Deapan Conversations: Stapler Supplement

Yesterday afternoon, in the office. An academic comes in, asking to borrow a stapler

Academic: Nice stapler.
Me: Yes.
A: Where did you get a stapler this nice?
Me: Catalogue.
A: How come I can never get my hands on stationery this nice?
Me: Dunno. It staples up to 60 sheets at once, though.

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Want to know the secrets of the Rorshach Blot Test? You know, the one with the ink blots you used to make in nursery school, but you're meant to tell your psychiatrist what you see in it, and they sit there and nod and make notes in their pad? Click here to find out. It will allow you to give all the results if you want to avoid the chair for your crimes.

On the other hand, you can look at my answers:

1. Fox.

2. Decomposing Fox.

3. Hips (of a skellington).

4. I did see a giant looming above me, but I didn't notice the giant penis until later. Please don't lock me up!

5. Ladies' bits. I mean, butterfly! Butterfly!

6. Mexican on a bicycle.

7. False beard?

8. Haunted monkey skull.

9. Cuddly-wuddly koala.

10. Crabs having an orgy.

I've not read the results too much, so feel free to practice amateur psychiatry on me. It's like being Cracker, without being morbidly obese and annoying!

Bob Dylan and My Navel

My main fascination (well, navel-gazing self-obsession, really) is, as you'll have heard me mention, search engine keyword analysis. I doubly love the fact that firstly there is someone out there who has seen fit to sit down at a computer, open up google, and then type in "Crouch End twats babies" and secondly that it leads directly to this page. It's like seeing your first-born say his first swearword or kill his first copper.

Slightly more highbrow is "seinfeld" "the outsider" camus, paul simon crouch end uk and more disturbingly decompositional odour analysis.

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Oh, and you know how for years I've been telling the anecdote about how Bob Dylan ended up in Crouch End. Well, what I've told you was bollocks. The real story was to be found in Word magazine which is aimed squarely at people who know they're now basically Mojo readers, but they don't want to read a 24-page analysis of the recording sessions for every frickin' Beatles track every month, and who also believe that the NME has been crap for the past 10 years, and secretly suspect that it has always been crap. In an interview with Andy Kershaw, he relates that Bob was in Crouch End looking to buy a house, and he'd popped in to get a drink. He sits down, Kershaw's wife doesn't recognise him, asks for a drink, she informs him that UK licencing laws forbid her to sell him a drink without food, and a testy exchange ends with Bob saying, 'Do you know who I am?' and flouncing out. Glad I've got that off my chest.

My story was far more exciting, and took in Dave Stewart, mistaken identity and social awkwardness.

Deadpan Conversations, vol 9

Student comes into the office, asks to borrow stapler.

Student: That's a nice stapler.
Me: Um-hum.
S: A really nice stapler.
Me: Oh yes.
S: I've got the same stapler.
Me: It really cuts down on the effort involved. [Demonstrates by effortlessly stapling 30-odd sheets of paper together]
S: Yes.
[Both look embarassed at the enjoyment we've gained from office products]

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I've recently come under some criticism for not living up to my billing as The Angriest Man in Crouch End. So: Mushrooms are shit; Queen Victoria was a rubbish monarch; Orange is a poor, poor colour; Who'd want thin-slice marmalade - halfwits?; Who makes sellotape that you have to use scissors (or teeth) rather than tearing? How have we come so far, only to suffer from substandard barely functional stickytape; etc.

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Oh, and this from the Onion is quite good on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I remember seeing a large headline on some other site, in The Onion's style, saying:

ONION HEADLINE FUNNIER THAN STORY

It's true, y'know.

Weekend TV

Morning all. Hope you had good weekends. Most people's will have involved an anecdote-worthy cab ride, if my immediate circle are anything to go by. We took a taxi ride paid for by a racist, which I don't think I'll be looking to repeat any time soon. You can only grunt non-comittally in order to avoid confrontation so many times before you start to sound like a teenage Neanderthal. I'm walking everywhere from now on.

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Did anyone see Nathan Barley at the weekend? I've got it recorded, but suspect it's going to be crap, and I'd at least like to be prepared for disappointment before I go in.

Oh, and what was TV's most tearjerking moment from last night? I think they'd got down to the time that the Blue Peter tortoise was put out of its misery on air by the time I had to go to bed. The 100 Most Tearjerking Moments was, of course, presented by side-partinged gagger Jimmy Carr, whose ubiquity on Channel 4 leads me to believe he's about to launch a coup to take over the channel, perhaps in alliance with some repeated episodes of Friends. I wouldn't have any problems with this, just so long as a live execution of Avid Merrion from Bo Selecta takes place within his first month of power.

Dancing Pirate Penguins

Just saw this on b3ta and have been watching it, mesmerised, for minutes. Look at them go. (it was done by collapsibletank, to give credit where it's due).

Enjoy that weekend peeps.

Search Engines in Their Infinite Variety

Being a nerd, I gain great delight from things that the ordinary well-adjusted member of the public might not. I get to see things like the things people type in to search engines in order to get directed to this page, and generally they bring me the sort of pleasure normally associated with seeing your first child, curing an infectious disease or discovering a really good anagram of "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony".

The one that's tickled me today is

Someone who searched Google for "dear prick" "i didn't know you were such a prick" - the page you're on was the only page that came up.

Also, someone visited the page after searching for "Tony Blair's speeches", but I'm not sure they'd really have gained much from the experience.

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For that nerdiness I owe you some fun. here is a link to Mr Picassohead, allowing you to create your own masterpiece. Or not, as you wish. I just like the name.

The Spam-O-Matic is good fun. It generated an email that started:

DO YOU FEEL HUMANITY\'5 C0NTINU3D 3XI5T3NC3?
---------------------------------------------------------------
N0 MORE! those times are over. GET INSTANT CURING YOUR ILLS 100%!!!!
Did you ever think..... it doesnt w0rk!?
Now it does! Read on--Jim\'s Product2000(TM) this will help you GUARANTEED


Which can only be good for all concerned.

Deadpan Conversations Vol 8

Scene: An Army & Navy-type shop in Victoria. I'm attempting to buy a wooly hat. The shop is all too reminiscent of the military shop in Falling Down with Michael Douglas, where there's a special back-room containing illegal military hardware, Nazi memorabelia and so forth. The guy is just finishing off serving the previous customer.

Shoppy: There you are sir. [hands over shoebox] Your usual size. Will you be taking one pair or two pairs?
Customer: Two, I think.
S: Very good, sir. [Turns to me] And how can I help you?
Me: I'm looking for a wooly hat.
S: Ah, feeling the cold, eh?
Me: Yes, I'm bald.
S: Nothing on top to protect it, eh?
Me: No.

[I feel that we have now established my lack of hair to the satisfaction of both parties, and its place in my desire to buy a hat. I now want to get to the actual hat-buying part.]

Me: Do you have any in grey?
S: Only if you don't wash them.
Me: Hmm. So that's no then?
S: Yes.
Me: Can I have the black one?
S: Solid wool, yes. Good choice.

Riots accompany Ikea opening

This story tickled me so much that I burst out laughing, and then had to explain myself.

The idea of crazed twenty-somethings looking to furnish their first flats and bringing out the savagery inherent in man makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. The suspicion that Chris Morris is behind it all is hard to shake.

Of The Sun's coverage, my favourite is this line:

"I saw women punching women and men threatening children."