February Pieces Of My Mind

Some Facebook updates.

• Bolsängen: an Uppland smallhold whose name (thanks to the Swedish method of making compund nouns) means "the sexual intercourse bed".
• The Poupon mustard brand got its name from the firm's coprophiliac founder, who liked to encourage his staff with a friendly "Poop on, guys! Poop on!"
• I'm helping Adele Adkins with some revision of her lyrics. Her scansion is OK but the rhymes need some touching up. Here's a sample of what I'm coming up with.
  

  Don't forget me I beg
  I remember, you smeg
  Sometimes it lasts in love
  But sometimes it hurts my leg

• Three great Swedish words: yrvaken (confused because recently awoken), nödrim (bad rhyme used out of desperation), lönnfet (stealthily chubby).
• "Juniorprofessur für Sexualpädagogik mit Schwerpunkt Gewaltprävention." They should hire a bonobo.
• My ex told a story about when Junior was in kiddy school and fully literate at a time when most of his classmates were still learning individual letters. After some nagging his teacher finally gave him something semi-meningful to occupy his time: an anthology of excerpts from children's books. Five days later he had finished the book. "Did you really read the whole book already!?" "No, I skipped some bits..." "Come on now, read the whole book." "But I've aready read the books those bits came from!"
• I thought the proposed Icelandic net porn ban was just because they'd outgrown their cable's bandwidth.
• Laser tag at Cybertown was fun except for what happened during the interval after you get hit, when your gun quits working. A loud male voice from your armour would loudly repeat "DON'T GIVE UP DON'T GIVE UP DON'T GIVE UP DON'T GIVE UP". It sounded like "DON KEBAB DON KEBAB DON KEBAB DON KEBAB DON KEBAB".
• Many human pursuits are largely ruled by chance. Think of the stock market; of pitched battles; of the political fortunes of Renaissance princes. These are fields where you either sink or swim. And we tend to see the individuals who don't sink as special people, geniuses even. The ones who sink we don't remember. Even though the thing that decides is largely luck. The chance of winning is small, but *someone* always wins. That person rarely has anything worthwhile to teach beyond “Be lucky”. And so I find it illuminating and a little comforting to meditate on the great successes of the world and think ”You lucky, lucky mediocre bastard”.
• My wife and I form a feedback loop. She has cream buns and puts on a little weight. The resulting curves amp up my libido, leading to increased calory-burning marital activity, which diminishes the curves. Then the cycle repeats.
• I believe the next pope will take one of these names: Anaclete II, Hormisdas II or Gelasius III. You heard it here first.