Older blog entries for marnanel (starting at number 1255)

3 Sep 2016 »

I don't like Thursdays

filk: "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats.

now the silicon chip inside your ship
gets switched to overload
and nobody's gonna leave the Earth today
you're gonna make the place explode
and your latest verse is a Vogon curse
with a pain that you can't resolve
you can see no reasons
cos there are no reasons
what reason do you need to evolve?

Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
I want to shoot the planet down.

well it's not too far to the local star
where the plans were on display
so your sympathy for their apathy
just blows them all away
it's okay with you
cos you've just gone through
a painful love affair
you can see no reason
cos there is no reason
what reason do you need to care?

Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
I want to shoot the planet down.

six billion folk go up in smoke
and a trillion angry mice.
you were bought and bribed
it was all prescribed
by the man who paid your price:
there's a secret link
to a scheming shrink
but Halfrunt's just this guy
who has every reason
to destroy the reason--
what reason do you need to die?

Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
Tell me why. I don't like Thursdays
I want to shoot the planet down.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/376324.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-09-03 01:22:05 (Updated 2016-09-03 01:32:32) from Monument

31 Aug 2016 »

Oolon Colluphid's triology, now in Pelican

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/376235.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-08-31 22:19:40 from Monument

19 Aug 2016 »

Two Ronnies 1984 Christmas special: courtroom sketch

I've seen this sketch many times, but I only just realised that the judge is Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor from Dr Who).

Some of the gameshows are largely forgotten:
1) What's My Line? (guess someone's job)
2) Mastermind (rapid-fire questions on a subject)
3) Call My Bluff (guess the definition of an obscure word)
4) Blankety-Blank (guess what word someone else used to complete a sentence)
5) Give Us A Clue (charades)
6) It's A Knockout ("play your joker" in a round to double your points)
7) The Price Is Right ("come on down!")

Gaffes:
1) the judge is wearing a barrister's wig
2) no judge in England uses a gavel
3) the defendant is standing in the witness box
4) lawyers don't walk around the courtroom
5) er, court trials don't include gameshow references.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/375907.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-08-19 12:35:33 from Monument

2 Aug 2016 »

"I saw the wicked in such prosperity"

Psalm 73 was in this morning's readings. The poetry remains bitterly relevant to today's society.

For I was envious of the proud;
I saw the wicked in such prosperity;
for they suffer no pains
and their bodies are sleek and sound.
They come to no misfortune like other folk;
nor are they plagued as others are.

Therefore pride is their necklace
and violence wraps them like a cloak.
And so the people turn to them
and find in them no fault.
Behold, these are the wicked;
ever at ease, they increase their wealth.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/375009.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-08-02 16:28:41 from Monument

13 Jul 2016 (updated 14 Jul 2016 at 13:06 UTC) »

little!me animation

the animation of little!me, for the start of the nonbinary song. rough draft!

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/374040.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-07-13 21:23:44 (Updated 2016-07-14 12:39:17) from Monument

12 Jul 2016 »

dentist

[dentist]
My dental appointment is on Friday, but I went in for an emergency appointment today because of the pain. The dentist said I did the right thing, and the whole of that tooth had to come out. He took an x-ray and I had to hold the plastic bit in place with my tongue-- he said I have a strong tongue. I'm so glad I can suppress my gag reflex! [Edit: my goodness that sounds suggestive] Anyway, he said it was the most complicated extraction he'd had to do since he started working there.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/374012.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-07-12 17:10:31 from Monument

6 Jul 2016 »

"a practice so general"

While looking through back issues of the Times for etymological citations, I discovered a rather strange classified ad for 23rd May 1786:

"This day is published, price 1/6, a letter to John Hunter Esq., FRS, [...] respecting his treatise on the venereal disease; shewing him to be highly erroneous in his observation of impotence, and more particularly pointing out the absurdity and immorality of his doctrine in favour of onanism or masturbation. By Duncan Gordon, MD."

Of course, I went to find out what Dr Hunter had said. Earlier that year, he had published a book about venereal disease, which made some shocking claims: masturbation is generally harmless, and the worst thing you can do is worry about it.

"OF IMPOTENCE: This complaint is by many laid to the charge of Onanism at an early age; but how far this is just, it will in many cases be difficult to determine; for upon a strict review of this subject, it appears to me to be by far too rare to originate from a practice so general.

How far the attributing to this practice such a consequence, is of public utility, I am doubtful, particularly as it is followed most commonly at an age when consequences are not sufficiently attended to, even in things less gratifying to the senses; but this I can say with certainty, that many of those who are affected with the complaints in question are miserable from this idea and it is some consolation for them to know that it is possible it may arise from other causes.

I am clear in my own mind that the books on this subject have done more harm than good. I think I may affirm that this act in itself does less harm to the constitution in general than the natural. That the natural with common women, or such as we are indifferent about, does less harm to the constitution than where it is not so selfish, and where the affections for the woman are also concerned.

Where it is only a constitutional act it is simple, and only one action takes place; but where the mind becomes interested, it is worked up to a degree of enthusiasm, increasing the sensibility of the body and disposition for action; and when the complete action takes place it is with proportional violence; and in proportion to the violence is the degree of debility produced, or injury done to the constitution. In the cases of this kind that have come under my care, although the persons themselves have been very ready to suppose that the disease arose from the cause here alluded to; yet they did not appear to have given more into the practice than common; and in particular, the worst case I have ever seen was where but very little of this practice had ever been used, much less less than in common among boys or lads. The only true objection to this selfish enjoyment is the probability of its being repeated too frequently."

Hardly surprising that it raised a furore!

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Syndicated 2016-07-06 00:38:47 from Monument

5 Jul 2016 »

"The Stalled Ox", by Saki

“Do you mean to say that you’re going to sit quietly down and paint that ox while it’s destroying my morning-room?” Let’s start the new series of Gentle Readers with a story in which absurdity is tamed by embracing it.

Full text: https://gentlereaders.uk/the-stalled-ox

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/372703.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-07-04 17:27:23 from Monument

24 Jun 2016 »

strip-lighted paradise

I was reading this two days ago. It needs saying today.

“Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles… not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another.” - George Orwell, 1943.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/371703.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-06-24 13:04:01 from Monument

23 Jun 2016 »

the Holy Spirit versus cardboard

A story I was told at St Mark’s, a “high” Anglican church:

St Mark’s has a rather large contingent of de jure Roman Catholics in its congregation, who argued with the local parish priest or the Vatican and just decamped down the road. Many times this only gets discovered when they die and ask for their ashes to be interred in St Mark’s columbarium, whereupon the local RC priest turns up and objects.

So after this had happened a few times, they agreed that a small part of the columbarium would be dedicated as a RC burial place. And so that God wouldn’t get confused, they put a cardboard divider between them.

The person telling me this story concluded, “So apparently cardboard can block the Holy Spirit, just like alpha particles… wait. Don’t mitres have cardboard inside to keep the shape? I think we’ve discovered something here…”

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/371398.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2016-06-23 18:11:42 from Monument

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