A Test of Englishness (Satisfaction Neither Guaranteed Nor Offered)

…Part 2 (part 1 here) – in which I give you all the answers and then draw some highly dubious conclusions about how English my American wife is…

Bold = the correct answer

Red = the answer Jackie gave

Bold and red = (doh!) correct answer and also Jackie’s

*****

Question 1: Anthony Worrall Thompson is -

a) A celebrity TV chef recently caught shoplifting in Tesco
b) Head of the Bank of England on trial for tax evasion
c) A minor royal embroiled in a kidnapping scandal
d) A cross-dressing socialite

Question 2: Who out of the following is not a well-known English personality?

a) Mad Frankie Fraser
b) Eddie the Eagle
c) Dodgy Dan
d) Mystic Meg

Question 3: Who out of the following is not from Yorkshire?

a) Michael Parkinson
b) Geoffrey Boycott
c) Alan Bennett
d) Michael Caine

Question 4: …And who is Geoffrey Boycott?

a) Former England cricketer noted for the soundness of his defensive technique
b) Jazz musician, broadcaster, and former presenter of the radio comedy program I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
c) Former host of the long-running TV game show The Krypton Factor
d) Former Labour party leader defeated by John Major’s Conservatives in the 1992 general election

Question 5: Who out of the following is not from Essex?

a) Chef Jamie Oliver
b) Footballer Steven Gerrard
c) Pop star Damon Albarn
d) Comedian Russell Brand

Question 6: …And by what pet-name does Jamie Oliver habitually refer to his wife?

a) Ferny
b) Oliver’s Barmy
c) J-Bird
d) Jools

Question 7: Who out of the following is a much-loved comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter, and director?

a) Victoria Woods
b) Edwina Currie
c) Diane Abbott
d) Virginia Bottomley

Question 8: Which of the following best describes Alan Titchmarsh?

a) Octogenarian tap-dancing TV host married to a former Miss World
b) The best snooker player of the 1980s, nicknamed ‘the nugget’
c) Entrepreneurial planetary scientist
d) Celebrity gardener especially popular among housewives

Question 9: Which of the following best describes Michael Fish?

a) TV weatherman who notoriously failed to predict the Great Hurricane of 1987
b) One of Steve Coogan’s less successful comic creations, whose catchphrase “trout or haddock, please” never broke the mainstream
c) Child actor who played ‘the milky bar kid’ in numerous TV commercials throughout the 1980s
d) Champion jokey who notched up over 4,000 career wins including nine Epsom derbies

Question 10: Which of the following best describes Dr. Harold Shipman?

a) Universally vilified
b) Not particular popular, but widely respected
c) Much-loved
d) A marginal figure, mostly only known to members of the medical profession

Question 11: Which of the following well-known pairings have never actually been married to one another?

a) Peter Andre & Katie Price
b) Paul Daniels & Debbie McGee
c) Richard Madeley & Judy Finnigan
d) Richard Whiteley & Carol Vorderman

Question 12: Fred and Rosemary West are well-known throughout Britain. But why?

a) They’re the man-and-wife serial killers who buried their victims in the back garden of their home
b) They’re the brother and sister co-hosts of the TV show What to Wear
c) They’re the man-and-wife multimillionaire founders of John West, an international fish and seafood company
d) They’re the twin alter-egos of drag artist Stephen Gattey, who blazed a trail in the 1950s by being outlandishly homosexual while being gay was still a criminal offence

Question 13: Which of the following is not true of popular entertainer Mr. Blobby?

a) He was a glove puppet gopher
b) He was a mainstay of primetime Saturday night television for many years
c) He nearly always wore a bright yellow bow-tie
d) He released a pop single that beat off the likes of Meat Loaf and Take That to become the Christmas # 1 in 1993

Question 14: Which of the following is not a real past or current English TV programme?

a) Big Break - game show based around the game of snooker
b) Monkey Tennis - game show based around the game of tennis
c) Bullseye - game show based around the game of darts
d) A Question of Sport - game show based around all sports

Question 15: Who out of the following has never entertained/educated children on English TV?

a) Fireman Sam
b) Headmistress Sally
c) Postman Pat
d) Bob the Builder

Question 16: Which of the following is not the name of a popular TV quiz comedy panel game?

a) Never Mind the Buzzcocks
b) Only Fools and Horses
c) Mock the Week
d) Eight Out of Ten Cats

Question 17: Who out of the following is not generally regarded for her youthful attractiveness?

