http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/iraq

Thanks to Jemima Kiss for the special key that we've been using for site launching:

Python has a module for everything.

We often have applause rippling around our office. Usually it's positive but not always...

Yesterday, one of our devs (who shall remain nameless) was looking for duplication in some form of content or other, and came up with a script. It was always going to be evil - it was in Perl. The script made calls to Google, looking for duplicate results. He kicked it off, then went out for lunch.

Google, naturally, blocked us PDQ. Quite right too - see 5.3. They blocked the entire Guardian. (You could still use Google, but had to get past a captcha for each search.)

Of course, we've all done it. Haven't we? But blocking the entire Guardian was a bit of a coup.

Took us a while, but we managed to find the box in question and kill the script. The nameless dev was late back from lunch - we were speculating that he might have been bundled into a black van with a G on the side. But he did get back safe and sound, to a rousing round of applause from the entire office.

"There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of C++.

This effect had now moved on to the electric kettle. The new model in the office has multiple reservoirs so that you can fill it yet boil only enough water for one cup. Great idea. Trouble is, we had to have a session during our morning stand-up to demonstrate its use.

Tourettes Machine. Not safe for work - but who wants to play safe?

Do you lock your machine when you go to lunch? Mwahahahahaha!

I've always said, the Web is the sum of all human knowledge plus porn.

Via El P, a classy piece of journalism.

The comments are great - I've not seen so many euphemisms in one place since the Profanisaurus.

He dumps her on Wikipedia, then she sells his stuff on eBay. Magic.

And there was me that thinking that the way to dump someone these days was to mark yourself as single on Facebook. Clearly I'm not as Web 2.0 as I thought I was.

Via Rosie, Max, 19 is the funniest thing I've read in ages.

Of course, he's nineteen, so of course he's a tosser. Had this been up on facebook, it would blend in perfectly. It's just on the Grauniad travel front that he's going to attract such opprobrium.

Five submarine cables cut now, is it? I wonder if The Bloop is occurring a lot at the moment?

Eric: Who was that lady I seen you with last night?

Ernie: You mean, ‘I saw’.

Eric: Sorry. Who was that eyesore I seen you with last night?

Thank you, Morecambe and Wise.

The Guardian

The Oriental Morning Post

FWIF, The Guardian had it first. ;-)

yes bum | xargs banner -w 50

We had two of these running on Friday, in two vertically windowed terminals, with the 2nd window showing "poo". That's a Turner Prize right there, that is.

No story containing the phrase "He'd never drunk tequila before" ever has a happy ending.

Discovered whilst listening to a story from Tulna about a colleague at her company Christmas party.

I so need this as a tee-shirt.

And what timing!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.



This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.

Why is this our most read story today?

I just popped over to the CS team's area to help them with a spot of merging. Turns out my Shared iTunes Library is very popular over there. Nice.

I did have to point out that the High School Musical albums are Ella's, though. (I should also mention that the first album that Ella ever bought with her own money was Blondie, Parallel Lines, which is pretty cool for a nine-year-old I'd say.)

My music collection doesn't always get off so lightly. The other day the iTunes artwork screensaver was running. Negin asked me where all the album covers came from, and I told her that they were all covers from CDs I own.

"Funny," said Swells, "I thought it was my dad's record collection."

Ouch. When Swells insults you, you stay insulted.

Compiling!

With us, it's Running Tests! Same thing otherwise.

Mum sent me a link to this:

Very funny.

Spotted by Paul at the Playa del Inglés, Gran Canaria:

Tim Vine on top form:

He wasn't quite as good on Thursday - he was trying out new material - but I still thought he was great. Opinions differed, though.

Roar this evening. Good - I could do with a laugh.

I didn't get out of the office 'till after 11 yesterday - we were launching stuff. Shiny shiny!

It took so long 'cos the launch procedure didn't work properly 'cos of an Oracle bug. Bloody thing. Turns out that Orable's materialised views can be configure only to update periodically rather than synchronously. Which is fair enough, except that the query optimiser still sometimes decides to use the stale view. At one point yesterday, we had select

count(*) from table

select * from table

I mean, what's the point in an expensive product like Oracle if the bloody thing doesn't work? This stuff was all sorted on the '400 20 years ago. Bah.

Then, when I got home after midnight, I found that one of the t-shirts that I'd left on my washing line in my front garden had caught fire. It was one of my favorites, too - Make Coldplay History.

