Quincy's Querulous Quiddities

Nick Tyler invited you to the event "The Comedy of Errors"

2008-07-04T22:34:00.001+01:00

Nick invited you to "The Comedy of Errors" on Monday, July 28 at 7:30pm.

Nick says, "Hi everyone! Marilyn Bird is performing at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival this Summer in 2 great plays - Taming of the Shrew and Comedy of Errors. Come and enjoy!
http://www.cambridgeshakespeare.com/".

Event: The Comedy of Errors
"Marilyn is a Dromio!"
What: Performance
Host: Cambridge Shakespeare Festival
When: Monday, July 28 at 7:30pm
Where: Robinson College Gardens

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=539886358&k=4WC2ZV62WZVM5AGIRK4XVP

Everyone can join Facebook. To register, go to:
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Thanks,
The Facebook Team

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Nick Tyler invited you to the event "The Taming of the Shrew"

2008-07-04T22:29:00.001+01:00

Nick invited you to "The Taming of the Shrew" on Monday, July 7 at 7:30pm.

Nick says, "Hi everyone, apologies if you're getting this twice (or more). Marilyn Bird is performing at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival in 2 plays this Summer - come and see her!
http://www.cambridgeshakespeare.com/
Cheers,
Nick".

Event: The Taming of the Shrew
"Marilyn is Tranio!"
What: Performance
Host: Cambridge Shakespeare Festival
When: Monday, July 7 at 7:30pm
Where: Robinson College Gardens

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=539886358&k=Y5134XRYT5VM5AGIRK4XVP

Everyone can join Facebook. To register, go to:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=539886358&k=Y5134XRYT5VM5AGIRK4XVP&r

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

I am Mighty Apollo

2006-08-22T22:10:00.000+01:00

Being in a stupid irritated mood today I have proven to be little fun, but was very pleased to find a daft little quiz which has identified me as the Greek God Apollo. How splendid. My evidence?

How nice, it's the usual sort of multiple choice questionnaire you used to find in girls' magazine. Ridiculously satisfying, especially when it told me:

10262 other people got this result!

This quiz has been taken 4524395 times.

1% of people had this result.

I particularly liked that only 1% of questioned folk were Apollo - then I saw how many people that was, being the backward sort I am. Less special now. Have a go:

Which of the Greek Gods am I?

Frog Porn

2006-08-06T20:23:00.000+01:00

Sexy Frog
Originally uploaded by Eric the Bewildered Weasel.

It's not that I find myself sexually attracted to amphibians (I'd like to make that quite clear), but when I was out frog-hunting with my cat early one morning we found this little tyke who seemed just too keen to pose for the camera.

I find it slightly disturbing, from his slightly outstretched leg, hinting at the spawning possibilities to the knowing look in his little eye. I failed to capture him as he licked his lips at the lens, but you get the idea.

He's so keen for loving in his life he spends hours gazing at himself in the mirror, hoping that one day the gorgeous green thing he sees will step through and they can have beautiful tadpoles together.

Vain Frog
Originally uploaded by Eric the Bewildered Weasel.

He's a handsome devil and is available for dates. If you have a lonesome frogette moping around your pond, get in touch and they can trade pictures. You too could match-make these slippery little beasts.

The Joy of Lex (April-July 2006)

2006-07-31T23:38:00.000+01:00

This seemed like the sort of thing to bung on a blog - stuff I loved to counteract the things that rile me. These are the books I've read over the last few months, they weren't all brilliant but I enjoyed them all.

