Robert Hampton

So the X-Factor final is tonight. I’m not particularly interested since the main reason to watch the show exited a few weeks back.

I’m completely over the whole TV music show thing, mainly because it rarely delivers on its premise. For every Will Young and Leona Lewis there is a Michelle McManus, Leon Jackson or Steve Brookstein. Simon Cowell and his mates rake in the cash and everyone else gets trampled in the process (remember when the Christmas number one wasn’t a foregone conclusion?)

So rather than dwell on it, I’ll post this video from the BBC Comedy site, featuring Mr Saturday Night Telly Voice Man himself, Peter Dickson.

I think this is my favourite Christmas-related news story ever: a kids’ musical toy has been recalled by the manufacturer because concerned parents thinks it sings “paedophile” instead of “jingle bells”.

The Today Programme reported on this important issue this morning and the audio clip is worth listening to, if only for the reaction of John Humphrys.

1. Send lots of text messages
2. Run out of credit
3. Buy top-up
4. Receive message from 3 stating: “as a thank you for topping up, you now have 600 free texts”

I really didn’t think that through beforehand.

Keyboard Cat has gone mainstream!

Is there anything creepier than the elderly having sex?

The Saddest Male Models In The World, modelling clothes you won’t find in your local Primark.

Finally some proper snow! Hurrah!

The Guardian has collected some of the hilarious ads posted in the dating page of the London Review of Books. My favourite:-

OMG! This magazine is the shizz. Seriously, dudes. Awesome! LOL! Classics lecturer (M, 48). Possibly out of his depth with today’s youth. KTHX! Box no. 2680.

It’s probably wrong to make light of the impending mass unemployment that is going to descend on our nation (especially as your humble webmaster could end up being part of it), but the modified Christmas song written by staff at a Birkenhead Jobcentre is entertaining enough to be recorded for posterity:-

On the twelfth day at Brunswick,
Gary gave to me
Twelve hunting rifles,
Eleven spotty youths,
Ten fleas a-leaping
Nine screaming babies,
Eight P45s,
Seven recovering alcoholics,
Six DMAs,
Five Direct Payments,
Four Fresh Starts,
Three Crisis Loans,
Two missed evs
And a scally in a hoodie.

Still better qualified for the post than Sarah Palin could ever hope to be.

Hat tip: Popjustice

Thanks to a friendly lady who was loitering inside Liverpool Central station last Friday handing out 50% off vouchers, I’ve been buying the Guardian at a substantially discounted rate all week, and have used said newspaper as a handy prop to convince my fellow commuters that I’m an English teacher or social worker.

For yours truly, living in a household where the only source of national news is the Daily Mail, it’s come as something of a revelation: turns out asylum seekers are not all filthy terrorists, the BBC is actually quite good, and gay people are not out to corrupt our children!

The surest sign that we’re in a very different country, however, came today when I opened Guide supplement and found this ad in the Soulmates dating section:-

I don’t normally do “unintentionally funny advertisements”, but this was too good to pass up:-

(hat tip: The Register)

Good to see Google still has a sense of humour.

(via Andrew Sullivan).

Finally, a web site that answers the question on everyone’s mind: what would happen if an asteroid hit Wales?

The Semicolon Appreciation Society; they have T-Shirts!

I quite like the semicolon; it’s surely the most underappreciated punctuation mark of the English language. I propose an immediate semicolon campaign where we try to use it as often as possible.

If you need a guide to semicolon usage, just use this simple aide memoire:

I got this from a poster which I saw up in a classroom at Shorefields Community Comprehensive school during a visit, aged 10. Why can I remember that when so much else from that time is vague and fuzzy? It’s probably an indicator of my brain’s odd priorities.