So, at a time of year when politics seems to be even more back-biting and bitter than usual, and political bloggers are desperate to put the knife into someone on “the dark side” (although of course which is the dark side rather depends upon your own standpoint), I thought that we needed something a little more jovial to lighten the mood.

Let’s remember politics isn’t just about MP’s expenses, bitching backbenchers, and bile-spewing bloggers. It’s also about facial hair. So I’ve combed Parliament’s list of MPs in order to investigate which MPs are ‘tached up — at least according totheir parliamentary photo (the theory being is that if they can’t be bothered to keep their parliamentary photo up to date, I can’t be bothered to chase down recent photos either).

During this process I have learned a number of things. Firstly, when it comes to electing a government in the election this year, if you want facial hair to be a priority for the next government, you must vote Labour; over 12% of all Labour MPs were ‘tached up, compared to less than 1% of Conservatives. As you might expect, the Liberal Democrats sit somewhere between these two, with just under 7% having sporting a moustache.

…finally, having looked through photos of all of the male MPs (I’ve made the assumption that none of the females have a moustache, or at least one they are proud of) I’ve discovered that there is no requirement for someone to be even remotely physically attractive in order to become a member of parliament. Vaguely humanoid seems about the limit.

I went through some early rounds to determine exactly who would go through to the ‘final’. This was based on grouping those MPs with clearly visible ‘taches (bumfluff that the MP appears to be hiding is automatically disqualified) into 8 alphabetical groups, and picking the ‘tache which, in my opinion, is of the best quality for some reason of that particular group. My working is available here (word doc, 25 kb).

But for the finalists for ThePickards Parliamentary Tache Of The Year 2009, read on…

Tache	Owner	Vital Statistics
	Dave Anderson	2005-5335
	Colin Challen	2001-12343
	Wayne David	2001-15359
	Elfyn Llwyd	1992-6614
	Doug Naysmith	1997-8962
	John Thurso	2001-8168

Place your vote for your Parliamentary Tache of the Year 2009 by leaving a comment to the desired effect. Please note that as I’ve specifically said the competition is to lighten the mood and as an antidote to the backbiting and sniping, any comments which are unpleasant will be removed and associated votes will not be counted. The competition will close on Friday 15th January, please ensure your votes are in by then…

This colony of animals — all 4.5 million kilos of ‘em — turned up shortly after the 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco area, and since november they have been gradually drifting off, until now there are only about 20 of them left.

Obviously some people will have drawn the inference that bloody hell! there’s going to be a big earthquake! and obviously these animals can tell and have quite sensibly pissed off to avoid being involved in said natural disaster. Other people are more sceptical, with the BBC describing this notion as ‘outlandish’.

But really, unless anyone has actually asked the sea lions, or knows and understands something about their behaviour, and whether these animals are able to sense certain signals given off before a major event, it’s difficult to know whether they’ve gone off following a food source (as some chap from the Marine Mammal Center suggests), whether they’ve gone off because there’s going to be a ruddy great earthquake, or…

Part of me would quite like the earthquake prediction to be true (or at least the parts of it which would thumb the nose at the people who had been dismissing the idea of the sea lions being able to sense something we can’t, whilst hopefully avoiding the parts of the earthquake which tend to be associated with death and destruction). On this side of the argument, I was telling BTP only yesterday about the San Andreas Fault and that it was quite conceivable there could be a fairly big earthquake on it, even in the next year or so, and you know what I’m like for accidentally predicting natural disasters. But I have my own personal theory…

I think these intelligent marine mammals have finely tuned senses able to detect future events which are outside the normal scope of their experience; I think they’ve spent sufficient time interacting with humans to pick up a rudimentary grasp of our language (“say cheese!” and so on), which has led them, from overhearing conversations, to understand what sort of events might occur in this area. And that, finally, despite there not seeming to be any public research which relates to this in any way whatsoever, sea lions don’t like you to make too much of a fuss.

