One Thing, Leading To Another

Clement Freud is Sigmund Freud's nephew. Freud (Sigmund, that is) wrote a paper on Paranoia and Obsessive Neuroses. Paranoid by Black Sabbath is so popular in Finland it is requested at gigs no matter who's playing - in the same way 'Freebird' is called out at U.S. concerts. Finland are a nation which enjoys a friendly rivalry with its neighbour, Sweden, primarily driven by people confusing Finnish traditions with Swedish ones (e.g. the sauna). This is a problem also experienced by New Zealanders, who everyone thinks are Australian, despite the 2 nations being thousands of miles apart. Any event involving Australia and New Zealand is known as Trans-Tasman. This derives from the countries' location on either side of the Tasman sea, which like Tasmania is named after explorer Abel Tasman. Enfield in North London (bear with me) is also named after an individual - its name means 'Eana's land'. The first ATM cash dispenser in the world was installed in Enfield. Germany currently has more ATMs than any other country in Europe, but Spain has the most per habitant. Spain also has the best football league in Europe, whatever Sky bloody Sports says. League chiefs are doing their best to put the kibosh on this, however, by forcing all teams to play the 'Big Four' (in a league where the Big Four does change occasionally) in a row. The run of fixtures, nicknamed the Tourmalet after a mountain in the Pyrenees, requires each team to play Real Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla and Villarreal in a row twice a year. Only Valladolid, a team I have actually seen play in the flesh, have even won a game in their 4-game stint. The game before the Tourmalet might be seen as an hors d'oeuvre - except in Spain it would be called a Picadita, or perhaps more recognisably, tapas. In Hawaii, hors d'oeuvres are known as puu-puu. Hawaii is 2000 miles away from the U.S. mainland, but became a state in 1959, mainly to prevent exploitation of labour by granting Hawaiian citizens full voting rights. Another equally distant colony, Greenland, which lies 2200 miles from Denmark, has recently voted for greater autonomy from its rulers. Greenland is the most sparsely populated territory on Earth, with a population of 57,564 people spread over an area of 2,166,086 square kilometres. That's roughly equivalent to the population of Tooting being given the entirety of Mexico to set up home in. It's pretty roomy up there.

Bohemian Like You

Prague is the most bohemian city in the world. Before e-mails start flooding in from rival toursit centres (I'm sure they will), this is on a technicality. The region of Bohemia makes up the western half of the Czech Republic, and Prague is it's largest city. London, meanwhile, has more Facebook users than any other city on Earth - which surely makes it the least bohemian city in the world. Possibly behind Swindon.

To be fair, there are things less bohemian than Facebook, which does at least encourage social interaction, even if it doesn't involve actual human contact, and demands you to give out your personal details without conditions attached (not cool, man). Tax returns, for instance. Jeremy Clarkson. Owning shares. Nazi Germany. To be fair, I think Nazi Germany is pretty much the pinnacle of anti-bohemianism (although this is perhaps not its greatest crime). To name but one thing, scientists in Nazi Germany developed methadone to control the spread of opium around Europe. Anyone who's seen the inside of an opiate user's flat is aware that it don't get much more bohemian than that (if you can call spartan, grimy and unrelentingly grim bohemian in essence). The prescription of methadone, designed to ease heroin users into a drug-free lifestyle, can instead maintain their existence without the bohemian edge of intravenous drug-taking. For shame. It would never happen in Prague.

Sunday Supplement

<< By this point, Janet was convinced that there was no TV guide in there to begin with


Today being the Lord's day, you'll most likely have followed one of only a few possible paths for a Sunday. You have either (a) attended church, washed the car and built a conservatory; (b) woken at 4pm with your head full of molten lead and staggered to the bathroom, where you have remained ever since; (c) trudged aimlessly around Sainsbury's wondering how you can get out of work tomorrow, or (d) woken up at 10am full of vigour, strolled to the shop to purchase a Sunday paper, returned home for a roast dinner, and promptly fallen asleep at 1pm full of gravy, only a vast diaspora of uninteresting supplements covering your indignity.



