My New Favourite Country

<< San Marino: Love of 90s soul-funk not pictured

Just under a week away, Andy Abrahams sat alone in the Eurovision green room, listening to the whoops of the Russian entry and sullenly puffing his way through a pack of Superkings, occasionally craning his neck towards the TV to see if he'd had any more points. Poor old Andy's slice of 90s soul-funk got about as many points as it deserved, however much Wogan wants to bleat about politics, but he seems a lovely fella, so I felt sorry for him. Only two nations voted for the UK - Ireland, naturally, and San Marino. A nation that most Britons probably thought was a pizza manufacturer awarded us six whole points. The BBC have rather prematurely declared San Marino a new ally, when in all likelihood it was a few ex-pats and tourists making the most of the country's tiny population. So what else is San Marino about, other than giving sympathy Eurovision points? Well, for starters, it's got a weird name:

San Marino's full name is The Most Serene Republic of San Marino.

It might sound like a nation invented by a nutty dictator, but San Marino has been around for a very long time - it was founded in 301 AD, allegedly by Marinus, a Christian stonemason. Until Nauru declared independence in 1968, it was the world's smallest republic, and claims to be the oldest constitutional republic in the world. San Marino also arguably had the world's first democratically elected communist government, a balance many nations have been trying to achieve for years. I guess it's easier to achieve political stability when there's only 30,000 of you.

It may be tiny and, as much as it pains me, pretty insignificant, but San Marino has a lot to be proud of, most notably remaining independent throughout Garibaldi's unification of Italy. Napoleon III also refused to invade it, describing it as a 'perfect republic'. It may have been this laid-back attitude that stopped Napoleon III reaching quite the same imperial heights as the original Napoleon. I like the cut of San Marino's jib - it's got a cable car going between its largest towns, and issues its own highly collectable postage stamps and coinage. Despite it's chequered history, the 61km and highly serene republic of San Marino will perhaps always be most famous for scoring against England after just 8 seconds - still the fastest goal in the history of the World Cup, and let's hope it stays that way.

Incidentally, just to draw a line under the whole political voting at Eurovision hoopla, I'd like to point out that Greece came third with an American singer - so maybe the 'special relationship' isn't the reason why the UK keep coming last. Maybe it's stuff like this...

Ducking & Bombing

<< Tooting Bec Lido on a brisk winter's morn

I thought I knew about every attraction that South-West London had to offer - from the Museum of Rugby to Centre Court shopping centre, I thought I had it covered. I was wrong - little did I know that a record-breaking feat of engineering was lurking just up the road, in Tooting Bec:

Tooting Bec Lido is the largest freshwater swimming pool in the UK.

Tooting is split into two parts, and Tooting Bec is the part with the massive park, tree-lined avenues and expensive delis. I live in the other part. A lido, for anyone not entirely clear, is basically an outdoor swimming pool. Other lidos/lidoes/lidae can be found all over the country, but you can search far and wide and you won't find one bigger than here in SW17. Tooting Bec Lido is 90m long, according to Wandsworth council, who own the pool and are therefore probably a bit biased regarding its champion status. What I like about facts such as these is that a lot of conditions have to be attached - it's not the largest pool full stop, and they've also had to mention that its a swimming pool, because it's probably a bit smaller than Loch Ness.

Incidentally, the word 'Lido' comes from the Italian resort which sits across a lagoon from Venice. They reached the height of their popularity in the 30s, but have since fallen into decline, with many closing in recent years. I could harp on about how it symbolises that we as a nation have turned our back on outdoor living, and have retreated indoors, shut the curtains and are watching people swim on Sky Plus. The trouble is, it doesn't appeal much to me either - if it's a shade below 20 degrees you look like a polar explorer in training, and as soon as the sun comes out my skin turns crimson. For any other sun-haters reading, Wandsworth council do mention that the lido area has a gazebo to huddle under. While I'm on the subject, you can get a gazebo in Woolworths for £12. Well, I've told everyone else, I might as well tell you.

Nanoo Nanoo

<< "I'm always watching, Mork... Does that make you uncomfortable?"

Whilst sat in a cold sweat on the Tube this morning, I read ShortList magazine, one of the things I've missed least about not being at work (not that I don't like it - I just haven't missed it). It featured 22 business tips you won't see on The Apprentice, which presumably include that advertise can be subtle and artistic, that women have the same right to a job as a man, and that there are ways of closing deals that don't involve sprinting across a car park seconds from close of play. Whilst it was arguably foolhardy to peruse a series of dispassionate lists rather than my meticulous notes ahead of my disciplinary, I thought, y'know, fuck it. And I was right - for I learnt the following:

Mork & Mindy is a spin-off from Happy Days.

This is pushing the envelope of what constitutes a spin-off, as Mork only ever appeared in one episode of the show (Happy Days has never shied away from the ludicrous and incredible when it comes to writing a good episode). Mork came from Ork to take a human back to his home planet, but the plan, much like any attempt at intimacy between Mr and Mrs C., was foiled by an interfering Fonz (incidentally, is there anything less cool than a 30-something man living with his friend's parents and hitting on 16-year-olds? Aaaaaay). Laverne & Shirley was also a Happy Days spin-off, as they tried to retain the original show's momentum with Joey-esque desperation. It's also worth pointing out that Mork was Robin Williams' first major role.

I used to like Mork and Mindy when I was younger, although I didn't like the idea that Mork and his fellow Orkans got progressively younger as time went on, until they eventually defertilised themselves. That was never explicitly determined as Mork's final resting place, but it don't take a genius. Oh yeah, and they got married in the final series, while Fonzie sailed over a shark on a jetski in the background. I also used to like the theme tune. How did it go again? Oh yeah, like this. As for the disciplinary, I got a written warning and everyone else is getting re-trained. Woo hoo, I'm gonna be Mr Popular...

D-Day

It's tomorrow - and the D is for disciplinary. To be honest, I've been suspended, I started to forget I actually had a job, and the omens are that I'll still have one this tomorrow, unless I expose myself at tomorrow's meeting, which has crossed my mind, if I'm being honest. As I'm currently holding myself together reasonably well, I'm getting a quick fact in before an evening of Britain's Got Talent and Superbad to chase the nerves away. So here goes:

'Blue chip' industries are so named because blue is the colour of the highest value chips in poker.