Bizarre thing was, only the one t-shirt was damaged. The other clothes hanging around it weren't even scorched. Weird.

I'm rather hoping that t-shirts don't do this sort of thing spontaneously, so I'm assuming that it was either some nasty little oik on his way home from school, or some drunken tosser on his way home from the pub. Git. Where am I going to dry my washing now?

Update: List minute bill update - Tim Vine's on! It's not too late to get here.

Radiohead: 01 and 10 - wonderfully barking.

Also interesting - She Talks In Maths - hear some tracks on MySpace. Sounds fab, but is that just 'cos the material is so good? Might be worth picking up, anyway.

This Kraftwork take-off is hysterical:

Bill Bailey is a god.

The Wikipedia is wonderful, too - who would ever have guessed that the Hokey Cokey had its origins in anti-Catholic propaganda?

Funny - In Rainbows reviewed in a Guardian Cricket stylee.

Update: I had a listen to much of it this lunchtime. First impressions - very dense, not especially jolly, beautiful. Typical Radiohead, really. More later.

And yes, it's finally arrived, thanks. Word is that it's pretty good - I'll let you know what I think of it when I get a chance to give it a listen or two.

Truly technology for the benefit of mankind.

I need one of these.

Via Dan.

I went to Roar last week, and Nick emailed me to tell me that he'd be going as well. I'd not actually met Nick in meatspace before, so I told him how to identify me: I'd be the one in the Sid James tee shirt.

Sure enough, there was another chap there with Sid James on his chest. But it was good to meet Nick in the end.

I can't agree with Nick about the acts, though. Frank Skinner was rubbish, but I loved the rest of the acts. Paul Foot's act wasn't quite as high-wire-without-a-net as last time I saw him, but if the gently surreal works for you, he's still very funny. Jason Rouse is anything but gentle, but he was funnier and less scary and vile than last time I saw him, so that was nice. And he was funny. Barrie Hall and Wes Packer don't stand out in the mind, really, but they were both funny enough at the time.

It's a great tee shirt, BTW. Steve suggested a variation on the theme: Eric Morecambe on a space hopper. Pure class.

Proof of His existence:

Via Michael.

Just how bad would you your hiccups need to be before you'd consider "digital rectal massage"? And where did they get the idea from? The mind boggles.

I appear to be #1 page for any old crap. Fantastic.

I'm no longer the only hit for "I hate Carol Vorderman", but I'm still #1 for that too. Top!

Update: Also irritating habits.

I overheard rumours about something rather nasty during a pub quiz last night, and a quick Google confirms its existance - Rentaghost The Musical!, written by Joe Pasquale. Is it possible to imagine a more sinister triumvirate than Rentaghost, musicals and Joe Pasquale?

"Nothing says "I Love You" quite like saturated fat and slutty underwear." Be My Anti Valentine. Brilliant.

But - who to send it to?

Michael, taking advantage of his sobriety in the small hours of New Years Day morning on the way home from a party, suckered me into a resolution to have a "proper girlfriend" by the end of the year. ("Proper girlfriend" is defined one who has introduced you to her parents.) Bizarrely, he made the same resolution himself.

Still, I have 'till December to start looking, right?

Except that worse still, he's signed me up to some sort of speed dating event, the bastard. I'll get him for this, I swear it.

Via Adriana.

In the way back to Reading this weekend, I asked Freja what she was listening to on her new iPod. She told me "The White Stripes; one of the songs from the new one, Get Behind Me Santa".

Now that's a superb name for a record. The Red Stripes should use it for their next one.

A top night at Roar With Laughter last night. For those few of us who bothered to turn up, that is. 30 people! Scandalous.

On an avarage night at Roar, I'd say you would get two good acts out of three, which is good enought for me, but last night, all three were good.

First up was Michael Legge. Very nice chap - I had a chat with him before the gig. He had a pretty hard job to do, warning up a cold, underfilled room. There was a South African chap at the bar, ordering drinks with the kind of volume of voice that ony white South Africans seem to have. Let's call him Tom. (Makes sence, since that was his name.) He made Michael's job very hard - you don't want to be drowned out by drinks orders! - but after a bit of a shakey start, he turned it to his advantage by making Tom his target for the night.

This was a bit of a relief, since I was one of only two on the front row.

