1. Sometimes I have very realistic dreams where I’m a character in a tv show that i’ve been watching a lot of (very convincing scripting too, it’s always great to get that extra unique episode) but if you had to live in a TV show for a month, which one would it be, and why?
2. My wife always stops me from buying hideous and grim things for the house (crows, stinky african masks with real hair on, bizarre scary wooden horses) but what thing have you managed to sneak in, against much opposition – or what item of homeware used to freak you out a bit when you were a child?
3. Two legs up and two legs down, soft in the middle and hard all around. Mini McF now knows all the answers to them but do you have a favourite riddle, (that you may well torment youngsters with)?
4. Gordon Brown got caught on the mic, with him rightly calling a voter “bigoted”, but have you ever had one of those “he’s behind me, isn’t me moments?” – My colleague and I did manage to refer to a client as “barking mad” over an internet broadcast, realising he was listening just seconds later….
5. Any small ways in which you stick it to “the man”?
1. TV show for a month
Jeremy Kyle. I’ve got a few things to get off my chest.
2. hideous things
I bought a painting of a severed salmon head from a Native artist near Vancouver and my wife made me throw it out. So I did. *winks
3. favourite riddle
erm, never mind mine – wtf is the answer to yours?
4. “he’s behind me”
Regrets, I’ve had a few. Nothing tops introducing my wife by my ex-wife’s name though.
5. Any small ways in which you stick it to “the man”?
I pay my TV licence but only watch some of the channels.
1. The Prisoner – only ’cause I’ve always wanted to live in Portmeirion.
2. My parents lived in Nigeria for a couple of years before they had us kids. They had some weird juju stuff that freaked me out as a nipper.
3. I’m crap at riddles. Kids confuse me with them!
4. I’ve lost count of the times that high ranking execs have found out that in fact they were wankers thanks to my indiscretions. I’d rather not mention the time a Telefónica exec found out just how fit I thought she was…
5. Apart from a pathetic few euros on my tax returns…
err, are you supposed to be photographing young children through the school yard fence?
‘Spill points to anyone who recognises them!!
Is that My so-called Life?
Of course! ‘Spill Points to Claire (1 ‘Spill Point is now equivalent to 2,500,000 Drachma) for spotting them – can you give full character names without googling?
Not even close!! Good questions. answers…hopefully tomorrow.
STOMACH VIRUS IN THE HOUSE whoop woop!! Put your hands in the air! Woop woop!
1. Living in a TV show
I’m utterly and completely convinced that, had I taken the alternate route at one of those “Forks In The Road Of Life” ( © goneforeign), I would have spent my adult life aiming upwards at Early Doors to get away from being in Shameless. I give thanks every day for what I have.
2. Hideous Homeware
DarceysMam has a green pot dog that lives on our hearth. Bequeathed to her by her still-going-strong-at-93 Great Auntie Mary, I harbour evil fantasies about how to smash it to smithereens, so that I don’t have to look at it ever again.
I do achieve a small measure of revenge with my huge foam cheesehead hat, that I refuse to let leave the house, even though the cats use to use it as a bed occasionally. [NOTE: it was a present from a US friend, before williamsbach accuses me of betraying my claimed NO Saints fandom.]
3. Riddle?
Nope. Me and the girls don’t go for riddles; instead we specialise in shouting call-and-response in-jokes. For example, after eating at IHOP during last year’s Florida hols, if the girls now want pancakes for tea, one of them will shout “INTERNATIONAL …”, and wait for the other three of us to chip in with “HOUSE …”, “OF …”, “PANCAKES!!” One day Darcey didn’t want pancakes, and for some reason shouted “FLOTCH!!” as the fourth word. That version now seems to have stuck as a family motto. Go figure, as the Americanism would have it.
4. He’s behind me, isn’t he?! moment
Oh, far TMTM!! Ha-ha-ha. Ask Gordon, I’m famous for them. I even did it to gremlin at the Leeds Social, but he’s forgiven me for that one. And I have a l-o-n-g history of it: as the Economics&Politics teacher at the BlueCoat used to say:
“Open yer gob a bit wider, Clayton; get yer other foot in!”
