Evening.

I'm really tired. I can't think of anything again.

Panic at the disco

Those shysters at Twitter have suspended me! I'm actually outraged, it's utterly outrageous. I do hope that they reinstate me post-haste (whatever that actually means) and someone explains why exactly they've chucked me off.

I'm going to go and find myself a human rights lawyer somewhere.

22.38: UPDATE: Now I'm back on Twitter, yay! Those lovely chaps. Cherie Booth - I no longer need you.

Pod-u-like.

Another week, another webisode of Angry and Cliff, those two jokers extraordinaire. I do hate internet words you know – webisode? Pish, I have bile seeping over my chin. Anyway – AngrynCliffthePodcast is being recorded as I type – I didn’t quite catch the whole of the live video stream as I was watching excellent semi-French film Ronin, but you can watch it each Tuesday evening at www.tinyurl.com/angryandcliffvideo - and if you can’t watch it then you have no excuse but to listen to the finished product at Cliff’s or Angry’s.

So tonight I got to phone in my dubious contribution to this pantheon of greatness and score points by trading on the previous weeks’ threequarter-truths... I talked about Wayne’s World and sliced bread mostly. Did you know that Wayne’s World was filmed in a month and grossed over $100m in cinemas worldwide? Did you know that the term ‘best thing since sliced bread’ started as what was essentially a sarcastic pejorative? The people who first sold it nationwide in the US went so far over the top extolling its virtues that sliced bread was clearly the best thing ever in the history of the world.

I also found out this week that California was part of Mexico for thirty years – who knew? It’s only been part of the USA for 150 years – I’ve had poos that lasted longer than that.

A fat kid nearly dies on a ride. Hilarity ensues.

Today I shall mostly be posting my favourite video on hit video posting website "YouTube", you may have come across it. Genius.

My favourite video is commonly known as "fat kid on ride" - I think it's perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen in the world, and if ever my funny bone needs resetting or I'm wondering what there is going for the world then I sit down and watch this on teh internetz. Janice, it hurts. It hurts, Janice - mainly because I'm laughing so damn much!

A day out.

Oh no, look what I did - shock, gasp, horror - I missed a day of blogging despite my casual and frequent resorting to cheating I still wasn't able to sneak one in under the line yesterday. I came back to Coventry for the weekend to get some documents I need to apply for Coventry University next year - despite their best efforts I still fancy doing a masters in my home city, I am eschewing political matters for a wee while and taking a different direction. That's if I get accepted onto the programme, of course - I might have to eschew my own words if I don't.

But anyway - yesterday we went to Leeds to visit my brother - mainly because that's where he lives. We had a look round his new house, which is far too good for him, and had a bite to eat in one of Leeds' many non-famous eateries.

I'm not really a fan of Leeds, everything I've seen of it screams dumpy hellhole, but there must be an attraction somewhere. If I'm honest, I don't really like the North - it's not because I'm racist, it's notably colder, damper and more industrial up that way and I prefer a more genteel, green way of life. I don't want to die at 35 from inhaling coal dust, for instance. Actually that's a bit naughty, I shouldn't say that - you're more likely to die at 35 from all the passive smoking at the bus stop.

Oh rats.

I was on the phone to Carolan yesterday evening - just pause there for a second - I nearly wrote @Carolan and just caught myself in the nick of time. How bizarre. #signsyou'vebeenontwittertoolong

Anyway - I shall start again - I was on the phone to Carolan yesterday evening, just having a nice catch up. I was sitting in Embankment gardens, which is a lovely little space by Embankment tube station and out the back of the Royal Horseguards Hotel. I find it is a nice spot to sit and have telephone conversations that I've started on my way out of parliament and over to the train station.

As I was sat on a bench talking a little rat came out of the undergrowth cheeky as you please and, clinging on to the bottom of the bin next to the bench, was trying to get stuff out of the bottom of the bin through whichever hole he had decided was going to work for him. His little ratty legs swinging around underneath the bin, his fat ratty tail prostrate on the ground - this rat was fairly confident, I would say. He climbed down from the bottom of the bin - I didn't see what he was carrying - threw a contemptuous look in my direction (I may have disturbed him) and scurried off back into the undergrowth.

I was relaying all of this to Carolan as we spoke, she was by this point squealing on my behalf - she's had bad experiences with rats in London - but I have to say that this was my first one. I may now have the plague.

Nothing very much.

I'm minded to post a little something just to make sure that I squeeze one of my one a day in before the finish line approaches and I kick myself for not having found nothing very much to say earlier in the day.

Anyway...hello.

What was the year when Jesus was born?

This is an interesting one - I looked into it because it had come up on the Angry'n'Cliff podcast a month or two back and I don't like not knowing things that are distinctly knowable.

