That Was The Week, Was It?

So I was reading Tired Dad's blog post about his top five most hated television programmes and I was tempted to join in, but my attention was caught by this highly-pertinent but almost throwaway comment:
Several people list that “fuckin 10 O’Clock Show shite” in their top five, and I briefly argue. But even I have to concede that I WANT to like it more than I ACTUALLY do.

And I know exactly what TD means. Every week, I tune in in the hope of watching some cutting-edge biting satire of the sort that hasn't really been seen since That Was The Week That Was, back in Olden Times (pre-Moon Landing). And every week I feel vaguely disappointed that it wasn't longer, that some bases weren't properly covered, that it was all a wee bit "shoddy".

But then, maybe my memories of TW3 have become sepia-tinted with age. After all, I was just a nipper and couldn't possibly have understood most of the jokes. On @10OClockLive it's remarkably similar. Jimmy Carr, for example, will make some hilarious double-entendre, listen to the first wave of laughter and then glance at his watch while the cognoscenti who "got it" right away explain the joke to their less clued-up companions...aaand there goes the second wave.

And a live news show is always going to be shoddy; it's the whole point. Some items are literally thrown in at the last minute, which is every editor's worst nightmare, never mind stand-up comedians.

Still, I do feel that the presenters are letting off lightly the politicians who deign to appear on the show, ready to be cross-examined by some posh bloke from Oxbridge. Sometimes it seems it's David Mitchell who's being hung on the ropes by media-savvy, well-coached, silver-tongued weasel-word merchants. Or perhaps producers are afraid that if he were to really lay into them, the supply may suddenly dry up. Time will tell.

Lauren Laverne makes very pleasant eye-candy, but other than that she seems to be very much the token female. Appearing in just one short prerecorded sketch per week, she spends the rest of the time trying to keep her boys under control long enough to go to an ad break. Maybe Jo Brand could show her how it's done?

Of course the star of the show has to be that lucky bastard who married Konnie Huq. Charlie Brooker has taken to live satire like a duck to bird-flu. All of his own segments appear to be well-rehearsed, coherent and relevant, while he joins in the group discussions with carefully-constructed snippets of wisdom. I want to be him when I grow up.

The show as a whole just doesn't seem to fit into it's ample 65-minute slot. Maybe that's down to the ad breaks, but at least they stop any one item from tying up the whole programme.

Oh well, three months to go. I'm sure it'll all mesh together by the end of the run.

Somalia sends food parcels to House of Commons to supplement MPs' rations

Somalians have dug deep in their pockets after hearing of the plight of British MPs, who are being treated like shit and have to live on rations, according to Shadow Commons leader Alan Duncan.

"This is absolutely scandalous," said Mogadishu resident Saeed Abdallah. "Here we are, living in the lap of luxury with not a care in the world, except for the occasional suicide bombing or random beheading, while hardworking British lawmakers have to scrape by on as little as £64,766 pa. Plus expenses.

"When the Somali people learned of the MPs' plight through a wind-up radio tuned into the BBC World Service, we immediately agreed to club together and collect every grain of rice we could pry from between the floorboards, along with the leftover bones from a stray dog we caught and ate a couple of weeks ago.

"We hope that this offering, though small, will help sustain the starving MPs through these times of hardship until after the next election, when it is sincerely hoped that their freeloading snouts will be back in the trough before you can say duck house."

Merkan-English Dictionary

The great thing about having all these Merkan bloggers in my reader is the rich variety of incomprehensible crap new and exciting terminology that they use. Which I then have to go and research so that I can update my dictionary for your elucidation (Brits) or education (y'all ignorant rednecks). So without further ado:

Polo Mints. Round, minty, white, with a hole in the middle.

How anyone could confuse these with Lifesavers is beyond me.

Bloody copycats! *cough*

Those people who tell you that a battered shoebox in the middle of a slum is a "delightful fixer-upper situated in a quiet neighbo[u]rhood"? Merkans argue over whether the correct pronunciation is REAL-tors or re-AL-tors, while Brits prefer "esTATE agents". I prefer "lying scum".

What they say: This house has lots of potential.
What they mean: Potential energy.

Pound. What could be simpler than the standard unit of British currency?


So it's confusing when Merkans call this a pound.

Because we Brits call it a hash.

Not to be confused with a quarter.


No wait, I meant the other kind of quarter.


Although a quarter pounder is a quarter pounder.


Now I've got the munchies.

Merkan-English Dictionary - Part I've Totally Lost Count

Long-haired Scotch cows are better known as Weegies on Buckfast, although the Scotch Government has announced plans to rename them as Trumps after receiving a massive bribe cash injection from popular Scotch entrepreneur Donald Wig.