Mmm... chips. I don't even know what 'blue chip' industries are - all I do know is that a lot of them are going to be closing soon, as the invisible recession draws in. It does make you wonder if capitalism is the way forward (don't worry, I'm not going to try and sell you a copy of Socialist Worker) - it's just very easy to forget that banks, which lest we forgot have all our money, actually exist not for our benefit but for their own, and when the shit hits the fan, they drop you faster than Sharon Stone's agent, following her slightly ill-advised comments today. Regardless of how unbelievably stupid and insensitive this is, you'd think she'd want to keep quiet about karma. She was in Basic Instinct 2, for christ's sake.

Monkey Business

I dimly recall on the drive up to Alton Towers, somewhere amidst the haze of sleep deprivation and fear, that the radio was discussing a woman who wanted her pet monkey to be given human rights. This has opened up a whole can of legal whoopass, as a debate has begun raging over whether animals could ever be offered the same rights as humans. Having pored over the legal minutae and undertaken in-depth interviews from all sides of this tumultuous debate, I have concluded that a monkey should not human rights. My reason? It's not a human - it's a monkey.

The woman concerned felt that her pet primate was her closest living companion, and behaved like a human, so should enjoy the rights that its current status deserves. All of this should make a good case, but all it does it make it all the more certain that she's sleeping with the monkey - all of which pours a murky brew of consensual intercourse legislation into the already black waters of this debate. I shook off the volley of unsightly images that my brain had been put through at the next services, and thought no more about it, until I learnt the following today:

Caligula made his horse a senator.

Caligula also claimed that his faithful steed was an incarnation of all the Roman Gods. In short, he really liked his horse. Caligula's reputation is murkier than a tankard of legislation on cohabiting with animals, but incest, orgies and executions are all present and correct. Caligula's horse has come to be slang for someone who is not deserving of their position i.e. 'How does Vernon Kay get so much work? He's the Caligula's horse of ITV'. Coincidentally, Vernon Kay does look a lot like a horse.

Is It Lupus?

<< Dr. Fox: Wouldn't know a forgotten 90s gem if it bit him on the arse

In the early hours of this morning at Knowledge Towers, we were watching the televisual gem that was Dr. Fox's Forgotten Nineties Gems as it reached it's tumultuous climax. At No. 2 was Seal's 'Crazy', a song that was in our opinion neither forgotten nor indeed a gem. Discussion turned to how Seal had grown his hair to cover his facial scars, scars that could have kept his rich tones out of the charts, yet several million albums later suddenly seem quite alluring to the likes of Heidi Klum. Conversation then turned, perhaps predictably avoiding such issues as talent and record sales, to how he happened upon those scars in the first place. Some causes that I've heard before were ritualistic scarring (unlikely, given that he was born and raised in Paddington), a motorbike accident and acid burns. Well, here's how it really happened:

Seal got his facial scars from a childhood bout of lupus.

That's right, lupus, George Costanza's most feared disease. Seal (yes, it is his real name) contracted discoid lupus at a young age, which caused blistering which led to the scarring. Poor fella. Discoid lupus sufferers have a 1-5% chance of developing SLE, otherwise known as full blown lupus, which can be fatal, particularly in infancy, and sounds pretty unpleasant. Seal recovered from lupus and has built a successful career (though he's been a bit quiet since Kiss From a Rose), and has won the battle for acceptance in the superficial entertainment industry, if not at the even shallower Knowledge Towers. As for Foxy's No.1? Sleeping Satellite. The man's an idiot.

Do Not Want

<< A meme is born

For today's fact, I began with an article about Return of the Jedi, which is 25 years old this week. I learnt that the Ewoks' victory over the Stormtroopers was a Vietnam analogy, and that David Lynch was slated to direct it (can you imagine?). From there I was unwittingly led to the discovery that in an early Chinese version of Revenge of the Sith, when Darth Vader stands up and cries "Nooooo!" (OK, I didn't want to have to think about it either), the English subtitles said 'Do not want'. Aside from beautifully summing up Darth's emotions, this caption has transformed into an internet phrase, and has been attached to any manner of stupid pictures in an increasingly unfunny way.

This phenomenon has been seen several times over the last few years, with clips like Star Wars Kid and the new 'Rick rolling' video tomfoolery being passed on and updated. The continuation of these clips generally have a pretty reliable quality arc - initially, the first few parodies and references are very funny, before a slow decline until it's getting sent up on Children in Need, and you just want it to stop. Anyway, these internet trends have a name - they're known as memes. This does however relate to a wider phenomenon, which I shall attempt to explain below:

A meme is a cultural item that is passed on by repetition.

The term originates from Richard Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, which speculates that cultural ideas are passed from generation to generation in the same way as genes pass information on, um, genetically. It's an interesting idea, but probably wasn't designed with repetition of Rick Astley videos in mind.

Queen of the South, Nil

I'm writing this retrospectively following a riotous Eurovision party that went on all night (or would've if the tube didn't stop at midnight), but did learn this yesterday, I promise. You can't prove I didn't.

Queen of the South got their name from a local MP's speech.

For those who've never heard classified football results, Queen of the South are a Scottish football team who come from Dumfries in southern Scotland. They proved that they actually exist and aren't a fictional entity designed to fill out the pools column by getting to the Scottish Cup final, losing 3-2 to Rangers yesterday. They got their name when the area MP declared how happy she was to represent 'the Queen of the South' in Parliament. And so a legend was born. I've always loved the name, and it is the only British team name to be mentioned in the Bible, apparently. Sadly, divine intervention wasn't enough for them yesterday.

Thrill Rides & the Anglican Church

<< Rowan Williams' top 3 Alton Towers rides:
1. Nemesis - 'gnarly'
2. The Log Flume - 'sweet'
3. Oblivion - 'biblical'


Today I went for the first time to Alton Towers, a place where you're instructed to leave all sentient thought at the door. Stop thinking so hard, it says. Come and have a go on this instead, it'll make you feel like you're turning inside out. Regardless, a splendid time was had by all - it was a non-stop, full-throttle, white knuckle ride, and that was just the M1. I can recommend the oddly named Rita: Queen of Speed, and can assure you that however fast it looks when you're queueing, it's faster than you expect. I thought the Air ride was pretty, ahem, gnarly, but it was judged by most of the others to be 'tame'. I should shamefacedly admit here that I am an awful baby when it comes to rollercoasters - when the Air ride starting hauling us up a hill, and prepared to jettison us onto the ride itself, I literally wanted to cry. I did of course, hide my intense coaster-phobia, and I do quite like them once the fear subsides.