Anyway, it turned out to be a good if somewhat scattered set.

Besides, declairing the night "Get Simon Laid" night was bound to get him on my side. If only it had worked...

Next up, Kerry Godliman. I knew her face, but it was only after I looked her up for this post that I realised that it was from The Quatermass Experiment. If only I'd known! I would have asked her for Indira Varma's phone number...

Anyway, I paarticulary liked her "Dating" gag. Dating is an American thing - the English don't really do it. We just get pissed, shag, and work backwards into a relationship from there. "Good morning. And you are?" If you can stand them through the hangover, hong on to them.

Been there, done that.

Lastly, We Are Klang. Sketches rather than stand up, and totally barking mad. I won't attempt to describe them - I'd only fail. I'll just say that they are so good that I'll be going to see them at The Soho next week with Dave, Antony and Ed...

Then, well, the bar was open late, wasn't it? ;-)

My favorite Google screen for ages: Did you mean: dobedobedo.

I'm sorry, but no matter how serious the story, I can't read about a dead parrot without laughing. Is it just me?

And the best-excuse-for-linking-to-a-site-featuring-scantily-clad-women award goes to...

Licence to Roam, Wonderbra.

Good effort, sir.

Update: Seems it's a madam, not a sir, and may therefore not be simply a blatant look-at-the-pretty-girls post. Still, I enjoyed it, so good effort nevertheless. ;-)

Prime Minister Chirac has officially raised the French terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide".

There are only two higher levels in France - "Surrender" and "Collaborate".

(Recieved via email, provenance unknown.)

Update Thursday 14th: The British Alert Level - a nice hot cup of tea.

Result!

Via Steve, a woman tried to smuggle 51 fish into Australia under her skirt.

"What about the smell?" she was asked.

"If they die, they die."

Suit yourselves.

The floating dog is the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Via Funjunkie.

I'm under attack!

Via Dull.

Target your virus at soccer fans, 'cos they are all stupid. Might just work.

Roar with Laughter last night was outstanding. Ed and David, our hosts, seemed a little disappointed by the turn out, I'm afraid. But from a punter's point of view, there were more than enough people there to give the place some atmosphere, and the comics were great.

I didn't have high hopes for Brian Damage & Krysstal, to be honest. I don't do comedy songs, and the pair of them didn't look too promising, either. But they turned out to be very funny, in a rather unchallenging sort of a way. One of my favorite lines of the night came from Brian: "I'm single at the moment - by choice. Not by my choice...".

Dan Willis; what can I say? A programmer in the stand-up business! He's my hero. His story about daydreaming about saving a plane from disaster using his IT skills struck a cord. "Just turn it off, then on again." Brilliant.

Finishing act Kevin Day was the consummate professional. You can see why Ed and Anthony wanted a safe pair of hands to finish on - someone to pick up the pieces after the disaster that could have been...

Paul Foot's act shouldn't have worked, it really shouldn't. But it did. He was the high point of the evening for me.

It seemed like he was deconstructing the process of stand up as much as he was actually doing it. He would tell a (usually not very funny) joke, then explain it. "That was a double entendre - I was referring to his penis, of course." Sometimes the explanation came before the joke - something like "OK, now I'm going to move into the rant part of the act. This is where I rail on about some trivial matter for a few minutes. Of course, I don't really care about it - it's all made up. Telling you that has probably spoiled it for you, hasn't it?" Then he talked about how Chinese food has become more expensive recently. "Boiled rice used to be around £1.90. Now it's more like £2.10!"

See what I mean? It really shouldn't have worked. But somehow, it was all hysterically funny. A man who can have an audience in stitches for ten minutes just by talking about how unseasonably mild the weather had been recently has to be some kind of comedy genius.

The front row certainly earned their chocolate. Or at least one of them did. Paul spend ten minutes sat on the lap of a large rugger-bugger type. I've never seen anyone so uncomfortable in my life. I was worried that Paul might not make it out alive.

A memorable night.

A blog of pure and ultimate evil. Err, sorry, I mean here.

Update: Via Slashdot, a top comment.

Internet hoax of the day: ABC Teens, "the world's SEXIEST all-girl punk band". At least, I'm fairly sure it's a hoax, or a joke, or something. Look at the tour dates, for a start. The songs are actually pretty good, but the singer clearly isn't a teenage girl.

Via Spinneyhead.