a) Cat Deeley
b) Kelly Brook
c) Anne Widdecombe
d) Keeley Hazell

Question 18: Who is the current leader of the Labour party?

a) Ed Milliband
b) Sandy Toksvig
c) Cliff Richard
d) Bobby Charlton

Question 19: Which of the following is not a past or present Eastenders matriarch?

a) Peggy Mitchell
b) Penelope Keith
c) Pat Butcher
d) Pauline Fowler

Question 20: Which of the following is not a regional English newspaper?

a) Matlock Mercury
b) Yorkshire Ripper
c) London Evening Standard
d) Liverpool Echo

Question 21: Which of the following is not a past or current English pop band?

a) Gerry and the Pacemakers
b) Right Said Fred
c) Bertie’s Super Swing Band
d) Half Man Half Biscuit

Questions 22, 23, 24 & 25: Match the four pictures below to the following individuals.

  c) John McCririck
  d) Patrick Moore
  b) Tony Benn
  a) James May

*****

JACKIE’S FINAL SCORE: 14/25*
(*guesswork most definitely included; I will quite literally bet you all the tea in China that Jackie doesn’t actually know who John McCririck is.)

UNFORTUNATE CONCLUSION:
(1) She did alright, but, still, there are a great many periphery aspects of Englishness that Jackie plain-and-simply doesn’t know much about.

SECONDARY CONCLUSION:
(2) Therefore I no longer love her.

UNAVOIDABLE CONSEQUENCE:
(3) Jackie will be force-fed Bakewell tarts, on the hour every day, until she knows the Laws of Cricket verbatim, who Sandy Toksvig is, and the difference between The Queen Vic and The Rovers Return.

SIGNIFICANT DISCLAIMER:
(4) Points 2 and 3 above are in no way whatsoever true.

(5) Jackie is actually pretty awesome, American or otherwise.

ANYWAY, LET’S ALL JUST PUT A FORK IN THIS THING, SHALL WE?
(6) It’s all far too silly for words…

(7) Here’s Victoria Woods – she of Question 7 – to play us out:

A Test of Englishness (Satisfaction Guaranteed)

We’ve been catching up on the second series of Downton Abbey. And our place in New Jersey plays host to Adele Live at the Royal Albert Hall just about as often as our old place in Boston did to those other English warblers Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse and Corinne Bailey Rae.

But just how English exactly is Jacqueline, that American wife of mine? After nearly five years of marriage to me, how much mustard could she really hope to cut if dropped unexpectedly tomorrow in Wallington – the Surrey, England, town that for so long used to my home?

Put another way, what of the peculiar whys and wherefores of Englishness have I successfully passed along? And which of these can survive the cold-nosed scientific scrutiny of a test? The very one, in fact, that follows this ramshackle, none-more-English introduction…

Well, let’s get along and see, shall we?

Here’s the test’s 25 questions – for your own quizzing pleasure. If you’re one of ‘my people,’ I all but guarantee you’ll get every question right… And if you’re not… then, can you out-English Jackie, with her many years of training?

Hold on tight everyone, you’re about to have some bloody bits of England slap you on the arse.

*****

Question 1: Anthony Worrall Thompson is -

a) A celebrity TV chef recently caught shoplifting in Tesco
b) Head of the Bank of England on trial for tax evasion
c) A minor royal embroiled in a kidnapping scandal
d) A cross-dressing socialite

Question 2: Who out of the following is not a well-known English personality?

a) Mad Frankie Fraser
b) Eddie the Eagle
c) Dodgy Dan
d) Mystic Meg

Question 3: Who out of the following is not from Yorkshire?

a) Michael Parkinson
b) Geoffrey Boycott
c) Alan Bennett
d) Michael Caine

Question 4: …And who is Geoffrey Boycott?

a) Former England cricketer noted for the soundness of his defensive technique
b) Jazz musician, broadcaster, and former presenter of the radio comedy program I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
c) Former host of the long-running TV game show The Krypton Factor
d) Former Labour party leader defeated by John Major’s Conservatives in the 1992 general election

Question 5: Who out of the following is not from Essex?

a) Chef Jamie Oliver
b) Footballer Steven Gerrard
c) Pop star Damon Albarn
d) Comedian Russell Brand

Question 6: …And by what pet-name does Jamie Oliver habitually refer to his wife?

a) Ferny
b) Oliver’s Barmy
c) J-Bird
d) Jools

Question 7: Who out of the following is a much-loved comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter, and director?

