Tom Lehrer is 80 today. Which is nice, since when I saw references to him on other blogs I assumed he'd died. Sheer genius. I'm entertained by this comment from CT: The world really needs more like him – brilliant math teachers who are brilliant parodists and public intellectuals on the side. Yes, this is … Continue reading Life is, indeed, skittles and beer
Banditry
This is awesome statistical-demographic stuff. Combined with Rick Astley and depraved Japanese pornography, it's precisely what the Internet was invented for... [via Matt]
The world's first ever Rickmob happened yesterday at Liverpool Street station. Awesome stuff. Added bonus: if you watch the video, you may notice a special guest appearance from your effervescent host...
It's reasonably silly that you can get a qualification as a homeopath, given the complete lack of potential for an unlicensed homeopath to do any harm or for a licensed one to do any good ("you've been struck off the homeopath's register for actually giving someone a traceable amount of medicine", etc). But it's absolutely … Continue reading From the department of ‘couldn’t make it up’
So, it transpires that Apple will launch a 3G iPhone within 60 days. Thanks for announcing that the same day my new TyTn II arives...
There used to be an excellent website of bad celebrity name puns called The Wesley Snipes Archive. Sadly, the old link for it is buggerised. Anyone know if this still exists in any format? (note: I've tried the Wayback Machine, but for some moronic reason the site owner vetoed it in his robots file...)
Congratulations to BAA and BA for the successful opening of Terminal 5 - it's taken less than a week of live passenger testing to get the whole thing working pretty much as it's supposed to. If you think that achieving that kind of switchover in that kind of timeframe with the kind of really-rather-minor chaos … Continue reading Trebles all round
In the UK, all debt for which the government is ultimately liable appears as government debt on the national accounts. If the debt of a PFI company is guaranteed by the taxpayer (as for Metronet, for example, unwisely) then it appears as government debt on the national accounts. If it does not appear as government … Continue reading Point of order
In 1988, the UK government sold off its 100% stakes in British Leyland and British Steel, flogging the former to BAe and the latter on the stock market. So it's nice to see them reunited under common ownership 20 years later...
Tax Research has an article criticising the TaxPayers' Alliance for being a bunch of rentaquote extreme-right-wingers who distort the facts to bash Labour, socialism and anyone who thinks taxes should be higher than 1%, and also criticising the media for taking the TaxPayers' Alliance seriously. This is entirely true: the TPA is a lobby group … Continue reading Two bald men in ‘fight over comb’ shock