And I think the sea lions could sense what was coming, and have buggered off…

Officials hope the departure is only temporary – as a 20th anniversary party had been planned for 15 January. The director of public relations for Pier 39, Sue Muzzin, told The Times newspaper: “With animals, you never know. If they are not back on January 15, we’ll party with the ones who are here.” BBC News

So, if the animals immediately start drifting back after the 15th of January (maybe a week or two later to make sure all the cake has gone), you’ll know I was right…

Firstly, here’s the Observer online:

Championship

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Barnsley 1 Colace 53
Scunthorpe 1 Hayes 58

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David Hopps at Oakwell
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 December 2009 20.09 GMT

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The other membersof the Championship’s top three, West Brom and Cardiff, had already come a cropper at Barnsley this season, and Newcastle will be relieved they did not join them. It all looked straightforward: a goal up at half-time, Newcastle’s superiority unquestioned, and a routine 45 minutes away from what would have been their eighth successive win. It proved to be nothing of the sort as Barnsley summoned a zestful second-half performance.

Championship: Barnsley 2-2 Newcastle (Observer)

I hate to be picky about it, but as the text makes quite clear, it was Newcastle who were playing at Oakwell, and whoever has put this page together — presumably using a previous Barnsley game (possibly this one against Scunthorpe, methinks) as a template — has done David Hopps somewhat of a disservice by giving the impression that he can’t remember which team was playing Barnsley for more than five minutes.

Still, at least while they got the goalscorers wrong, the actual score of both teams wrong, and the away team wrong, they were correct in that Barnsley drew at home.

Having said that, the BBC’s report into Brian Laws leaving his job at Sheffield Wednesday seems to make Brian out to be something of an egomaniac self-publicist with a tendency to speak about himself in the third person… or they’ve got the author of the quote wrong:

Sheffield Wednesday manager Brian Laws has left the struggling Championship club by mutual consent. The Owls lost 3-0 at Leicester on Saturday to slip into the bottom three and have not won since 17 October.

Laws, 48, left Scunthorpe to take charge at Hillsborough in November 2006 and academy boss Sean McAuley takes temporary charge following his exit. “We believe a change at this time can deliver fresh energy and direction,” said chairman Lee Strafford. [...]

“Brian Laws has done a very good job at Sheffield Wednesday in the light of the low level of resources at his disposal in the first two years of his time with the club,” added Laws.

BBC Sport: Laws Leaves post as Sheffield Wednesday manager

…I also spotted online someone seeming to suggest Liverpool were a “team packed with quality”, where it would seem to me that the words “not exactly” have been accidentally omitted between the words “team” and “packed”, but it is always possible that this one was intended as satire…

And when I say a bit, I mean that, if measured against the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale, we are to experience winds more than double the speed of those required to reach the strongest recognised category of hurricane.

Like I said, a bit windy.

This is taken from Metcheck’s 7 day look at NE1, and with winds varying between 25 mph in the morning, 316 mph in the afternoon, and up to 344 mph in the evening, it’s little surprise that they expect a considerable wind chill factor, saying that (in the afternoon) an actual temperature of 1° centigrade will feel like -19°C because of the wind.

Never mind how cold it feels, I’m slightly more concerned about all of the buildings in the North East being torn from their foundations by the winds and blown away.

Of course, it’s always possible that either their forecast model is a teensy bit wrong, or that there is a problem with their calculations program somewhere…

The UK Met office also hints at it being somewhat windy (my emphasis):

It will be cold or rather cold at first, with showers which may be prolonged at times across northern and eastern parts and perhaps moving into central areas at times. Some showers likely to fall as sleet or snow. Overnight frost is likely in many areas with fog in places. By the end of the week and over the weekend, staying cold or perhaps even turning very cold, with an increased risk of longer spells of sleet and snow. It is also likely to be windy at times making it feel even colder.Met Office forecast for NE England, 15-24 December

See … it is likely to be windy. Although as yet, the Met Office haven’t mentioned anything about hyper-hurricane wind speeds, presumably because they don’t want to frighten everyone. But we’re all going to dieeeeeeeeeeee!