a) Victoria Woods
b) Edwina Currie
c) Diane Abbott
d) Virginia Bottomley

Question 8: Which of the following best describes Alan Titchmarsh?

a) Octogenarian tap-dancing TV host married to a former Miss World
b) The best snooker player of the 1980s, nicknamed ‘the nugget’
c) Entrepreneurial planetary scientist
d) Celebrity gardener especially popular among housewives

Question 9: Which of the following best describes Michael Fish?

a) TV weatherman who notoriously failed to predict the Great Hurricane of 1987
b) One of Steve Coogan’s less successful comic creations, whose catchphrase “trout or haddock, please” never broke the mainstream
c) Child actor who played ‘the milky bar kid’ in numerous TV commercials throughout the 1980s
d) Champion jokey who notched up over 4,000 career wins including nine Epsom derbies

Question 10: Which of the following best describes Dr. Harold Shipman?

a) Universally vilified
b) Not particular popular, but widely respected
c) Much-loved
d) A marginal figure, mostly only known to members of the medical profession

Question 11: Which of the following well-known pairings have never actually been married to one another?

a) Peter Andre & Katie Price
b) Paul Daniels & Debbie McGee
c) Richard Madeley & Judy Finnigan
d) Richard Whiteley & Carol Vorderman

Question 12: Fred and Rosemary West are well-known throughout Britain. But why?

a) They’re the man-and-wife serial killers who buried their victims in the back garden of their home
b) They’re the brother and sister co-hosts of the TV show What to Wear
c) They’re the man-and-wife multimillionaire founders of John West, an international fish and seafood company
d) They’re the twin alter-egos of drag artist Stephen Gattey, who blazed a trail in the 1950s by being outlandishly homosexual while being gay was still a criminal offence

Question 13: Which of the following is not true of popular entertainer Mr. Blobby?

a) He was a glove puppet gopher
b) He was a mainstay of primetime Saturday night television for many years
c) He nearly always wore a bright yellow bow-tie
d) He released a pop single that beat off the likes of Meat Loaf and Take That to become the Christmas # 1 in 1993

Question 14: Which of the following is not a real past or current English TV programme?

a) Big Break - game show based around the game of snooker
b) Monkey Tennis - game show based around the game of tennis
c) Bullseye - game show based around the game of darts
d) A Question of Sport - game show based around all sports

Question 15: Who out of the following has never entertained/educated children on English TV?

a) Fireman Sam
b) Headmistress Sally
c) Postman Pat
d) Bob the Builder

Question 16: Which of the following is not the name of a popular TV quiz comedy panel game?

a) Never Mind the Buzzcocks
b) Only Fools and Horses
c) Mock the Week
d) Eight Out of Ten Cats

Question 17: Who out of the following is not generally regarded for her youthful attractiveness?

a) Cat Deeley
b) Kelly Brook
c) Anne Widdecombe
d) Keeley Hazell

Question 18: Who is the current leader of the Labour party?

a) Ed Milliband
b) Sandy Toksvig
c) Cliff Richard
d) Bobby Charlton

Question 19: Which of the following is not a past or present Eastenders matriarch?

a) Peggy Mitchell
b) Penelope Keith
c) Pat Butcher
d) Pauline Fowler

Question 20: Which of the following is not a regional English newspaper?

a) Matlock Mercury
b) Yorkshire Ripper
c) London Evening Standard
d) Liverpool Echo

Question 21: Which of the following is not a past or current English pop band?

a) Gerry and the Pacemakers
b) Right Said Fred
c) Bertie’s Super Swing Band
d) Half Man Half Biscuit

Questions 22, 23, 24 & 25: Match the four pictures below to the following individuals.

a) James May
b) Tony Benn
c) John McCririck
d) Patrick Moore

*****

Righty-ho, that’s all for now. Be a dear, though, and check back here in a day or two from now. I’ll tell you how you got along… and, more to the point, how little Miss America (Jackie) did, as well!

(Meantime, please note: no Americans were harmed in the writing of this post.)

Scumbags and Dopes

I won’t keep you long this week. In fact, I’ll cut right to the chase. A whole heaping lot of the time, the world is pretty rotten, isn’t it? I know. Hardly breaking news, huh… but sometimes it’s too damn easy to notice, is all.

Everywhere you look (try it with me now, or else make a note of it for later), we must unfortunately share this silly planet with scumbags and dopes. Other people.