5. Sticking it to The Man?
I wish! Closest I get is my lifelong refusal to give Murdoch any money, just so as I can watch the telly. He’s loaded: I’m skint. I bet that gives him sleepless nights, eh? NOT!!
My revenge will come when I watch the gleeful Maxwell-esque reporting (that will no doubt follow) of the Aussie’s death via my scuzzy little Freeview box.
Hmmmm: not the most cheerful set of answers there … didn’t think I was in a bad mood?!
I have some other answers but no time:
4. In my very first job, I told a colleague how much I disliked our mutual boss, who was, naturally, in the stationary cupboard, just out of sight – but not, regrettably, out of hearing. I got me coat …
5. Sticking it to the man in small ways is almost a full time occupation for me. My favourite is dealing with junk mail by repackaging it and sending it back in the next Freepost junk mail envelope that arrives. Not only do they have to pay for the letter to be sent, they also have the inconvenience (and hopefully, momentary confusion) of opening a letter which is entirely irrelevant to them. I don’t suppose it’ll bring down governments but it keeps me happy …
Exhibit A, m’lud.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=140403310089
That link isn’t working, is it? Try this one:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=350278183025
BUGGER! OK, let’s forget eBay. This one should work:
http://nickandjancollectables.co.uk/images/s%2011inch%20terrier.jpg
Why am I persevering? To bring you the full horror of the thing that stares back at me every day in my living room.
No way. I love those doggies. My grandparents used to have them on their fireplace. I think they’re cool.
z
And for TV show, can I have Spongebob?
Stationery – although it wasn’t moving at the time …
Exhibit B, m’lud.
http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj248/donnelly13/cheesehead2yr.jpg
M_u_s_t . . . r_e_s_i_s_t . . . AAAAAAAAAAGH, NO-O-O-O!
Attractive man says to hormonal young lass behind the counter at WHSmiths:
“Do you keep stationery?”
*looks expectantly at monitor awaiting first correct recollection of punchline*
*SIGH!* No-one else in then? Ah well. Punchline goes:
“Only ’til the last couple of minutes: then I go absolutely frantic!”
Goodnight all.
1. The Daily Show in any function. Love to be in on the throw in each day. Not the best at punchlines but I’m a great setup guy. (I hope)
2. I have a Show poster of What’s New Pussycat? Mrs. Fintan’s not real fond of.
3.
heRestoPandsPenDASOciaAlhoUrinhArmleSsmiRThaNdfunle
TfRiendsHipreIgnbEjusTaNdkindandevilsPeakofnoNe!
4. Back when I smoked & they had moved us all outside to do it I was in a non- designated place within minutes of the department meeting where the new policy was announced. I had just lit up when my buddys’ eyes lit up ’cause the director had just come out the door.
5. I routinely run stop signs on my bicycle & rarely carry ID. For a while in the Bush years I carried my Geneva Convention ID. Never got to use it once.
1. Given my not quite up to date TV viewing I’d go for classic BBC surreal-quirky, A very peculiar practice
. Failing that, The Avengers as a tenant in Diana Rigg’s flat.
2. We had a semi-abstract still life of a lobster above the hearth when I was growing up, which did unnerve me slightly from time to time.
3. Riddles are a bit clever for me, I normally just torment youngsters by -er- pretending to be a complete idiot.
4. Not that I’m aware of, but the fact that my old office had very strange acoustic properties which often carried conversation into very surprising places might account for the reason I never got a raise for ten years.
5. Living a carless and (more or less) TV-less existence. I admit to still being prone to what Noam Chomsky calls the irrational jingoism and deliberate distraction of organised sports. (In other words, I will be turning on for the World Cup.)
1. Babylon 5 – I love the idea of living on a huge space station with lots of exotic aliens around.
2. My great uncle had lots of weird Oriental things that he’d picked up when he was a merchant seaman. There was a scary mask thing with big teeth and stary eyes that used to scare me when I was little.
