Archive for the ‘Humour’ Category

I picked up a wonderful book over the weekend, just in time for our Valentine’s Week newsletter. It’s titled They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books, edited by David Rose, 2006.

This is a long list of sample personals, but you try editing it down. Tough to do! See if you can pick up the book—it’s so worth the $4.50 I paid at Indigo. In the meantime, enjoy:

They call me Naughty Lola. Run-of-the-mill beardy physicist (M, 46). Box no. 4023.

I’d like to dedicate this advert to my mother (difficult cow, 65) who is responsible for me still being single at 36. Man. 36. Single. Held at home by years of subtle emotional abuse and at least 19 fake heart-attacks.

Love is strange – wait ‘till you see my feet. F, 34, wide-fitting Scholl’s. Box no. 5973.

Bald, short, fat and ugly male, 53, seeks short-sighted woman with tremendous sexual appetite. Box no. 9612.

Slut in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Woman with mixed priorities (37) seeks man who can toss a good salad. Box no. 7421.

I intend to spend the summer stewing over failed relationships. You can join me if you like, but know now that you’ll never live up to Sandra, Jackie, Dawn, Helen, Karen or Peter. M, 37. Bitter, bi-curious, Bebington. Box no. 4762.

This ad may not be the best lonely heart in the world, nor its author the best-smelling. That’s all I have to say. Man, 37. Box no. 7654.

Tonight, female LRB readers to 90, I am the hunter and you are my quarry. 117-year-old male Norfolk Viagara bootlegger finally in the mood for a bit of young totty. Which realistically could be any one of you with working hip joints and a minimum 20% lung capacity. Hopeful right through the Complan and Horlicks main course at box no. 3112.

These ads try hard to be funny. Not me, I’m a natural. Juggling, monkey-faced idiot (M,36). Box no. 5312.

Either I’m desperately unattractive, or you are all lesbians. Bald, pasty, man (61) with nervous tick and unclassifiable skin complaint believes it to be the latter but holds out hope for dominant (yet straight) fems at box no. 1075.

Get out of my space. And quit touching. Otherwise friendly F, 42 (publicity director), wants to get to know you. Box no. 4213 (please include full CV, medical records, five recent bank statements, photo and proof or signature).

Tired of feeling patronised by the ads in this column? Then I’m not the woman for you, little man. Today you may be benighted and insignificant, tomorrow you will be more so. Now off you go. Box no. 2912.

Your age is immaterial, your looks irrelevant. Your bank balance, on the other hand – let’s not joke about with that. Grabbing F (28). Box no. 3652.

I’ve divorced better men than you. And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don’t think placing this ad is the biggest come-down I’ve ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34. Box no. 6322.

Shy, ugly man, fond of extended periods of self-pity, middle-aged, flatulent and overweight, seeks the impossible. Box no. 8623.

Last time I had this much fun, I was on forty tablets a day. It’s all downhill from here, so reply to edgy woman, 36, before the good times come to an abrupt halt and the prescriptions finally dry up. Box no. 2596.

Take the last train to Clarksville and I’ll meet you at the station. Unless the 10.15 to Watney has been delayed. In which case I’ll get the bus – meet me at Morrisons, by the front entrance. If you can’t find your way there, get a taxi and I’ll give you the fare when I arrive, but make sure you take some change with you. If you don’t have any change, take a trumpet so that you can busk for some. Woman, 38, burdened by the need to make contingency plans, seeks well-ordered man to 45. Or woman to 50. Or anyone to 60. Write to box no. 3485. If you can’t find stamps, place an ad here and I’ll get back to you. If the office is closed, email it. If you can’t write, send a taped voice message. Etc., etc.

Five things I can’t live without: the smell of lavender in my garden; eagerly awaited summers; the films of David Lean; my subscription to LRB; my alone time between the hours of 4:40 p.m. and midnight – if you speak during that time I must kill you. Edgy publicist (F, 35) requires a large berth and mucho sedation three out of every four weeks. Box no. 5298.

Narcissistic man, 32. If you’re better-looking than me (and I doubt it), why not write? Box no. 6511.

Slip your hand into two top corners of the sheet. With one hand inside each of the top two corners, fold the sheet (right sides together). Slip each of the top corners into one of the bottom corners. Lay sheet on bed or table. Arrange and fold the corners neatly. Turn in selvages enough to make four straight sides. Fold in half and half again. (All four corners will be stacked together, and sheet will be in a long strip.) Then fold the long strip in half, then in half (or thirds, depending on the size of the sheet) again to make a square. Sheet should be compact, neat square. Smooth and place on shelf. After that, dinner; then I may consider foreplay. You can call me Brigadier. M, 62. Likes things just so. Box no.7441.