And, no, I’m not even talking about the sick-inducing few who put animals in microwaves, or who hang around in bushes lusting after children – the sadists and rapists, the megalomaniacs and the misfit malcontents.

I’m only looking here at the more mundane middle of our shabby little world – the bit of it we actually live in, from one day to the next. (The margins may well be unimaginably worse, but thankfully, for most us, they’re as distant as the moon.)

This world, our world, the one we’re in right now, is full of dicks. It just is, isn’t it? People who are selfish, venal, vacuous, greedy, grabbing, mean, dull, droning, calculating, deceitful, lazy, layabout, no-good, rancid, bilious and rotten. Rotten to the stinking core. ‘Above-it-all.’ Self-obsessed. Utterly incapable of putting others’ first.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t fucking stand ‘em. They make me want to sigh – and sighing ain’t a whole lot of fun. And they make me spit, and shout, and scream – and throw my hands up at the dumb, vagabond unfairness of it all.

Deadbeats scrambling ‘ahead’ – not ever caring over whose backs they clamber. Pinheads putting others down – because these others are black, or gay, or disabled, or female, or one of this-and-that and you-know-what (it’s all so grimly predictable). And crushing bores, who spend all the wretched lives complaining – that nothing’s ever good enough, and that not one solitary thing under the sun is ever worth a single moment’s effort.

Like I said, everywhere you look: scumbags and dopes. Their every utterance a cancerous emission. And their every footfall a stamp of shit – on the same unlucky earth the rest of us have no choice but to tread.

…The squeaky wheel gets the grease… Everybody knows the fight was fixed, the poor stay poor and the rich get rich… And, hey, sometimes the buggers do get you down…

And the only comeback you have is to try to be a mensch.

A mensch, in a world full of dicks.

(Join me again next week, in a hopefully more fruitful search for a sunnier disposition.)

The Anti-Crossword Crossword (Revealed)

Finally, here’s your chance to hunker back from the edge of your seat – as I reveal the answers to the crossword what I wrote last week. These, my friends, are they (and further down, what your performance means):

Now, let’s see how you did…

√ Yep, I got them all right.
Congratulations, you are one of life’s born winners. People do like the cut of your jib. You’re listened to in meetings and gazed at longingly by strangers. Only good things lie ahead for you – and everything you ever attempt you will succeed at magnificently.

(…For example:)

√ Oops, I got one or more incorrect.
It gives me no pleasure to break this news – but you, I’m afraid, are certifiably dense. A simpleton. A pinhead. A wheel nut short of a hub cap. Don’t even bother fighting it a single moment longer: there’s a padded room somewhere with your name on it. And just as soon as some kind soul drags your sorry arse there, you’ll be spending the rest of your days tapping out the tune to Humpty Dumpty while sucking warm soup up through a straw.

(…For example:)

√ I don’t know how I did, because I was unaware of this crossword/too “busy” to attempt it.
What can I say? I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed. (I’ll never get those three commuter train journeys back, you know…)

*****

Next time: something winningly new and engrossing. (*Subject to the having, and execution of, a winningly new and engrossing idea.)

(Happy New Year) The Anti-Crossword Crossword

Crosswords are way too difficult. Even the so-called ‘easy’ ones. They take far too long – and who’s ever finished one anyway? Who’s got the time?

…And now we’ve reached that unfortunate time of year when we set ourselves all sorts of tricky things to do. Resolutions. Targets. Things to conquer and accomplish. Again, I can’t help but ask, who’s got the time?

Life’s difficult enough. Why make it harder? I say we don’t. I say, fuck it, phone it in for a while… coast along… make do. I mean, really – have you ever met someone who’s overly ambitious? Yawn already. Such people are wretchedly dull. Each and every self-obsessed one of them: preening, precious, puffed-up, and incapable of charm. Just look at the band U2, for the expedient sake of a convenient example: relentlessly ambitious; abjectly awful.

Here, then, I offer a little something that’s quite the opposite of that. A New Year’s gift from me to you – something bracingly unambitious, anti-‘U2,’ and resolutely simple: a crossword puzzle I GUARANTEE you’ll complete. Finish it. Finish it today. And congratulate yourself for getting this thing done – without it being the slightest bit of bother.

You know what? You’ll never feel more alive.

DOWN:

1. Time ____ for no man. Rhymes with weights. (5)

2. Well known fictional and real-life examples include Who, Crippen, Seuss, Spock, Watson, Kevorkian, Livingstone, Roberts, Dre, Ruth, Fox, Jekyll, Doolittle, Zhivago, No, House, Phil, Pepper, Shipman, Moreau, Caligara, Feelgood, Crane, Quinn, and Legg. Also another name for Primary Care Physician (US) and General Practitioner (UK). (6)

3. 8-bit handheld video entertainment device developed and manufactured by Nintendo in the late 80s, and largely responsible for popularizing Tetris. Rhymes with another possible way of describing it: lame toy. (4-3)

5. Not disadvantageous; in fact, the exact opposite of that. (12)

6. First book of the old testament, so named because it relates to the origin of things. Also the name of a massively successful English prog-rock band formed in 1967 whose past members include Phil Collins (lead vocals and drums), Peter Gabriel (vocals and flute), and Mike Rutherford (bass and guitar). (7)

11. Central European country (capital city: Vienna) that Hans Asperger, Christian Andreas Doppler, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Sigmund Freud, Josef Fritzl, Joseph Haydn, Adolf Hitler, Fritz Lang, Niki Lauda, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Karl Popper, Ferdinand Porsche, Wolfgang Puck, Rainer Maria Rilke, Oskar Schindler, Franz Schubert, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Johann Strauss, Jr., Erich von Stroheim, Nikola Tesla, Billy Wilder, and Ludwig Wittgenstein have all called ‘home.’ (7)

14. First name of the person who authored The Diary of Anne Frank. (4)

ACROSS:

2. Anagram of god. And, alongside 9 across, the second-half of a sausage-based snack food frequently sold by street vendors and served with onions, ketchup and mustard. (3)

4. Popular Swedish pop band from the 70s, whose members include Benny, Björn and Agnetha, whose hits include Waterloo, Dancing Queen, and Thank You for the Music, and whose name comprises only the first two letters of the alphabet. (4)

7. Follows November and precedes January; the twelfth and final month of the calendar year. (8)

8. Synonyms (similar words) include: afraid, apprehensive, distressed, edgy, flustered, jittery, jumpy, on edge, restive, ruffled, skittish, spooked, tense, uneasy, worried. Antonyms (opposite words) include: at ease, blithe, breezy, calm, cool, easy-going, insouciant, jaunty, laid back, secure, sunny, unbothered. (7)

9. Not cold. And, alongside 2 across, the first-half of a sausage-based snack food frequently sold by street vendors and served with onions, ketchup and mustard. (3)

10. “Special Weapons And Tactics” abbreviated. (4)

12. Ready, Steady, __. Opposite of stop. (2)

13. Globally popular carbonated soft drink (often referred to simply as Coke). (4-4)

15. Plural form of fish. (4)

16. As expressed in the periodic table: SnSn. Also the name of the eponymous hero in Herge’s Adventures of Tintin. (6)

*****

Please note: the successful completion of this crossword is best accompanied by:

(Mazel Tov) A *Slightly* Jewish Christmas

This last weekend, I said a decisive “no” to Santa, mince pies, mistletoe, and Christ – and conducted a bold social experiment instead. Over the course of a long weekend trip to Washington DC, I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the sole company of… a jew.* (My wife also answers to the name ‘Jacqueline,’ I admit. For the purpose of what follows, however, that really is nowhere near reductive enough.)

Is it possible under such circumstances to feel in the least bit Christmassy? Would I become objectively less Gentile? And what would Jesus think if he caught me eating General Tso’s chicken instead of a plum festive turkey, and sticky mango rice instead of fruit cake doused in brandy?

The early results were inconclusive. Our drive down from New Jersey was definitely trafficky, but otherwise uneventful. And though I wasn’t detained much by any thoughts of Christmas, I’m pretty sure it was only the intervention of a rumbling stomach, and the rocksteady beat of Messrs. Toots and the Maytals, that kept such thoughts at bay – rather than, say, any newfound urge to seek the counsel of a Rabbi.

Moreover, what unfortunately followed didn’t so much leave me pining for the comforts of a warm Christmas home, but ashen-faced and worried. Worried that this would be the year that greedy seasonal consumption would be mercilessly replaced by the forced evacuation of rotten seafood – ‘thanks’ to the dubious delights of Maryland crab shack Jumbo Jimmy’s, where we parked up for lunch.