Unless of course MetCheck is wrong, since certain other sites, such as WeatherOnline and NetWeather are suggesting that the wind speeds will be considerably lower — admittedly, still what you might term ‘windy’, but not reaching gale conditions, let alone 50% more than the world’s previous record wind speed.

So I’ll probably just for the time being assume that MetCheck’s calculations are wrong: but I’ll maybe keep my eye out on the 16th for super-huge storms or hurricanes building up over Newcastle, just to be on the safe side…

Let’s see… what’s been happening in the last couple of weeks? Well… there was something of a selection of weirdness…

The Prague Daily Monitor reports on activity ‘experts cannot explain’, although they seem to think calling the thing ‘a poltergeist’ is sufficient explanation for anyone. There’s the happiness hat, which drives a metal spike into your head if you should stop smiling (no, seriously).

A bank robber has failed in his appeal to give his mother visiting rights. Well, I say his mother: it’s the cat his mother has reincarnated as. If you’ve not already seen it, there’s the forklift truck driver who had a bad day at work…

On the theme of accidents, there’s the man who survived accidentally ejecting himself from his plane. While not specifically causing an accident, there was the man who had been visiting a fancy dress party and was arrested for drink driving while dressed as a breathalyser. You’d have thought he’d have blown on himself before setting off…

Mind you, he probably wasn’t as drunk as the chap who challenged a lamppost to a fight.

There’s the aftershocks still being felt from the earthquake in the early 1800s, the man who turned up alive at his own funeral.

There’s the woman who discovered on her wedding night that she’s allergic to her husband’s sperm. Yeah, I bet she’s got a headache as well. Mind you, there was this other woman who has amnesiac episodes whenever she climaxes. I think that while the woman who has a court order restraining her from loud noises during sex might be a little more embarrassing, it’s probably less to worry about in the long run.

You could always gag her, after all. Indeed, if I am to believe the porn-related spam comments on my filter, there is a specific niche of people who are very interested in this idea. Although to me it seems to miss the point. Surely during sex is the one time when the missus won’t be complaining that it’s about time you hoovered the dining room…

And then there’s the woman who likes to live as a vampire. Bloody Anne Rice has a lot to answer for…

…and then the Telegraph report on the police spending £20 grand on a murder hunt after a psychic tip-off, only for it to transpire — obviously — that their initial suspicions of suicide were correct. If this gave you some concerns about the police, these may be added to when you hear the police tasered a man who was rescuing his family from a house fire (although there are hints that the police’s side of the story might be different). Only a few days later, a police worker fired for backing psychic investigations claims religious discrimination. Wonder if he’d had anything to do with that ‘murder’ tip-off…

Also on the legal front, it turns out that the French never got round to repealing a law which bans women from wearing trousers in Paris.

More worryingly, NASA say the world will not end in 2012. I say worryingly, because I didn’t believe it was going to until then. Fortunately someone is around to debunk the 2012 apocalypse theories. Continuing the apocalyptic feel, the Mail tell us that an asteroid passed 30 times closer than the moon and nearly hit us, and we only had 15 hours warning of its approach! Shock! Although they do ruin a good scare story headline in the detail, which points out that the thing was only 23 foot across, would have completely burned up in the atmosphere and have had no impact on the ground.

The lost army of Cambyses may have been found(-ish), there’s a coral that eats jellyfish, Jupiter’s moon may have tons of fish (yeah, right)… and the Indonesian hobbits are a new species of human (if now sadly extinct).

There was a Glasgow research centre which tried to determine whether Friday 13th was actually unlucky. Presumably unless they find a way to counteract the unluckiness (or Murphy’s Lawiness) of it, they’ll never get accurate results… meanwhile the universe continues to conspire against the Large Hadron Collider as a bird drops a bit of bread on it, breaking it.