Oh, and a word of advice - don't do a Google image search for 'ABC Teens', whatever you do. ;-)

Rather than watch bigotvision last night, I went to see John Hegley at the Colliers Wood Library. I've read his stuff before, and loved it, but I've never seen him live. He was much, much better better that I was expecting. He didn't just read his stuff; there was a lot of interaction with the audience, and he improvised a lot. His delivery was superb.

The kids in the auduience loved it as much as the adults. I wish my girls could have been around to see him.

He went off afterwards to do a gig at Shepards Bush. I'm keen to see him again, at a big venue if necessary, but I can't help feeling that he wouldn't be the same in a less intimate venue, where he couldn't look you in the eye, ask the audience questions, and count the glasses wearers.

Steve Lake also did a set. "Interesting". Not interesting, but "interesting". Lighten up, man.

Michael Spencer's code limerick is, well, I don't think that superb is too strong a word. It's not just that it's a limerick itself, it's what it outputs that makes it so cool.

Yes, I know; I really need to get out more.

This is so cool that I'm going to have to do a straight steal from Edward: "The rubber duck can be referred to informally as a rubber duckie or a rubber ducky. Amongst collectors of rubber ducks, the spelling rubber duckie has achieved prominence, but both spellings are considered acceptable."

Neither Britannica nor Encarta have index entries for "rubber duck".

The Wikipedia's Random Page feature is a real time waster.

The Cradle Rocks, via boing boing. The AC/DC For Those About To Rock Tee is nothing short of brilliant. I only wish they did stuff big enough for my girls. Ella, in particular, says that she wants to be a punk when she grows up - thanks to School of Rock.

Anyone know where I can get a Ramones tee-shirt for a six year old?

Update: More punk kid's tee shirts - UK based.

Woman jailed for haunting castle in Bolzano.

Police extended their thanks to four teenagers for helping them resolve the situation, along with their large Great Dane. The 42-year-old Polish perpetrator said: "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids".

A critical security flaw which could leave users open to attacks by malicious Dark Lords. Superb.

Via Gimboland.

Funny, if you are a total nerd, that is. Tulna will love it.

Strange; my arse seems to have been very popular:

(Thanks to SiteMeter.)

Finally I find out what people actually want to see.

There will be 60 police in Colliers Wood over the Christmas period, all on the lookout for pissed people the extremely well refreshed. I'll be careful in Venus for the next few weeks...

Royal aide is shot at Balmoral.

On the plus side, I'm no longer on the front page for this. I do appear, however, to be a sad lonely geek. :-(

I should sue Google for libel.

Anyway, in order to prove that I'm not a sad lonely geek, I'd better go out on the lash this evening with some mates. Anyone else who's not a sad lonely geek would be more than welcome to join Steve, Swiss Toni and I at The Horse Bar, Waterloo after work.

Jordan will be in Clinton Cards in Fenchurch Street signing copies of her calendar on 16 December. I might just give that one a miss.

Jordan has managed the impossible - she's managed to make Kelly Brook look classy. (For my international readership - how can I explain Jorden? She makes Pamela Anderson look like Cate Blanchett.)

How to use a hand puppet to meet, attract, and date tons of single women, via greenfairydotcom.

'Lifestyle' magazine for police. And here's what it might look like - Fuzz.

"American liberals - already a threatened species - will be desperate to escape". Marry an American.

I present to you the voice controlled blender. First Bush gets in again, now this. Has the world gone mad?

Blogging error codes, via Sam.

Miniature claymore mine, via Mark Frauenfelder.

No problem - O2 will stalk them for you! You can do anything on the Internet these days.

Is this the worlds largest error dialog? Via boingboing.

(It's not the most embarrassing - that has to be the Comdex demo of Windows 98.)

Italian kids flooded school to avoid exam.

How to Tell When a Relationship is Over, via a small life.

You can get all kinds - His & Hers, Hers and His, His and His, Hers and Hers. But it does amuse me that this one comes in a queen size...

Via boingboing.

How far has London corrupted you?

I must say I'm unhappy to have got only 40%. I must get out more...

Via greenfairy.com.

Five years! I must say, I'd have thought that he's suffered enough already...

Via Gusset.

Zombie Infection Simulation v2.3, via DiVERSiONZ.

Zombies Seeking...

Via Gusset.

Tell everyone about Pillow Fight Club.

