Thursday, June 22, 2006

Husband of the Year Award

This just in...

Nominations are for:

Ireland:



Serbia:


The judges awarded a number of bonus points for getting the mother-in-law in there as well, but....

... the P-G award winner, by a substantial margin:

Albania!


I think it's the cigarette that really seals it.

...

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

An Announcement

There are those who laugh on seeing your acutely road-safety conscious Pedant-General attired in his bicycling finery. Whilst undeniably insolent, such persons might have at least some iota of justification: Amongst other high-visibility accoutrements, I insist on attaching flashing white LED lights, not only to the handlebars of my trusty steed, but also to the top of my skid-lid brain bucket approved bicycle helmet.

The effect may be comical, but it has a more serious purpose: it ensures that I can be seen by the morons that infest the roads of our noble capital city. Whereas the front light on the handlebars is - obviously - constrained to shine in the direction of travel of the bicycle, the light on my helmet shines in the direction I am looking. Thus, if you are the driver of a car, waiting at a junction and about to pull out in front of me and where I have the right of way and you do not, I merely have to look at you and you will have a flashing light directed straight at your face.

This makes it very difficult for you NOT to see me.

Consequently, if you do pull across me and cause me to skid, leave my bicycle at speed and hit the road, I will be able to justify my claim that such an occurence will be entirely due to negligence on your part. I will take the line that you have caused an accident and I will want to involve your insurance company in the matter. If it transpires that you do not have insurance, or if you do not wish to furnish me with details, I will take your VRM and I will involve the police.

In short, I will sue.

That is all.

Monday, June 19, 2006

A Raft of Sensible Ideas

The elusive Bill Whitton, Senior Line-Check Captain at "Eject! Eject! Eject!", has a taster of (we think) a forthcoming book.

Have a peek at some of his archive essays (Tribes and Sanctuary are particularly good) whilst you are over there.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Hiatus

Just in case you were mistakenly thinking that the lack of posts at this little salon might signify that your grumpy, over-worked and poorly-remunerated Pedant-General considers that all is well with the world, he would like you to know that
  1. "Real Life" continues to intrude on his bloggeration;
  2. His "Drafts" folder is positively bursting at the seams, with posts on such erudite topics as:
    • Champagne and Socialists;
    • Flight 93;
    • Public and Private Sources of Poverty;
    • Keenan Malik's views on Free Speech;
    • An exposé of the type of Humanist that your Pedant-General would be if he were a Humanist;
    • Marriage contracts;
    • The Queen's 80th Birthday;
    • the MMR controversy;
    • and, of course, Breastfeeding.
More later....

Monday, June 05, 2006

Tu Quoques by the Bucketload

Even your perceptive and extraordinarily well-read Pedant-General would struggle to draw parallels between logical fallacies and buses, but this simply forces itself upon me. I am powerless to resist.

One waits years for a tu quoque to come along, then suddenly there are three at once:

Here!
And here!
And here!

Hurrah!