A glutton for punishment

"I'm going to go with something Japanese this time"

- Vince 'Will he never learn' Mattingley, who had his name tattooed on his chest in Chinese 26 years ago and has just discovered that it actually spells 'Coca-Cola' (Source: Guardian, 27 October 2007)

An unlikely England supporter

How long has Kenny Rogers been an England rugby supporter? And sir, respect for your immaculate beard, but in this day and age it's frowned upon to use the phrase 'French bastards'.

Failure to keep a sense of perspective

'Anton Oliver reckoned the All Blacks dressing room [after the ignominious exit from the Rugby World Cup] had the same stench of death as a World War 1 battle field'

 

- Stuff.co.nz, 8 October 2007

 

[Courtesy of FFA.  Jeez, people - it's only a bloody game!]

Two cheers for the 21st century

The annual Ig Noble prizes for 2007, awarded by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, have been presented at a
ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Highlights included: "Chemistry" - Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Centre of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin, or vanilla fragrance and flavouring, from cow dung. "Linguistics" - Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles, of Universitat de Barcelona, for a study showing rats sometimes fail to distinguish between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards. "Peace Prize" - The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon, the so-called "gay bomb", that "will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other". "Economics" - Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device in 2001 that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them, known as the "net trapping system for capturing a robber
immediately".

 

- Reuters

 

[Courtesy of FFA]

Hasn't he heard of Gran Turismo?

An English car delivery driver has been jailed for 10 weeks and banned from driving for three years after 'borrowing' a Porsche 911 Turbo from his place of work and being caught in a motorway speed-trap travelling at 172mph (276km/h), which is the fastest recorded ticket ever issued.  Sounds like his boss was wise to his game: he 'had asked his boss if could take the Porsche out the previous day but was repeatedly told no, the court heard'. 

 

- Daily Telegraph, 24 September 2007

Penelope: Princess of Pets

Comedian Kristen Schaal (of Flight of the Conchords fame) has laid the foundations for a superhero saga of epic proportions and legendary badness-whuppin' prowess... yes, it's Penelope, Princess of Pets!







Warning: contains oddness and irritable avians.

Now this is a good idea

Particularly for lazy monoglot types like me.

 

http://www.threadless.com/product/989/International_Translation

 

Sensitive, me?

'Thanks for the question, you little jerk.  You're drafted'

 

- Sen. John McCain, responding jokingly to a high school questioner who commented that at 71, he might be too old to serve as President (quoted in Time, 17 September 2007)

I hope he used 'protection'

'Former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage likens US relations with New Zealand at present to "dating".

"It's just like dating. I think we are on a date now," he said at the second US-NZ Partnership Forum in Auckland, which finished yesterday'

- NZ Herald, 12 September 2007

A firm basis for policy-making

'I am an engineer, a master of calculation and tabulation.  I write out hypotheses for hours, I reject and I prove them again.  I make plans based on reason and proof'

- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his calculations as an engineer as well as his belief in god convince him that Iran will not be attacked by western powers trying to end its nuclear programme [Source: Reuters, quoted in New Scientist, 8 September 2007]