Title ~ Author ~ Date Finished
The Saga of 7 Suns: Hidden Empire ~ Kevin J Anderson ~ 30/03/06
The Saga of 7 Suns: A Forest of Stars ~ Kevin J Anderson ~ 07/04/06
March Violets ~ Philip Kerr ~ 12/04/06
The Ersatz Elevator ~ Lemony Snicket ~ 14/04/06
Fergus Crane ~ Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell ~ 18/04/06
Neverwhere ~ Neil Gaiman ~ 24/04/06
The Saga of 7 Suns: Horizon Storms ~ Kevin J Anderson ~ 29/04/06
The Nightmare of a Victorian Bestseller ~ Brian Thompson ~ 30/04/06
The Pirate’s Handbook ~ Margarette Lincoln ~ 30/04/06
Super-State ~ Brian Aldiss ~ 04/05/06
Barrayar ~ Lois McMasters Bujold ~ 08/05/06
Star Wars: Vector Prime ~ R A Salvatore ~ 18/05/06
Deathstalker: Coda ~ Simon R Green ~ 23/05/06
Recursion ~ Tony Ballantyne ~ 27/05/06
The Basic Eight ~ Daniel Handler ~ 02/06/06
Gateway ~ Frederick Pohl ~ 06/06/06
How To Rule The World ~ Andre de Guillaume ~ 14/06/06
Judas Unchained ~ Peter F Hamilton ~ 25/06/06
Funeral Wars ~ Jonathan Harr ~ 02/07/06
Ilium ~ Dan Simmons ~ 05/07/06
The Voice of Victorian Sex: Arthur H Clough ~ Rupert Christiansen ~ 08/07/06
The Edge Chronicles: Vox ~ Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell ~ 16/07/06
The Vile Village ~ Lemony Snicket ~ 20/07/06
Eon ~ Greg Bear ~ 30/07/06

My Inaugural Address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead

2006-07-31T22:34:00.000+01:00

My Inaugural Address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead

I don't know if you've read this, and I really don't think you need to read all of it to have a good chuckle. It's delirious lunacy and does feature a quality reading and viewing list at the end.

Sneezing with Anger

2006-07-31T02:04:00.000+01:00

Do you have hayfever? I do, erratically. This morning I woke up sneezing so hard I thought I'd turned my face inside out. Now I have the pleasure of eyes reddened as if I'd been bonging since dawn; there's a persistent tickle in my whole face and my head feels like it's been over-zealously packed with fudge. In short, it's very unpleasant.

What is the point of hayfever? Ah yes, my body is being assaulted by evil plant pollen and spores - defend! By incapacitating my brain and generating enough mucous to drown Fungus the Bogeyman. Brilliant strategy. I can only assume this is some revenge of Gaia's: 'if all humans become allergic to plant-life, maybe they'll sod off and live on the moon.' Not likely, we'd just exterminate vegetation instead.

Another apparently useless reaction (that I thankfully don't suffer from, but which amuses me greatly) is fainting at the sight of blood. I can understand the advantages of passing out when you're being munched on by a sabre-tooth tiger before the pain kicks in, but it must be problematic at other times. 'Oh dear, I've fallen into this window and am bleeding heavily. If I can get to a hospital I'll be fine, but if not.. THUNK' And what about the other person who's bleeding? 'You're my only hope of survival, but you've fainted.'

I have no idea how many accidents are caused, or injuries sustained by people fainting at the sight of blood, but I'd love to know if it's more than the number killed whilst tying their own shoelaces (not including laces tied around the neck - that's not really an accident).

There should also be more statistics available about the number of people killed through their own stupidity. The Darwin Awards do a wonderful job, but we need a category on death certificates. 'Man killed by tying shoelaces while walking down the stairs' - C.O.D. = stupidity. Perfectly justified, we spend far too much time pandering to people with 'death by misadventure'. I know it might sound harsh to the decedent's relatives, but they can hardly be ignorant of the true reason: 'well, he had too many beers and was juggling the mobile and coffee when he drove into a tree' - that's stupid.

We should be able to be mean and doctors be obliged to include humour in describing the deceased's passing.

Suburban Scrawl Part Three

2006-07-29T23:01:00.000+01:00

Two nice examples of why the illiterate should never be allowed to buy spray paint.

This is a splendid comment on the damaging influences of the media in destroying intelligence and innovation. The artist has chosen to satirise the sad decline in spelling lead mainly by the tabloids and lazy publishing houses. Thankfully the use of 'z' in television programmes and adverts has been avoided here.