I can't recommend Oblivion because, well, I choked. I didn't make it. I went and hung around KFC instead, which is much more comfortable territory for me. Anyway, as I said, whilst my solar plexus, bowels and dignity were sorely tested, my brain took the day off. I was even told quite a good fact, but it has since been erased by eight hours of mindless entertainment. So, apropos of nothing, here's today's fact, hastily cribbed from the BBC website:

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is deaf in one ear.

Presumably this is the ear into which advisors suggested he might not want to wade into the debate on Sharia law. I have a similar problem - I lost all hearing today in the ear into which people were trying to persuade me to ride Oblivion. I'm trying to find a closing connection between theme park thrill rides and the Anglican Church, but unsurprisingly, I'm struggling, so Instead it's time for a Chinese and a long lie down, for I fear my brain has gone on sabbatical for the bank holiday weekend.

LOL

It's funny, when I had to go into work every day, I seemed to always have a nice half-hour slot, immediately after coming home, in which to complete this blog. Now I've got nothing to do all day but wait and wonder, it always feels like I've got a rush on. Maybe I'm just very aware of how precious time is now it's not broken into designated chunks - or maybe I'm just so lazy that spending half an hour writing this blog has become a pressing deadline. Ah well, at least I've got less time on my hands than some people...

Internet 'comedian' Charles Trippy filmed himself and a group of associates in his living room for as long as he possibly could - and created a YouTube video that lasts for 9 hours and 15 minutes. Well, I'm assuming that's what happens, I haven't sat and watched it so I've no idea what gruesome wrongness could be lurking 8 hours in. And presumably, somebody would've had to go to the toilet at some point. Trippy declares that his video is 'dumb' at the start, and well, he's got a point. The concept of a 9 hour long continuous video will probably baffle anyone who's ever had to watch an episode of South Park on YouTube in seven overlapping segments. The reason Mr Trippy (if that is his real name - something tells me it actually might be) got it on YouTube is because it stayed within the 100MB limit (whereas five minutes of Cartman abusing Butters is clearly large enough to bring the whole internet crashing down).

You can watch the clip here, if you're that bored. The fact that you're here suggests you might do - and this page suggests that so too does Charles Trippy. And it brings me no end of pleasure to tell you that today's fact relates to the longest ever YouTube video - but does not feature Mr Trippy at all:

The longest YouTube video is 100 hours long.

That's over four days, ten times longer than Trippy's weak effort, and consists entirely of a blue screen (again, I'm assuming) - it was posted by someone called 'frifox', who reckons that you could make a YouTube video that lasted for 1 and a half years. Oh my god, people really need to stop sitting on fucking YouTube and go and get some air or something. And please, please stop saying LOL. It's so ten years ago.

To Hull and Back

<< Hull: Now famous for nothing

Time is of the essence today - I've got to knock up a Quorn goulash before the football starts, so today's fact is rather fitting: don't worry, it's about football, not vegetarianism:

Hull is not the largest city in Europe never to have had a top-flight football team.

Who cares, you might think, and you'd be right - except that Hull's status as Europe's most unsuccessful football city has been bandied about repeatedly ever since their team, Hull City, threatened to be promoted. It'll be either them or Bristol City who come up, but an irate Hull fan has let it all get on top of him and has put us all straight. I particularly like the deeply passive aggressive title.

o congratulations (of sorts) go to Wiesbaden in Germany, and the quite possibly fictional Ulf in Russia, not for being the worst footballing cities, just for being bigger than Hull, which really isn't much of an achievement. It does now seem pretty ludicrous that little old Hull could be the biggest city in all of Europe not to witnessed top-flight football, but it just goes to show how far an assumption can travel without being properly questioned - it's appeared in this very blog before, and saints preserve us, even stat god Jeff Stelling's got in on the act. For shame, Jeff.

The Long & Winding Road

<< Ulica Piotrkowska - silence and unease around every corner not pictured

I've been writing about my travels in Eastern Europe in the last couple of days, which has caused me to reminisce over some of the places I visited, from the very good (Riga, Latvia and Zakopane, Poland - surely the two most underrated cities on the planet) to the very bad, which as you may have guessed, is what I'd like to expand on here. To be fair, we travelled through 30 towns and cities and only two stand out as being truly terrible: Haparanda, a small town in Northern Sweden that felt like the checkpoint for the edge of the earth - constantly in dusk and swamped in silence, punctuated only by the cacklings of a deranged elderly resident. Truly unforgettable.

Haparanda had an excuse though - it never advertised itself as being more than a quiet backwater to stop off at en route further North. The other member of the 'terrible two' is a city with 800,000 residents and is the second largest in Poland. Its name is Lodz, its name is pronounced Woodge, and it has to be seen to be believed. The most remarkable thing about Lodz is that is has close to a million residents, and there is only one street of any interest. Happily enough, it was the only street that felt remotely safe. Turning off Ulica Piotrkowska in any direction seemed to lead into a confrontation with an inebriated local, or being saved from a mauling by a rabid alsation only by a perilously weak chainmail fence. Ulica Piotrkowska was reasonably busy, well-lit and had a cosmopolitan air - every other street in Lodz seemed to be dim, forbidding and laced with shattered glass. It's the only place in Lodz anyone wants to be, which may explain the inspiration for today's fact:

Ulica Piotrknowska is the longest commercial street in Europe.

It is 5km long, which does not seem especially long, but a quick Google suggests that it is the only place staking a claim for the crown - maybe other cities with a bit more to offer aren't crowing loud enough, but I'm happy to unofficially award them the prize - God knows they need it. OK, maybe I'm being too harsh - I'd hate to come across as a snobbish tourist, even though I almost certainly will do, given that I've given over two whole paragraphs to slagging one place off. Lodz may well be a perfectly nice place to live, and I know it's had economic problems (this information was passed to us by residents of Wroclaw, once they'd recovered their jaws on hearing that we'd actually visited the place), but it just wasn't very touristy. It seems odd that so many other, admittedly nicer, Polish cities, cater for a constant influx of tourists (and not just Krakow - Poznan, Gdansk and plenty of other smaller cities), whereas I feel like we might've been the only British people to have ever visited Poland's second city. Let's keep it that way.

Interestingly, the longest street in the world is generally recognised to be Yonge Street in Canada - it runs continuously for an astonishing 1,178 miles - comfortably further than the length of the entire U.K, and marginally further than we walked trying to find a restaurant in Lodz. A recent South Park episode mockingly suggested that there are about three roads in all of Canada - judging by this statistic, this might be closer to the truth than I thought.

