Oddities

  • Grammer, AI style

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Tech

    From your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline.

    Social media post by @prettybbuckley reading well no over an image featuring the text but truly wasn’t sure how., which Grammarly AI has suggested should be corrected to was trulyn't [sic]

    We all occasionally need help with English grammar, even we pensioners who have spent decades working at linguists, but the above ‘suggestion‘ from Grammarly could be diplomatically described as unhelpful.

    According to Wikipedia, “Grammarly is an American English language writing assistant software tool. It reviews the spelling, grammar, and tone of a piece of writing“, as well as being a tool for detecting plagiarism.

    On its own website, Grammarly is described as ‘Grammarly, the trusted AI assistant for everyday communication‘.

    On the basis of the above howler, your correspondent would not trust it to write out the alphabet in the correct sequence.

  • The Felon’s body double visits France

    Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media

    From my social media timeline today.

    While the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump has been busy getting the United States military to invade Los Angeles, California, as part of his mission to “Make America Grate Again” (or something like that. Ed.), his body double has been spotted paying a visit to the French capital, Paris.

    Parisian dustbin topped with a cardboard box sporting the distinctive Trump haircut
    Quel horreur !

    It is not known whether the French state has had any official contact with the Dustbin Donny/Président Poubelle or if this visit is a purely private affair.

  • Golden Arches anthropophagism?

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

    The photograph below popped up in your ‘umble scribe’s social media feed this morning.

    Sign reads Restroom is for eating customers only!!!

    Judging by the use of the term restroom, the sign was apparently affixed to the door to the toilets of a fast food outlet somewhere in the USA, allegedly in a branch of junk food giant McDonalds, according to the original social media post.

    Note the three exclamation marks at the end of the phrase. One is usually sufficient.

    It is not known how long the chain itself – or indeed the United States as a nation – has permitted cannibalism either within or outwith toilet facilities, let alone endorsed the practice.

    One pertinent question springs to mind: “Do you want fries with that?

    Bon appétit !

    Just ignore the smell and the sound of running water…

  • For UK, see England

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    Ever since Æthelstan became King of the English in 927 CE, some in England – starting with Æthelstan himself – have had difficulty recognising where England ended and the rest of the world began. Indeed Æthelstan meddled so much in the land of the Scots that they allegedly nicknamed him “The Bastard“.

    Given the dominance of England within the Untied Kingdom, this has persisted down through the centuries that separate the present from the days of Ælfred of Wessex‘s grandson.

    The latest manifestation of this Englandshire = the entire UK occurs in yesterday’s online edition of Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s unfortunate newspaper of warped record, which managed to defy both demographics and geography in one awful little puff piece masquerading as “news“.

    A screenshot of the headline of the offending article is offered below.

    Headline - UK's smallest city an hour from Bristol is as charming as York and Canterbury - but has far fewer tourists. Byline - The smallest city in England has plenty to offer visitors and yet it remains off the beaten track.

    Although Wells is described in the piece as “England’s smallest city“, there is no empirical evidence provided of its lack of size. Your ‘umble scribe used a little-known research technique called using a search engine to provide an answer; in this case 5 seconds’ work gave a census population figure of 12,000 for Wells.

    However, Wells is not the Untied Kingdom’s smallest cathedral city. Cymru has two cathedral cities that together have a combined population of well under Wells’ 12,000 souls. First of all there’s Llanelwy/St Asaph (pop. 3,485) and Tyddewi/St Davids (pop. 1,751), which is actually the UK’s smallest cathedral city in terms of number of residents.

    Your correspondent is surprised that today’s ‘journalists’ are not familiar with this research technique he often uses, which is recommended they use as a matter of course. 😀

  • God? No!

    Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media

    My social media feed on the federated Mastodon network is a source of news, conversation, merriment and occasional consternation. In particular, consternation nowadays concerns mostly information emanating from the authoritarian regime of the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is on a mission to Make America Grate Again (or something like that. Ed.).

    The latest barminess to cross over from the eastern shores of the Atlantic and land in my timeline is shown below.

    A group of four people all wearing t-shirts bearing the wording Trump is God

    On seeing the image, your ‘umble scribe’s immediate reaction was along the lines of Brian’s mum in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.


    I was then reminded how the god of the Semitic religions has allegedly never liked to share the limelight with any other deities and/or beings, as exemplified in the words of Exodus 20:7.

    Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

    There are going to be some awkward questions asked of the MAGA louts above when they turn up at the pearly gates… 😉

    Tip of the hat: SufferForMe.

  • Katy Perry’s space tourism – the backlash

    Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Tech

    Last week six women – singer Katy Perry, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, US TV personality Gayle King, aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez – boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket for a frivolous 11 minute flight. The crew were weightless for just four minutes after passing the Kármán line, a 100 km-high boundary that is internationally recognised as the boundary of space.

    The stunt has attracted plenty of criticism, not least because Blue Origin is owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, a man not renowned for paying much income tax.