3. The only riddle I like really isn’t one. It is “what have I got in mt pocket?” ‘Spill pints to anyone who gets the reference.
4. I was away from the office once at a conference with three colleagues (one I didn’t know well) and we got talking in the bar about animal rights. I got particularly wound up about people who are militant vegetarians and (veal exports were the issue at the time) those who were protesting against eating veal (as opposed to any other small animals) when the chap I didn’t know chipped in with a comment about having been on an anti-veal export protest. I had had a drink or two, so I laid right in to him. Six months later, he became my manager. We never saw eye to eye.
5. “The man” seems to have been nicely sabotaged by the bankers that he was so assiduously sucking up to, it seems a bit mean to kick someone when they have been so comprehensively shafted by their so-called allies.
‘Spill pints! Brilliant.
Where do I trade my points for pints?
1. It would have to be ‘DIY SOS’ because they always seem to have a laugh and I might get my house done up.
2. I have a toby jug which belonged to my father, no one else in the family could stand it so it passed to me when he died. It’s a sort of black and white spotty spaniel with a tricorn hat, Mr Munday isn’t keen, but I’m fond of it. It’s cracked, too. It’s not as hideous as Mrs DsD’s green dog though, and it’s hidden on top of the kitchen cupboard.
3. ‘A box without hinges, key or lid, but golden treasure inside is hid.’ Clue: I’ve just boiled one for breakfast. I think the riddle is from ‘The Hobbit’, where Bilbo is trying to get one over on Gollum. Or:
‘Civile, si ergo
Fortibus es in ero
Noses mare, thebe trux
Vatis inem? Causan dux!’
(See Willy, see her go – 40 buses in a row. No, says Mary, they be trucks – what is in them? Cows and ducks!)
4. Copied someone into an e-mail she shouldn’t have got, once. But fortunately she had left her computer on and I managed to delete it before she read it. That will teach me not to send inappropriate e-mails or to be bitchy about people.
5. Only in small, subtle ways, like not buying into the consumer culture (well, not totally), and by not being a pink, girly girl, and by having a picture of our local wood as a screen saver on my works Blackberry.
Nice riddle, Ali- Mara will love that.
Here’s one I picked up in a dance hall..
WHAT IS IT THAT HAS
FOUR PAIR OF PANTS,
LIVES IN PHILADELPHIA,
AND IT NEVER RAINS
BUT IT POURS ?
In order to answer that riddle, here’s another one which might give you a clue..
My first has cracks but if you put it in water it doesn’t leak.
My second is something you can eat but not hold in your hands.
Good questions Blimpy:
1. Neighbours in it’s Scott and Charlene heyday…..I loved that programme (not in an ironic studenty way) right up until I left for Japan.
2. Mrs Panther is a stickler for interior decorating unfortunately, managing to get a small portion of the old vinyl collection on display in the living room is as good as it gets. I do refuse to throw away my novelty toilet paper that has pictures of Bin Laden and Saddam on it with slogans like “Wipe Out Hussein”. I argue that it will be a culturally and historically important artifact some day but that doesn’t stop it being buried deeply inside the darkest cupboard.
3. My old headmaster in primary school always liked:
YYURYYUBICURYY4ME
…this was before textspeak mind you, it’s probably a normal sentence for schoolkids these days!
4. Can’t think of any off the top of my head. Although I did put my foot in it by congratulating one of the Japanese staff at work on her branch transfer when she hadn’t even been told about it yet! felt pretty bad, but she had to find out sooner or later…..right?!
5. I absolutely refuse to pay my NHK licence, which is the TV licence in Japan. I’m not sure of the legal obligations exactly, but ever since their fuckhead of a representative came round the house a few years ago demanding money and made a joke about Mrs Panther having cancer (don’t worry, she doesn’t) I just refuse to pay.
@CaroleBristol: string, or nothing.
1. Since most of my favourite TV shows involve miscellaneous monsters, vampires, aliens etc., I’m not sure I’d necessarily want to live there unless provided with mystical powers and/or a very effective laser rifle. Not sure if classic serials count, as really that’s a different question about what book one might want to inhabit, but the Barchester Chronicles look good to me. Other than that, I suppose it’s a toss up between Black Books and The Good Life.