There’s the guy with the bionic bottom, the human body parts sold to a kebab shop, the Vatican researcher who has ‘proved’ the Shroud of Turin real;

But what, you may ask, what news is there from our American cousins? Well, Texas may have accidentally made marriage illegal; it appears Balloon boy’s parents may plead guilty; the FBI are hunting a bank robber in his 70s who uses oxygen and who has hit five banks in the last three months

But after all the science, the law, the sex, the drunkenness, and the general stories of madness, I have to return to crime for my personal favourite of the last few weeks. There was a roadside cafe by Keighley in West Yorkshire… until someone nicked it. I can’t imagine many opportunist thieves would have the wherewithal to shift a large green building… but I’ve got to give a grudging credit to any that seem to have managed it!

I saw a headline on the BBC the other day which seemed to suggest that the police were cracking down rather heavily on something which up until then, I had not actually realised was an offence.

Guilty of handling … goods? I had been previously under the impression that handling goods was not in itself a criminal offence, and that the goods needed to be of a very specific type (either stolen, or some form of controlled substance) before handling them was likely to be deemed illegal.

If this is a tightening up of the way in which the law is to be interpreted, then I might get in touch with Crimestoppers to see if I can pick up some kind of reward — I can certainly point the police in the direction of others who have also handled goods. Oh, and if anyone asks, I produced this blog post telepathically, okay?

And if that’s not weird enough, Disneyworld has been twinned with Swindon.

But — if the people from Glasgow and Liverpool will bear with me just a moment — that’s because we’ve all been brainwashed into mindlessly accepting that places outside London don’t do “culture”. It’s not all flat caps, whippets, curly perms and deep fried mars bars north of Watford, you know.

The key thing to remember is that culture isn’t just what Brian Sewell says it is. It doesn’t have to be trendy; it doesn’t particularly have to be modern, but it should look to entertain and inform, rather than just being something utilitarian. For example, the BALTIC art gallery on Tyneside may fit the Sewell culture definition of ‘culture’ or ‘art’ — indeed he famously claimed that it was too good to waste on Northerners, but that’s his definition (and somewhat bigoted viewpoint).

My definition would also include things like the Millenium Bridge, the Angel of the North, St Mary’s Visitors Centre which provides a lot of information about the history of Gateshead. History. Museums. Art Galleries. Learning. Theatre. Film. Things to see and do that don’t just involve shopping. That’s culture.

So anyway, at the time I was local-authority employed, I was very keen on the idea that NewcastleGateshead would win the bid: I’ve got a fierce pride in the region, as I think it’s got a lot to be proud of (not that Liverpool, Bristol and the other bidders don’t have, but I’m not from there, so I’m biased). And I was invited to attend an event as one of the representatives of my department to celebrate, should NewcastleGateshead win the bid.

Unfortunately, it went to Liverpool and so as well as finding that the area of which I was so proud had lost out in the chance to become European City of Culture 2008, I was also done out of a free party. Now that’s a double blow by anyone’s standards.

To be honest, I don’t really know much about what Liverpool did to celebrate being City of Culture: I know there was stuff on, various Scouse bloggers (scloggers?) wrote about it, and I read quite a bit of it. But that was nearly two years ago, and not much of it fired my imagination, possibly partly ‘cos I was still in a huff about the party I was conned out of.

But there was one thing which caught my imagination. The superlambananas. Basically, a series of sculptures, shaped — as you may indeed have guessed — somewhat like a cross between a lamb and a banana. Entirely ridiculous, they have no utility value whatsoever beyond being something odd and quirky to look at. And thus for my mind, a fitting way for Liverpool to celebrate its City of Culture status. (Photo credit “Haversack”)

There’s quite a variety of stuff tagged superlambanana on flickr, and Lady Bracknell’s editor chronicled them somewhat on her blog.

