ampers& blog

A quote worthy of Hunter S Thompson himself, from Tony Wright, national affairs editor of the Age newspaper in Melbourne, re the savage internecine strife currently ripping apart Australia’s Labor Party: “If you’d hauled a semi-trailer load of fighting rum, a caravan of harlots and a boxing tent into a mining camp on payday, you’d hardly predict the level of crazed viciousness that has busted out in what’s left of the heart of the Labor party.”

An excellent – and surely original – non sequitur in an article in Saturday’s Guardian about the upcoming play based on a French story about a mother so traumatised by the state of the world that she kills her children, to spare them having to endure it.

The rights were obtained on a visit to Paris by one Lisa Dwan, who says: “I was alone in Paris, I wanted to celebrate. I skipped down the street having just bought the rights to probably the most depressing play in the world. I don’t drink or smoke, so I went into a taxidermist’s and bought a stuffed duck.”

After posting Elmore Leonard’s bit of witty intelligence, I went to check my inbox, to find:

“Changing from paper invoices to electronic
invoices can have many benefits for your
business, but it also comes with its own
unique compliance challenges.”

What is it with these half-wit copywriters, so smitten with the word ‘unique’? What does it add? How would the statement above be altered by its removal? Why do so many seem to view the word unique as a kind of universal condiment – adds a touch of class to any statement. NO IT DOESN’T! IDIOT! STOP IT!

and breath…..

Great one-liner in a piece about Elmore Leonard in last weekend’s Guardian Review:

“What Leonard loves best is not violence but the prospect of violence expressed with some verbal wit, like the sign in a police station in Mr Paradise: ‘Too often we lose sight of life’s simple pleasures. Remember, when someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles in the face to frown. But it only takes four muscles to extend your arm and bitch-slap the motherfucker upside the head.’”

Came across this bit of Nietzsche at the weekend: “He who has a why can bear with almost any how.”

Seemed to tally quite neatly with a few thoughts I’ve been having over trying to help a client put together some kind of content for the Chair & CEO’s statements in their annual report. The summary I came up with runs:

CEO: what we’ve been doing and how we’ve done
Chair: what we are and are going to be doing, and why

In short, the CEO summarizes the last year business/results; the Chair paints the vision for the next year – and beyond.

It’s an over-simplification, of course, and implies a sharp divide that doesn’t really exist…but it can offer a starter for ten when faced with ‘what kind of thing are you looking for?’

After watching the ‘Noble’ break down on this week’s Top Gear, I visited the website, where the home page boasts:

“The car is a significant step forward in both fit, finish and weight saving.”

How can you spend millions developing a car, then leave your website in the care of people who don’t understand that you can have both oranges and apples, you can have both cats and dogs, but you can’t have both roses and daffodils and tulips?

Presumably they think the car speaks for itself. Fine. But if you’re going to employ people to speak for it as well, probably best to find ones who speak the language.

Facebook may have its European headquarters in Dublin but the social networking site has wiped a small Irish village off the map because its name is deemed obscene.

Effin in County Limerick has been branded “offensive” by Facebook and is blocked from the site.

A native of the village has now started an online battle to get Effin recognised by the site.

Anne Marie Kennedy, who works at the University of Limerick, said yesterday that she, along with several more friends, have been trying to insert the village name into the “home” section of their Facebook profiles in recent months. But they have not been successful.

Kennedy also tried to set up a Facebook page entitled, “Please get my hometown Effin recognised”. But it too was blocked by the social networking site.

“It came back with an error message saying ‘offensive’,” she said.

Like any blog, mine gets a steady stream of spam comments, easily identifiable by their bland generic praise and utter disconnect from the original post – this morning’s classics including: “Helpful information! I have been searching for something like this for quite a while currently. Thanks!” and “Your blog is really very informative. Thank you for that.”

I did, however, also receive a zinger this morning – a lengthy screed…upwards of 1000 words of prime gibberish.

“Louis Vuitton converted Rome taxidermy keep Deyrolle appropriate virtual Zoo-y Vuitton at Monday evening to help rejoice the actual 100th annivesary of their small household leather merchandise assortment. Align the actual feeling, United kingdom specialit Billie Achilleos converted the actual maison?¡¥s individual bank purses, coin pockets, belts, at the same time as carrier laptop or computer hardware suitable menagerie of pets, which includes some sort of grasshopper, a strong armadillo, some sort of beaver, and one trs multi-colored chameleon.”

Top marks! I have been searching for this information currently for some time!

This being the final para from a letter to parents of students at my daughter’s school….

I don’t know, but if was sending out a letter like this, signed by – among others – the Head, I’d read the damn thing through before despatch to make sure it didn’t contain two clunking great grammatical errors. Wouldn’t you?

*sigh*

A quick tip: if you haven’t already, try to catch Old Jews Telling Jokes on BBC. Wall to wall oldies but goodies. Like the one about the old Jew who’s out walking in the Sinai when he stubs his toe on something in the sand. He digs out what proves to be a lamp – of course a genie appears, and grants him two wishes.

The guy quickly sketches out a map in the sand, and says to the genie: “You see this? Here is Israel, this is Jordan…Egypt, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Iraq and Iran – I want you to make this all into Israel.” The genie sucks through his teeth and says “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible.” The guy goes: “What d’you mean, impossible? Why?” And the genie says: “You’re talking about boundaries drawn in blood, going back centuries…millenia. You’re talking about ancient customs and traditions and conflict and struggle going back to the very dawn of mankind. I’m a powerful genie, but really…I’m sorry, but that cannot be done.”

The guy sighs. “Ok,” he says, “for my second wish…I’d like oral sex from my wife.” There’s a brief pause. The genie says: “Let me take another look at that map…”