Seismic geometry is number forty-three in my list of vices. Name one other and I’ll marry you. Pleading, needy, yet resolutely square M (38) WLMT any female who isn’t my mother. Box no. 7553.

Know your thermocouple accuracy table, then love me like the fool you are. Geo-sex daddy of the rhodium-refining world (M, 62) seeks practically anyone. Anyone at all. I mean it. Please. Anyone. Box no. 7809.

Like the ad above, but better-educated and well-read. Also larger bosoms. Man, 38, Watford. Box no. 2712.

I once came within an ace of making my own toothpaste. Man, 36, seeks woman with knowledge of fluoride compounds/tantric love-making. Box no. 5987.

Your stars for today: a pretty Cancerian (35) will cook you a lovely meal, caress your hair softly, then squeeze every damn penny from your adulterous bank account before slashing the tires of your Beamer. Let that start as a warning. Now then, risotto? Box no. 7394.

Box no. 0408. I missed my period. Box no. 7546.

A girlfriend isn’t a girlfriend unless she makes my mother cry with grief every time she visits. For two years now, she’s sat, contented, in front of the TV with not a care in the world. That’s where you come in. Professional M, 38, seeks heartless common slut with no small knowledge of sheltered-housing application procedures. Basingstoke. Box no. 7442.

Put me anywhere but next to him. Or her. And I haven’t said a word to them since 1987. Divorced woman, 58. The single most difficult relative to sit at weddings. Give it your best shot, but for Christ’s sake straighten your tie first, at box no. 7535.

67-year-old disaffiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl, self-destructive, sliding towards pathos, jacked up on Viagara and on the look-out for a contortionist who plays the trumpet. Box no. 2179.

Poet, M, 32. My career demands you break my heart. It also demands you buy all the drinks and have lots of strange sex with me. I’ll give you an acknowledgement in my next volume, so it’s not an entirely unrewarding relationship. Box no. 1873.

My ideal woman is a man. Sorry, mother. Box no. 6221.

This is the first time in my life I’ve appeared in any font other than Courier New. That’s because my best work is still in my head, as are my years of financial stability, my buff physique, the respect of my peers, and my ability to trim sea bass. What were you expecting – Saul Bellow? Man, 34. Takes what he can get, as will you. Box no. 1763.

Some chances are once is a lifetime. Not this one – I’ve been in the last 12 issues. Either I strike gold this time or I become a lesbian. Man, 43. Box 8504.

Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away. Man on the inside seeks woman on the outside who likes milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. 30-35. Leeds. Box no. 3287.

To some, I am a world of temptation. To others, I’m just another cross-dressing pharmacist. M, 41. Box no. 3661.

146 is not only my IQ but also my waist size in centimetres. Lecturer in advanced maths and Mensa bore, 51. Bit of a porker but willing to low-carb for at least a fortnight for the right woman (pastry chef and trigonometry fetishist to 50). Box no. 1380.

Tell me your kidney-stone experiences – I’ll set them to music and we’ll make us a West End fortune! Unemployable choreographer and amateur harpist (M, 62) seeks recovering alcoholic with feeble mind. Own tap shoes an advantage. Box no. 7353.

Had an accident at work that wasn’t your fault? My god I love you. Junior lawyer (M, 62) seeks winnable case/easy sex. Box no. 0856.

Not all female librarians are gay and called Susan. I, however, am and would like to meet non-librarian gay women to 35 with names such as Polly, Kate or Demeter. Chichester. Box no. 5208.

I use this column principally as a sounding board for my radical philosophical theories. This time, however, I’d like some sexual intercourse. Radical philosopher and occasional lust monkey. M, 41. Box no. 4088.

Call for papers: “London Review of Books personal ads: an exaggeration or a rejection of the dominant cultural norm?” Send proposal to gay, anorexic, flamenco-dancing M, 36, baby-blue eyes, blond hair, and pesto recipes to die for. Box no. 1369.

Stroganoff. Boysenberry. Frangipani. Words with their origins in people’s names. If your name has produced its own entry in the OED then I’ll make love to you. If it hasn’t, I probably will anyway, but I’ll only want you for your body. Man of too few distractions, 32. Box no. 2576.

Your place or your other place? Woman, 32, needful of the finer things in life seeks stinking-rich bloke, 80 to100. Must be willing to fibrillate his ventricles when he becomes tiresome or bankrupt or both. Also interesting thirty-somethings for illicit and immoral affair to be conducted concurrently with the above. Box no. 1597.

Ladies: naturally apologetic man, 42, predisposed to accepting the blame. Whatever it was, it was my fault. Sorry. Sound like heaven? Box no. 5233.