2. Mrs Abahachi rules the interior decoration round here; I count myself lucky that a couple of my pictures have made it onto the walls, and that I’m allowed some cds and books; left to my own devices, every wall would be covered in bookshelves and cd racks…
3. Not really my thing, but I can remember a few from the old Mother Goose book: A house full, a hole full, but you can never gather a bowl full.
4. Terrible habit of talking slightly too loudly in crowded rooms; don’t think I’ve yet been caught, but it’s probably been close a number of times.
5. Which ‘man’ are we talking about? The thing which came instantly to mind is my insistence at driving to the speed limit even, or especially, with impatient van or car drivers on my tail; conformity to the law as a weapon against modern car obsession and individualism. I also turn the volume off and read a book during advertising breaks as a matter of principle.
Carol:
‘Not fair! Not fair!’ he hissed. ‘It isn’t fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it’s got in its nassty little pocketses?’
And he had a point.
@Abahachi – I do exactly the same during adverts too!
1. if it’s only for one month maybe Entourage so I could live in sunny California and basically just hang out, or the West Wing, making the world a better place, one oboe-laden scene at a time. The school in Saved by The Bell looked pretty funky.
2. My mountain of newspapers that “I’ll go through at some point”.
3. The only one I still remember is the Sphynx’s.
4. Kind of, as a teenager I once mindlessly responded “your mama” to a good friend, even though I knew he had lost his mother.
5. Apart from also never having given a direct penny to mr Murdoch, to little consequence for him, nothing comes to mind, although I’m sure there are given that I burden myself with useless principles. I like Toffee’s idea though.
Forgot to check follow up box
And was there anything in it?
Mine’s usually overflowing. I’m a virtual magpie that way. I see something online and think, oh yeah, I’ll put that aside to read/watch/listen to later. It’s a disease, really.
I’m afflicted by it too, relaunching my browser takes a good 5 mins because of all the tabs I have open. There’s stuff from January I haven’t read yet!
1) I had a month of intense dreams were I was directing Neighbors in the style of Twin Peaks… really realistic, my house mates were waking me up to find out the next episode – then they started creeping into the dreams, telling me Lynch wouldn’t do it like that… while I was trying to film.
(soon afterwards Bouncer had a trippy dream were he got married! – I had a break down – and 10 years of my life got lost – hey ho – I miss those dreams)
Carnivale was my favorite HBO show – stopped after 2 seasons – written for a lot more – would be creeped out but a month in a traveling freak show – where’s my ticket.
2) the illustrated book Black and White (a sick dialogue between a cat and a magpie) the missus wants rid – I find amusing.
3) anything with ice used to kill – leaving puddles.. my grandad was a riddle fiend – the hanged man (block of ice) and an icicle falling were my only triumphs.
4) I open my gob too much – that’s why I’m kept away from the general public – whoever invented this internet thingy was an idiot (some people shouldn’t be aloud to chat this freely)
5) I did have voodoo dolls of all politician/bankers/estate agents – this weeks pests – but I ran out of pins.
(tooth picks are more eco friendly – so when I get some of them, i’ll resume sticking it to the man!)
1. Life On Mars. Who wouldn’t want to be back then, driving a Cortina with Slade on the 8-track? Eh? Oh… And I wish I was bright enough to be on one of the science programmes – Rough Science or Mythbusters, that sort of thing.
2. Shirts. I live alone, but some of them are so loud I have to sneak them in past myself.
3. I only know off-colour ones. Like ‘Long and thin, covered in skin, red in parts, gets put in tarts’*
4. I remember as a nipper having a long conversation with BigBroBach about what a little sh!t LittleBroBach was, neither of us realising that he wasn’t asleep after all….
5. Trusting in my own eyes and ears rather than the signals at ped crossings when there is no traffic. Very naughty here in Switzerland Ha! Take that, Little Green Man!
*Rhubarb, of course. What did you think?