Rock the Vote

<< 2007 Eurovision winner Marija Serifovic proves that tactical voting can't keep a belting rock ballad down

This Saturday at Knowledge Towers there will be a gathering to savour the single greatest international competition in the world - the Eurovision Song Contest. As the nation gears up for the big event, spurious articles such as this have started springing up, undermining the great contest's credibility. This article annoys me for deux reasons (sorry, just getting into Eurovision mode) - firstly, it suggests there may be tactical voting going on. May? When a country gives points based entirely on proximity to their own borders, that's a pretty sure sign, and believe me, that happens. Secondly, it seems to suggest that this is somehow unfair. At first glance, that would appear to be true - but it claims that Serbia won last year as a result of block voting from their neighbours. They didn't - they won because they had the best song.

All this crowing about the contest being purely political doesn't really stack up, because for the last couple of years, and for as long as I can remember actually, the best song wins. The UK hasn't won for a decade, not because we're being ousted by malicious tactical voting, but because we pick awful songs, including last year's miserable 'ironic' Scooch effort, complete with wholly inappropriate double entendres that had me reaching for the Radio Times in embarrassment. The last time we had the best song was when we hauled Katrina and the Waves in - and we won. The neighbourly voting may ensure that even if Estonia sling a turd onto the stage they're still going to get 40-odd points, but in terms of winning, it doesn't prevent the best song from winning. Even if, say, a Balkan country votes for all its neighbours, it will still rank the points according to song quality - this is the law of Eurovision. Apart from Greece and Cyprus - they're just brazen. Here's the fact:

The UK have finished second in the Eurovision Song Contest on 15 occasions.

Whether it's General Franco or Celine Dion, we're pass masters at getting pipped to the post. Let's hope amiable dustman Andy Abrahams can get a second runner-up medal following his X-Factor disappointment, although with that slice of 90s soul-lite, I won't be putting any money on it. Going back to my rant on tactical voting, I think that ultimately it really doesn't matter that it goes on. It's only Eurovision, for God's sake. It's purely sour grapes on our part, and I personally wish we didn't even bother entering, except then the blinkered powers-that-be would take it off the air, missing entirely the reason why we watch Eurovision. Looking at it another way, I think tactical voting may actually be a good thing - the Balkan countries, not so long ago massacring one another and still politically suspicious of one another, lay down their arms for one night and hand out points in an orgy of diplomatic goodwill. If Eurovision was extended around the world, Iran and America would probably hand out points to each other. Maybe not. But I can dream...

More Than A Feeling

<< Cadbury World: funner than it looks

Today we took a day trip to Cadbury World - a haven of magic and wonder deep in suburban Birmingham. OK, so it looked a bit like an evacuated POW camp from the outside, and the adventure playground and tannoyed dance music lent it the feel of a council estate fun day, but once we were inside 'twas a wonderland of chocolate, adventure and of course, learning. I learnt so much about chocolate that I may never be able to swallow an entire Boost bar* in one go ever again, but seeing as the first couple of areas stayed in my mind, before I ate my complimentary Curly Wurly and got a bit silly, I'll go with this:

The Mayan civilisation used cocoa beans as currency.

Cadbury World would tell you that there was quite a strict pricing scheme - 100 cocoa beans would buy you, for example, a slave, or a new washer/dryer. I'm personally not convinced by this, neither was I particular impressed by their interpretation of the decimation of the Aztec nation by colonialists as a mutual friendship borne of the pure love of chocolate. But then they gave us some more Dairy Milk and I felt much more liberal about the whole thing. The best bit was probably getting a cup of gooey liquified chocolate at the end of a particularly dull attraction about the history of Dairy Milk, and the factory it's made in.

You had to go sit through a short film featuring execrable acting straight out of a staff training video ("Mairy Dilk! Oh no, I got it wrong!" Oh do shut up) before getting your warm brown reward, which made it all the sweeter. You would think that this was for the kids' benefit - have a bit of tedious education, be bored until you feel weak and tearful, and then be presented with some chocolate to reward your patience. Except if you're a kid, that's pretty much what life is like all the time - doing boring stuff in order to obtain sweets. I think they're just having a laugh at our expense, to be honest.

On the car journey back I tucked into more Dairy Milk (I didn't even like it before - I think they got to me. Remember the plantations for god's sake. It's wrong) and we listened to Boston's 'More Than A Feeling' which became our anthem for the day - for visiting Cadbury World is more than a feeling - it's an experience. Although the shop was a bit rubbish...

*Don't try this at home - Boosts kill

Play Up Pompey

I've just watched the FA Cup Final, and have seen Portsmouth beat Cardiff City 1-0, courtesy of a scrappy goal scored following a dreadful error by the Cardiff goalie. I was watching with my friend, a Pompey fan, and to be honest I think he'd have been happy if they'd won on the toss of a coin. It's nice to see a team outside the 'Big Four' lift the trophy, though I wish it could've been Man City instead - famously knocked out of the competition by a balloon, they were instead spending the day in Bangkok, getting beaten by the dubiously named Thailand All-Stars. That's what happens when you sell a team to a guy with a lot of cash and a lamentable human rights record. Here's today's Cup final-related fact:

The first televised FA Cup Final was between Preston North End and Huddersfield Town in 1938.

You can't beat watching the Cup Final on telly. Three hours of tedious build-up, eventually descending into vaguely football-related nostalgia pieces and pictures of coaches queuing on the M40, followed by an invariably edgy, uninspiring football match. Magic. Now, if you'll excuse me, Britain's Got Talent has just started. Now that's entertainment.

Pepa & Ball

<< Tommy Cannon on promotional duties for his new one-man show, 'Loose Cannon' (P.S. This is literally the only picture of Cannon I can find without Ball - what a team)

What's exciting about this whole learning something new every day business, is you never know where it's going to lead. Who would have thought when I woke up this morning that the single most interesting piece of information to enter my mind would be about not art, nor science, but 90s female hip hop artists. For today I have discovered:

Salt 'n' Pepa, the all-female U.S. hip hop group, had three members.

Now I'd always assumed that Salt 'n' Pepa had two members - Salt, and you know, the other one. Well, there are two rappers in the band, are they are called Salt and Pepa respectively, but there was a DJ in the band too. Even I don't care, but I have to clarify the S'n'P line-up once and for all. Some other bands that have more members than you might think include Ben Folds Five, Alabama 3 and Run-DMC (similar to the tortuous Salt 'n' Pepa situation detailed above, as they had an additional DJ, Jam Master Jay, as if you needed telling).