By the way, I chose (c), but I've been known to dabble in (b) and (d) as well. Sunday papers are a curious thing - for me, they symbolise the huge promise and intense disappointment that Sunday brings. Collecting the bursting bundle of knowledge from the corner shop is the highlight of the whole Sunday broadsheet experience. By the time you've disassembled the thing, you realise that the sport magazine is entirely about the Madagascan basketball league, the business section appears 3 separate times, and the fucking TV guide is missing. You will also discover that to read the entire tome will take at least 4 years, and to read any articles you can actually understand will take 15 seconds. And so you shuffle the whole sorry mess into a makeshift duvet and kiss another Sunday goodbye.



Anyway, if you haven't had the privilege of a Sunday broadsheet experience today, allow me to oblige, as I convert 11 pieces of information into a sweltering column of news before your very eyes.



In the Politics Section:
Barack Obama is the first president to take over during wartime since World War 2. Turn to Fashion Supplement B, p. 337 to learn how to get his look for just £10,000. Obama has also been given the code name Renegade by security services in America. What's your code name? Have a look at our CIA Code Names book, featuring the code names of every human being alive, free next Sunday.


Cornwall is effectively recognised as an independent nation by the EU. To celebrate, get your free pasty by taking this voucher to any branch of Greggs.



In Sport:
Non-UK nationals are eligible for the Sports Personality of the Year prize, with Irish boxer Barry McGuigan the only non-UK winner to date. Turn to the solar plexus of the supplement to find our Sports Personality pull-out, which will give you the tantalising yet doomed hope that Lewis Hamilton might not win.


F.C. Sevilla have the largest network of football scouts in the world. In second place - the makers of Football Manager. This fact is revealed in a piece on Football Manager in which the writer will pretend to be above ever playing it, yet repeatedly betray an unhealthy obsession with the game.


Finally, Barack Obama supports West Ham. Check out our Obama wallchart, which contains all 9,000 articles about the president-elect from today's paper in a handy 8-yard wallchart. It's Obamalicious.



In Fear:
Germany is the world's largest exporter - but is now in recession. As we soon will be. And then you will have nothing, my friend, and will be forced to root through the bins behind Asda for your fix of Sunday news, plus a torn, sauce-stained pictorial selection of extortionate furniture you could barely afford in the first place.





In Cocktails (that weird section that seems oddly specific and is alternated on a weekly basis):
Martini is a type of glass as well as a drink; Margaritas contain demi-sec and tequila. Fancy mixing your own cocktails to jazz up your suffocating middle-class existence? Well work it out yourself. We can't help you to do absolutely everything.



In Things You Are Ashamed Not To Have Known:
There is a London Bridge in London - next to London Bridge tube station. Want to know where to get the best bagels if you're in the area? Pick up your free Bagels supplement, which replaces Cocktails, next week.



On The Cover of the Magazine: Do Nosebleeds Give You Psychic Abilities?
The Actual Gist of the Article: Nosebleeds are used in science-fiction to indicate that a person has psychic abilities.





Please recycle this article, once you've scraped it off your saliva-coated chin, having been woken by the Antiques Roadshow music.

It's All About... You Know, That Guy

<< "Who's the Prez?"

Hello and welcome to the History of the World, Part 2. A man of mixed race with the name Barack Hussein Obama will take the keys to the White House from George W. Bush in two months' time. I have for you today a bevy from facts from a time long ago, that scarcely seem relevant now - except that they can all be linked back to yesterday's seismic events across the Pond, in highly tenuous fashion in some instances, but let's be honest, today it's all about Obama. I, like many around the world, never seriously believed that America would elect a non-white candidate to the Oval Office until last night. I'm still in shock and thoroughly delighted with the removal of the Republicans and the installation of a guy without privilege who seems genuinely interested in restoring the fortunes of his citizens.