Only hindsight tells me now that our worst fears never came to pass. All the same, the funky shrimp salad and the worryingly furry soft-shell crab it took to find this out wholly failed to nudge in front of me a single Godly thought. (On the way out we read two signs up in the window that, if only glimpsed earlier, would surely have kept us keeping on: “Bikers welcome” and, “If you start a fight you’re out – and don’t go to Bill or Chuck asking to come back in.”)

We hit the road again and tried not to think of toilets – an endeavor helped soon enough by the several city roundabouts between us and our final destination (to yield or not to yield? Hey ho, a little bit of both, I guess, and not too much of either…). Finally we arrived. In time for valet parking, the usual tipping quandary (three bucks enough?), and a quick breather before our night out on the town.

…Which, I mustn’t deny, basically involved a few Georgetown shops, a (much better) French-style dinner, and Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin (as good as the Hergé originals? Certainly not! A whole lot of fun just the same? Yep!). We would have stayed out longer, only my invitation to ‘walk around for a bit,’ in the cold, proved all too easy to decline. The Potomac at night and the Kennedy Center sparkling beyond, sure did look jolly special, but, alas, away from it we went. The only things competing for our attentions ended up being Jackie’s ever-increasing tiredness and my ever-increasing crankiness, in response. ‘Merry Christmas,’ we failed stubbornly to say, as the clock in our hotel room clicked around to midnight.

No matter, though. Surely we could count on the season of goodwill to make us make amends. Right? In the 7-Eleven, perhaps, where we stopped off for coffee (Whole Foods and Starbucks both closed), en route to some kind of walking tour that we planned on being the fat part of our day. Ha! Forget slothfulness and TV and eating far too much, we’d be outside and nimble, enjoying the many monuments to American history that pepper DC like the well-seasoned crust on everyone else’s fine Christmas ham.

Martin Luther King. FDR. Jefferson. Check, check, and check. Oh, and the back of the White House, naturally. And the grandiose front of the white marble Capital Building… All good. Albeit, frankly, also pretty far apart and with not much in between them. Save for weirdly empty streets, and the vast, utilitarian grimness and grayness of government buildings conspicuously underutilized for the day.

But, again, what, if anything, made us think of the sweet baby Jesus? Hmmm. Well… nothing really… And yet the Chinese food we ate for lunch someplace over in Capital Hill was so darn good it was mighty hard to care. And, after, so bustling and busy was the U.S. Botanic Garden, there was scarcely time to notice. So I settled, instead, on dazzling my lovely Jewish wife with my deadpan English wit:

“Wow, there’s such a rich diversity of plant-life here, it’s no wonder they built a giant greenhouse around it, and made this spot a visitor attraction.”

Maybe Jackie laughed just a little bit inside. Probably not. With us rushing to the movies, though, I missed the chance to check. In front of us: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, another Chinese meal (this time in Chinatown), and a long walk back to bed – most of which Jackie spent expecting us to be beaten and/or buggered any second.

…And, hey, before I really even knew it, Christmas Day was done. (Hell, if it hadn’t been for me calling my folks earlier in the morning – themselves fresh from walking up and down Southwold Pier in Suffolk – I might have missed it altogether.)

It sure was a fun trip, mind, and quite the bracing change of pace. (Oy vey) Jewish or (ho ho ho) Gentile, though, it turns out what I really like most of all is a wife who loves going to the movies just as much as me. …Dragon Tattoo was excellent – but, no, I never read the books.

*entirely unobservant of all Jewish holidays and most Jewish customs, sure, but nevertheless bat mitzvah’d, and fully aware of the difference between a dreidel and a latke.

Ask Jesus: A Very Christmas Mailbag

I’ll keep this short as it’s basically my bedtime…

Jesus Christ is back! 

Joining me, once again, on this small rivulet of the internet, to answer a whole bunch of questions.

In:

Ask Jesus: A Very Christmas Mailbag - a special festive edition of Ask Jesus: A Very Liturgical Mailbag (…you know, that thing I did a few months ago that has a permanent home at the link above this message…)

Read what Jesus has to say, my friends – by clicking here…

And then by looking out for Santa.

Merry Christmas, all!

Another Blood of Christ please, barman

Some people will try to tell you otherwise (Christians), but we all know the true meaning of Christmas: to eat more than is sensible or healthy, and to wash all this food down with silly amounts of alcohol. Just in time for the Top Gear Christmas special – or else a game of Pictionary that drunkenness unnaturally expands into a bitter, attritional, gut-wrenching grind.

I love it. You love it. We all love it. But what the flaming hell are we all drinking?*

(Warning: some of the observations that follow are dangerously similar to the musings of a pretty shit stand-up.)

