YORKSHIRE YAHOOS

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool.
But you yourself may serve to show it,
Every fool is not a poet.
(Alexander Pope)

Why did Sheffield University* put a 30ft-high Jarvis Cocker poem on the side of their new campus? Occam's Razor: they're a-holes.

*formerly Visigoth Polytechnic.

WASTE OF TIME

This is good. I can no more stop playing it than I can stop eating these Pringles, now that the packet is opened. Time meanwhile flies, never to return. (Virgil)

Via Brian Micklethwait.

UPDATE! My top score today is 1,858, whereas yesterday I got more than 2,000. There are three activities where you don't improve with practice: this game; watching telelvision; and wanking.

THE ECONOMICS OF THE STOOPID

"It takes brains not to make money," Colonel Cargill wrote... "Any fool can make money these days and most of them do. But what about people with talent and brains? Name, for example, one poet who makes money." (From Catch 22)

Killer Fact! Arizona is the stupidest state in the whole United States -quite an achievement given what the rest of the country is like- yet last year their economy grew by 7.1%, second only to Nevada, the fourth stupidest place. Florida, California, Arkansas and Idaho were also in the top quintile for growth, yet near the bottom for education. In the tiger economies of the 21st century the workers will barely be able to count their own ears. Meanwhile the Germans, who tried to cheat by having an educated workforce, lurch from crisis to crisis.



A glance at the Sunday Times Rich List tells the same story:

Richard Branson (£2.6 billion)- left school at 15
Bernie Ecclestone (£2.3 billion)- left school at 16
Eddie Healey, kitchens supremo (£1.3 billion)- left school at 16.
Duke of Westminster (£5 billion)- couldn't even get into agricultural college
Lord Cadogan (£1.5 billion)- raised by bears

Philip Green, who left school at 15, last week awarded himself a £1.2 billion dividend. But is he happy? As a matter of fact, he is. He's fucking delirious.

As far as I can tell, Lord Sainsbury is the only educated person in the top twenty, not counting foreigners. Whereas I, with my Oxbridge degree (Women's Studies with Forestry), have no money at all. See what I mean?

UPDATE! Did I say Oxbridge? I meant Uxbridge.

LONDON- THE SOONER THEY BLOW IT UP, THE BETTER

As you know, I recently went to South America to find myself. I needn’t have bothered- I was in Bayswater all the time. I pulled back the duvet this morning and there I was, in person. This bed has squeaky springs, and reading the Spectator sounds like vigorous masturbation. How ironic.

Just got charged £3.35 for the breakfast orange juice. Why? Because I’m in London, and that’s what squeezed fruit costs in this stinking town. There’s no economic theory to explain it, other than the theory that the inhabitants are grasping thieving swine. It needs no Keynes to tell us this. The city’s economy is based on financial services, and cheating tourists out of their loose change. The sooner they blow it up the better, in my opinion. I like those funny “red buses” though.


“Domine dirige nos.” The city’s motto. It’s Latin for “Think of a sensible price and then treble it.”

ATTU

I found that last site via the self-styled Attu. Please to visit him.

This post is dedicated to the 9.3 million Americans who got bitten by ants last year. Please, a moment's silence.

I have just one criticism of andrewsullivan.com: it's kind of lousy. Despite this flaw, it turns out to be worth $2,092,185.24, enough to buy $2,092,185.24 worth of Tony Parsons novels at the current exchange rate. Great thundering Jesus, that's enough copies of Man and Boy to take out Baghdad! If he doesn't want to read them -and I wouldn't blame him if he didn't- he could invest his Parsons novels in the stock market, and watch them grow.

My site is completely worthless.