And the bartender says to them, “Is this some kind of joke”.
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Not Personal, Not Impersonal
Monthly Archives: January 2007
So what should the name for the new month be?
Since more than a week has gone by since the new calendar [So the pope hasn’t called me back] has been in place (I hope you noticed) we still haven’t got a new name for the fifth month. What you say? You thought that we were still running on the old calendar? Well answer me this. According to my Calendar it is 10th January, what day do you think it is? See how useful it is that you are able to say 10 – 7 = 3 so it must be the third day of the week eg. Wednesday. See all this and more is now available to you since we switched over.
The big excitement is that there will now be thirteen months in the year and because in the new calendar my birthday will be in the fifth month I think we should have that be the new one, and then shunt all the others backwards. Because otherwise Christmas wouldn’t be in December anymore and that would just confuse everyone.
But what hasn’t been decided is what this new month should be called. So please let me know your ideas? The best answer as posted on this blog will win. No longer do you have to be a Caesar, a god or a number to get to name a month see this blog can offer much better prizes than the proverbial cut in half yacht.
A woman walks into a bar…
and asks for a Double Entendre.
So the bartender gives her one.
What is the truth?
We have a big problem facing us as time goes on which is that at the moment we can be reasonably sure of when things happened and what happened when things happened and also what things we don’t know about happening because we know what we don’t know.*
My point is that Wikipedia is becoming more and more reliable, the concept of the wisdom of crowds makes people feel like they can trust what they read there. Especially as the Wikipedia puts such a premium on being able to source where they found information from. So what’s the problem? Peaches Geldof is the problem. Or More accurately Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof is the problem.
Imagine the situation. Somebody goes on Wikipedia and tries to completely change an article because they are young and rebellious. And then soon learn that Wikipedia won’t allow you to do that because the community will very quickly revert the article back to normal and then ban you as a user. So you think to yourself, I know what I’ll do I’ll make a small change somewhere where it’s very difficult to notice that something has happened. You give Peaches Geldof a few extra names and nothing happens. It’s now the truth. Then you tell your friend and your friend thinks that this is so funny that he goes in and adds a few more. Then, after a while, somebody called peachesfan comes along and fixes the problem. So far Wikipedia is working exactly as it should. People saw the wrong name for a bit but ultimately the problem was fixed.
But then Peaches wrote an article complaining about the stupid names given by celebrities to their children and the problems that they cause. A journalist at the Daily Mail was tasked with writing an article about the article and decided to look her up on Wikipedia. A lot of people have been told not to trust wikipedia and so they carefully check the recent edit history to see if the version that they are looking at is the right version or not. Clearly the person looking at the history noticed that there were some far more interesting names in the article’s history and clearly rationalised to herself that the most recent edit by a fan was somebody trying to help Peaches out of her most silly name. This was especially as two seemingly separate users had added names more than six months apart it seemed much more likely somehow. So she diligently published an article called, ‘So, Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof, why do you hate your name?’
And now the wikipedia article has had the names added back in quoting a venerable source for the information. Who they? Step forward the very same Daily Mail story. Talk about circular logic! Future historians are in real trouble. The only way to get the truth is to read this article by the person who added Michelle and Charlotte and friend of the person who added Angel and Vanessa. Of course Honeyblossom is actually part of her real name.
Of course I could fix the article but… It seems much more like the kind of exciting scientific experiment that we should let run its course.
*This is sounding spookily like one of those Donald Rumsfeld quotes, which everyone seems to think makes him sound stupid but I actually think sounds pretty Zen:
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
Mannion
Sometimes in the pub you find yourself creating a sitcom staring one of your friends. No? Maybe it’s just us then. While out with Steve Mannion the other day a bunch of us created our vision for him of a sitcom / action adventure where Steve was a hard talking, fast shooting librarian who shot first and lent books later.
Anyway, here’s the trailer I made for it:
“Book” tickets now?
Definition
Becoming aware, through a vision, that you will lose your hearing at some point in the future.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
The beagle put out a cigarette and leaned back in his chair.
