Updating "just 'cause it's Friday"

bbcmagazine doesn't half talk crap sometimes, but its Friday roundup of ten "tiny news" items can be interesting:

1. A horse racing at Cheltenham was named Azertyuiop, for the top row of letters on a French typewriter. In the UK, the keys spell qwertyuiop.

2. Presidential hopeful Al Sharpton was once road manager for the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. [Guess he's got a brand new bag now...Uuuuh!]

3. Spam is so popular in the Philippines that the owner of Spamjam, a restaurant where every dish features the tinned meat, is planning to open two more branches. [start chanting that word and I'll throttle you! ]

4. X-Files star Gillian Anderson says she's never been a sci-fi fan - bar Close Encounters of the Third Kind and hiding from Daleks behind the sofa as a child (thanks to BBC Radio 4's Midweek). [She used to grow her armpit hair, too - DE-PI-LATE, DE-PI-LATE, say the Daleks: I'd hide, yup!]

5. During the past 20 years, 71% of British butterfly species have declined, as have 54% of native bird species.

6. Care workers are the happiest employees in the UK, with four out of 10 enjoying their jobs. Estate agents are least content, with one in 25 content in their work.

7. One in four 16- and 17-year-old girls in the UK is on the contraceptive pill - more than ever before. [but won't that eventually mean fewer teenage girls?]

8. The shamrock - a favourite symbol on St Patrick's Day - may not be a type of clover after all.

9. Matt Groening's father - the inspiration for Homer Simpson - has only complained once about his alter-ego's actions. It was an episode in which Homer badgered Marge into walking some considerable distance on a hot day to fetch him something. [What, that's all?]

10. People who chat online have just seven topics of conversation - popular culture, solidarity, food, relationships, money, social activity and banter. [This seems to cover just about any mode of interpersonal communication, not just IRC!]

Oh, a certain sense of accomplishment accompanies this next one: I finally finished that article on the development of the Canadian Army I've been trying to write for months now! A bit short of 8,000 words but that's all right. This will be my first published article of any length in three years.

I hate writing, but I love having written.

Okay, the very last word on Istvan Kantor!

Friend dzherzhinski has been very good about clipping news stories and photos concerning Istvan Kantor's Governor-General's Award from the local um, paper (yes, I can call the Times-Colonist a "paper" without blinking because, well, it's made out of paper). The latest was a quarter page of sputtering from some retired Colonel Blimp about his tax monies being spent on putrefaction, or some such.

Apart from getting the facts about Kantor's past "misdeeds" wrong, he seems to make a hobby of writing letters to the government. Nothing wrong with that, but I think he needs to get a tiny sense of perspective:

Kantor got a $15,000 award (six others, who did not garner any adverse publicity or complaints, also got awards for a total of $105,000 "misspent taxpayer dollars"). In 1996 (the most recent number I could find in a quick Google search) there were about 20,806,000 tax returns filed. So let's call that 21 million taxpayers.

So, dividing one by the other gives us the simple-minded answer that each Canadian taxpayer gave Istvan Kantor seven-hundredths of one cent.

By extension, Kantor could get a $15,000 award every year for the next 690 years before Colonel Harrumph's personal contribution to "artistic putrefaction" personified by this artist equalled the cost of the 49 cent stamp he needed to mail that one letter to the editor. That's not including the cost of the paper, envelope and ink, and also assumes that the time he spent writing the letter is worth absolutely nothing!

So if everyone else jumped off a cliff, what would I do?

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Very High
Schizoid:	High
Schizotypal:	Very High
Antisocial:	High
Borderline:	Very High
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	Very High
Avoidant:	Very High
Dependent:	Very High
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --