Sing your life

Want to know what was #1 in the hit parade the day you were born? Satisfy your curiosity here.

Looking at my results, I wonder if perhaps music is not destiny. In the month of my birth, the three top hits were, in chronological order, Ticket To Ride by The Beatles, King Of The Road by Roger Miller, and Where Are You Now? by Jackie Trent. Eight countries later, I’m hoping that that gypsy curse has just about worn off.

On the other hand, one more year and my theme tune would’ve been Pretty Flamingo by Manfred Mann. I’m pretty sure I dodged a bullet there…

So, what's the soundtrack to your life?


I'm a man of means by no means...
King of the Road.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Hong Kong Subtitles, a list of (allegedly) real English subtitles to movies shown in Hong Kong.

Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!
Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough examination.

Anyone know what the short rabbits are? Do guys have them too? Perhaps we should be getting these films on cable over here, on the Discovery Channel if nowhere else…


A Hong Kong movie star, yesterday. Short rabbits a speciality.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is The James Bond Dossier - all you need to know about what makes Bond Bond, and where to buy it.

Girls, if you’re still not sure what to get the man in your life for Christmas, well, chances are you’ll find something here to earn you the ultimate accolade – the unsolicited back-rub. Happy hunting…


The Smith & Wesson Hammerless Centennial Airweight .38, yesterday – as used by our James in Dr No. Hint hint.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is World War I – in colour!.

It really is jarring to see some of these images, in such sharp colour – it makes it somehow all too painfully recent. Fortunately they are pretty much all of French troops, so no-one’s doing anything gory or distressing, like actually fighting or anything…


WWI, yesterday. I could’ve sworn I went to school with that guy on the far right.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is the gentle humour of the P G Wodehouse quote generator. A must for all eggs, beans, and crumpets.

All human life is there:

My Boss:

The words, delivered at a distance of two feet in the man's immediate rear, were spoken in the sharp, resonant voice of one who Gets Things Done - which, in its essentials, is rather like the note of a seal barking for fish.

Myself:

He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consomme, and the dinner-gong due any moment.
Carry On, Jeeves (1925) `Clustering round Young Bingo'

My kids:

`I remember years ago, Bertie,' said Aunt Dahlia, `when you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning purple. And I, ass that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me tell you, it will go very hard with you if you ever swallow a rubber comforter again when only I am by to aid.’
Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

And of course, my hobbies:

Boko Bagshott we called him. Took a girl to supper once at the Gardenia. Supper scarcely concluded when an angry old gentleman plunges into the room and starts shaking his fist in Boko's face. Boko rises with chivalrous gesture. ``Have no fear, sir. I am a man of honour. I will marry your daughter.'' ``Daughter?'' says the old gentleman, foaming a little at the mouth. ``Damn it, that's my wife.'' Took all Boko's tact to pass it off, I believe.

Those were happier times…

What’s your favourite Wodehouse quote?


Bertie Wooster, yesterday. A role model for us all. Fortunately we still have David Cameron.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week, why not gaze into the abyss for a while as you peruse this balanced and objective review of the merits of female circumcision?

But remember, when you gaze into this abyss, it is not only gazing back but probably pulling on a suicide vest while it’s at it. Try not to make eye contact…


“Of course, the simplest way to deal with uncovered meat is to cut big chunks of it off and throw it away…”

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is The Rockall Times, your one-stop-shop for all North Atlantic news.

Not as urbane as The Onion, say, but what it lacks in polish it more than makes up for in ethnic stereotyping and swearing. That’s a trade-off I can live with…


The Rockall Times: not just a newspaper – more a public service.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Cheating Spouse Private Investigators - featuring an inexhaustible supply of tawdry and depressing stories of human frailty and weakness.

The signs and portents are particularly good value. A few minutes review of the top giveaways was sufficient to establish beyond any doubt that I am not having an affair with anyone. That’s a load off my mind, frankly, as otherwise it would’ve nagged at me all day. That kind of uncertainty can destroy a marriage.

On the other hand, their top tips don’t help much with the wife, who’s at home all day with the pool boy. I suppose I should be more trusting but it’s hard not to wonder a little, given that we don’t actually have a pool.

A hat tip is due to Randall for bringing this one to our attention. But don’t be alarmed on his account, gentle readers – being a lawyer, his interest is purely professional…


My God – they’re wearing sunglasses and looking around furtively! Does their low cunning know no bounds?

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is engrish.com, an inexhaustible supply of East Asian butchery wreaked upon our defenceless mother tongue. Orthographical errors, poor pronunciation, wholesale translation failures – all are grist to the mill of this site and its snap-happy contributors.

Low comedy? Perhaps. But then again, every example featured is genuine, so it’s not deliberately offensive. If nothing else, you’ll learn that the stereotypical Japanese confusion between “l” and “r” is well grounded in fact.

That said, it’s probably fair to say that we’d make a far worse fist of Mandarin or Japanese if we were ever moved to attempt them. There could be half a dozen equivalent sites in China and Japan having a field day at our expense and we’d never know it, ignorant cow-eyed gwai lo that we are.

But there we are. If they want to insult us in such a way that we care, they’ll just have to learn proper English, won’t they?


Japan’s export-driven economy misses a step…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Modern Drunkard Magazine - an invaluable repository of all things lush-related.

About three articles in you realize that this is not some trendy tongue-in-cheek lifestyle deal after all – all of the subjects are genuine crash-and-burn alcoholics, as are most of the contributors. In fact, that realization will be unavoidable halfway through your first article if you start with Drunkard of the Month:

If I’m on the street I’ll buy a fifth of Early Times and a 16oz Coca Cola and get to it. Or I buy three cases of American Beer if I think it’s gonna be a long night. The other option is a bottle of good ol’ Irish Rose. It’s like Mad Dog 20/20. You could get mashed on that for five dollars…

The humour is a little forced sometimes, a bit like the 4am stragglers at a dying party who know it’s over but carry on regardless in the hope of recapturing the mood. But it’s almost worth it for the disquisition into alcohol in Star Trek, where the Vulcans are dismissed as “the designated drivers of the Universe”. At last a Trekkie who gives Scottie his due.