Salt 'n' Pepa were responsible for some now dated yet still surprisingly memorable efforts, including "Whatta Man" and "Let's Talk About Sex" (there's a theme developing here). They went their separate ways at the end of the 90s, and Salt tried to launch a solo career, which truthfully was never going to work, as it's a bit like Tommy Cannon breaking up the duo to work on some projects (although this could have paved the way for a dream team, end-of-the-pier rap group - see the blog title). The group have now followed the inevitable career arc of any U.S. musician who once was considered credible and relevant, by making their own VH1 show, and bringing out a tie-in comeback album. Weak.

The feature in which I discovered S'n'P's third member revelation was looking at bad album titles, in this case referring to their sophomore effort, A Salt With A Deadly Pepa, which is terrible, not so much because it's a bad pun but because it's only half a pun, falling away into nothingness by the time we get to poor old Pepa. There are a lot of terrible titles out there, but I'd just like to point out the worst sin of album-naming, that is always overlooked. Naming your album after your band is essential for your debut album, and completely unforgivable on any subsequent albums. To me, it's always said "we're so totally apathetic about this album that we can't even be bothered to think of a name". If you're gonna give it a crap name, be like S'n'P, and do it with style.

Back to the Future

<< Asimo. seen doing his 'Mickey Mouse' reputation no favours whatsoever

Today I want to talk about the number one threat facing human civilisation. No, not global warming. Guess again. Nuclear war? Do me a favour. Terrorism? Please. I am talking, as if you needed telling, about the cyborg menace that has its silicon fingers round the throat of our very way of life. We all knew that one day the robots would get a little too smart - they'd start asking questions about the utopia they'd been created into. Why is the checkout line moving so slowly? Why has my Travelcard taken three weeks to be processed? They would begin to see the imperfections of our world, and use their incredible artificial intelligence to take control. Well, my friends, that day is upon us.

There is a robot known as Asimo, who has appeared in Honda ads, and is a shining example of the kind of technology we're dealing with here. Just this week, it violently deposed a human orchestra conductor and took up his baton in a bloodless coup, leading a frightened, bewildered orchestra through a robotic rendition of "The Impossible Dream". The human race was only saved from this fearsome maestro of doom by Asimo's battery, which can only sustain revolution for a brief period:

Asimo, the advanced robot who appears in the Honda ads, uses up its battery power every twenty minutes.

That's right people, settle down, there's nothing to fear, because Asimo is rubbish, and he's the best they've got. I remember writing a project at school about life in the year 2000 with the rest of my classmates, and playground discussions were unanimous - by the year 2000 (at that point, eight years away) cars would be able to fly, and robots would either rule the world, or at least be working their way into middle management. How could we have known that reading about drug-taking celebrities and watching dickheads break Playstation 3s on the internet would be as futuristic as it got? Other predictions were more accurate, of course. Back to the Future II features a dystopian nightmare complete with ringtones and chip and pin machines (sort of). It does however also hint at flying cars, and sky-based motorways. You can't win them all.

So we can come out from behind the sofa for now - the robots aren't taking over. And even if one day they do, much like the Daleks, they'll be scuppered by that pesky human invention called stairs.

In Silico

<< The Pendulum bassist's disciplinary was hamstrung by a lack of seating

I haven't been doing much learning today, more pondering, sweating, explaining, clenching, releasing etc. I went to a meeting at the office, but nothing is really any clearer, and probably won't be until the disciplinary, when my inner daemon is going to unexpectedly hop out and either beg unrelentingly for forgiveness or tell them they're lucky we don't fucking sue. It's going to be fun finding out. How handy then, that I learnt something good and trivial in amongst the terrible adverts and emo nonsense on Kerrang Radio (will someone start a half-decent metal station on DAB? Please?!) - the meaning of the title of the Pendulum album:

'In silico' is an expression which means computer generated.

Pendulum are one of those very 'now' bands who I already have reservations over (dance rock is very 1996) but aren't quite terrible enough to destroy my interest completely. The single they put out, with the 'bown-bown-bown' keyboard bit, is actually quite smart, and despite my reservations, I feel certain that my aforementioned inner guide is going to decide that it's a really good idea to download two albums of patchy Australian drum 'n' bass. That said, I can't help but feel calling their album 'In Silico' isn't going to do their attempts to be seen as a proper band, rather than a bunch of drum 'n' bass chancers, any favours.

I thought that they had made the title up, but it is in fact a modern scientific phrase given to things that are computer generated, particularly in biology, don't worry, I won't go on. It might sound Latin, but, a bit like fusing dance music with guitars, it was invented in 1989. 'In silice', the closest bona fide Latin equivalent (see what I did there), means 'like flint'. Maybe that's an image that could fit better with their fast-living aspirations...

Reading the Phone Book

<< Alan Partridge: Needs access to Dixons

I'm sorry to still be focussing on my employment predicament, but it is relevant to today's bit of factology. Claire has once again come up trumps with a lunch-based fact, however I can't seem to back it up anywhere and, much as I would love to write an entry based entire on my love for lunch, I've been blessed with facts today. The idea for today's entry first came to me when I was watching Seinfeld on DVD, as I do pretty much every night at the minute.

In the pilot sitcom within the show, Jerry mentions that Haagen-Dazs, the deliciously expensive ice-cream company, got their name from a phone book and are based in New Jersey rather than Dusseldorf, as their name might suggest. This also triggered something I'd learned about my other current mode of escape from this cruel, cruel world - the His Dark Materials books. The witch queen, Serafina Pekkala, got her name when Philip Pullman was nonchalantly flicking through a Helsinki phone book (presumably whilst undergoing a pretty severe case of writer's block).

This was all very interesting, but I needed another example, freshly learned, to bring it all together. I then, in a period where I was focussing on getting another job rather than desperately clinging to my current one, went to the Any Question Answered (the nifty text message service that does exactly what it says on the tin) website as I know they look for researchers from time to time. They are indeed recruiting, but suggested that potential candidates should try the service out to see just how good it is. And let me tell you, it's good (and I'm not just saying that because I gave them this blog address as evidence of my fact-finding abilities). I asked for a company or character name that came from a phone book, and they came back with the following:

Dixons got its name from the phone book - the owners of the first shop in Southend could only put 6 letters on the shop front so looked through a telephone directory to find a suitably concise name.