    Part of the backlash consisted of the bus shelter poster below which was seen this week somewhere near Amazon’s UK headquarters in London.

    Poster showing Jeff Bezos and Katy Perry with the caption If you can afford to send Katy Perry into space you can afford to pay more taxes

    The criticism wasn’t just confined to Perry and Bezos, but his low tax, anti-union sweatshop Amazon too.

    Poster with Amazon logo at head and reading Our tax avoidance is out of this world. Just ask Katy Perry.

    No further comment is necessary.

  • JD’s worldwide charm offensive continues

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics

    Back in 1936 an American writer and teacher of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills called Dale Carnegie wrote a self-help book entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People. According to Wikipedia, over 30 million copies of the book have been sold.

    Nevertheless, judging by both their actions and statements – both private and public – it can be safely assumed that none of the senior members of the Trump regime have bought copies, assuming of course they are intelligent enough to read.

    Their playbook seems to be the complete opposite of Carnegie’s goal, i.e. How to Lose Friends and Irritate People.

    Official portrait of the deeply unpleasant JD Vance Kindly step forward with no style at all one James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman. Ed.), inexplicably made vice-president of the United States by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

    As revealed in so-called Signalgate (posts passim), James David, ably assisted by Pete Hegseth, The Felon’s totally unqualified pick for Defence Secretary, who though it perfectly fine to insult European NATO allies. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/no10-slams-trump-cabinet-attack-on-freeloading-europe_uk_67e26eabe4b06e4e058d2f42, the relevant part of the Signal messaging thread reads as follows:

    Vance said: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

    Hegseth then replied three minutes later, saying: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”

    For those that don’t know their history, the only time NATO’s Article 5 has been invoked was by the United States after the September 11th attacks. Several of those free-loading European nations contributed to the subsequent US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, putting their troops in harm’s way for Uncle Sam.

    Now James Donald is at it again. This time he’s insulting the Chinese, referring to them as peasants. His words are reported to have been the following:

    We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity. It’s not a recipe for low prices and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.

    In response Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said:

    “It is surprising and sad to hear such ignorant and impolite words from this vice president.

    I’d agree with Mr Lin that it is sad, but not surprising given James Donald’s past remarks in respect of European allies, not to mention his appalling attitude to Greenland and the obsession of his boss therewith.

  • Welcome to Birmingham

    Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics

    The Reform UK Party Ltd., the private company/cult of personality masquerading as a political party, launched its campaign for the 2025 English local government elections with a rally at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena yesterday evening.

    However, the charlatan commonly known as Nigel Farage was not the only one waiting to welcome delegates to the rally.

    Our old friends from Led By Donkeys were also present, projecting their messages onto the side of the building, much to the bemusement of the local constabulary (judging from the video. Ed.).

    Delegates were greeted by a large picture of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (aka Vlad the Invader. Ed.) and Mr Farage, after the political activists projected the image onto the big screen, with the caption: “Vladimir and Nigel welcome you to Birmingham”.


    Led By Donkeys have plenty of experience of this kind of action: just ask the disgraced – and disgraceful – former UK prime minister, one Mary Elizabeth Truss (posts passim).

  • Mermaids, volcanism and… Google Translate!

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

    Google Translate, the Mountain View behemoth’s translation service is noted for not being very good on technical terminology, even of the most basic kind. Furthermore, it also struggles with a little thin called context, i.e. the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea and in terms of which it can be fully understood.

    When Google Translate gets the context wrong and confuses protecting the public with ancient Greek mythological figures, the result is at the very least amusing and at must alarming and downright dangerous, as revealed by the following social media post by Prof. Jenni Barclay of the University of Bristol.

    Post reads In this case of volcanic eruption, you will hear mermaids. Do not ignore the mermaids; they are there for your safety. Perils of Google Translate No. 44a. People seeking greater warning of volcanic eruption want sirens _not_ mermaids. (Spanish: Sirenas).

    Prof. Barclay’s research is the reduction of risk and prevention of disaster in volcanic settings, with a particular focus both on volcanic processes and the social processes that amplify volcanic risk.

    My question for Prof. Barclay is are mermaids a social process? 😉

    Mis-translations definitely are!

  • New street art in Brick Lane E1

    Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media

    A new piece of artwork – a sort of fascist Who’s Who for 2025 – has turned on a wall in Brick Lane in London’s East End according to my social media feed.

    Artwork featuring Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump
    Spot the genuine human being – if any.

    With the characters all wearing German military uniforms from the Nazi era, the artwork features (from left to right) millionaire, public school-educated man of the people Nigel Paul Farage, South African-born naturalised American businessman (usually shorthand for crook. Ed.) Elon Reeve Musk, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the gangster regime in Russia, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, purveyor of genocide in Gaza and corruption at home and, last but not least, the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is now trying to turn the United States economy into his 7th business bankruptcy from the comfort of the Oval Office.

    All of them are a waste of food and oxygen and could not form a single decent human even if their best parts were used.

    No further comment is necessary.

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