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Do you see the ambiguity in these newspaper headlines?

McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space Craft

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Real Estate Executive Sold on City Market

Pecan Scab Disease Causing Nuts to Fall Off

Deer and Turkey Hunt for Disabled People

They work because English has so many words that function as both nouns and verbs. When you strip away unnecessary words, such as when you are writing a headline, you can expose this ambiguity. Each headline can be read in two ways. Read an interesting article about this phenomenon in the New York Times by Language Log linguist Ben Zimmer.

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Going through some old newsletters, I found these wonderful haikus written to replace computer error messages such as “404 — file not found” or “abort/retry/fail.” Haikus have a tight syllable structure, where the first line has 5, the second 7 and the third 5 syllables.

Printer not ready.
Could be a fatal error.
Have a pen handy?

Everything is gone;
Your life’s work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

This site has been moved.
We’d tell you where, but then we’d
Have to delete you.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent and reboot.
Order shall return.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Hal, open the file.
Hal, open the damn file, Hal
Open the, please Hal.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

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“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”

“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.”

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Men—pay attention. This is what women really mean when they say

Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

Five minutes: If she is getting dressed, this is half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you’ve been given 5 more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means “something” and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with “nothing” usually end in “fine.”

Go ahead: This is a dare, not permission. DON’T DO IT!

Loud sigh: Although not actually a word, the loud sigh is often misunderstood by men. A “loud sigh” means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you over “nothing.”

That’s okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. That’s okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

Thanks: This is the least used of all words in the female vocabulary. If a woman is thanking you, do not question it; just say you’re welcome and back out of the room slowly.

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With cold and flu season upon us, here are some classic blunders to avoid when you write notes explaining your children’s absence from school:

“Please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.”

“Please excuse Tom for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.”

“Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.”

“Please excuse Harriet for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.”

“My son is under the doctor’s care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.”

“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hips.”

“Maryann was absent December 11 – 16 because she had a fever, sore throat, headache, and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and sore throat. Her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn’t the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be the flu going around school, her father even got hot last night.”

“Please excuse my son’s tardiness. I forgot to wake him up and I did not find him till I started making the beds.”

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Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.—Napoleon Bonaparte

Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.—Robert Cody

If you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, you don’t need advice.—Van Roy

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do  him absolutely no good.—Samuel Johnson

Traditionalists are pessimistic about the future and optimists about the past.—Lewis Mumford

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.—Oscar Wilde

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.—H. L. Mencken

The only serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.—Nicolas Murray Butler

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.—Lillian Hellman

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.—Albert Schweitzer

Generally the theories we believe we call facts, and the facts we disbelieve we call theories.—Felix Cohen

Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.—Eleanor Roosevelt

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If you like jokes about fonts—and who wouldn’t?—check out these two videos from College Humor. We learned about them from Stefan Budansew, a participant from an Elections Ontario course who shares our passion for language.

Remember the site is for college students, so some of the previews you might see are, um, inappropriate. Unless you happen to live with college-age students, in which case you’re probably immune.

1. Font Conference is a meeting of personified type faces (French Script wears a beret and has a heavy accent, Comic Sans wears a cape and gets to save the day—you get the picture).
2. Font Fight depicts a battle between two gangs, one led by Helvetica, and one by her clone, Arial. A little violent, and again, Comic Sans gets the last line.

Still, we’re not recommending you actually use Comic Sans.

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Colette (1873 – 1954) was a gifted and prolific French author who, er, made history. She’s best known in North America for having written Gigi, which was made into a movie starring Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron. Some of her other great books are Chéri, The Last of Chéri, and The Vagabond. Here are some of her bons mots:

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.

Give me a dozen such heartbreaks, if that would help me lose a couple of pounds.

I love my past. I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.

If I can’t have too many truffles, I’ll do without truffles.

Look for a long time at what pleases you, and a longer time at what pains you.

The faults of husbands are often caused by the excess virtues of their wives.

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.

You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.

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In this charming book, Tony Thorne presents linguistic curiosities—buzzwords, jargon and slang—for their formal inventiveness and wit, and for the new attitudes and concepts they embody. Here are some of our favourite entries:

Adhocracy: improvised decision making

Al desko: eating at your workstation

Caving: leading a reclusive existence at home

Dashboard dining: eating while inside a car

Decruitment: laying off employees

Deskfast: breakfast eaten at your workstation

Jitterati: those rendered nervous or insecure by involvement with electronic communications

Open kimono philosophy: a policy of transparency

Puckered-ups: sycophants

Worklessness: unemployment, redundancy

Shoot the puppy: to do the unthinkable, take extreme action and/or terminate an unacceptable situation

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