The original proprietors were Charles Kalms and Michael Mindel - who clearly took a different view to the potential reaction of the general public to a Germanic brand name than those Jersey Boys over at Haagen-Dazs. Ironically, the company decided to rebrand itself as Currys.digital recently, reducing Dixons to an online retailer, and making up for all those years the company suffered with a truncated name by giving it a name that is stupidly, unnecessarily long. Dixons also brings a couple of other notable facts to the table - its umbrella group, containing Currys and PC World, was at some point employed more people in the UK than any other company. My mate used to work in Currys - he didn't much care for it. It is also mentioned in one of the greatest sitcom scenes in recent years, the unseen sex scene from I'm Alan Partridge, in which Alan discusses the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre, while in flagrante, claiming that it would restrict his "access to Dixons". I love 'I'm Alan Partridge'- it is to my mind surpassed in the sitcom stakes only by Seinfeld. Which brings us nicely back to where we started...

Fear of Money, or the Lack Thereof

<< Stewart: "No, I'm afraid of wheat. Who the hell would be scared of being rich?"

My first day of enforced absence from work today, and quite frankly it's sucked balls. I went to the CAB and saw an adviser who gave me half an hour of considered, supportive advice that collectively amounted to a weary shrug. In fact I've derived more hope from the rather splendid comment left for me following one of my rants about the situation - it's much appreciated, and does offer some good news seeing as I did indeed fuck something right up accidently rather than on purpose. To put it another way, I'm David Brent rather than Finchy. To be honest, I can deal with losing the job if that's what happens, and it could prove to be a turning point to a more fulfilling career, but the realisation is that you really need to have money to have any optimism, and it's really the potential loss of a solid wage that's making me struggle to hold down my Noodles To Go in fear and anxiety. To whit, this rather appropriate slice of fact:

Peniaphobia is the fear of poverty.

I remember hearing in a recent training session that '80s electro wizard Dave Stewart was afraid of wealth. I asked whether he was actually afraid of losing his wealth, which drew a mild smattering of amusement. This annoyed me for two reasons - firstly, my observation didn't get the laughs it truly deserved, and secondly it was only half a joke, and I was trying to make a serious point. I just clenched my fists and said nothing, but at least now I know that fear of poverty is something different. I wouldn't say being afraid of poverty is irrational, so it hardly counts as a phobia, but it is clearly something that affects people in different ways - certainly some people, including the joker at the CAB, appear to think I'm being slightly hysterical in worrying about where the money's gonna come from. I'm concerned about my income to the point where I'm actually considering applying for a traineeship at ITV. Dark days indeed at Knowledge Towers.

Super Cereal

<< Tony the Tiger gives his opinion on the Crunchy Nut ad: "It's not grrrrreat"

I was feeling short of inspiration tonight so decided to base my fact-hunting on what I consider to be the worst advert currently on TV - the one for Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes with the 'Crunchy Nut Lane'. The idea behind it is that CNCF (as they're called in the business) are so damned delicious that just having to sit through the drive home without them is too much to bear. So they introduce 'Crunchy Nut Lanes' - gold-coloured extra lanes on the road so you can beat the traffic and get your honeyed fix as soon as possible.

Of course, the trouble is that people would use these lanes whether they want a bowl of CNCF or not - nobody actually wants to sit in traffic, it's not that those flakes are so tasty, they're draggin' people away from something they actually want to be doing. This is the point where the idea should have been consigned to the dustbin, like so many soggy uneaten flakes of corn. But no, they pursued it, and decided that you have to have a pass (!) to use this lane, and that if you try to use it without one, there's an entire surveillance center, complete with talking cameras, just to repel them back into the ordinary lanes with all the other toast-munching saps.

It's a shame that, having already made it so ridiculously convoluted I can't remember whether it's advertising car tax or a bowl of cereal, they don't go the whole hog and explain how you actually go about getting this pass. Surely all that can be asked is a commitment, potentially but not necessarily monetary, to CNCF. I wonder if there's anyone who has to crawl round the South Circular to get home every night who wouldn't cough up for a few boxes of Crunchy Nut in order to get a whole lane to themselves. Although if everyone could get these passes it wouldn't really be that much quicker. This is what makes this ad so infuriating - it's supposed to make me want cereal, not ponder the machinations of a snack loyalty based traffic control system. It's really, really shit. Here's the fact:

Kellogg's Corn Flakes were invented by accident.

Dr John Harvey Kellogg, in his attempts to invent a crushed wheat treat, he inadvertently ran some day-old wheat through rollers, and made Corn Flakes. I wish he hadn't bothered - they wouldn't take up space in the Variety packs, and we wouldn't have that stinking CNCF ad.

Slaughtered

I got suspended from work yesterday, and I'm still not really in the mood. It's being stuck in limbo that's the problem - if I'd just got sacked, I could have been dealing with it by now, but I've got to wait 'til next Wednesday without the faintest idea what's going to happen. I'm about 80% that I won't get sacked, because logic and reason dictate that I shouldn't be, but what's logic and reason where employment is concerned? To make it even worse, it's still boiling hot and I've still got a cold, so I spent last night on an airbed hacking and sweating, feeling like I was at the very definition of a low ebb.

In this week's Apprentice, two of the contestants had to find a kosher chicken in Marrakech, but instead of heading to the Jewish quarter, they went to a halal butcher and asked for the animal to be blessed by making the sign of the cross. One of them was 'fired' by an incandescent Sir Alan, but has surely returned to her highly-paid sales job. The one who wasn't fired, and is still in the running for the six-figure salary, called himself a "good Jewish boy" in his CV. I'm trying not to be bitter. Trying but failing. Today's fact is on the same subject (Judaism, not bitterness):

The method of slaughtering animals in order for them to be considered kosher is known as shechita.

Now if you'll excuse, all this talk about animals heading to the slaughter is a little too close to home right now...

Stitched Up

<< Has this man got a stitch, or just been asked to turn in his 'Here to Help' name badge?

I got suspended from work today, so I'm not really in the mood. It was for a breach of confidentiality, and an accidental one at that, yet I still had to hand my phone and my badge over, like a maverick cop who's crossed the line one too many times. The fact I've never received any training or guidance in the area I was working in should count for something, but it won't necessarily. Anyway, fact-finding may become my day job, so I'd better try and carry on being good at it:

A stitch is caused by pain in the diaphragm - either through cramps, or movement in the ligaments connecting the gut to the diaphragm.

