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Fashion statements may seem insignificant, but when they lead to the mainstreaming of violence - unintentionally or not - they matter.
"I knew that using passengers' bags is prohibited, but I did it because I wanted to improve the sniffer dog's ability," the officer was quoted as saying. "The dogs have always been able to find it before... I became overconfident that it would work," he said.
In 1950, the government convened a secret committee, the Flying Saucer Working Party, to investigate sightings of U.F.O.'s. It concluded that U.F.O.'s were optical illusions, weather phenomena, airplanes seen from strange angles and the like, which has been the government's line ever since.In 1979, the House of Lords debated the matter at the urging of the Earl of Clancarty, who believed that man was descended from aliens who crawled from the earth's core via special tunnels or flew in spaceships 65,000 years ago.
He was not the only noble believer.
"I should like to tell your lords about some of the sightings I have seen," said the Earl of Halsbury, "beginning at the age of 6, when I saw an angel."
Lord Gainford said he had seen a U.F.O., which he described as "bright white ball with a touch of red followed by a white cone," at a New Year's Eve party in Scotland. Some children saw it, too, he added, and they "had been drinking soft drinks."
None of their accounts were as detailed as that of a 78-year-old ex-soldier in Aldershot. His story, which he told to a U.F.O. investigator, can be found in the newly released files.
Out fishing in 1983, the man had just poured himself a cup of tea, he recalled, when he was approached by two four-foot-tall beings wearing pale green overalls and large helmets. They led him into what turned out to be their ship — "I thought, Christ — what the hell's that?" he said — and, apparently considering whether to subject him to extraterrestrial experiments, suddenly announced: "You can go. You are too old and infirm for our purposes."
"Anxious to avoid causing offense," the report said, the man asked no questions, even obvious ones like, what planet do you come from? Instead, he returned to the riverbank, where he finished his tea (by then cold) and resumed fishing.
He was reluctant to tell his family, the report says: "I knew my wife would say 'No more fishing for you, old man.' "
"Some of the kids started spiking their hair right up. When kids start abusing their privileges, we get into the dilemma of what is enough."I don't have a problem with schools implementing arbitrary rules. But they should be a bit more creative as they seek to foster uniformity in the student body. Rather than banning hair products, wouldn't it be simpler just to ban hair? It would stop all the hair-based rivalry amongst the school's female students, would save time in the shower in the morning, and would be refreshingly cool during summer months (although hats would probably be required to avoid melanoma).The easiest way to remedy this was to rule out hair product altogether, he said.
"It's an old chestnut really, you get kids complaining about free expression."
Wetwang
Wetwang is a Yorkshire Wolds village that sits on a busy main road along the coast. Debate surrounds the origins of its name; it means either "field for the trial of a legal action" or just "wet field". Whatever the meaning, the name attracts so many sniggers that the late Richard Whiteley was bizarrely made the honorary Mayor of Wetwang, a title now held by the BBC Look North weatherman Paul Hudson.
Muff
Muff – from the Irish word "magh" – is a village in County Donegal, on the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Over the last decade, Muff has seen a huge growth in population, with people from Northern Ireland moving across the border. The first week in August sees the Muff Festival – and there's a diving club in the village called, yes, the Muff Diving Club.
[Wings Beneath My Wings is] the kind of song that, when the DJ puts it on, you’re forced to leave your own friend’s wedding reception (true story). It’s really a bellwether of sorts — one of those indicators you can use to measure someone’s personality. Guys, if you’re on a first date and you ask, “What do you think of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings?’” and the woman gets all verklempt and can barely pull it together to sob “Beaches!”, you must Leave Immediately
'At precisely 23 minutes past the hour of never. It is simply impossible for a man to wear a denim jacket. Whoa there, gentlemen! Stop your outraged fingertips from speeding to your quill pens to address an outraged missive, full of accusations of sexism, fashion fascism and even style racism. For this edict is no mere fashion whim but rather a statement of fact and basic personal protection. To the former first, a man should not wear anything on his lower half other than jeans, smart trousers or knee-length shorts. The denim jacket simply does not work with any of the above: with jeans you get the dreaded Double Denim effect, a look that contravenes all known laws of human decency; with smart trousers they look as ill-matched as Liza Minnelli and David Gest, and with long shorts they turn you into a Krankie.