Donald Trump
Highland Cow

Words with a 'T' in the middle.
British Person: What's the name of that Merkan Country singer with the big boobies, Dolly...
Merkan: Pardon?
BP: DOLLY...
Merkan: PARDON.
BP: DOLLY...
Merkan: PARDON!
You can keep this going all day if you work at it.
Dolly Whatsherface

Those things made out of flour, eggs and milk, then baked in a very hot oven for twenty minutes? They're called Yorkshire Puddings. Pop over to Little Red Boat if you don't believe me.
Yorkshire Puddings

When Grandson number two comes to stay overnight, he always asks me to make French Toast for his breakfast. I'm guessing Merkans call that Freedom Toast. Anyway, this is what I use to beat the eggs.
Egg Beater
This? Is just lazy.

Translation Fail

Wait...How Did I Get Here?

Merkan-English Dictionary - Inauguration Special

Youse Merkans never cease to amaze me with your funny words. And the way you fit them to our frikkin' tunes.

For e.g, we have the British National Anthem, God Save the Queen:


God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen.

There's a verse in there about crushing the Scots, but I'll let that one pass for now.

Oh, but what have we here?

My Country, 'Tis of Thee


'Tis isn't even a proper word and in any case nobody uses it anymore. I call shenanigans.

Then there's the matter of getting the words mixed up. Vide the Wedding of Chuck and Di (skip to 6mins18):


So technically Diana married Prince Philip, the Duke of Embra. Conspiracy theory, anyone?

Here we have the copycat attempt to muck up an oath by that Hawiian bloke:


At least they made him do it over. Most Presidents have to wait four years to say the oath a second time, but Barack had two shots in the same week.

As for that catch-phrase, Can We Fix It? Stolen from Bob The Builder:


And now we're being followed, sixteen years late, by a reference on live TV to unsavoury practices involving a senior member of the government.

Dammit, I wish they hadn't pulled that YouTube clip, but the essence of it, as I recall, was that at the British Comedy Awards in 1993, camp comic Julian Clary minced onstage and declared that he'd just been fisting Norman Lamont, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As you do. Luckily, only a few million people were watching at the time and it slipped by almost unnoticed. *cough*

Updated: Guess what I just found?


Anyway, the good bit in the Merkan copycat clip is at 1m58:

(Thanks to Jenny the Blogress for bringing this to my attention.)

You'd really think Barack and Michelle could come up with something original instead of pinching it off the British, sigh.

Merkan-English Dictionary #17

Thought I'd better splain some English expressions too, for a change.

Bubble and Squeak - A uniquely English dish, composed (or decomposed) of fried up leftovers. And then given an odd name 'cause kids will eat anything with a funny name, as long as they don't see eyeballs.

Spotted Dick - There he is!

Toad in the Hole - Toad. Hole. What could be smipler? Apart from the complete lack of toads or indeed holes. I mean, isn't it obvious that this refers to sausages cooked in Yorkshire Pudding batter? With gravy. Mmmm...

Grill / Broiler - It's a grill because you put stuff under it and then grill it. Broil isn't even a proper word, I bet someone accidentally put an 'r' in 'boil' and then had to come up with a plausible excuse in a hurry and that's the best they could do at short notice. "I'm just going to broil an egg." "You're going to what?" "Erm. Broil an egg? You know, like boiling it only, like, under the grill." "Oh, you mean like scrambled egg on toast, only grilled a bit more after putting the egg on the toast?" "Yes, that's totally what I meant. Broiled. I'm just nipping down to the library to write that in the dictionary since you've obviously never heard of that word before. Then I'll come right back and broil that egg and serve it up and eat it. You want some? "Oh, yes please, can I have mine with some spramped parsley?"

Turnip - We carve these out and put candles in them at Halloween (HAL-LOW-EEN) to make ugly scary faces and that.

McCain - They make French Fries and roast potatoes and that, right?

Merkan-English Dictionary #16. Ish.

M'kay, I've been stealing borrowing words from other blogs for this one, but obviously I had to, because boy, have youse dudes got some crazy ideas about what even the smiplest words mean. Or how to spell them. *cough*

Technology

Merkan: i-Phone.

English Scotch: Och-aye phone¹.

A bit of background: When I was young, younger than before, we upgraded one of our 370/158s by a whole megabyte. The computer itself was a behemoth to start with, but the extra storage was the size of a large fridge-freezer, took a skilled engineer a whole day to connect up, needed an upgrade to the power supply, cost a fortune to buy and to run, and frequently broke down. But it meant we could play Adventure on night shift.

