Posts archive for: 1 October, 2006
  • The ten strangest concert venues

    According to The Observer newspaper.

    1. David Hasselhoff at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
    In the UK, Hasselhoff is better known for Baywatch and Knight Rider than his music, but in Germany and Austria he is, inexplicably, a chart-topping pop star. So, on New Year's Eve 1989, little over a month after the Berlin Wall came down, what greater symbol of reunification could the German public wish for to usher in a brave new dawn, than the Hoff, hovering above Brandenburg Gate, singing 'Looking for Freedom'. Hasselhoff, however, didn't feel his gesture was fully appreciated. He later explained that he felt he had moved people on both sides of the wall, and lamented: 'I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Checkpoint Charlie.' In the UK, however, he will forever be associated with his camp speaking car, K.I.T.T. In 2004, at a Brian Wilson gig at the Royal Festival Hall, a heckler spotted the Hoff and shouted: 'You are nothing without your robot car, nothing!'

    2. Jean Michel Jarre at the pyramids

    On New Year's Eve 1999, JMJ performed a huge music and light extravaganza entitled The 12 Dreams of the Sun in the desert near Giza to celebrate the dawn of the new millennium, 5,000 years of civilisation in Egypt ... and his new album Metamorphoses.

    3. Brian May atop Buckingham Palace

    The poodle-permed Queen guitarist opened the Party at the Palace Jubilee Concert in 2002 by performing 'God Save The Queen' from the roof of HRH's residence. May was made a Commander of the British Empire last December.

    4. Boyz II Men, Nellie McKay, Cyndi Lauper and Alicia Keys at the Great Wall of China

    The Wall of Hope concert in 1994 marked the 20th anniversary of the wall's restoration. Keys explained China was 'so much more historical than America'.

    5. Rage Against The Machine on Wall Street

    Militant rapcore/alt rockers RATM hired Michael Moore to film them playing on Wall Street for their 'Sleep Now in the Fire' video in 2000, causing the first early closure of the New York Stock Exchange.

    6. Aphex Twin at the Barbican Conservatory

    Aphex Twin's 1991 Barbican gig was transmitted to individual headsets, leaving punters free to roam the ornate conservatory. A more soothing experience than the time he DJ'd with a disc of sandpaper.

    7. The Cramps at Napa State Mental Hospital

    The lunatics took over the asylum in June 1978. The rare lo-fi film of this gig makes disturbing viewing, as several clearly damaged human beings respond to the insane racket. And that's just the band.

    8. Presidents of the United States Of America at Mount Rushmore

    The Presidents, best known in the UK for their 1995 hit 'Peaches' ('millions of peaches...' etc) performed a live MTV gig under the gaze of the Mount Rushmore presidents in 1996.

    9. James Brown, The Spinners, Pointer Sisters and BB King At The Rumble In The Jungle, Zaire

    Not content with Muhammad Ali v George Foreman, promoter Don King pulled together an impressive line-up for the accompanying gig.

    10. Johnny Cash in prison

    Cash played in several US correctional facilities, but Folsom prison (depicted in Walk The Line) and San Quentin were the most famous. One San Quentin con, Merle Haggard, saw Cash three times before becoming a country star himself after release.

  • The 'customer' isn't always right.

    Taken from the Guardian, an actual letter sent by the Inland Revenue:

    Dear Mr Addison,
    I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order. Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a "begging letter". It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a "tax demand". This is how we, at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy; traditionally referred to such documents.

    Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the "endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat" has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously suggest that their being from "pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers" might indicate that your decision to "file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies" is at best a little ill-advised. In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a "lackwit bumpkin” or, come to that, a "sodding charity". More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

    Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay "go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services", a moment's rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to "stump up for the whole damned party" yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor's disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on "junkets for Bunterish lickspittles" and "dancing whores" whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, "that box-ticking façade of a university system."

    A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:
    1. The reason we don't simply write "Muggins" on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system;
    2. You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medicallogistics involved would make it financially unviable.

    I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to "give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India" you would still owe us the money.

    Please forward it by Friday.

    Yours Sincerely,
    H J Lee
    Customer Relations

  • An alternative history of the world.

    The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

    The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

    Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

    Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

    Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

    In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.

    Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

    Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

    In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.

    The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

    The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself be fore her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

    The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In on of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote". The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife dies and he wrote "Paradise Regained."

    During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and the was called the 6cPilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their was hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porposies on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

    One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post without stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.

    Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

    George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

    Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

    Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are flaling off the trees.

    Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

    France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.

    The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

    The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

    The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

  • U.S Forestry Service Feedback.

    These quotations are actual comments left on Forest Service registration sheets and comment cards by hikers completing wilderness camping trips.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Escalators would help on steep uphill sections."

    "A small deer came into my camp and stole my bag of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed? Please call."

    "Instead of a permit system or regulations, the Forest Service needs to reduce worldwide population growth to limit the number of visitors to wilderness."

    "Trails need to be wider so people can walk while holding hands."

    "Ban walking sticks in wilderness. Hikers that use walking sticks are more likely to chase animals."

    "All the mile markers are missing this year."

    "Found a smoldering cigarette left by a horse."

    "Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill."

    "Too many bugs and leeches and spiders and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the area of these pests."

    "Please pave the trails so they can be plowed of snow in the winter."

    "Chairlifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without having to hike to them."

    "The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals."

    "Reflectors need to be placed on trees every 50 feet so people can hike at night with flashlights."

    "A McDonald's would be nice at the trailhead."

    "The places where trails do not exist are not well marked."

    "Too many rocks in the mountains."

    "Need more signs to keep area pristine."

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