed of what he might do to Harriet later. 

Harriet was trying to quantify Tony's preferences, Mrs Milliband began explaining to Nick exactly what she was going to do to him, Ed and Dave chuckled over Dave's plans for Nick, meanwhile behind them, one person had already become comatose listening to William, and on his other side someone else was contemplating suicide by spontaneous combustion.

"Please stop talking to me now, I still have a slight reputation in some backward parts of the world"

Philip was hoping to get a quick couple of frames in before all the endless jibber jabber commenced, and the bearer of the royal cue was taking bloody ages to walk past all of these frightful people.

John was a little nervous. He was not entirely sure that Philip had been joking about inserting something someplace.

The moment when they both realised that they would be sitting next to each other for some considerable time.

When Liz got to the part where she said that she was looking forward to many more years, Phil wondered whether he could manage to kick her down the stairs and make it look like an accident.

"The Aristocrats"

Protocol prevented Liz from telling Mr Bercow exactly how far up his arse he could shove the dvd of his speech that he offered to have delivered to the palace.

Adam Leonard made me do this.

David had never eaten without a knife and fork before. He wondered whether he could hold out until he got back home.

Barack kindly told David that they probably had some cutlery some place, and that he would not be allowed to starve to death.

David was a little perturbed and wondered how far the re-enactment of the war of independence would go.

David had to explain "I assure you that it is my wife, yes, really, and she left her passport on the sideboard. Please let her in - she dresses me every day!"

Eventually, and just in time, Barack told David that that was not really necessary.

"The Aristocrats!"

"And you read every word, exactly as it is written, or you'll be eating with your fingers again tonight"

"There's only two kind of people I can't stand - those who eat when I'm talking to them, and slimy bastards".

"Please! Pull me up, I can't stand another minute with this assclown!"

"Eventually, after listening to the Limey whine for 48 minutes, he succumbed to the arms of Morpheus"

Michelle wondered how far she could shove it up the bitch's ass.

Much as he hated racial stereotypes, Barack had to allow that these folk had absolutely no sense of rhythm.

Finally, a reminder of the happier days, when we could be sure that no matter how embarrassing an upper class tit we sent, the good old US of A could be relied upon to trump it with a crook with no redeeming features.

Countdown to the jubilee : part 1

Liz was not best pleased to see that someone else had chosen the same frock.

Private Wilburton hoped that no-one noticed that he had misremembered the dress-code.

For the fourth year in succession, the over eighties chewing gum spitting team had failed to land a single gobfull into the canopy.

Liz could hardly believe what Cams was telling her. She prayed fervently that Boris would remove his thumb before the cameraman changed angles.

Public Service Announcement

It is awfully lonely over at Mark's blog. I can't leave comments there, please try, and let him know if it fails. It doesn't have to be anything deep or meaningful, the usual drivel that you leave here will suffice.
Thank you.
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