'Some of the [British] looters, writes Byron Falwell, "were scandalised … by their glimpses of the Germans' sex lives. One soldier discovered companion photographs of the German commandant: in the first he stood resplendent in full dress uniform beside a woman (his wife?) who was completely naked; in the second, the same woman stood fully dressed in formal attire beside the naked commandant'
Fey was so happy at Second City that she had doubts about moving to New York when Lorne Michaels invited her to join Saturday Night Live. The show, which started in 1975, has a reputation as a fearsome testing ground, especially for women, who had always been outnumbered by the men. The brutal and relentless weekly process by which sketches and jokes get winnowed down before the show can be devastating.
One thing Fey learnt from her fellow comics on the show was that, 'If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.'
The first sketch Fey wrote, about Bill Clinton, died in read-throughs. 'This weight of embarrassment came over me, and I felt like I was sweating from my spine out,' she recalls. 'But I realised, "OK, that happened, and I didn't die". You've got to experience failure to understand you can survive it.'
Survive she did, and in 1999 Michaels made her head writer, the first woman to hold the post. The following year he made her co-host of the centrepiece 'Weekend Update' segment. Weekend Update features two faux newsreaders dissecting the previous week's news and disembowelling those unlucky enough to have been part of it.
'Prostitutes in Lyon, France, sent a fax to the government to complain that they are losing business to Eastern European women who are protected by the Albanian mafia,' said Fey in one typical segment. 'First of all, how rough-looking are these French prostitutes that all their customers are running to the Albanians? Secondly, why did they send a fax, and from whence? Do they have a fax machine in the whorehouse, or did they all trundle down to Kinko's - "You fax these, I'll let you shave me". Thirdly, how come French whores know how to work a fax machine, but every time I try to use it, I hit Powersave, or I forget to dial 9? This just proves what my boyfriend always says - that I'm dumber than a French whore.'
Other examples of Fey's Weekend Update repertoire: 'A Harvard Medical School study has determined that rectal thermometers are the best way to tell a baby's temperature. Plus, it teaches the baby who's boss.'
'Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman say their split is amicable, and they want everyone to know that after their divorce their two adopted children will be returned to the prop department at Universal Studios.'
'In order to feel safer on his private jet, John Travolta has purchased a bomb-sniffing dog. Unfortunately, the dog came six movies too late.'
'U2 lead singer Bono met with President Bush on Wednesday and urged the president to help the world's poor, while the president urged Bono to get back with Cher.'
'What do the visitors think about Lamrou challenging their right to be called lesbians? "Thank God Sappho was born on Lesbos, not Rhodes," says Sandra, on holiday from Leeds with a group of friends to celebrate her 60th birthday. "Or we would be stuck being known as Rhodesians".
There are few visible local women in Eressos, but I speak to an older shopkeeper, who tells me that the lesbians bring some excitement to what is "a very ordinary Greek village". "I could easily be a lesbian if I was younger," says another woman. "It would be far easier. Those women are lovely and I have a horrible husband"
- Telegraph, 6 May 2008[Architect] John Jessop [has] earned a cult following among his colleagues after his withering comments were leaked in an e-mail which has been sent all round the country.
After being asked to fill in a "design access statement" for a storage shed on a small farm, he wrote: "The density is like on a farm, the social context is a farm in the country, the economic context is farming in the United Kingdom in 2008 (which is not very economic), the opportunities are to store equipment inside rather than the outside, the constraint is the planning system."
And under a section headed Context Analysis, he said: "The use is compatible with a farm because it is a farm building. It is located where it is because it is in the most convenient place, being on the farm and near the farmhouse."
Mr Jessop said he launched his attack on planning red tape after the planning and amenities department of Mendip District Council in Somerset sent him a lengthy form with what he saw as a serious of "silly" questions.