Little Miss Farty dropped in yesterday to watch the Big Bang and showed us her new och-aye phone. It comes with GPS, touch-sensitive screen, iPod, the current version of the interweb, phone, camera, eight Gigabytes of memory, oh and it's hand-held of course.
"Aye, verry good, but how much did it set ye back?"
"Och, dinnae be silly Pa, it wiz a free upgrade wi' mah contract."

Still needs a power cable ten miles long, I bet. *harrumph*

Time

Merkan: I've been trying to think of a word for two weeks.

English: Fortnight.

Seriously. Why don't you use this word?


English: Autumn.
Ah, a beautiful time of year, when the warm summer sun begins to wane, the leaves turn from green to gold, russet, burnt orange, and deep crimson, then finally to caramel, before they gently swirl to the forest floor, building up a deep carpet for the young and the young-at-heart to kick their way through². Camp fires in the evenings with the enticing smell of woodsmoke curling up into the deep blue sky. Marshmallows toasting over the embers on sharpened sticks...ok, I'm drooling now.

Merkan: Fall.

Food and Drink

English: Squash.
A delicious drink made from, would you believe, squashed fruit? Basically. But so much more goes into it. A bit like that wardrobe.

Merkan: Coke.
Fact - between them, the Coca-Cola Company and Pepsi, Inc., spend seventeen gazillion dollars a year advertising their respective "products". But if you walk into a corner shop (drugstore? I'll have to do that sometime too) and ask for a Coke, and the guy at the checkout says they've only got Pepsi, the typical response is: "Yeah, whatever."


English: Tea.
A hot beverage made with dried leaves in boiling water. Usually available in about 150 varieties, so that you can pick the one most suitable for the time of day/mood/social occasion/etc. Served with milk and/or sugar. And sometimes lemon. Quick and easy, too, since it takes about ten seconds to boil the water with a 240-volt mains supply.

Merkan: Iced Tea.
Understandable. It takes about a week to boil a kettle in Merka. 120 volts? WTF??? The only thing iced tea is good for is being poured into Boston harbour.


Merkan: Muffins. Mmmm, tasty muffins!


English: Toasted Crumpet. Mmmm, tasty crumpet!



¹ So sue me.
² Note spelling.

Observation #2

Birmingham


Birmingham


One of these cities is Birmingham, West Midlands, England. Historically important for meh; well-known for the Bull Ring (which seems a bit short on bulls), Spaghetti Junction (I see no pasta sauce) and Cadbury's chocolate; exports include: Ozzy Osbourne (musician), Jasper Carrott (comedian) and Cat Deeley (babe).

The other one is Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Historically important for its civil rights struggle; well-known for its steel production, its high murder rate and the Nascar Nextel Cup; exports include: Spiderman Martin (photographer), Johnny Smith (guitarist), Courteney Cox (actor), Emmylou Harris (singer), Condoleezza Rice (secretary), E.O. Wilson (author), Carl Lewis (runner), Willie Mays (baseball player).

Even a complete and utter numpty could tell them apart.

Especially if they lived there.

And worked on the local council.

And were responsible for printing and distributing 720,000 leaflets to the local residents, with a picture of Birmingham plastered across the middle.

Surely?

Oh, dear.

Abandon The North!

A Tory think-tank says that northern cities such as Liverpool, Sunderland and Hull are beyond revival and that millions of northerners should migrate to London and the southeast of England, following a massive building program to house them all.

Rather than ruin what's left of the southeast landscape with three million new slums, I would respectfully suggest that we could:

- Build a huge, fortified wall north of Oxford to keep them out.
Or move Hadrian's Wall a bit further south.

- Inundate the North of England, drowning the northerners.
Work in hand, have you seen the news?

- Jack up the cities of Liverpool and Hull and drive them south.
Except that the thieving scousers would nick the wheels.

- Abandon the North to the rats and wolves.
There are no wild wolves in the UK, but we're working on that.

Do you have a better idea?

Merkan-English Dictionary #15

Probly. I've run out of fingers to count on.

Let's try some linky stuff.

Aubergine

Or eggplant if you're weird Merkan.
Picture stolen from courtesy of BOSSY.

Egg


Plant

Merkans call this a backhoe. (For why?) Brits call this particular plant a Jacob.

Oh, you wanted a living plant?
Living plants

Not to be confused with the other kind of Triffid.

Triffid

This kind of Triffid is found in space.

Space explorer

This is a space explorer. He really went up into space.

Scotty

This is a Scotch Canadian space explorer actor. He very nearly made it into space. But the engines couldnae take it.