James Doohan, yesterday, idol of nerdy alcoholics everywhere. Also remembered for the classic line: “Laddie, if I had Alzheimers, I think I’d remember!” Slainte Mhath…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week, why not sample the manifold pleasures of Crap Towns by The Idler?

The possibilities are endless. Look up your own, or learn about others. Plan your next holiday via a process of elimination. After all, if your destination is on this list, chances are you’re not going to want to go there. Or at least you won’t want to after you’ve looked it up. Think of all the money you’ll save.

Thanks to this site, I now know that I was born in a low level concrete disaster, full of anorak-clad deformed pensioners… one of the few places I know of that you can still buy a lime green shell suit, and grew up in a town full of grubby drunks, Poundsaver shops, middle-aged Goths, and… seething towers of adidas trash. Explains a lot, really…

What’s your nomination for crappest town?


Crap Towns, yesterday – also available in book form for the truly discriminating nihilist.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is kittenwar - as compulsive as it is shamelessly exploitative and deeply pointless.

The winner and loser stats make interesting reading – the latter most of all, perhaps, if only for the curiously scrawny and asiatic quality most of the really unpopular ones have in common. Bad news for Lucy Liu there, I fear.

The cute ones are all a little too saccharine for my taste, and in any case I have them all beat…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Captain Euro - quite possibly the weirdest and lamest propaganda ever made. I owe somebody a hat-tip for this, but can’t remember who put the link in one of their comments. Apologies for that - do speak up if it was you.

I’ve spent about as much time as I think is safe for anyone’s sanity on that site, but I still can’t figure out why all the baddies are circus freaks. I mean, what the hell were they smoking? Will it be Gypsies next? And how are currencies involved in any way, shape or form?

What a rip-off. Somebody’s brother-in-law (or maybe dentist) made a killing on this steaming pile of crap, that’s for sure. Your tax euros at work.

I liked that touch about one of the villains wearing Saville Row of London suits, tho’. Very subtle, that…


Captain Euro, yesterday, about to bust another subversive ring of pesky anti-fraud campaigners. God bless you, Captain Euro!

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is cynic’s heaven in the form of the Uncyclopedia - “the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”. Another outlet for our perverted creativity, as if one were needed, courtesy of our friend and occasional commenter rodw.

Want to know who founded Canberra? Or how best to fake Churchill quotes? Or even how to survive a robot uprising? Then this is the site for you.

Curiously, there are exactly 2222 entries on George W Bush here, and only one of them gets past the first sentence without using the words “wanker”, “moron”, “cretin”, or “pet rock”. Staid Wikipedia, on the other hand, tells us that

“…he is sometimes referred to by the nickname Dubya. The nickname is often used in an admiring way by his supporters and in a derogatory way by his opponents.”

I know which one I’ll be bookmarking…


The Uncyclopedia, yesterday. Come and bathe in its warming, healing, nourishing glow.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week, why not take a quick peek into the abyss with Bad Gas’ merciless analysis of the Pound Store phenomenon. Viewed alongside their elaborate deconstruction of the semiotics of fried chicken restaurants, nail care parlours and dodgy fly-by-night churches, you’re sure to come away with a real and chilling insight into the horrors of the Great British underclass.

To me, not the least alarming thing about the site is its almost academic quality in both breadth and depth, not to mention the fact that the phenomena described are instantly recognizable to any Londoner. It’s hard to say what’s more depressing – that it’s all literally true, or that these folks were sufficiently motivated to go out and document it all in such loving – or at least passionate - detail.

Maybe it’s time they just moved?


The Great British Pound Store, yesterday, in its natural habitat (Newham E6, to be precise). A sight to gladden the heart of anyone sitting 3500 miles away…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Dictator of the Month, which some eagle-eyed and anally retentive readers might recall making a brief guest appearance in a previous post on our good friend Alexandr Lukashenko.

I’ve been a regular visitor since then, and I must say I have never been disappointed in its breadth and depth of tyrant-related coverage. Closing our eyes to its vaguely sinister German language sister-site, we’ll assume it’s all good tongue-in-cheek fun and leave it at that. Otherwise my ethical position would be terrible, and I’d hate to live in a world where that could be true…

Anyway, the site has added poignancy for me ever since I invented my marvellous new Alternatron, which allows me to explore alternative histories by changing key events in history. It’s amazing how many top-notch dictators there were who never got the chance to explore their full potential.

Brian Wilson, for example, was a real bastard as acting military governor of post-nuclear California.


Brian Wilson yesterday – the embodiment of ultimate evil. Oooo – makes my skin crawl just looking at him.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

In the interests of balance, after featuring Mil Millington’s marathon piece of character assassination a few weeks ago, this week’s winner is Things My Boyfriend Says.

Personally, I think the guys got the better end of the deal. And deservedly so, naturally…


A pickup truck, yesterday. Mother Nature takes another one for the team.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is williamshatner.com.

Among other delights, Bill tells us how he sold one of his kidney stones for $75,000. I have not the words…


Bill Shatner in pre-girdle-and-toupé days, yesterday. Just where exactly is he planning to stick that thing?

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner - the excellent Old Negro Space Program. Takes a while to load on iFilm, but it’s oh so worth it.

Space is really really cold, apparently…


Loopie Louie, yesterday – Blackstronaut and Hero.