Dog collar

My friend J, a son of a priest, said to me:

A dogma is for life, not just for Christmas.

When in Africa

Watch out for bees. Killer bees have a fearsome reputation, but it is worth also keeping an eye out for the following species:

1. Polytheistic bees

2. Idolater bees

3. Blasphemous bees

4. Worker bees (including weekends)

5. Proud orphan bees

6. Adulterous bees

7. Burglar bees

8. Disingenuous bees

9. Covetous bees.

Memo

Memo to Bob Dylan:

It has been four weeks since we commissioned you to conduct a study on how many roads a man must walk down before he could call himself a man. When we inquired of your secretary about your progress she said that you had completed the report but had left it on a windowsill. This sounds rash. Please reassure us that you will be supplying your answer soon.

Your friend, Terence.

Top 5 worst pay-off lines (give or take three)

You can imagine the pain. I recorded Cliffhanger by mistake last night. You needn’t feel sorry for me, mind. I was actually trying to record Die Hard 2. (It was rescheduled because some oversensitive baboon at ITV thought that it would be inappropriate to screen a film about things blowing up at airports at a time when things are blowing up at airports. Ludicrous. The only person anywhere near death is the gimp who set himself alight. I ask you. These guys are the Benny Hills of terror.)

Anyhow, there was one positive outcome: I was able to listen to the worst pay-off line ever spoken during a hero vs villain finale. As Sylvester Stallone dispatches the actor from Third Rock from the Sun by throwing him inside a helicopter poised to fall into a ravine, he shouts: “Remember, shithead, keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times.”

Beautiful stuff. I wanted to compile a top five worst pay-off lines, but I can only think of one other example bad enough to qualify: Vin Diesel, having fired a heat-seeking rocket at a villain puffing on a cigarette at the end of xXx: “I told you smoking would kill you.”

Submissions for the other three places in the top five would be most welcome.

Babel

Babes. It is a word I hate more than any other. (Except Vengaboys, but that’s a proper noun and doesn’t really count.)

It is a diminutive of a diminutive of a diminutive. Calling someone “baby” is bad enough, but the reduction to “babe” and, in a final attempt at endearment, “babes” makes my toes curl to the point of drawing blood in the balls of my feet. What baffles me is why people stop at the third diminution. What about “babesy”, for instance? Or “babesette”?

I have a message for people who use “babes”:

Life is not a Purple Ronnie cartoon.

Savile disobedience

Searches for “Jimmy Savile” on Google yield 49,700 results. A search for “Jimmy Saville” – the incorrect spelling – yields 62,100.

So much for the wisdom of the crowds.