Yes, interesting, quirky: I’m sure you agree. However, you’re probably wondering what the relevance to something that happened in the middle of last year in a different city is as we’re approaching the end of this year. And it’s simple. I just received a copy of the book today, so that has very much reminded me of the whole thing and I’m having fun flicking through the pictures.

Also it gives me the opportunity to thank Lady Bracknell’s editor for sending me the copy that I won in a competition on her website. I am delighted to own such a work representing as it does the best of Britain today: things done simply because they are quirky and fun, despite it being plainly obvious that they do not have any purpose. So thanks very much Lady B.

But by my reckoning, Liverpool still owes me a free party…

And the conversation turned to the idea of how exactly would you expect the results of the battles to be announced? What would happen if the result of the battle wasn’t actually in? Would you have the broadcaster reading out something like:

Greece vs Persia (Second leg, Thermopylae). Pools panel, away win

And then if you had a pools panel to decide ancient battles, what other sorts of results could you have?

Atlantis vs Sparta. Match abandoned, waterlogged pitch

So as well as these daft little things, when wars are comprised of a series of different battles, you’ll pretty much find that whichever side wins the final battle wins the war. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that they will have won most of the battles in a particular conflict (although they may well have done). So we decided that instead of the victors of a war being determined by who won in a strictly military sense (i.e. had troops left at the end), we should decide who won a particular war by means of producing a league table.

So here are the results from the English Civil War… (using commonly accepted ‘winners’ of each battle, or a draw where no clear winner; particularly decisive victories are shown as such). The results of the battles I have listed show that the Civil War was remarkably close, finally being decided on goal difference…

Despite getting off to a tremendous start to the season, and at one stage opening up a 30 point lead over the Parliamentarians, the Royalists struggled badly towards the end of the season, and were pipped at the post by the Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians. This terrible run for the Royalists, which brought King Charles I only three victories in the final eighteen fixtures is believed to now leave Royalist manager King Charles I facing the axe.

Results of each individual ‘match’ are available below the fold…

1. Parliamentarians 1-3 Royalists (Powick Bridge)
2. Royalists 2-2 Parliamentarians (Edgehill)
3. Royalists 2-3 Parliamentarians (Aylesbury)
4. Parliamentarians 0-2 Royalists (Brentford)
5. Parliamentarians 0-0 Royalists (Turnham Green)
6. Royalists 4-0 Parliamentarians (Braddock Down)
7. Parliamentarians 1-1 Royalists (Hopton Heath)
8. Royalists 4-0 Parliamentarians (Seacroft Moor)
9. Parliamentarians 1-2 Royalists (Camp Hill)
10. Parliamentarians 0-2 Royalists (Stratton)
11. Royalists 1-0 Parliamentarians (Chalgrove Field)
12. Royalists 2-1 Parliamentarians (Adwalton Moor)
13. Parliamentarians 4-5 Royalists (Lansdowne)
14. Royalists 5-1 Parliamentarians (Roundway Down)
15. Parliamentarians 0-3 Royalists (Bristol)
16. Royalists 1-2 Parliamentarians (Gainsborough)
17. Parliamentarians 3-1 Royalists (Hull)
18. Royalists 0-3 Parliamentarians (Winceby)
19. Parliamentarians 4-1 Royalists (Gloucester)
20. Royalists 2-2 Parliamentarians (Newbury — 1st Leg)
21. Parliamentarians 3-0 Royalists (Alton)
22. Royalists 1-5 Parliamentarians (Cheriton)
23. Parliamentarians 1-0 Royalists (Nantwich)
24. Parliamentarians 2-3 Royalists (Newark)
25. Royalists 0-3 Parliamentarians (York)
26. Parliamentarians 0-4 Royalists (Bolton)
27. Royalists 2-1 Parliamentarians (Cropredy Bridge)
28. Parliamentarians 5-0 Royalists (Marston Moor)
29. Royalists 3-0 Parliamentarians (Lostwithiel)
30. Parliamentarians 1-1 Royalists (Newbury — 2nd Leg)
31. Royalists 1-8 Parliamentarians (Naseby)
32. Parliamentarians 1-0 Royalists (Langport)
33. Royalists 0-2 Parliamentarians (Stow-on-the-Wold)