Shirts. I live alone, but some of them are so loud I have to sneak them in past myself.
That’s funny
1. As I live near several of the actors in it, I’ll spend my time in Coronation Street. After all, you can shop, work, drink, have unwise relationships and occasionally murder people in Weatherfield, just like real life…
2. Having just moved, I should be re-discovering some of the things that have been concealed for the last few years. But, apart from a couple of travel-photo montages, it looks like I’d braved the scorn. I’m not sure where to display the large gaudy, snake-encircled Sri Lankan mask yet, though.
3. I remember arguing with a primary school teacher about the answer to this one:
A man looks at a photo and says: “Brother and sister, have I none, but that man’s father is my father’s son.” Who’s in the photo? (My teacher got the answer wrong. He did. Really. And I stuck to my guns.)
And, as a smaller child, I used to get caught every New Year’s Eve by my Mum or Dad telling me they’d just seen ‘a man with as many noses as there are days in the year.’
4. Again, as a child, my older brother had a mate who was a nice bloke but a bit of a fuss-pot. Once, when he phoned and I answered, I shouted upstairs: “Pete, that old woman’s on the phone for you!” Needless to say, I didn’t cover the receiver…
5. I do it whenever I can but, unfortunately, the Man still has many more ways of sticking it to me than I have of sticking it to him.
1. I’d like to be 10 years old again, and a bit-part player in Jossy’s Giants (…anyone?)
2. I do tend to be the hoarder, but I don’t think my taste is too horrific. My grannie used to have a picture of a pike in her house, which was always an object of horrified fascination.
3. Ask me a riddle and I reply, “Cottlestone, cottlestone, cottlestone pie”.
4. I’m always paranoid about this happening, but I don’t think it ever has.
The tabloid coverage of bigotgate surpassed itself, didn’t it? One of the papers I saw in the dentist’s today:
A HYPOCRITE WHO SHAMES BRITAIN
Brown launches vitriolic attack on pensioner then makes sickening apology
5. I do Toffeeboy’s thing with the junk mail too (I get quite upset when there’s no freepost envelope included).
Equally futilely, I sometimes fill in market research surveys completely randomly.
Posting Greenpeace’s banned anti-Nestle video on Facebook (along with thousands of others) felt satisfying.
Those of you who (admirably) don’t give your money to Murdoch: ever seen a film distributed by 20th Century Fox? Bought a book published by Random House?
‘Spill points for the first ever mention of Jossy’s Giants on the ‘Spill!!!
20th Century Fox had never occurred to me. Damn, oh well, can’t go back now, films will have to be the exception.
@ Carole
I really love the idea of ‘Spill pints – if Herr Hachi doesn’t want his, can I have it (please)?
@ Steen
I am absolutely disgusting, but I’m so glad it’s your home and not mine! Miss Ellie gets each and every tummy bug doing the rounds, it’s nice to get a couple of weeks off for a change.
@ EOTWQ
1) I’d be Jennifer Saunders’ character in AbFab, just to experience the ‘other side’ of motherhood (not just so’s I could be pissed all the time, oh no)
2) The only really hideous thing in our household is my singing voice, objected to by both my kids, sob!
3) No. My brain is too fugged for such deep trains of thought (and, yes indeed, I nearly wrote ‘drains’ of thought there). Tom Riddle springs to mind…
4) Not yet.
5) Does singing along to Chumbawamba count? Thought not..
Ha! Spill pints was a rather good typo, wasn’t it?
williamsbach was the lucky winner. Yup it was from The Hobbit.
Thanks Carole, but I don’t think I was first… That would prolly be Ali, by an hour and a quarter. Plus Abahachi was at the same time as me AND spelled your name correctly…. (apologies, btw).
Yes, it was Ali.
I missed her comment. Appypollyloggies
1. DON’T LAUGH!! I had a dream I was friends with Lorelei Gilmore. Nobody know who that is, do they? Cause you’re all way too cool.
