From an Unfogged comment thread that shall remain nameless:
Wow, Charlton Heston died.
Quick, pry his gun from his cold dead fingers.
Comment of the Day
Lets Bring Back Some 17th century Civility To Blogging
My blogging vocabulary has been immeasurably enrichedtoday, thanks to Grauniad commenter AllyF:
AllyF
Comment No. 1240032
April 1 16:21
GBROooh, brilliant. I’ve just found online the famous passage from 1653 (well done Ariane) from Thomas Urquart’s translation of Rabelais, where I first encountered the word slubberdegullion:
“The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, called them prattling gabblers,lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, slapsauce fellows, slubberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets;”
————It’s remarkably like a George Galloway speech, come to think of it.
It’s hard to choose a favourite defamatory epithet from that comprehensive list. Every single one seems ready-minted for current political use; for instance, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith just is a ninny-hammer flycatcher; you only have to see her speak to see it.
Gordon Brown is definitely a blockish grutnol. Or perhaps a codshead loobie; yet somehow, magically at one and the same time he also manages to be a flouting milksop and a turdy gut. Is there no end to the multifacetedness of the Dear Leader’s fascinating personality?
As for London Mayoral wannabe Boris Johnson, nothing but doddipol-jolthead will do. Actually you can reduce the whole mayoral election to a race between a cozening fox, a doddipol-jolthead, a drowsy loiterer and a grouthead gnat-snapper. You choose which is which, hours of fun for all the family.
I’m all for bringing a bit of 17th century language into today’s political discourse: I’d especially love to see what the political writers of yesterday would’ve made of the blogosphere. Imagine Voltaire or Tom Paine* laying waste to the comments section at Little Green Footballs.
For imaginative exuberance alone it’d certainly entertain more than the vulgar, unimaginative effing and blinding that passes for insult these days.
[Yes, I know they’re 18thC, but I’d still like to see it.]
Comment of the Day: Decentist essentialism edition
In a comment thread to a particularly stupid Alan “not the minister” Johnson column, commenter Atod hits the nail on the head on how those decentist reactionairies disguise themselves as leftists:
How on earth the Guardian accepts these neocons on to its blogs as left of centre I do not know. I compared Kamm to a lion at a water hole with the word ‘wilderbeest’ written on his forehead. You can only applaud as he is trampled death even of you admire the chutzpah.
Comment of the Day: embryos are more important than Iraqis
The kiddie fiddling Catholic Church in Scotland has had its bishopic tights in a knot this week over government proposals to allow the creation of socalled human-animal embryo hybrids, demanding Catholic Labour MPs vote against it. And indeed a great many of those now feel moral qualms they’ve never encountered before. Says Chicken Yoghurt:
Look at some of the Catholic MPs and cabinet ministers getting in a lather about the little itty-bitty potential-babies. Des Browne: voted very strongly for the Iraq war. Ruth Kelly: voted very strongly for the Iraq war. Paul Murphy: voted very strongly for the Iraq war. Geraldine Smith: voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
Paul Goggins: voted very strongly for the Iraq war. Tommy McAvoy: voted very strongly for the Iraq war. Frank Roy: voted very strongly for the Iraq war. Tony Cunningham: voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
‘Nuff said.
Bonus video clip: Mitch Benn
Comment of the Day, Easter Bank Holiday Edition
Just like the commenters at Guido Fawkes’, I’m sure we’re all looking forward to a lovely, relaxed holiday weekend.
NOT.
2:59 PM, March 20, 2008 woman on a raft said…
Is the world ending this weekend? The supermarket is heaving with people scowling and filling up on anything they can get their hands on. They aren’t smiling as if they expect a festival of renewal – they look like they are laying in for a siege.
The weather is miserable and the TV news is rubbing its paws in anticipation of gridlock this afternoon, predicting 16m cars all trying to get to the DIY shed for some charcoal briquettes at the same time. Anybody who can has already left for somewhere warmer – much like the landlord of this pub – and the council tax bills came last week.
The trollies heaving with jumbo packs of budget toilet paper are optimistic signs in a way; people obviously mean to survive but are scaling back on the glitter. Jumbo blocks of chocolate are much better value than easter eggs which are all cardboard and plastic. Spam, eggs, (tinned tuna for the vegetarians – that’s right innit?) – a couple of crates of beer – should see us through to next Tuesday for the resumption of whatever counts as normal service.
Newsrooms grow nervous; there is only so many times you can run the footage of podgy housewives dressed as bunnies, singeing their bunny ears whilst cooking outdoor pancakes and going hypothermic whilst supervising toddlers’ easter egg hunts. There’s having fun regardless of the weather, and being a complete lunatic and putting extra strain on the emergency services. The ambulance comes for mum, the fire engine comes to put out next door’s garage which has caught fire due to a barbeque accident when the charcoal catches the gazebo alight, then the wind gets under the awning and blows the lot in to the cherry tree and rosa rugosa ornamental hedging. Mr Next Door’s homebrew and illegal still blows up when the garage burns. The police eventually turn up to cordon off the road to ask whether Al Quaida has anything to do with this, or is the devastation all our own work? The Neighbourhood Unit Terrorism Antis (NUTAs) arrive drink the last of the beer as a precaution.
None of this is strictly speaking, the PM’s fault, but so what? Last summer the weather was awful, but it was Tony’s weather. What we want to know is: what are YOU going to do about it, Gordon, eh? Eh?
We already know the answer to that: sweet FA, as usual.