I'm much more fond of this one though. It's as if the little wooden boy were made in Japan rather than Italy. Presumably Jade is also a liar, otherwise the poor graffiti-ist has missed the point. (Most likely.)

'LT' pops up all over the place in Nottingham, and I can only assume it stands for 'Little Twat'.

Ultimately, if anyone had wanted these people to express themselves they would have been taught how to spell,and perhaps write legibly.

A Panda Rant

2006-07-29T13:12:00.000+01:00

Pandas. Aren't they sweet? Big adorable cuddly things without libido or carnivorous tendencies likely to threaten young children. And that's the problem for me.

Pandas are one of the WWF’s most trumpeted endangered species, in fact symbolic of the whole cause. Harmed by China's cheerful industrialisation and playful use of bamboo, their habitat is being eroded and they become endangered. But that’s not why they’re dying out.

As a species they have made some very bad decisions. It’s not their fault they live in China; it wasn’t China when they moved in. Pandas are bears, just like brown bears, grizzlies and polar bears. They should be proud (if shy), aggressive (when threatened), dominating apex species as adept at eating berries as they are flipping fish from a river.

Instead, this noble omnivore has chosen to reject a high protein diet in favour of bamboo - a substance so worthless that they have to eat vast quantities of it to get enough energy to even digest the stuff. It’s so inefficient that they actually excrete it in near mint-condition. It’s worse than grass and they don’t have the multiple stomachs of herbivores to deal with it. Bamboo gives them just enough motivation to scratch themselves and look puzzled when you mention sex.

My point is that the panda has chosen to become extinct. There simply is no future for them. They have naturally deselected themselves and should be allowed to die out with far less attention and not be forced into the awkward mating scenarios with predictably embarrassing results we see on television. We don’t know why pandas gave up on good dieting and procreation; maybe they don’t like their neighbours, perhaps they know there’s a better afterlife. Whichever it is, we should just let them go quietly into the night.

If you wanted to help them I suppose you could encourage them to eat bacon sandwiches (the #1 vegetarian habit breaker), or whatever the local equivalent is, snapping turtle burgers for instance. Then you might get a creature that could attend the annual bear pride conference and doze off in their room. They might even want to get it up occasionally and re-enter the evolutionary race. At present they’ve been overtaken by sloths.

I’m not talking about culling them or even encouraging their decline, but they’re being forced to survive and I find that cruel. I guess the WWF can’t let go now – that would be the ultimate failure, to lose your logo and have to rebrand with something else. They should go for a snail or reptile and ditch this ridiculous sentimentality about animals that make good plush toys.

It's rare that I become incensed about an endangered species, but this one's been brewing for a while now. I can’t even really explain it. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of pandas: Sue was okay on the Sooty Show and I have a fondness for fighting with Panda in Tekken 3 (Fatal Wind… fantastic move), but really... you can’t imagine them in the other WWF can you? Get into red pandas instead, they’re brilliant!

Suburban Scrawl Part Two

2006-07-19T19:33:00.000+01:00

This one's hopefully inspired by Mr Scruff (http://www.mrscruff.com) and has a lovely illustration.

This falls into the inept grafitti category, but has additional perplexing value. Is it an insult or a proud declaration? Maybe they have very tight buns.

These contributions can be found under the canal bridge into Castle Marina.

Suburban Scrawl Part One

2006-07-18T18:36:00.000+01:00

Living, as I do, in a very pleasant suburb of Nottingham I always have great sympathy with the middle-class teenagers who feel the need to express their ghetto angst and the anguish at being brought up by their nice, moderately wealthy parents. I feel I have a duty to bring their plight to everyone's attention.

Indeed, they attempt it themselves in with characteristic inarticulacy. I dread to imagine the disappointment on Mothering Sunday at the years of squandered education in a nice comprehensive.

Suggestions for the full names of the crews, or cretins listed above would be delightful.

'Clifton Massive Bastards' and the 'Terrible Ruffian Underclass' perhaps?

There will be more...