Via Sam.

Having Googlejuice is very nice, but I'm not too happy being number one hit for this.

Clearly Google is getting cleverer than ever. ;-)

Another distinctly Friday-afternoon post, after a very pleasant lunch with Jez: The Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club. I particularly like the skull-heads and the skin rug.

Thanks to the office pyromaniac pyrographer Tracey for this one.

Helping a gentleman's aim.

I remember seeing the flies in the urinals at Schiphol. It took me a while to realise that they weren't real!

But will it actually help? Well, while there are certainly some men who don't take aim as carefully as they might, and who may be enticed into a little more care by this device, I like to think that most of us do our best. But there is a certain inaccuracy inherent in the equipment. That first volley especially can be a little unpredictable.

You ladies didn't want to know that, did you? ;-)

Via NightHawk.

Women have four G-spots, apparently.

Not each - that's four between the lot of them, I think.

Via - who else - Steve.

Smittens, via boingboing.

Also making me laugh recently - That is just so degrading, Gary Rhodes, Pirate Riddles for Sophisticates, and many more.

The Sun ran a quiz today - How Chav Are You? I should have thought that the answer was easy for its readers - you read The Sun, so you're a Chav.

Anyway, I got four points - "LESS THAN 10: Admit it. You couldn't bring yourself to do the test in case you found out the awful truth, could you?"

OK, 'fess up - how Chav are you?

Via mad musings of me.

A Girl's Guide to Geek Guys. It doesn't just say "Run away!" - they can work that out for themselves.

Via Coofer Cat.

THE SUN RISES.

These missile balloons are fantastic. Almost good enought to make me want to get a car.

And learn to drive...

This is how the underground ought to look.

Except that getting from Colliers Wood to Bank where I work would be a bit of a bastard...

Via Rhodri.

So, it appears that Page Three girls aren't air-headed bimbos after all. No, it seems that they are fascists. Via Boing Boing.

How to win a small business award.

Excellent interface! FileMatrix looks like one of Mark "The Burger Flipper" Matthews' efforts.

Well, provided, that is, that every time you click on something you get an couple of 'dialouges' saying stuff like "You've just clicked the 'Locate' button, OK to continue", and a couple of K in a log file.

In fact, we've just come up with an interface concept which might appeal to him - modal dialogues (sorry, dialouges) launched on mouse-over events. Can you do that in VB6?

(Via Simon Willison.)

On occasion, I may have drunk some things which weren't particularly good for me - but I've got nothing on this guy. Via Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants.

Bitter, disillusioned Dublin man, lately rejected by longtime fiancee, seeks decent, honest, reliable woman, if such a thing still exists in this cruel world of hatchet-faced bitches.

Personal ads in the Dublin News, via Mad musings of me.

You sexy thing.

Goatse.cx was bad enough, but now there's this monstrosity. Safe for work, if not for your sanity, via Ben Hammersley. (The goatse.cx tribute that I linked to above is safe for work too - but many of the pages to which it links couldn't possibly be any less safe for work.)

"The Web is the sum of all human knowledge, plus porn." Via SlashDot.

I don't seem to have much to say for myself just a the moment. Apart, that is, from pointing out the fact the StyleReport Pro is eating my soul.

Luckily enough, there have been a few things on the 'net recently to keep me sane:

• Preparing for Emergencies, via The Register strangely enough.
• Darth Vader, call your office
• The Cthulhu Case Mod, via boing boing
• Cap'n Hermaphrodite's Fishish Fingers - bet you're glad you're a vegetarian now.

Via Darren, I've discovered the delightful ChavScum. Hey, bit of a Chav name there, Darren mate. ;-)

I've lived in sunny Colliers Wood for most of my life, on and off, and we have a healthy Chav population. You'll find them particularly concentrated in and around our local BNP meeting place, The Victory.

Update: The nearest fast food to The Victory is Chic N Ribs. :-(

See also: sheppeyscum.com. I've never been to Sheppey, but El Presidente worked there at one point, and I'm assured that sheppeyscum.com is, if anything, generous.

Worst Album Covers Ever, via Simon Willison.

Relax, have a cup of tea.

I know that all our bosses have the occasional David Brent moment, but this takes the biscuit; El Presidente has just been humming Mah Na Mah Na. ;-)

Google circa 1960, via Boing Boing.

Empty Supervillian Threats: the statistics, via Lonita.