2. The dog. David’s not a fan. BUt I love her so much!
3. What’s black and white and black and white and black and white and black and blue?
4. Well, we had a party at our house a few years ago, and I was telling my brother about this new friend I’d made – how much we had in common, etc. Turned out she was sitting right next to me and I didn’t know it. It was a real middle school moment, and I felt almost more embarrassed than if I’d been saying mean things about her.
5. I have one co-worker I like a a lot. He and I are trying to put our evil bosses out of business by putting as much fruit as possible on all of the drinks we serve. (orange slices on ginger ale, etc.) The other day I confessed our plan to the bartender and she said we wouldn’t put the restaurant out of business, but we would succeed in pissing her off, because she has to cut up all the fruit.
#. A nun falling down stairs?
#a penguin on a zebra in an old movie bashing into a wall..
must dash footies started.
Nilpferd – OK I give up. Are you going to tell us the answer?
Not feeling terribly intelligent today.
Sorry Ali, I was being somewhat obtuse.. the clue was Duck Soup (a duck “cwacks” but doesn’t leak.. *groan*) and the unanswerable first riddle was a piece of nonsense quoted from that film.. Groucho Marx asking Chico a question to see if he’s qualified to be finance minister. Chico responds with an insult and gets hired.
That reminds me there’s a good election song in Duck Soup, too.
1) Twin Peaks. Or H.R. Pufnstuf. Or Fraggle Rock. Hmm, as I’m writing this this quote from Repoman is coming to mind “You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.R._Pufnstuf for those that don’t remember.
2) Not quite hideous, but most people find it odd. I came across a big OS map of my home city from the 1940s in some old sale a few years back. I had it framed and stuck up on the living room wall at home. Luckily Mrs Zag shares a minor interest in historical development of cities & their infrastructure. Some people find it cool to be able to look at where their house is now (in inner suburbia) and see it in the middle of a farm just 60+ years ago. Some people wonder what’s with the map on the wall in the living room.
3) Nope, riddles confound me. But I love the way that I’m reminded of childhood innocence when the mini-zags come to me with some fiendishly tricky riddle . . . and I remember back to the days when I was a mini-zag myself and riddles were really cool.
4) Nope. I like telling people they are talking crap when they are talking crap, so I tend not to be caught out too much. This is not to say I don’t have side-discussions that I mightn’t want them to hear, but they normally know where they stand with me.
5) I’m not entirely sure this qualifies. Like many others I have a major problem with paying money to Sky. So I didn’t for a very, very long time. Then I realised that there was a lot of stuff I could get from the ‘sky’ (you know, the real one, not the one owned by someone) if only I had a sat dish. Given that the evil empire are desperate to get new customers and will subsidise new installs I signed up with them to get free install, free dish, free cable runs, free boxes, etc . . . then I (this is the possibly unethical bit) got others to sign up so that I got the €50 introduce-a-friend scheme to pay for the 12 months annual sub that I had to stick with before I could cancel. I think I ended up sticking it to the man after all that.
z
Nothing wrong with maps on the wall, Zag. Maps in the pocket, either, or maps as bedtime reading. I love a good map, me. Find some more, and paper the whole room with ‘em.
OMG, I’d been trying to remember a programme I used to love as a kid – I knew Jack Wild was in it, and a magic flute, but I’d forgotten all about witchypoo. Thank you, zag!
We didn’t have a telly, so I can only have seen occasional episodes at a friend’s house – but now I’ve got this one on the brain:
(I expect I identified with Tiger)
Debby – thanks for bringing that memory back – I had completely forgotten The Doubledeckers – look I found their Official Website
O h wow! I’ll have to look at that tomorrow, Maki. There’s a riot going on literally outside my back door right now (we always get May 1st riots down the road a bit, these seem to have spread) with lots of shouting, glass and metal crashing, cars burning, zillions of riot police (at least it sounds like that from here!) It’s actually a bit scary, off to cuddle my kids!
Appearing on any reality show sounds just horrible, with one exception – i wouldn’t mind appearing on Antiques Roadshow with a painting bought for $5 at a yard sale that turns out to be worth $1,000,000.
Good to see you on da Spill prunus