I'm gonna go and sit in my pants and eat a big block of cheese now.

Tropical Island

I've basically been trying to sleep all day today, so I'm turning to Fact of the Day to nip this learning thing in the bud before the sun goes down:

The largest building in the world by volume is the main assembly building at the Boeing manufacturing site in Everett, Washington, USA.

The hangar houses 472 million cubic feet of space - well, they do build planes in it. I got onto this rather uninspiring topic because the Fact of the Day website told me that the largest building in Earth without interior supports is the Goodyear 'airdock' (like a shed for an airship, basically) in Akron, Ohio. The same site (now starting to lose credibility) claimed that it's so large, clouds form in the top and it rains indoors. Really? According to Wikipedia, no - it's condensation in the roof which leads to a wet mist falling down to ground level. Kinda sounds like rain to me.

I then, however, discovered that a German airship company called CargoLifter (stay with me here) constructed a larger building in East Berlin in 1999. This doesn't make a lot of sense, as airships have got a lot smaller since the Goodyear hangar was built. With cost-effective planning like that, it's little surprise that the company went bankrupt, and their enormous skydome, or whatever, now houses a rather cheap-looking swimming pool/restaurant combo affair. I don't know if the Boeing site does have internal supports, or a tropical theme, and frankly, I don't really care. So let's just leave it at that - sometimes, like life, learning is boring, unsatisfactory and thankless. Bah!

Assassins

<< The duck from Tom & Jerry: Since you ask, he's against the reclassification of cannabis, but would like further research into the effects of prolonged use

Apologies firstly to Claire, my diligent partner in learning, who sent a first-class fact to my sick bed this morning to ease the creative process for me. Regrettably, I randomly stumbled upon another topic that is just too intriguing to pass up, so I'm going to have to pass on Servite's 'fact of the week', for this week at least. Man, I feel really bad. OK, here's what I've got.

The first use of the word 'assassination' in the English language is in the Shakespeare Play, MacBeth.

We've covered MacBeth before, of course, way back in January, when I discovered that only a real pussy would stoop to calling it 'the Scottish play'. Also, it's perhaps no revelation that a word made its first appearance in a Shakespeare play - if you look hard enough, you can even find 'iPod', 'cheeseburger' and 'fisting' in the second half of Troilus and Cressida. Maybe. No, the interest here comes from another fact, one that I sadly could not prove - that the word 'assassin' is derived from the hashshashin, a sect of 11th century Shia Muslims who were probably a great deal scarier than they sound (their name does sound like assassin, albeit if it were enunciated by the duck from Tom and Jerry).

There is uncertainty over whether the hashshashin lent their name to the modern term 'assassin' (which is odd, given that it's basically the same word, and they used to assassinate people quite a bit). What's also up for debate is what hashshashin originally means - it could mean 'followers of Hasan' or could mean (slightly more topical, this) - 'hash eaters'. So the word 'assassin' could basically mean 'pothead'. Anyone out there trying to enjoy a nice FBB in the afternoon sun can now feel just that little more like a criminal, following the government's decision to upgrade cannabis from a Class C to a Class B drug, against expert opinion and despite any hard evidence of the dangers it poses. It's got to the point now where people at my work, who actually have to help people with all kinds of substance addictions, think that cannabis actually gives you paranoid schizophrenia. I can only respond that the dangers are being wildly over-exaggerated through gritted teeth, and then they all react like I'm Jimi fucking Hendrix, sparking a 12" all-herb doobie whilst torching my guitar.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, assassinations. It's an odd word because it's kind of subjective as to when it can be applied. Assassination is basically the killing of a high-profile person, usually for ideological or political reasons - so JFK and Benazir Bhutto both clearly fit into that category. But John Lennon's killer basically shot him because he was a first-class nut, but this would still be called an assassination - so basically it boils down to the level of fame of the unfortunate victim. Was Jill Dando assassinated? What about Versace? I'm sure there are celebrities out there who, should the unthinkable happen, head straight to the news aisle of the great supermarket in the sky to see whether they were assassinated, or plain old killed...

Stop Press: Extra fact for your time today - in sourcing above photo, I have discovered that the impudent duckling from Tom & Jerry is in fact named Quacker.

Islanders

<< Bishop Rock: So small

Heady days indeed here at Knowledge Towers - it appears my third consecutive rant about Boris Johnson drew a comment... from someone I don't already know in real life. Wooh! What a rush. OK, so it was a slightly weird comment along the lines of 'thank God Boris isn't a communist' (slightly misjudging the political leanings of this blog) followed by a haiku, of all things, but it looks like construction work has started on the road to widespread acclaim. I don't know though, this new-found fame has its perks, but there's pressure too. It appears my blog may actually be being read by people - I have to actually think about what I'm writing. I might get negative feedback. God, it's like I've got a million eyes on me. Why won't these people back off?! Every one wants a piece of me and it's too much. Hand me that crack pipe, I need to get so high I can't feel the eyes of the world burning into my beautiful face.

Nice to know people are reading though. I'm going a bit back-to-basics today, following the discovery of a nifty 'did you know?' site, which could easily keep me in facts 'til 2012. Following some fairly lackadaisical mooching around it's annals of fact, I stumbled upon this:

1 in 10 people in the world live on an island.

Funny that the idea of living on an island brought to mind images of palm trees and building shelters out of bamboo and remains of the plane wreckage. I, of course, live on an island, namely Britain, the nation for which the phrase 'island mentality' was surely invented. Until recently, I lived in Portsmouth, an island city that had a mentality all of it's own. The most remote inhabited island in the world is Tristan de Cunha, 1600 miles away from any other inhabited place and with only a couple of hundred. Given how weird the Isle of Wight is despite it only being about 5 miles from the mainland, god knows what this place is like. The smallest island in the world, as recognised in the Guinness Book of Records, no less, is Bishop Rock, one of the Isles of Scilly. Apparently, an island has to be habitable to count, and Bishop Rock comes equipped with a bloody great lighthouse, and not a lot else. It's uninhabited now, but the most important thing is that it could be. Did they make someone live there for a week to prove it? Crazy bastards.

Meet the Cyruses

<< Miley and father: "You did what?"

The cold's not gone and the article's way past due, so it's lucky I learnt something in the early hours of this oppressively hot spring day:

Miley Cyrus is Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter.

