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Day: 5 January 2003

Joke: How Famous Is Colin?

January 5, 2003
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[Colin Firth and the Pope]Colin was bragging to his friend, Laura, one day, “You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them.”

Tired of his boasting, Laura called his bluff, “OK, Colin how about Tom Cruise?” “Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it.”

So Colin and Laura fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise’s door and sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts, “Colin! Great to see you! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!”

Although impressed, Colin’s friend is still sceptical. After they leave Cruise’s house, she tells Colin that she thinks Colin’s knowing Cruise was just lucky. “No, no, just name anyone else,” Colin says. “President Bush,” his friend quickly retorts. “Yes,” Colin says, “I know him, let’s fly out to Washington.” And off they go. At the White House, Dubya spots Colin on the tour and motions him and his friend over, saying, “Colin, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let’s have a cup of coffee first and catch up.”

Well, Laura is very shaken by now but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds she expresses her doubts to Colin, who again implores her to name anyone else. “The Pope,” she replies. “Sure!” says Colin. “My wife is from Italy and because of her I’ve known the Pope a long time.” So off they fly to Rome.

Colin and Laura are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Colin says, “This will never work. I can’t catch the Pope’s eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I’ll come out on the balcony with the Pope.” And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican.

Sure enough, half an hour later Colin emerges with the Pope on the balcony but by the time Colin returns, he finds that his friend has had a heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to his friends side, Colin asks her, “What happened?” His friend looks up and says, “I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, “Who’s that on the balcony with Colin?”

(Any resemblance to Colin Firth in this joke is entirely coincidental – honest! 🙂 )

Personal: Food, History and Firth

January 5, 2003
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[Colin Firth, A Pizza and a twin-tub washing machine]Well, I managed to make my pizzas – I nipped down to my local shop to grab some cheese (I could have sworn I had some left, but oh well) – Cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella, but still 🙂 I made a quite nice Hawaiian (Ham and Pineapple) and one with sweetcorn and pineapple and they were quite filling and quite good quality – nearly up to “commercial levels” (yep, I used to work in a Pizzeria and I know how that multi-national chain prepares their pizzas). One thing that did occur to me whilst cooking them: making your own pizzas isn’t really cost effective. The two “Thin’n’Crispy” pizza bases were 75p (for them both), then I had the cheese (which worked out at around 75p for the cheese I used on the pizzas), then the can of pineapple chunks (69p), ham (used half the packet – 50p), sweetcorn (half the can – 17p): total cost for two pizzas: £2.86: Tesco are selling two Thin Crust Hawaiian pizzas (410g each) for £3.00 – just 14p more…

In other news, it seems Friday’s blogging about Tomorrow’s World has made the “mainstream news” – the “end of an era” was featured in Saturday’s “Daily Mail” newspaper and today’s Slashdot. “Richy’s Random Ramblings – Current Event News and not many flibblepenguins!”.

Continue ReadingPersonal: Food, History and Firth

Net: Penn’s Experience Of Being Frisked

January 5, 2003
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[Penn Gillette and a plane]One of my favourite TV personalities and magician is Penn Gillette – one half of the infamous “Penn And Teller” duo (Penn is the tall, large noisy one that also appeared in ‘Hackers‘ – Teller is the short, slim quiet one) who had a TV series on Channel 4 and occasionally even appear on things like Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Via Gamer’s Nook (who found it via Boing Boing) I found out about Penn’s encounter with Las Vegas airport security where a security guard, whilst “frisking him”, grabbed Penn’s crotch (but not his genitalia). Since Penn, obviously, got a bit annoyed at this he decided to make a complaint. Airport security insisted they did nothing wrong and tried to insist that the police leave as Penn had a plane to catch (Penn, being the rich lucky magician he is, said he was perfectly willing to catch a later plane or a private jet).

He filled in all the details of the assault (as that is what it is: unless you think grabbing someone else’s crotch in public is ‘alright’) and a couple of days later (after reviewing closed-circuit television footage) he received a very apologetic phone call where the airport asked him when he was next flying so they could make his next experience “very pleasant” (whether that means he’s going to be frisked by topless showgirls or not is still unknown).

Hopefully the airport will realise there are boundaries to things and learn, but for some strange reason, I think they’ll only treat people that complain (and know their rights) as humans – the rest of the paying passengers will get treated as cargo…