"The Designer is extremely intuitive," StyleReport Pro blurb.

Cuddly Alien, via GussetBLOG.

I've mentioned The Marones before. Scary Duck points out some other fab tribute band names; Nudist Priest and the Red Hot Silli Feckers. Wonderful.

The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh.

Via Andy Gimblett.

Well I never! I've lived somwhere along the Northern Line's southern stretch for over thirty years, and I never knew it was called Cock Pond. I was there only this Saturday - it's a very nice paddling pool, and I took the girls.

What rude place-names do you live near?

Via Boing Boing.

"KING RICHARD. OlazZtssi0cwX?QDjqkP9r]xfaBmlVU]e..."

Johann Hari: What next? Being called a minger by the Pope? Being told I have crap shoes by the Chief Rabbi?

Laughing Boy: You should have gobbed the baldy four-eyed get. It's the only language these spiritual leaders understand.

St John's Wood is the only station on the Underground network that shares no letters with the word 'mackerel'. Diamond Geezer gets rather worryingly obsessive about the Jubilee Line.

About Your Ethical Standpoint (PDF).

More DoSS Forms at Social Scrutiny, "your one-stop shop for Government propaganda".

Via Jim.

Arrrrr!

What's the story in Balamory? Wouldn't you like to know? Well, the story in Balamory is that Josie Jump has been murdered and buried under the patio.

Death's too good for her, if you ask me. Let's hope Archie gets it next...

Via mad musings of me.

I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection.

Via Kim.

Well, I have at least some of the attributes, according to Ian: makes mistakes, tick; opinionated, tick.

I have laziness, impatience, and hubris, too, and plenty of them.

For the benefit of any American readership that I might have; 'tick' is English for 'check'.

If this doesn't call for a humanitarian air-lift, nothing does: Norwegian beer supplies at risk.

The P-P-P-Powerbook is a superb hack (in the old-style Hall of Hacks sense of the word). The full story is here.

Via Boing Boing.

Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder - this is just so me. Not just the 14 browser-tabs and 10 windows bit, but also the bit about hating people mucking about with your desktop.

I also like to run my desktop at a very high resolution with very small fonts. Is this another NADD symptom, or is it my own personal quirk?

Via qwghlm.

Liam Gallagher looses two front teeth after a brawl with a "group of five computer consultants". Well, if you pick a fight with a bunch of roughy toughy computer programmers, you are bound to get your head kicked in, aren't you?

Why Python is better than Java: What it comes down to is not just that Java places too high a cognitive load on the programmer... it's that Java's just a pain in the ass.

You try RPG, mate. ;-)

Nooooobody expects the Spammer's Imposition!

Via qwghlmBlog.

The Shakespeare Programming Language, via Squawks of the Parrot.

Not quite as nerdy as Var'aq (the Klingon programming language), but every bit as silly. Fantastic!

(Prime gereration in Shakespeare.)

Two busty coeds—a Southern belle and a New England yankee—are in Florida on spring break. The belle turns to the yankee and asks, "So, where y'all from?"

The yankee turns up her nose and says, "I'm from a school where we don't end sentences with prepositions."

Without missing a beat, the belle replies, "So, where y'all from, bitch?"

Courtesy of Mark Pilgrim.

Superb cartoon.

Why Do Java Developers Like to Make Things So Hard?

"Imagine if the Perl cafe and Javahut were across the street from each other. You walk into Javahut, and ask to sit down. "I'm sorry," says the person at the door. I'm not actually the hostess, I'm a Factory class that can give you a hostess if you tell me what type of seat you want." You say you want a non-smoking seat, and the person calls over a NonSmokingSeatHostess. The hostess takes you to your seat, and asks if you'll want breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You say lunch, and she beckons a LunchWaitress. The LunchWaitress takes your order, brings over your food, but there's no plates to put it on because you forgot to get a CutleryFactory and invoke getPlates, so the Waitress throws a null pointer exception and you get thrown out of the place."

This is so true it hurts.

Still, could be worse. Working with RPGIV, there are no restaurants. Nor are there any supermarkets; you have to grow your own food. And make your own cutlery.

Via Ian Bicking.

The world's two worst variable names is a great read. I especially liked this comment.

I'm glad to see that How To Write Unmaintainable Code is having the real-world impact that it deserves.