In case you don't know, Miley Cyrus is otherwise known as Disney starlet Hannah Montana, and has been touted as the new Britney Spears (a recent South Park episode demonstrated the grim consequences this might have for her). Britney became the acceptable face of paedophilia, prancing around in a school uniform in her first video. Miley's tried a similar trick, posing in a sheet for Vanity Fair, or Rolling Stone, or some magazine that really should know better. There has been outcry over the picture because Cyrus is only 15. I wonder when people think it would be acceptable? Give it 12 months.

The one saving grace for Miley, who is officially changing her name to, um, Miley Cyrus from her birth name, Destiny Hope (yeesh), is that her uber-hick one-hit-wonder pa hasn't seen the magazine yet. I don't know how she could break it to him. I guess she could tell his lips. Possibly his fingertips. But she should probably steer clear of telling his achy, breaky heart...

Psychedelic Vegeburger

I have a stinking cold and have been trying to write an article for a competition that has to be in on Tuesday. I've assembled 2,400 words in various quotes, notes and other doodlings, for a 1,000 essay that I haven't even started. I also know that I'm going to feel even worse tomorrow. So to be honest, I've never been closer to not doing this bloody blog at all. But in amongst trying to scroll through papers on international development whilst simultaneously blowing my nose, I managed to discover the following:

An LSD trip led to the creation of the vegeburger.

It's inventor, Gregory Sams, first turned against mainstream cuisine following a trip-and-a-half with his brother Craig, who went on to found Green and Black's, possibly after an almighty ketamine binge . I wonder if an LSD trip right now could either a. give me some new insights into the relationship between international development and social protection, or b. stop my nose from running...

Hot In Here

I'm too pissed off and sweaty to be doing with this today - it's only springlike weather outside, but the fact that all but 2 windows in this stupid flat are painted shut, I'm sweating like Brian Paddick every time he has to give an opinion. So here's today's fact - it's the third day I've referenced London's new leader, Boris Johnson, but there's no way I can talk about him in any detail, lest I get into an injustice-based stew that will only worsen my already overheated and clammy state:

Boris Johnson's real name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Would anyone have voted for Alexander de Pfeffel? Didn't think so. I'm also hugely depressed because the BNP have managed to get a seat on the Assembly, and even beat the Green Party in a lot of areas. Airport expansion? Climate change? Fossil fuels running out? Who the hell cares, so long as we can have a pop at the blacks. It's absolutely disgusting - people crawling into a little booth to vote for those racist bastards, instead of just trying to get on with one another. Uh-oh, I feel a stew coming. Why is it so fucking hot in here? Sort it out, Boris...

Inter Bee Combat

<< Bertie "The Pollenator" Bee, 76 fights, still undefeated

An easier Friday entry today, as I've had the day off to savour every last minute Boris Johnson isn't mayor of London (three hours and counting now). I watched a bit of the snazzy 'London Tonight' ITV news show from City Hall, which featured Police Camera Action legend Alistair Stewart asking who exactly was going to help Boris to run London, implying that if it was left to him then the capital would literally grind to a shuddering, comical halt. This was interspersed with reportage claiming that Boris Johnson was actually winning the election. All that remained was for Stewart to turn to the camera and conclude, in the richest, most gravitas-heavy tone he could muster, "So, today London elects a mayor that nobody believes can do the job. My final question tonight is for the people of this great city. Are you fucking mental."

I can't think about it any more - I need to turn my thoughts to simpler ideas. Like the one that occurred to me during last night's ultra-tedious election coverage (at one point, I thought Dimbleby and Nick Robinson might try televised sexual intercourse in a bid to add some spice): can bees sting each other? And here's the answer:

Bees can sting each other.

This is most apparent in the stinger of the honey bee, which is the only type of bee, wasp or hornet that perishes when its sting breaks off in the arm of some poor toddler who got in too deep. This is because tge honey bee's sting isn't designed for attacking little kids - its meant only for what Wikipedia describes as 'inter-bee combat'. That's right it's Bee vs Bee, Part II: This Time It's Personal. When bees go skin-on-skin for the freedom of the hive, the stings can slide straight in and deliver a knockout blow without breaking off. Bees will only sting non-bees when they feel their hive is under threat - a swarm of bees isn't dangerous as they are homeless, and have nothing to fight for. Sad I know, but it's still a swarm of bees, so don't stick around too long feeling sorry for them.

Queen bees may kick back in the hive 99% of the time, but they also indulge in inter-bee combat, using their smooth, reusable sting to take down challengers to their throne. I have imagined being the size of a bee, and watching the Queen execute a pupating rival with a well-aimed sting through her stripey abdomen, and I feel a bit frightened. It's almost as frightening an image as Boris Johnson sat in the mayor's office, smoking a fat cigar and shouting 'what do those bloody gays want now?' down the phone...

Fear Boris

<< Boris Johnson: Don't say I didn't warn you

The polling stations are closed, so it's sadly too late to issue a final cry to the good people of London to please, for the love of God, not vote for Boris Johnson. All we can now do is wait and hope. If you have been foolhardy enough to vote for him, I'd just like to point out why you shouldn't have. If you're gay, poor or an ethnic minority, he doesn't actually like you very much. If you're an ordinary working London resident, you could do a better job than him, because you a. work and b. live in London. His ideas include cutting crime (no explanation as to how), improving transport (see cutting crime) and bringing back Routemaster, for fuck's sake. It's embarrassing for the other candidates, particularly Ken Livingstone, that he's got so far on a silly haircut and absolutely no decent policies.

Anyway, I didn't vote for Boris, as you may have guessed, but I did vote - I went along to the weird village hall, got told not to fold my ballot papers at any cost (were they booby-trapped?) and placed my vote with a broken pencil. I would never not vote in anything, because it may be a futile choice between a dubious champagne socialist, a floppy-haired tool or someone who won't win because the media won't even allow the idea to enter people's heads, but it's our right in a democracy, and it's a right we have a duty to accept. I even voted in European elections, for christ's sake. After all, democracy depends on people voting to elect their government, doesn't it? Well, not necessarily.

Demarchy is a system of democracy without elections.

Demarchy uses sortition, which is effectively a kind of tombola, to elect individuals, rather than having votes between selected people. It's admittedly not a widely used or particularly feasible way of governing a nation, but it was used in Ancient Greece, and in Canada to create Electoral Reform. Closer to home, how do you think you end up getting called for jury service? Because your name comes out of a giant judicial hat, that's how. Maybe it's worth a shot. There's 8 million Londoners - put all their names into a sizeable trilby, and pluck out a new mayor at random. Could they really be worse than Boris Johnson?