HARVEYS BRISTOL CREAM SHERRY
Sherry is a nice enough beverage, alright, but there’s no doubting its primary Christmas role: to be the first drink of the day – and to be consumed in a tiny glass tailor-made for the purpose, regularly topped up either slightly more, or slightly less, depending on the relative accuracy of mum’s estimated dinner time. It isn’t broke, so no one’s trying to fix it… least of all the elderly who like to “start small” on their own path to Noël merriment and booziness.

And sherry is also, of course, a delightfully English aperitif – an ouzo, of sorts, only for gentler folk who are terribly fond of saying “sorry,” and who don’t have hairy knuckles.

WARNINK’S ADVOCAAT WITH LEMONADE
The tyranny of cool might ludicrously lead you to think that other, lesser cocktails have something more to offer the discriminating palate – are somehow James Bond to Warnick’s oddball Mr. Bean. But the tyranny of cool is wrong, speaking frontier gibberish and howling at the moon. A Warnink’s Advocaat with lemonade is sunshine yellow, luscious, and endlessly drinkable; a gloopy Christmas treat delicious enough to keep even Santa himself from a sleigh full of toys. The ‘snowball,’ indeed, is an easy mistress and asks but one thing in return: drinking her, you absolutely must, in equal measure, both insist upon, and wildly exaggerate, the importance of adding a glacé cherry first.

GUINNESS
Guinness is necessary to imbibe over the Christmas season because, weirdly, Advocaat is not a drink that publicans can always be relied upon to stock. Fortunately, however, it’s also incapable of ever being either an inconvenience or an imposition. It is available everywhere (in the US, in nearly as many places as Newcastle Brown Ale), and is never anything less than unimpeachably perfect.

Moreover, as an added bonus for greedy over-eaters everywhere (and this time of year, of course, that’s everyone), Guinness is further known for its subtle, ‘behind the scenes’ hardening of stools – a useful counterbalance, therefore, to the unfortunate, intermingling effects of brandy butter, Brussels sprouts, and the pub’s over-abundant supply of Twiglets and crisps.

MULLED WINE
Mulled wine has the curious distinction of being a drink that no body makes and everybody drinks. Which is even stranger still given that making it surely can’t entail more than two simple steps: (1) add potpourri to red wine, and (2) heat. Naturally, it’s stubborn old tradition, and tradition alone, that makes any of us suffer such a thing – and yet that first mulled wine sip of the year (never more than two weeks removed from Christmas Day) does somehow leave you wanting more. Albeit, only because someone insisted on drinking it outside – for “the full effect” – and it’s so freaking cold it’s the sole thing keeping your rictus grin from dying.

IRISH COFFEE
Just as December 25th is basically just a regular day with added gorging, tinsel, and Christ, so too is Irish coffee something old-hat with a little extra jazz. Jazz, that is, in the form of Auntie Such-and-Such’s Christmas present to world-weary dad. Usually whiskey, sure, but other things instead if need’s must, like brandy, or rum, or Bailey’s – whatever’s lying around once the coffee’s done, and is ready to be a sloshy bit of slurring in a cup otherwise half-full of pep. After all, there’s no earthly reason why staying up and sobering up need go hand-in-hand. Not with another episode of Peep Show to watch over on Dave. (And remember: the very blood of Christ Himself is booze, and booze is made for drinking.)

CINZANO
Does anyone drink Cinzano as the sleigh bells outside are ringing? Actually, more to the point, what exactly is Cinzano? I must admit, I’ve absolutely no idea… but isn’t it just the thing you reach for come Boxing Day when the good stuff (above) is running low or gone? You know, essentially it’s still Christmas and the woozy fug of celebrating mustn’t under any circumstances be lifted until fatty Santa has well and truly fucked off back to Lapland. And that’s about the 28th.

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Anyhow, chin chin and all that. And Happy New Year too.

*And what would Jesus drink? Yep, that’s right folks – find out soon in a special, festive edition of Ask Jesus: A Very Liturgical Mailbag!

The Arsenal Second Team (Are Shit)

If you didn’t see the Arsenal second-team in ‘action’ against Olympiakos in the Champions League last night, let me apprise you briefly of the pertinent detail: they were shit.

Ok, maybe not shit in a Blue Square Premier league, hoof it high, hoof it far, kind of way. But still shit. Shit nonetheless. Demonstrably shit.

