Friday Afternoon Labour

Anyone still worrying about Estonia's population problems need go no further than the PMC - this afternoon/early evening there was a whole lot of wailing going on in the flat downstairs thus heralding the arrival of its latest inhabitant (and the third baby this year, in a house of 6 flats!). I haven't ventured down just yet, the noise was unearthly and just like on the telly, but hope everything's ok in any case..

One For Last Thing At Night..

A great clip from yet another one of my favourite bands of all time.. I can't help thinking that the clip could have ended up on Soviet TV as an example of the degeneracy of the west, or at least I hope that was the case.

Thought For the Day No. 12 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

.religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

 

Heaven is angry at us for our sins and the world is angry at us for our virtues.

Be more concerned with the quality of your friends than with their number (Facebook? - ed!)

Lev Tolstoy

Slow Down and Speed Up at the Same Time - Walt Gleeson

Canfield, Proctor, Nightingale, Zagler, Hill, Robbins, Tracy, Aaron... step aside please..there's a new success guru in town! Walt Gleeson is a highly successful, internationally renowned author of motivational books and CDs and other products. With a career spanning over half a decade, he has enthralled readers all over the world, from Alaska to Florida and from Hawaii to Rhode Island, with such titles as You Can Do It!, You Can Do It! Too, Literally Make Your House Work For You and Become a Billionaire Whilst On The Toilet, Walt is the Puumaja Crew's personal realization and fulfilment coach, whatever that is. 

Hi, Walt here again. I've suddenly decided that you'll be immediately successful, if you'd only do this one thing that your uncle Walt asks of you. I'm sure some of you won't (in which case you'll have no children and die in bad ways) but if you do, you'll definitely be joining the likes of me at the high table in due course.

What you gotta do is you gotta slow down, stop rushing around everywhere like a jackass, and start doing each individual task as it comes to you.

Remember, we all have the same number of hours in the day, even the President of the United States (actually due to a quirk in the constitution the President actually gets 25 hours, but most Presidents have used this extra hours sleeping). 

So don't be pleased with yourself if you 'multi-task', there's no such thing, it's impossible to multi-task, just as you can't have multi-anything.

Having said that, you must, must, go much much faster than you already do.

You complete peasant, I've seen you, sneaking a three minute nap in front of the TV after arriving home from a ten hour stint at work, or using the time that you five children are eating to quickly read the newspaper - loser! I personally don't have any children, but that actually makes me more qualified to lecture others that do, 'cos I can objectivitize and appraisalize the situation mroe easily.


So speed up, god damn you, make sure every task takes no more than two minutes maximum, and if you find yourself over-running this, I've found that hitting a metal tray over your head helps; you can buy one inexpensively at the corner store if you're reverting to your innate peasant tendency to look at everything in terms of how much it costs.

I hope this has clarified what you need to do if you don't want to end up a total loser on welfare in the ghetto, so start doing it immediately!

Walt

It's Not a Competition - Seth's Blog

Good post from my older brother the other day - essentially that all these 'average person does x, y and z' is not really relevant. There isn't really such thing as an average person. As he points out, even if the average american supposedly only buys one book per year, there are plenty that don't; then he himself buys about 400! The PMC is a little way behind, though in our defence we say that we also read all the books we buy, all the way through! Though as we said, it's not a competition - we're all different.

Why I Don't Like Facebook - Part 3

If we get to a part 4 I'm taking down my profile!

I don't like the way it seems to encourage some people to grass on themselves. I'm talking the kind of 'so and so is feeling guilty because he/she (almost invariably she, though I suppose there is a male equivalent) has just devoured a packet of revels/bottle of Sauvignon/entire box set of Desperate Housewives' variety. We all have facebook friends like that...

It seems harmless enough and the people aren't under any obvious duress to put up these little entries, and presumably welcome any attention that might be garnered (which is a little bit sad in itself really). However it smacks of something darker. It's the confess-all-at-the-town-square approach, to be found in red China and other totalitarian states, and organizations which can mimic that (various religious cults, alcoholics anonymous - check out this article on the 'us stupid drunks' conspiracy etc). It may be over-indulging in chocolates or alcohol one day, but who knows what you're going to be confessing and to whom if you keep up the practice. Remember, Catholic Priests, admittedly not a sector of society held in particularly high esteem at the moment, have to take a vow of confidentiality and, along with therapists and counsellors (good ones anyway) have years of training and expertise at their disposal.

You don't need to tell a load of strangers about your little foibles, they have their own, and it's none of their god dammed business.

You never know who is reading your seemingly harmless little confessions or might, consciously or unconsciously, use one of your pecadillos in a hurtful way, so for god's sake don't do it, or at least be very careful about privacy settings and the like.

Presumably twitter is more and more of the same, I have steered clear of that so far so I may be misrepresenting it a bit, but I doubt it.

You can view the previous ramblings here and here.

Thought For the Day No. 11 - With the Rabbi Anders Weiss

.religious leader, psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste..

"You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life."
James G. Bilkey

..what sort of person do they want me to be, some kind of nervous ruin? Maybe that's why I've never heard of this Bilkey - ed.

Stupid Questions I've Asked on Yahoo! Answers Down the Years and Their Answers Part 3

Part 2 is here...

Me: "I'm a huge fan of legendary British comedy due Little and Large, and as such was wondering if a DVD was available (couldn't find one on Amazon). I like their early stuff of course, but I actually found their ground-breaking later work, including the seminal 'Tina Turner' series of sketches, to be the more radical, perhaps a little (no pun intended) way out there for most people's taste.
Influencing a whole new generation of comedy, and given that I think TV audiences weren't sophisticated enough back in the late '70s to be ready for such geniuses, their legacy is surely great enough to warrant a box set."


The Yahoo! Community:

• "I agree. I do not think they are available on DVD just yet though...slowly but surely the production companies are starting go go farther & farther back in to the vaults of all the old great shows...eventually a set will be released, it's just a matter of when."

This was actually chosen as best answer despite missing the spirit of the question somewhat.

• "I disliked them intensely. We had many wonderful comedians in the UK, but I never liked Little and Large."

Yes, me too, hence the saki question.

• "Oh!!! Dear Lord

Is this a joke?"
Yes.

• "Yes, I loved them too, they were even better than Hale and Pace. Whatever happened to Jim Davidson, his Chalky White always had me crying with laughter". 

Finally someone gets it.

• "God preserve us all should they ever waste some bits of metallised plastic on producing DVDs of that rubbish! You've GOT to be taking the micky, haven't you !!! I mean - Legendary????? --- Comedy????? Let us know what you're on and we'll all have some !!!"

Yes, I am taking the mickey.

• "You seem to have captured the populist zeitgeist where this 'due', or duo, as I think they should be referred to are concerned. Yes, their mastery of timing and comedic wit was indeed exemplary and as for their savage, scathing parodies of 70's icons, well, there was no comparison.They will surely go down in comedy history as the funniest duo comprising of an alcoholic, bubble permed midget and a tall, thin bloke with glasses that ever appeared on tea-time television....genius. "

Hooray! My fave answer despite getting a 0% rating.

Just in case you're wondering what the hell I'm referring to or have forgotten just how shit they were, here they are in one of the massive two clips of them I could find on youtube.