—
For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

—
For the Sri Lankan Sunday Times

.
Hello, Mrs Merkel.
This is your mum,
your best friend.

I have found a copy of Pepys
on the stairs,
which belongs to you.

(My great-grandfathers!!
I missed your call
when unloading.)

I will have the whole set
redelivered  to you
when I get home.

Thank you.

Freya.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, January 24 1907
.

There is an injury called ‘tennis elbow of the heel’.

The rocks in the Sultanate of Oman are special.

Hitler only started all the Nazi bollocks because he was such a godawful painter.

There is no necessary connection between the poetic vocation on the one hand, and on the other exhibitionism, egoism, and licence.

Too much pudding will choak a dog.

In Tibetan there is no word for a mountain summit.

Stephen Merchant’s dad is stingy.

In June 2009 Edwin Rist stole 299 stuffed birds from the Natural History Museum in Tring, worth $1 million.

Francis Urquhart MP was a lieutenant in the Scots Guards.

Whether our first parent, Adam, had any pretensions to the art of pugilism, is involved in too great obscurity, at this remote period, for us to penetrate into with any possibility of success.

Only four US states require police officers to exhaust alternatives before resorting to deadly force.

The London International Palaeography Summer School offers over 25 courses in palaeography, codicology, and manuscript studies.

Samaritans answer 6000 calls a day in the UK. A further 15,000 phone-calls go unanswered.
.

Not the C17th religious nonconformists. Folk who can’t shut up about things.

You know the type. The workplace philosophers; the shouters at the TV; people in whose eyes you see the glint of socialist dictatorship.

They come in every walk of life. Stupid boxers (*tautology klaxon*), old men in pubs, Daily Mail columnists, every comedian who ever hosted an awards night, back-bench Labour MPs, the current president (plus phone) of the United States, Basil F***ing Fawlty.

It’s the humourlessness that really does for them. The veering crazily from ‘point’ to ‘point’. “Do you know what I mean?” they’re always asking. Alas, we always do.

Of course, a lot of ranters are successful enough to get away with it.

Doctor Johnson, one suspects, was probably a dreadful ranter. John McEnroe, obviously. Jeremy Clarkson. Will Self. Naomi Campbell. Mel Gibson. Sir Alex Ferguson was given a knighthood for services to ranting. And then there’s Geoffrey Boycott.

For every Charlie Sheen, mind, there is a Michael Richards.

Still, famous people we can usually switch off. Everyday ranters, though – real live people, whom you might find yourself stuck in a lift with – well, they’re entirely unspeakable. A quite close friend of mine goes apoplectic if he sees a button out of place in military dramas. I’ve had to institute a swear-jar system.

It’s just not really British, is it? (“I’ll rant as well at thou,” quoth Hamlet. But he was from Denmark.) Our all-time-favourite ranting stories end in tumbleweed, embarrassment, and Downfall bunker parodies on YouTube.

Another friend’s somewhat brigadierial granddad once had a long and testy conversation with (e.g.) the British Rail Customer Services Hotline, concluding, “I mean, for God’s sake, man, this is Britain, not bloody Bangalore!?’ The plaintive and predictable reply: “No sir: this is Bangalore.”

As any Oldie worth his salt will vouch, life’s too short, one mustn’t grumble, and almost nothing’s that important, really. My father – curse him – has a good line when he thinks I’m getting exercised o’er trivia: “Is this going to form a chapter in your memoirs?” That tends to do the trick.

—
For The Oldie

— The Nelson Evening Mail, January 22 1907

.
The Taliban now control more territory in Afghanistan than they did in 2001.

A castanet is a musical instrument that can be used for fishing.

The Yellow Pages was first printed in 1963.

Sri Lankan violinist and composer Lakshman Joseph de Saram is 36% Viking.

During the Terror of 1793-4, young French aristocrats danced jigs upon the scaffold to signify their contempt for revolutionary justice.

Theresa May gargles jobbies.

The first Playboy interview was a conversation about race between Alex Haley and Miles Davis.

The Icelandic word ‘nostaklígja’ denotes the gall-like taste you get in your mouth before you throw up.

­There are no woodpeckers in Ireland.

D-Day did not actually happen on D-Day.

Trends towards simpler language have been observed in US presidential speeches.

The Khmer king was crowned with a bowler hat decorated with ostrich feathers.

The ‘Musician’s Church’ has closed its doors to those who wish to hire it for concerts and rehearsal sessions.

— The Nelson Evening Mail, July 4 1908

.
Eight wickets for eight runs is the worst batting collapse in Twenty20 international cricket.

St Blaise is the patron saint of sore throats, and of knitting.

Estonian literature suffers from a dearth of stories by trucks drivers and/or prostitutes.

The presidential statues on Mount Rushmore were originally intended to extend down to the waist.

The Athenian philosopher Chrysippus died from laughing at his own jokes.

Richard Nixon once wrote a memo instructing his Secret Service detail to make sure no press took pictures of him with a drink in hand.

Tramps have heels like turnips.

Samuel Derrick, pimp, failed actor and master of the ceremonies at Bath, wrote a novel in the voice of Shakespeare’s ghost.

People now take in five times more information every day than they did thirty years ago.

Geoffrey Chaucer addressed his 1391 A Treatise on the Astrolabe to his ten-year-old son, Lewis.

The Japanese toilet industry has agreed to standardise complex bidet controls.

Calling somebody a pussy is not illegal.