Falcon 1

This was the Falcon spaceship he was on. Not to be confused with the other kind of Falcon.

Millennium Falcon


Falcon

Or indeed this type of falcon.

Clear as mud?

Merkan-English Dictionary #14

Hancock: 1. Popular British comedian in the 1950s and 1960s.
2. Popular British actress¹ in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc. Still going strong.
3. Merkan for signature. Example: "I woke up in hospital and the nurse asked me to put my Hancock on a form." Something to do with Independence Day (not the film).

Bark dust: What Merkan dogs do on a very dry, dusty day. Especially if they've been chasing rabbits through piles of woodchips.

Teeter totter: A Merkan see-saw. Maybe when Dr Webster was compiling his dictionary he thought see-saw was too easy?

Boot: 1. What goes on your foot, and part-way up your leg, over your sock.
2. What you do to a pooter when it won't go. Sometimes with three fingers, sometimes with your boot (see 1).
3. In Britain, the bit on a car where you put the luggage if you don't want it to get wet.

Trunk: 1. In Britain - and by extension in India and Africa, which are really British - the front bit of an elephant.
2. In Merka, a car boot. No, wait. Merkans call a clamp a car boot. Now my head hurts.

Monkey wrench: A Merkan adjustable spanner. Nothing to do with monkeys at all, apparently, sigh. And definitely not to be confused with a Trunk Monkey:


¹ Merkans don't have actresses, just actors. This is why, when they need someone to perform the part of a woman, they get a man to dress up. See Tootsie (Dustin Hoffman), Mrs Doubtfire (Robin Williams) or Sleepless in Seattle (Rosie O'Donnell).

Merkan-English Dictionary #13

For some reason I thought I might be running out of material by now. (Don't you wish!)

Lemonade

Self-explanatory, really. Without doing any actual research, since that would be too much like hard work, I'd have to say that British lemonade, as sold in bottles, has never been near an actual lemon. It's fizzy, and sweet, slightly bitter, and that's about it.

Not to be confused with Merkan Cream Soda, which is even sweeter but without the bitter edge. I've never tried Merkan Cream Soda as sold in Merka, but something tells me it ain't the same.

Merkan lemonade appears to be some weird concoction made from yellow fruit and cane sugar. What is that all about?


Oh. And British soda is a cooking ingredient.

Are there any more Merkan/English words which you find confusing? Do let me know and I'll try to splain for you!

Toot toot!

Merkan-English Dictionary #12

Cor blimey, guv/Golly gee! Is he still writing that tosh/crap? Yes indeed/Yo, dude!

Vets

In the UK, a vet is someone who looks after sick animals. If the poor beast is beyond help, he/she puts the creature to sleep, then charges an extortionate fee.

e.g. A man takes his dead dog to the vet. The vet tells him his dog is dead. The man asks if the vet is sure? So the vet fetches a tom cat, which walks around the dead mutt, peering closely at it, then strolls off with its tail in the air. The vet repeats that the dog is dead. Still not convinced, the man requests further confirmation, so the vet calls on his labrador. The labrador sniffs at the dead dog, barks once and leaves. The vet says that this proves the dog is dead, and the man finally accepts this.
Two weeks later, the man phones the vet to query the £255 bill, so the vet explains: "Five pounds for telling you your dog's dead; fifty for the cat scan and two hundred for the lab test."

In Merka, vets hardly ever treat sick animals. This is thought to be because Merkan vets are more used to working with heavy artillery than scalpels, syringes and that, what with being former soldiers.

Interestingly, Zimbabwean vets have no idea how to look after animals and have no experience of warfare either. Which hasn't stopped President Robert Mugabe from taking arable farmland away from white farmers and handing it over to black vets, leading to crop failure, desertification and famine. Anyone who knows what a Zimbabwean vet actually does should contact the Zimbabwean government urgently.

Magnum

A Magnum is something cold that you put in your mouth, where it gives you a good feeling. Unless you're a Merkan, in which case this is not recommended. Seriously.

Chips

Served on their own, British chips are delicious. But when a nice portion of battered cod is added to make a "fish supper", this makes a tasty and nutritious "meal".

Merkans - well, some Merkans - also think chips are tasty, but seem to prefer USiNg MIxEd CAsE WHeN WrItiNG ThE wORd dOWn.

There's also something called "French fries", or possibly "Freedom fries", but since the French insist on calling potatoes "Apples of the ground", I think we can safely discount that one.

Merkan-English Dictionary #11

Still trying to combobulate¹ my readers on both sides of the Pond, but I tells ya, sometimes it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle.