The worst name I've seen recently in the projects I've been working on has been Skippy, the originator of which shall remain nameless.

Via The Farm.

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook.

Via Bifurcated Rivets.

What One Hand Giveth, the Other Taketh Away.

Ah well. As a single man, it's all pretty academic to me anyway. Just as it is for married men, so I gather. ;-)

So, if I'm not allowed a real girlfriend, am I allowed an imaginary one instead?

Via Off on a Tangent.

Get it while it's hot!

Via GromBlog.

And about bloody time, too.

My theory is that there is now a man in Ken's life. I mean. look at him - have you ever seen anyone more immaculately groomed?

Via Aderemi.

"Up to eleven" has made it to the SOED, I gather.

With a poet of Tufnel's calibre, it was only a matter of time, I suppose. I wonder when Lick My Love Pump will make it in.

You've heard that it's out there; well, here it is.

Via Tangent.

The PDA is your friend.

If you've never experienced Paranoia, well, you've missed out. You were probably too busy going out, making friends, boozing and partying, that kind of thing. I feel sorry for you.

To be honest, actually it was more fun reading the Paranoia modules that it was playing the game, but, hey?

"A new survey says one in 10 people are incompetent".

Hey, what are you looking at me for?

Emails exchanged last year between David Armstrong, a former English teacher, and employees of The Coca-Cola Company.

Via minimal.

The Daily Mail-o-matic, via As Above.

I'm not sure about the application, but I love the name - Booble, the pron search engine.

Hah! I feel better now!

I had been feeling rather let down by The Office's Christmas special. Most of it was brilliant - I actually had to leave the room during the Blind Date sequence. But the ending just didn't feel right. David Brent, pull a decent bird? Never!

But it's just been pointed out to me (by my colleague Phil) that she was an escort. All's right with the world once more.

By the way, there is some good stuff on the web site. The screen saver is a bit of a let down, especially as a 5 MB download. But Gareth's homepage is just right, and the newsletter is worth a look too.

These guys have their target segment well narrowed down..

for i in [78, 111, 119, 32, 72, 105, 114, 105, 110, 103, 0]: print chr(i),

Via MickBlog.

Specialist subject - the bleedin' obvious. Men Stop Thinking Rationally Around Good Looking Women.

I'm convinced that this is a major contribution to road safety.

Via Gizmodo.

Sounds like just your type.

Thinking about exercise 'can beef up biceps'

This is in the Torygraph, so it must be bollocks true.

Right, I'm off to get an excersise video to watch. I'll be like a whippet this time next month.

Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier sends scouts out round the world looking for a new striker to replace Emile Heskey, and hopefully win Liverpool the title. One of his scouts informs him of a young Iraqi striker who he thinks will turn out to be a true superstar. So Gerard flies to Iraq to watch him, is suitably impressed and arranges for him to come over to Anfield.

Two weeks later Liverpool are 3-0 down at home to Man Utd with only 30 minutes left. Houllier gives the young Iraqi striker the nod to go on and takes off Emile Heskey. The lad is a sensation, scores 4 in 30 minutes and wins the game for Liverpool. The fans are delighted, the players and coaches are delighted and the media love the new star. When he comes off the pitch he phones his Mum to tell her about his first day in English football.

”Hi Mum, guess what?” he says. ”I played for 30 minutes today, we were 3-0 down, but I scored 4 and we won. Everybody loves me, the fans, the players and the media, they all love me”.

”Great,” says his Mum, ”let me tell you about my day. Your father got shot in the street, your sister and I were attacked and beaten, and your brother has joined a gang of looters, while you were having a great time”.

The young Iraqi lad is very upset. ”What can I say Mum, I’m so sorry.”

”Sorry?” says his Mum ”It's your fault we moved to Liverpool in the first place!”

Via email, origin unknown.

My programming job went offshore, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

Via PragDave.

Numbers to be patentable

codeja vu: the feeling that you are coding something that you already coded before.

Via James Strachan.

Michael Jackson on the run

Received via email, providence unknown, originally from b3ta.

I've tried a great many varieties of Indian food in my day, but I think I'll be giving arse curry a miss.

Besides, if you must use curry sauce from a jar, Patak's is the only way to go...

Me, a PE teacher!

Why is it in a Yank blog that I find these great Grauniad links?

This week's headlines, with guidance from the lawyers
101 things we don't miss

Hmmm. Just about every other blogger on the face of the planet has linked, or will link, to this: Mom finds out about blog.