Shit in a ‘wants to play a bit like the Barcelona B-team but definitely can’t’ kind of way. Shit without being shit-shit, if you will. Shit, would be beaten 99 times out of 100 by the Barcelona C-team, shit – but still just about sufficiently not shit to scrape a draw in the other odd game left over.

They were shit, anyhow. That’s the main thing… So, with that in mind, let’s take a little peek at how they lined up in last night’s afore-mentioned game. From leaky back to toothless front, via saggy middle:

See what I mean? Sort of shit, really, isn’t it.

Shit in a multiplicity of ways and – let’s be fair a fast moment – to a rich variety of extents. From actually not shit in any way whatsoever (Thomas Vermaelen, who must have felt a ripe old Roquefort in a cheese shop full of Edams), to the technically-speaking ‘beyond shit’ (Sebastian Squillaci, who wouldn’t even pass muster as the Edam’s waxy rind, and Marouane Chamakh, the Edam that long since rolled off the counter and wedged, out of sight, between the back door and the bin). With Andrei Arshavin (increasingly shitty even though he manifestly shouldn’t be) squarely in the middle between these two extremes; Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain the most encouraging mover away from the dread pull of shitness; and, on as a substitute for the injured (quite shit) Lukasz Fabianski, Vito Mannone as its most conspicuous and hapless victim.

But, hey, no need to dwell on such things, eh? On this team’s helplessly dithering approach to keeping the ball and its subversive – almost pleasingly abstract – refusal to apply even basic defensive principles to the business of keeping it at bay…

Much more gainful, instead, to follow football’s most sacred maxim and “focus on the positives.” Of which, oddly enough, there were several. In no particular order:

One, obviously, the result didn’t even nearly matter. So all those flatulent whiffs of shitness were never in danger of wafting very far. (Here’s looking at you Manchesters City and United!)

Two, getting pretty roundly shat on will probably prove instructive for the younger fringe players more clearly destined for better times ahead. Oxlade-Chamberlain first and foremost (who Olympiakos decided early on to tackle in marauding gangs of five), but also Frimpong, if he can ever figure how to stop being stupid, Miquel, and Coqueline, as well.

Three, it sure makes you appreciate the Arsenal first-team more. Next to this shabby lot, the likes of RVP and Jack Wilshere look imperious and godly. (Yep, cannot fucking wait for Jack’s return from injury.)

Four. It’s all rather charming, no? Watching Arsenal last night reminded me most of all of following the England cricket through most of the 90s. Oh, for sure, those old teams seldom ever set the world alight – but, hey, you can’t pick the team your heart wants to follow and nor can you keep from wishing the silly buggers well.

The Ox might really become something special one day… And that was a mighty lovely biff that Benayoun scored Arsenal’s lone goal with, wasn’t it… And Mannone managed one half-way decent stop, too, so at least he saved just a little bit of face, right…

In other words, no, with the best will in the world Peter Martin is never gonna be confused with an Allan Donald steaming into bowl like a runaway train, or a Curtly Ambrose giving it some chin music. But one day in 1996 he bowled Brian Lara.

And Lara definitely wasn’t shit.

A More Modern Library – For Busy People & Users of Twitter (Your Favourite Books Brutally Abridged)

Well here’s a little something you can play along to at home… (No explanation necessary, the title says it all, right?)

Disclaimer:
Any implied connection between the following literary allusions and my being in any way well-read is entirely cooincidental.

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Around the World in 80 Words (Jules Verne)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Solar System (Douglas Adams)

Premature Dick (Herman Melville)

At the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolfe)

Woman in Love (D. H. Lawrence)

Peace (Leo Tolstoy)

Bleak Room (Charles Dickens)

The Grape of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

Brideshead Fleetingly Recalled (Evelyn Waugh)

To Wound a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Staying in for a Change (Jack Kerouac)

100 Minutes of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)

A Polaroid of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)

A Few of the King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren)

The Quick Nap (Raymond Chandler)

Delivered (James Dickey)

None Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey)

From Here to Early Next Week (James Jones)

The Ordinary Ambersons (Booth Tarkington)

The Out of Court Settlement (Franz Kafka)

Finnegan’s Funeral (James Joyce)

Modest Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Naked Snack (William S. Burroughs)

A Room Without a View (E. M. Forster)

The Moment of Innocence (Edith Wharton)

The Postman Sometimes Rings Once (James M. Cain)

The Spy Who Never Went Out in the Cold in the First Place (John le Carré)