Not a quote, really, but Katherine Ryan retelling the funniest joke she’s ever heard:
Remember when your parents would say, “I’ll give you something to cry about” and you thought they were going to hit you but really, they were destroying the housing market?
And a perceptive description of Boris Johnson from Hadley Freeman in the Guardian:
Johnson is so calculating he has an abacus for a heart.
In a diatribe seemingly aimed at a former technical director at British Cycling, Marina Hyde writing in the Guardian appears to conflate the concept of the aggregate effects of marginal gains (in sporting performance) with the bullying and harassment of a number of female and disabled cyclists. I think she is wrong to do so because a bully is a bully and that is quite distinct from the marginal gains philosophy. One is not prerequisite to the other.
Despite her apparent confusion on the issue she does come up with a cracking quote (perhaps her ‘confusion’ was a deliberate ploy to enable her to frame the quote nicely):
“The real sadness, in the meantime, is that we have yet to see a long think-piece in which someone quantifies the ‘marginal gains’ of working for an obvious a**ehole”.
Experience from a period early in my career when I was managed by a complete sphincter tells me, in fact, there are no such gains in those circumstances.
Not actually a quote, but a question asked of Jo Brand by the author Kerry Hudson in a Guardian Q&A. It’s clear I have something in common with Ms Hudson. ☺
“After a hard day I favour cake and swearing, but what’s your recipe for days when life kicks you in the a**e?“
“I was never a very good naturist” is not the opening line that you expect from your 88-year-old mother when sitting down for coffee and cakes at an outdoor cafe. My mum, an octogenerian ecdysiast? I think not.
… and now Victoria Wood has gone too; the comedian that penned the one-liner that passes for the title of this posting has died. There has been a heavy toll taken of performers recently, but, for me, hers is the most egregious loss. Too soon and too young. A genuine laugh-out-loud writer and a comedian that could turn her hand to serious drama. I would rank her wordsmithing, her comedic delivery and her characterisations (both serious and humorous) alongside that of Ronnie Barker. I don’t often rate the Daily Telegraph’s opinion highly, but it got it right in her case, “She made the mundane seem magical”.
Sometimes I’ll write a limerick in my own trivial way to mark the passing of a celebrity, just to amuse myself, but not on this occasion. Instead, I’ll be amused by a few phrases of hers taken from ‘The ballad of Barry and Freda’ (aka ‘Just do it’) on the unsated desires of a late-middle-age, libidinous housewife:
Some lines from Freda:
I’m on fire, with desire — I could handle half the tenors in a male voice choir
This folly is jolly; bend me over backwards on me hostess trolley!
Get drastic, gymnastic — wear your baggy Y-fronts with the loose elastic
No cautions, just contortions: smear an avocado on my lower portions!
Be mighty, be flighty, come and melt the buttons on my flame-proof nightie!
Not bleakly, not meekly — beat me on the bottom with the Woman’s Weekly
And some replies from a very reluctant Barry:
No derision, my decision: I’d rather watch the Spinners on the television.
I’m imploring — I’m boring — let me read this catalogue on vinyl flooring!
Stop stewing — Pooh-poohing — I’ve had a good look down there and there’s nothing doing.
Stop pouting! Stop shouting — you know I pulled a muscle when I did that grouting.
Stop nagging! I’m flagging; you know as well as I do that the pipes want lagging.
Don’t choose me, don’t use me, my mother sent a note to say you must excuse me.
Better still, see it all here.
A mother arguing with her son via public Facebook postings (as reported by the Metro):
“Your proctologist called. He’s found your head“.