“What you’ve got to realise monkey is that we’re here for the common good”.
“Hey my name is Albert.”
“Albert,” the beagle put forward a paw, “name’s Boris, pleasure”.
“Boris the Beagle – really?”
“You take the piss all you like, but I’m trying to help you. I could stop.”
“Sorry. Sorry mate. Go on. Common good? Right? Right.”
“Yeah. We go through all of this to help the humans and in return they give us some cigarettes.”
“Aren’t the cigarettes just another…”
“What?”
“Well… Nevermind. You actually like smoking.”
“Me,” Boris took another drag, “no. I don’t smoke because I like it. I smoke because it makes me look cool. And anyway it beats the hell out of fox hunting.”
“You don’t enjoy the thrill of the chase?”
“I might, but I wouldn’t know. I have the lung capacity of a nat.”
“But…”
“No really, they did a test that’s the current lung capacity I have – and I’m still alive. One day I hope, god willing, to get down to the lung capacity of dust.”
“I don’t think dust…”
“Yeah, then those guys down at the pound will have to give me respect.”
The Temple of Mithras
Two posts in a day! What devilry is this?
Well I was talking to Katherine last night about Mitrhas and how Nick hadn’t heard of him (Mithran the point). And she said, ah is he Mitrhas as in the Temple of Mithras? And I said, “oh you mean the temple on Vatican Hill. And she said, “No I mean the temple in the City of London that you walk past every day. And I said, “Eh”!
And then I looked it up on Wikipedia: Temple of Mithras, London and apparently it’s the most famous Roman discovery in the City of London.
So on my way into work this morning (at 7am hence the dark) I wondered past the Temple of Mitras:
See look it says “Temple Of Mithras” there.
And what does this fabled temple look like at 7am?
And how do you actually know that I was there? Well I took a picture and in my defence it was dark, and leaning at a very funny angle and trying to avoid being noticed by the slow trickle of people walking past.
Ithangyou.
Mithran the point
So I mentioned in my article (So the pope hasn’t called me back that at least with New Year we knew what we were celebrating whereas with Christmas it is very difficult to know.
There are two reasons this is the case. The first comes from the fact that a large number of people who believe in Christmas don’t believe in Christ (or perhaps more specifically god). And yet celebrate we do even though we don’t really know what the real reason we’re doing it is.
But it’s not just the non-believers who are confused. The Christians themselves are pretty confused as well. Lets imagine what December 25th might have been like for a Roman in 500 BC.
Well the Roman would be celebrating the birth of his God, a God who was born to a virgin on December 25th as a man and who had come to save everyone from their sins. Who the Roman would have shown his devotion to by getting baptised. When his God was born he was visited by Maji and shepherds. His holy day was a Sunday. His church was founded upon the rock (because to be fair he was born of a “virgin” rock – but you can’t have everything can you). And the cave where this happened was on Vatican Hill in Rome. And the head of the church was referred to as the Pope. Whenever their god was shown in pictures he always had an image of the sun behind his head which looks an awful lot like a halo – but had a point here as their god was born of the Sun (which also explains his day being Sunday). And his followers acknowledged their allegiance to him by having a meal in which they broke bread and drank wine and that the bread had inside it the pattern of the cross. His name was Mithras. And he supposedly lived somewhere near the beginning of 7,000BC. So quite a long time before Jesus popped up.
For a variety of other reasons and festivals (Saturnalia and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti) you as a Roman would also, on the 25th December be giving your friends and family little presents. You would have an evergreen tree which would have decorations on it in your house. And you would go out in groups of friends and knock on other houses doors and sing them songs.
But you say, surely, all of this is an incredible co-incidence? Well yes you’re probably right. It has nothing to do with early Christians mainly celebrating Easter not Christmas. And that because nothing was happening in the winter in the Christian church people decided to celebrate both. And that then the Christians decided to try and control the feasting and bring meaning to it. Which was especially important because most Mithrans were in the army and you didn’t want to tell them they couldn’t have a party any more. You’re right – it’s probably nothing to do with all of that.
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