You know the sad thing - my mother does read this blog, and there's nothing in it that I would want to keep from her. In fact, I can't think of anything in my life that I can't tell my mother.

Sigh. I have to get a life. Can you get one from Argos?

BTW, Mum, when are you starting your blog?

A friend of mine was recently looking for the wonderful "Hoax Moon Landing" parody, featuring The Clangers.

I had a look for it. I found that it had been defaced - NASA fake Moon Landing!!!. Clearly some fuckwit didn't notice the joke. This is a bit of a shame - it was pretty funny. I hope that the OP can repair the damage.

But, while I was looking for this, I found some fab links at me(ish).org: A sociopolitical analysis of Bagpuss ("The Mice on the Mouse Organ. They represent the workforce, the proletariat. Normally frozen on the mouse organ (the 'organ' of the state which controls and represses them) they are animated by the waking of Bagpuss, showing the enervative power that a single individual's vision can wield within society.") and Men are from Morden, Women are from Wimbledon. Class.

And this marks the third mention of Morden in a week. Scary. (Morden, that is - I'm not scared of coincidences. ;-)

There Are Going To Be Some Pointless Changes Around This Office. I, too, used to work at this office - CitiBank, I think it was.

Via Off On A Tangent.

The Matrix Trilogy – Deleted scenes #1
The Matrix Trilogy – Deleted scenes #2
The Matrix Trilogy – Deleted scenes #3
The Matrix Trilogy – Deleted scenes #4
The Matrix Trilogy – Deleted scenes #5

No spoilers. Thought from what I hear, it would be pretty hard to spoil Revolutions anyway. :-( I'll be seeing it tonight, so I'll let you know what I think tomorrow.

It's the pepper spray.

Via Frithiof Andreas Jensen.

looC fo seulaV llamS

Incredible. It seems to work for just about any website - Mirror Sytes. A perfect Friday afternoon time waster.

Important lessons for the digitally inept

Funny, and oh so true.

Via The G Spot.

The first rule of Old Lawnmower Club is, you do not talk about Old Lawnmower Club.
The second rule of Old Lawnmower Club is, you do not talk about Old Lawnmower Club.

I'm not going to comment on the whole "Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor" thing. I don't live in California, so it's none of my business. Besides, I couldn't care less.

I did want to point out this comment from Jay Leno, though. It made me laugh out loud on the tube this morning. "For the first time in his career, critics are calling him an actor." ;-)

The Cthulhu webserver. ;-)

Charles Miller, part of the team responsible for proposing some superb Java improvements in JSR 666, goes one step further and introduces a whole new programming paradigm - Dysfunctional Programming.

Animal lovers won't like Kitty Bash, but I do. Thanks, Steve.

Me mateys! At last, thanks to Captain 'Widowmaker' Eloon, I see that some scurvy dog has finally found a good use for mobile phone cameras. Arrr!

Update: Cap'n 'Blackheart' Phil pointed out that it's the stern, not the bow.

Ahoy, me hearties! Today be International Talk like a Pirate Day.

Anchors aweigh, top gallants full and a bone in its teeth! Arrr!

Thanks to Cap'n 'Blackheart' Phil for some authentic nautical terminology.

Update: A round of Grog for Simon Willison. And point your telescope at Nautical Expressions in the Vernacular for more, uh, nautical expressions. Arrr!

Apparently, yes. You are David Brent combined with Gareth Keenan. Your office persona swings wildly from forced hilarity to utmost anality, and is driving your long-suffering colleagues to drink and drugs. For their sakes at least, seek psychiatric help.

These Grauniad quizzes are brilliant!

Update: Everyone else in my office claims to be a dream colleague. But at least one lied in her answers...

As for Steve, There is some corner of cyberspace that is forever England. My answers here.

You?

Rogue Semiotics' Daily Mail bashing continues with Asylum Seekers Will Cover London By 2005.

Jon will end up working for Private Eye at this rate. All he needs is a large dose of luddism, and he'd fit right in.

Pictures of beautiful tits.

Via the Royal Rodent.

It's not often that you read a sentence like the last line in this blog entry without being disgusted.

While at the Guilfest with Steve this year I spotted a brilliant t-shirt. Turns out it's from meatandcheese.co.uk - it's the 'Jesus' one. My