Sticky tape

What could possibly be simpler than a roll of transparent, sticky tape? In the UK, the most popular brand is Sellotape, but just to confuse Merkans we also have Scotch Tape. Made in Merka, not Scotchland.

Ok for wrapping tins, steel boxes and that but not so great for taping up parcels.

Sticky tape is sometimes confused with stickybackedplastic, as seen on Blue Peter, but that's another material altogether.


btw, if you're visiting Australia, and fancy a bit of slap and tickle, whatever you do, don't ask for Durex in the chemist's shop. In Oz, Durex are best known for making sticky tape and it's hella hard unwrapping it from your taradiddle.

Keep those suggestions rolling in!

¹ Opposite of discombobulate

Merkan-English Dictionary: Oil Crisis Special

If a British person says his/her car runs on gas, they usually mean it's powered by hydrogen. If a Merkan says the same thing, they're usually wrong. Here's why.

Crude Oil: A black, smelly, sticky liquid that comes shooting out of the ground at 100mph. And swears a lot.

Oil Strike: When the people whose job it is to refine the oil decide to down tools and join a picket line.

Diesel:

1. One of the top bloggers in the blogosphere.


2. A train, but not as exciting as a proper steam train.



3. A petroleum-based fuel which is burned in engines ignited by compression rather than spark.

Petrol: A mixture of hydrocarbons which is used as a fuel.

Gas:

1. One of the five "states of matter" (after Bose-Einstein condensate, solid and liquid, and followed by plasma), that subsequently appear as a cold substance is subjected to increasingly higher temperatures.


2. The direct cause of flatulence.

Gasoline: A volatile flammable mixture of hydrocarbons (hexane, heptane, octane etc.) derived from petroleum. Merkan for petrol.

Merkan-English Dictionary #10

Does it never end? [No - Ed.]

Ok, let's have a wee think...

• Check

What you should do when you want to find out if you can really afford those Jimmy Choo shoes.


• Cheque

What you write in order to "pay" for said shoes. Women can always afford shoes.
Note that when your bank manager asks you to clear your humungous overdraft, under no circumstances should you attempt to offer him a cheque. This will just make him even more cross.


• Rest room

In Britain, where one goes to take a rest. Usually with big, comfy chairs and sometimes even a telly.
In Merka, where one goes for a poo.


• Chaps

In Britain, chaps are blokes. Guys. Men.
In Merka, chaps appear to be what cowboys wear to keep their legs warm.
For some reason, the expression "chaps in chaps" brings to mind a different image altogether. Not that there's anything wrong with that.



• Temperature

When a Brit says it's 32° they mean it's fecking hot.
When a Merkan says it's 32° they mean it's freezing.
The only time we seem to be in complete agreement is when it's minus forty. Even a Glaswegian will admit that's cold.

Toot toot!

Merkan-English Dictionary - BOSSY Special

To commemorate that madwoman's BOSSY's Excellent Road Trip, herewith and heretofore please allow Mr Farty to present a little something to help travellers in their time of need.

Saturn

Now the astronomers amongst you might be forgiven for believing that Saturn is a planet, but that's just a matter of opinion.
The Merkan view has it that the Saturn looks more like this:

Well, "planet" does mean "wanderer", and BOSSY's itinerararary certainly involves a lot of wandering.

Diaper

If I was planning to spend 25 hours a day driving, I'd be wearing one of these too. After all, you never know how far it's going to be to the next rest stop.

In case you were wondering, 16-28 lbs doesn't mean capacity.

Edamame

Edamame are green soy beans harvested at 80 percent maturity, high in protein and fibre and low in calories. Apparently you don't eat the husks, just the beans. Who knew?
Not to be confused with Edam, which is high in yummy and low in lead. I know which I'd prefer to snack on to keep me going.

John Cusack

John Cusack is fiercely protective of his private life, but that won't stop Mrs Cusack from tracking him down eventually. Map? Check. Chloroform? Check. Escape route? Check. List of bloggy friends with basements ready and alibis prepared? Check.

Jail

Or gaol in Early Modern English, this is a place best avoided. See above.

Thongs

Slightly less comfortable than flats when driving, but at least you don't have to worry about toe cleavage.

Driving on the left

All sensible countries, including Great Britain, Guyana, South Africa, India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to name but a few (there are 74 in total), drive on the left. The other handful choose to drive on the right, i.e. wrong side of the road.
According to the British Ministry of Transport, “In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise [driving on the left] in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.”

I can't wait. BOSSY's route does include Scottsdale Scotchland in the UK, after all.

Drive safely, BOSSY!