March 28th - April 3rd 2005
Sunday RIPope
Saturday Pranx
Friday April fuel
Thursday BSDs
Wednesday King-sized
Tuesday Not so good
Monday Xuality
Sunday 3rd April 2005
Saturday 2nd April 2005
So why (to pick up on a theme) is the first of this month called April Fool's Day?
Because, when the Gregorian calendar was introduced, and suddenly April 1st was no longer New Year's Day, the news took a while to get around; those who hadn't heard yadda yadda yadda.
From there it's gone on to become an international phenomenon. In France, there is the poisson d'avril; Norwegians, notorious for their sense of humour, tell their neighbours that there's a moose in the garden.
The British media, inventor of San Serriffe and the spaghetti harvest, weighed in this year with a range of hoaxes, my favourite being the Independent's page 3 piece which, like all the best of these pranks, managed to combine elements from at least two different sources to invent a new, and at least passingly plausible, story.
(And, if you look closely at the bottom of the page, you can see someone making up Shakespeare on the spot.)
Friday 1st April 2005
And thus these men, in zeal their chief to please,
Lacking the truth, invent a puissant foe:
Their garrison a rumour, their arms a myth,
Their absent weapons weighty with fell woe.
- William Shakespeare, Sir Thomas More
Thursday 31st March 2005
Those of you whose only source of news is television and radio will almost certainly have missed out on recent coverage of one of Britain's great state occasions: the British Press Awards.
It's a bit like the Oscars, but with added alcohol and more fights.
A quote from this year's impromptu speech by Bob Geldof gives something of the flavour:
I've been down at the bog and it's true. Rock stars do have bigger knobs than journalists.
Wednesday 30th March 2005
You have to admit it takes a bit of chutzpah to stand in front of the press, on the eve of what may well be an important new stage in your life, and admit that some of the things you've done in the past were, at best, a "a bit silly" or, failing that, "embarrassing".
This being one of the most unrelenting self-publicists of our time, said statement was, of course, well larded with a dumpster-load of promotion for his latest opus - together with a refusal to apologise for his most notorious stunts.
So one step forward and one step back for Damien Hirst. (What, you think I was going public with my opinions on Jonathan King? Dream on.)
Tuesday 29th March 2005
Following the drag act by Ceri Dupree at the Swan on Good Friday (a show which included - signal horror - a cameo role for Camilla Parker Bowles), I was accosted by a reader demanding to know why Good Friday is so named.
And, after much research, the answer turns out to be: we don't know.
Monday 28th March 2005
When it comes to Sexuality, it's a bit of a step from Billy Bragg to DJ Quik - but that's the joy of peer-to-peer file-sharing, I guess.
Hence my small joy today as I try to imagine Mr OhSoPoliticallyCorrect coping with lyrics like:
And I bet you couldn't keep your pussy 'ole shut
with a pair of grip pliers
- Bitch, you tired.
(It's an even smaller step to imagine it sung by Melvyn Bragg. But let's not go there.)
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