Oddities

  • Boat for sale – suitable project for DIY enthusiast

    When your correspondent was enjoying a pint at a quayside pub down Bristol’s city docks (which some call the ‘Harbourside’. Ed.) some years ago, the subject of boats came up somehow, along with a fine adage, i.e. “a boat is a hole in the water into which you shovel money“.

    Yesterday in on the banks of the Avon in Bath, quite near the railway station, your ‘umble scribe came across evidence of what happens when one stops shovelling money into that hole in the water…

    Half-sunk boat with vegetation growing on the stern
    For sale – needs some attention
  • Syndicated bad English

    Local news titles owned by Reach plc, which also owns the Daily Mirror and Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) frequently share stories so frequently that anyone would think either that slow news days were commonplace or that the the country’s major cities had annexed vast swathes of territory well removed from their location.

    An example of this practice occurred earlier this week in the Bristol Post, supposedly the city’s (former) newspaper of record, as per the following screenshot.

    Headline - 'Madness' as ship longer than 22 London busses arrives in small West country town

    Last time your ‘umble scribe looked, Fowey in Cornwall was not – and has no intentions of being – a suburb of Bristol. The entire story has been copied and pasted en bloc from Cornwall Live, a sister title to the Bristol Post/Live, including a glaring spelling error – busses – in both the headline and the copy.

    That spelling error is one that should have been eradicated in primary school, not allowed to persist into the professional life of an alleged ‘journalist‘.

    Your correspondent recalls talking to a former sub-editor some years ago, who was then lecturing at the University of the West of England, teaching online journalism to media studies students. He remarked that before before he could start training them in how to report stuff online, he had to teach them basic English first!

  • 2020’s Stollen US presidential election takes the cake

    On Thursday the perpetual victim otherwise known as the disgraced 45th President of the United States of America, one Donald John Trump, surrendered to the authorities at Fulton County Jail, Georgia on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, brining to four the number of times he has faced criminal charges in 2023.

    During his 20 minutes in custody, the Fulton County Sherriff’s Department took the congenital liar’s fingerprints and photograph (aka a mugshot), the latter of which was released and in which the disgraced former commander in cheat shows off his compassionate and humane side to best advantage.

    Mugshot of Donald Trump taken by Fulton County Sherriff's department
    The Donald looking like his mother’s told the toddler him that he cannot have a cookie.

    After leaving custody and returning to his perpetual hobby of cheating on the golf course, Trump found time to voice his continual grievances on his own Truth Social [sic] social media platform, griping yet again that the 2020 US presidential election being “RIGGED” (note block capitals. Ed.) and, er, “STOLLEN” (one more note block capitals. Ed.).

    Post reads For the first time in three years, brave American Patriots will be able, in Court, to show how the Presidential Election of 2020 was RIGGED & STOLLEN. For those RINOS, Radical Left Democrats, Communists, Marxists, Fascists , & others who say, “Don’t Look Back, Look Forward,” they either do not want to reveal the answers because they “got away with murder,” or are FOOLS & COWARDS because we now know the answers to all of the Fraud, Irregularities, & Cheating, & WE CANNOT LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!

    Stollen, Mr disgraced former president? According to Wikipedia, “Stollen is a cake-like fruit bread made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Orangeat (candied orange peel) and candied citrus peel (Zitronat), raisins and almonds, and various spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan, may also be added to the dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished bread is sprinkled with icing sugar.”.

    Image of Stollen from Wikimedia Commons
    Stollen. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    It has yet to be determined by the courts whether a German Christmas speciality is less of a threat to the constitutional integrity of the United States of America than its 45th head of state and his credulous supporters.

    If it did come to a vote and your ‘umble scribe was enfranchised, he would always vote for a German Christmas than someone who can’t even be honest when he plays golf.

  • Daily Brexit – crime against syntax

    As a title in the Reach plc newspaper stable, the Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) has long inhabited an alternative reality, a world where the economic disaster otherwise known as Brexit is a roaring success (e.g. ‘Global Britain is thriving’).

    In recent times the title has gained a reputation more of right-wing posturing than for the factual reporting of news and current affairs

    A new charge must now be added to the title’s many crimes against reality and journalism – a crime against English, as seen in the headline below posted today on the paper’s website in its continuing campaign of hate against Harry Mountbatten-Windsor and his wife.

    Headline - Harry's six word response as to why him and Meghan won't give up titles

    Wouldn’t it be a boon to journalism if those who write for the fourth estate – even on trivial, gossipy matters – had a basic level of competence in the language in which they are writing?

    Your comments would be welcome below.

    PS: for any passing illiterate Reach plc hacks in search of enlightenment, the grammatically correct version of the headline would read: “Harry’s six word response as to why he and Meghan won’t give up titles“.

  • The benefits of literacy

    As seen on Roman Road, Easton in Bristol.

    Van parked on pavement in front of sign reading Show you care, park elsewhere

    Not only can this particular driver not read, it would appear he is also suffering from colour-blindness. Are those double yellow lines denoting no parking at any time that I see to the left of the vehicle?

    This driver is not only illiterate and colour-blind, but is also blissfully ignorant of the fact that parking restrictions extend over the full width of the highway from boundary to boundary, so parking on the footway (which some call the pavement. Ed.) will not absolve him or her from getting a thoroughly well-deserved parking ticket!

  • MoD: you have Mali!

    Mali flagToday’s Guardian reports that civil servants at Whitehall’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) inadvertently sent classified emails intended for the United States military to Mali.