I am slightly concerned about a possible Tony Blair factor, in that voters have found the candidate to fit the change they desired like the UK did in 1997. We thought we were getting a fresh-faced, motivated, left-leaning PM - instead we got the most amoral, despicable person imaginable. One thing that Blair was, of course, that Obama is not, is a white guy from a well-off background. Whatever lies ahead, and President Obama faces some huge challenges in making his presidency the success we're all hoping for, it's hard not to get misty-eyed listening to elderly African-Americans recall not being allowed to use drinking water fountains, and sitting at the back of buses just 40 years ago, now seeing an African-American become their President. Even Sarah Palin may have felt the odd sensation of human empathy coursing through her last night. Anyway, here's some facts from the before time, the long long ago, that are really all about the new Prez who will save us all by not being George W. Bush...

Manchester City are the seventh most successful football club in England. Both City and Obama, though ostensibly not at all similar in any way, have become contenders through a windfall of cash. Barack earned his by asking millions of hard-working voters to dig out $5 a time to build a better America. City just went cap in hand to an oil trillionaire. Bet Obama wishes he'd thought of that.

Graham Fellows, the man behind comic character John Shuttleworth, is the brother-in-law of Ainsley Harriott. Ainsley recently found out in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? (which really should have been renamed What Are You Like? on this occasion) that he is descended from slaves and slave-owners, as is Michelle Obama - a fact revealed during one of her husband's key speeches in turning the election in his favour. Going well so far.

The sun comprises 99% of the mass in our solar system. In other unfeasibly high percentage based news, 97% of African-Americans who voted in the U.S. election voted for Obama. Obama also pulled in young and female voters, whilst older males were for some reason drawn to calcified Action Man, John McCain.

The 'devilhorns' hand gesture means 'I love you' in American sign language. Just don't tell Metallica, for god's sake. Barack and Michelle preferred an affectionate and admirable contemporary 'fist bump' gesture, which Fox News, apropos of absolutely fuck-all, tried to insinuate was a 'terrorist fist jab'. The right-wing media somehow managed to insult the intelligence of working-class Americans during this election with all manner of craziness like this - in the end, they went so far they forgot to remember even basic policies, like rich people get even more money and more guns and things like that.

The Tussauds Group own Thorpe Park, Alton Towers and Chessington World of Adventures. They do also own the disappointing central London attraction that is Madame Tussaud's, which features waxworks of the rich and famous, including from today, Barack Obama. Models of both candidates were made, and John McCain will now be melted down (the model not the man) possibly still humming "Bomb Iran" as the ovens are fired up. Why don't they just buy the guy himself? He's not the most flexible of men, and it's not like he's gonna be busy.

I guess the most amazing thing about Obama's rise to power is that he started from nothing, and was a massive outsider just a year ago. He has clearly always been ambitious, having already been a lawyer and senator, and also published two memoirs, before his bid for the presidency. The fact remains, however, that he is an inexperienced politician from a demographic not exactly used to strutting down the halls of power, and he has been elected on nothing more than his own charisma, idealism and incredible skill at uniting the electorate. I cannot recall a president being elected in any nation who symbolised such an incredible sea-change in the hearts and minds of their citizens - the fact that it has happened in America just makes it all the more incredible.

It seems that, where others have used family connections and personal wealth to gain power, Obama really has achieved the American Dream. Maybe he reached out to the electorate in a way no others have considered - the guy wrote on his blog in between accepting McCain's concession and walking out to an adoring crowd in Chicago. Maybe, as The Onion suggests, there is a simpler explanation for America finally electing an African-American president. Or perhaps the $900 bill he ran up with his local Domino's Pizza branch has helped cement his acceptance amongst the American people. Whatever the reasons, politics will surely never be the same again. Here's today's fact: Barack Obama is the 44th president of the U.S.A. I literally can't believe it, and for the first time since I was about 10 years old, I actually wish I was American.