Does anyone else find http://interneteyes.co.uk/ ‘s offer of £1K a month reward money for spying disturbing? (via @Placepot)@JamesCousins

What’s this? Being paid £1000 per month to spy on people? So I decided to take a look in a little more detail…

Internet eyes is uniquely designed to be proactive in detecting crime as it happens… The general public can watch CCTV camera’s anywhere, and instantly alert the camera owner when a crime is committed.Internet Eyes

Of course, when you look at the actual details, you don’t get paid £1000 per month for watching CCTV cameras, you get the possibility of being entered into a prize draw, in which you could win up to £1000, if you’ve actually spotted any dodgy activity. It’s all very vague: there’s no guaranteed payout for anything, so far as I can tell.

There’s one obvious flaw in this. If you’re only likely to get paid if you spot dubious activity, what is to stop someone from being a little ‘trigger-happy’ in relation to reporting, thus wasting the time of security guards and possibly the police, all in exchange for them getting a slightly increased chance of a win? I do hope that Internet Eyes would be prepared to reimburse the security companies and/or the police for any wasted time which, on review, wasn’t worth bothering them about…

But slightly more worrying is the fact that the general public are going to be able to view CCTV cameras. I certainly don’t feel comfortable with this, particularly given that people aren’t going to be paid to do this, so the only people who will be keen on doing this are those who have a particular interest in snooping on others in the first place. And these are precisely the sort of people who shouldn’t be given access to CCTV streams…

I think the spoof news website NewsArse put it best:

Peeping toms could earn cash by watching people on commercial CCTV cameras from their own home, in a scheme planned to begin next month. The Internet Eyes website will offer up to £1,000 if subscribing perverts can stop masturbating long enough to report shoplifting, or other crimes whilst they are in progress.NewsArse: Peeping toms to earn money while they masturbate

Ahoy there, ye scurvy swabs. Many of ye, me hearties, will already know that it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day today where ye has to talk in the pirate lingo as much as is possible.

Anyone failin’ to talk like a proper swashbucklin’ buccaneer will find themselves consigned to Davy Jones’ Locker after being made ter kiss the gunner’s daughter and possibly bein’ keelhauled an’ all, or my name’s not Captain James the Silver of the good ship Turbulent Cadaver.

It’s the time of year us pirates git together ter discuss the critical issues of the day: how many man can you git on a dead man’s chest? We’ve managed sixty three, but admittedly we did have to snap some of the rib-bones off ter git a bigger surface area for me dastardly crew to stand on. Took a while to get the fo’castle cleaned properly that day, I kin tell you. I was whippin’ away half the afternoon to get the salty seadogs that make up me crew to get it sorted.

Now, if ye’ll excuse me, I’ve got ter go and set the black spot on a piece o’ landlubbin’ scum who never paid back the doubloons he borrowed off o’ me. And I need to get the Turbulent Cadaver into dock anyway. There’s a problem with the mizzen mast. It broke off in a blow, and now it’s mizzen’. And don’t forget to shiver yer timbers, lads. And not just lads: Cap’n James the Silver is always prepared te offer any lusty pirate wenches a warm welcome… and something more besides.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a joke I’ve pinched from Mr. Conyard in the dockyard:

Q. How can you tell if yer a pirate?
A. You just arrrrrr

[Anyone wanting the pirate image for their own purposes is welcome to use it, but please don't hotlink to it - take your own copy and don't leach my bandwidth. It is by J.J. McCullough, who has released it into the public domain. You can find a much larger, better version of the image at file:piratey on Wikipedia.]