    How did this happen? Email addresses for the US military come under the .mil TLD. By omitting the letter i from this TLD, one is left with the two letter country code top level domain .ml, denoting Mali.

    To cover its blushes from this glaring example of digital dyslexia, the Ministry has commented as follows:

    We have opened an investigation after a small number of emails were mistakenly forwarded to an incorrect email domain.


    We are confident they did not contain any information that could compromise operational security or technical data.

    All sensitive information is shared on systems designed to minimise the risk of misdirection.


    The MoD constantly reviews its processes and is currently undertaking a programme of work to improve information management, data loss prevention, and the control of sensitive information.

    Whitehall is currently illuminated bright red by all the embarrassed faces lurking behind all the impressive military statues of senior dead white squaddies fronting its main building in SW1.

    Maybe such a cock-up would not have happened had the ministry’s civil servants paid proper attention to what they were typing on their email clients instead of constantly reviewing their processes!

  • The expert and the gentleman amateur

    Can anything be gleaned from whom countries pick as their government ministers

    Maybe

    Until recently there was an interesting comparison to be made between Chile and the so-called United Kingdom in their choice of environment ministers.

    Let’s compare and contrast…

    Chilean environment minister Maisa RojasIn 2022 Chile appointed Maisa Heloísa Juana Rojas Corradi, a physicist and climatologist to the post of Minister for the Environment. As you can tell by the letters after her name, Ms Rojas is not exactly lacking in academic success.having graduated in physics at the University of Chile before going on to gain a Ph.D. in atmospheric physics from Lincoln College, Oxford. After gaining her doctorate, Rojas then pursued a career in academia, initially as a postdoctoral fellow at International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University in 2001, after which she then returned to Universidad de Chile as a postdoctoral fellow, researcher, eventually becoming a professor of geophysics. During that time, Rojas became an international leading climate change scientist. She was the lead author of the Paleoclimate chapter for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth report (AR5), and was also a coordinating lead author for the IPCC report (AR6). She has served on various presidential councils and committees on climate change.

    Amateur human being Zac GolsmithNow compare and contrast that record of achievement with the person who was until recently the UK’s Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, the improbably named Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith of Richmond Park. Zac is a scion of the corrupt (and corrupting. Ed.) British Establishment who was not just born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but a whole sterling cutlery service. As a rich boy, Goldsmith had the best education that money can buy (allegedly): 3 fee-paying preparatory schools, followed by Eton College (which ought to be put into special measures for the sake of the nation. Ed.), from which he was expelled after drugs were discovered in his room. Despite all that expensive tuition, Zac go no where near a degree, but did go on after Eton to gain four A Levels at the now defunct Cambridge Centre for Sixth-Form Studies.

    From your ‘umble scribe’s researches, it would appear that Zac definitely fits the definition of a ‘gentleman amateur’ about which Dr Duncan Stone of the University of Huddersfield wrote in 2019.

    With specific reference to the late 19th century, Dr Stone wrote:

    Average wits notwithstanding, anyone emerging from Eton, Harrow, Winchester or Westminster at this time was afforded – as a ‘gentleman’ – an indisputable authority that allowed them to simply assume positions of leadership. Their authority remained mostly intact, even if the ‘blood’ so crucial to a gentleman’s nobility in the past had been severely diluted by the overwhelming expansion of the public school system and the middle-classes it helped to produce.

    The idealised gentleman was brave, loyal, and chivalrous towards females, put public duty before his own interests, and took part in activities for love rather than financial gain. These values were applied to a wide range of activities during the nineteenth century. Science, politics and the arts were all defined by this hegemonic ideal of the ‘gentleman amateur’.

    On 30 June Goldsmith resigned from his ministerial position, stating the government showed “apathy” towards environmental issues and that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s lack of interest had paralysed policymaking.

    Who would you rather have looking after your environment, someone with impeccable connections and manners, or someone who knows their subject inside-out? Answers in the comments below, please. 😀

  • Bristol Live: lost – one dog

    Quality control at Reach plc regional press titles does not seem to be getting any better.

    Ample evidence of this is provided by a story in today’s Bristol Live/Bristol (Evening) Post, which features a non-existent dog in one photograph, as shown by the screenshot below.

    Photo caption reads A family snapshot of Tiah, Zaya, Kieran, Kehlani and their dog Obie
    Spot the canine

    To be fair to Bristol’s newspaper of (warped) record, the dog does appear in a subsequent uncropped version of the same photo with an identical caption.

    Why the editor tolerates such duplication and lack of quality control is beyond the imagination of your ‘umble scribe. Perhaps s/he would care to explain in the comments below.

  • Bristol Live exclusive – war and mass killing in Dorset

    Bristol Live, the Reach plc local news title that serves Bristol (badly. Ed.) is not know for the restraint of its headlines; and one of yesterday’s was definitely what one could classify as sensationalist.

    Indeed, judging by the headline war and mass killing have recently occurred in Studland in Dorset, if one takes the standard definition of carnage, i.e. “the violent killing of large numbers of people, especially in war“; and all relating to a car ending up in the sea.

    Headline reads Carnage at world's most expensive resort as car rolls into water

    Needless to say there is no mention of mass killings or hostilities in the report itself, only the minor inconvenience of cancelled ferry services. Could it be yet more evidence that the residents of the city’s Temple Way Ministry of Truth have a very poor understanding of the English language? They definitely have a tendency to use it like a blunt tool instead of a precision instrument.

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