It turns out that historically the most common way to decide a year was to mark the years off of a monarch’s reign – we’re in the 57th year of Elizabeth 2’s reign, for instance. The Romans started from the founding of their Empire – around 753BC. But they had a different way of working out what a year was – various Caesars just invented months to show how great they were – July and August, for example.

The Gregorian calendar, which we use now, was invented by some bloke called Aloysius and brought in by the Pope in 1582. It started then to be used all around Europe – England didn’t sign up until 1752, and didn’t even use January 1st as the first day of the year until then either – this was brought in by Act of Parliament.

Interestingly, Scotland had moved to the system 150 years before, but everyone was already using the birth of Jesus as the year by that point anyway. If you went between England and Scotland, though, you would be flitting about between different days. Crazy.

Introducing the system caused all sorts of trouble – here we lost 11 days. It was introduced in Alaska in 1867 when the Americans bought Alaska off the Russians – they skipped 11 days and had two Fridays in a row. You’d think they could have made it two Saturdays, or something.

Using Jesus’ birthday itself for the year was brought in by Emperor Charlemagne in the early 800s – took off from there really. Other interesting fact is that in Japan although they also use the Gregorian calendar, the Emperor still gets to decide what year it is and when they’ll start counting from. The current year is Heisei 21, dating back to the last Emperor popping his Geta* in 1989.

*Those Japanese clog things

My exciting life.

My evenings are interminably glamorous in London - on Sunday I was up ironing until 1am in the morning, trying to plough through a mountain of shirts that looked like something the EU might concoct - wonky collars and sweat-stained armpits, that sort of thing. I've only got two weeks left in London, incidentally - the shirts I ironed mean that I've got two for every day of work I've got left in parliament with change. Every single one of which will likely be useless in my next iteration as a human being. More on both of these hot topics later in the week.

Yesterday I watched a film (I can't even remember what it was) and this evening I started the essay that I'm supposed to be handing in on Friday (5,000 words on how my life is far too busy to get anything done that needs to be done as long as you ignore the fact that I spent Sunday ironing and yesterday watching a film that was so tepid I can't even remember what it was) and...I took part in a podcast! In all likelihood I'll get edited out like so many star turns that end up on "Before They Were Famous 12!" with Denis Norden...I was going to crack some hilarious Denis Norden-themed jokes there and I went on Wikipedia to check whether he was dead or not first, but he isn't and then I forgot what I was going to say anyway.

But yes - podcast. There's Angry. And there's Cliff. Together, they form 'Angry and Cliff'. They very kindly invited me on to patronise them a little - I gave a new meaning to phoning it in, I truly did. It was exciting, it felt showbizzy and interesting - those chaps sort of reminded me of Russell and Jonathan in their heyday... Links will no doubt follow.

Hmm.

BREAKING NEWS: Jonathan Ross does something else that some people complain about.

...and then the comment boards get cracking. What are they even for? If you're in no position to complain, stop complaining. Just shut up. Try and keep quiet. Remain silent. Try it. Go on.

AgProv
06 Jul 09, 12:08pm (about 3 hours ago)

Hmmm... as a Radio Two listener I happily listen to Brian Matthews' Sounds of the Sixgties on a Saturday morning. After what happened last autumn, I then either turn off or switch channel when the Ross programme comes on, as many other Radio Two listeners do, in silent protest that this bloke is still employed by the BBC and porks so much of our licence money. I don't watch his TV show either, for the same reason.

So I didn't hear the Hannah Montana joke and I'm in no position to complain about it.

But I'm not surprised either.

Nor am I surprised the the BBC and Ofcom fobbed off the complaints, as there were only sixty of them.

A lot of us complained about Ross and that prize idiot Brand even before Sachsgate, so the BBC must have known they were employing trouble. But bvecause the complaints were tricking in in small numbers, they thought it was safe to ignore them. Even though people were complaining about Brand or pointing out his erratic behaviour virtually every week he was on. Just check out the archives of the BBC radio talkboards.

Funnily enough the BBC recently deleted its Points of View: Radio talkboard, thus depriving radio listenens of the platform on which many of us complained about Ross and the puerile Brand .

There is no no place on the BBC's talkboards to raise publicly complaints about BBC radio. I do wonder why...

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Sirles
06 Jul 09, 12:24pm (about 3 hours ago)

I listen to Jonathan on Saturday mornings; only wish his show started earlier, so that I didn't have to sit through all that tosh from the Sixties (and I'm a child of the Sixties).

Just a thing.

I guess you would see through it quite quickly if I overtly tried to get round my little post-a-day thing by posting silly thoughts as they came into my head and not really saying anything?

Thought so.