The Pink Windmill

The Pink Windmill least inessential tracks of 2008

2008-12-25T18:55:00.005Z

10. Late of The Pier
"Space and The Woods"

9. The Hold Steady
"Constructive Summer"

8. The Ting Tings
"That's not my name"

7. Hercules and Love Affair
"Blind"

6. The Raconteurs
"Consoler of the Lonely"

5. Kanye West
"Flashing Lights"

4. N.E.R.D.
"Everyone Nose"

3. Cut Copy
"Hearts on Fire"

2. Wiley
"Wearing My Rolex"

1. Vampire Weekend
"A-Punk"

Fucking it Off

2008-02-07T12:32:00.000Z

Not sure how bothered I am about updating this blog any more, so I'm semi-retiring it.

Football-based thoughts will appear at Fire Andy Townsend and I will post any interesting links I find on my delicious page. As fans of my flickr will have noticed, I don't hold with all this tagging business. I consider it beneath me.

I ate children's hearts says General Butt Naked

2008-01-22T12:25:00.000Z

The story is horrific, but you can't help but laugh.

Unexpected

2008-01-06T21:39:00.000Z

69% Rudy Giuliani
59% John McCain
57% Chris Dodd
57% Mitt Romney
53% Hillary Clinton
53% Dennis Kucinich
52% Bill Richardson
51% Mike Gravel
51% Ron Paul
50% Barack Obama
50% Mike Huckabee
48% Joe Biden
47% John Edwards
45% Fred Thompson
38% Tom Tancredo

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

The Pink Windmill least inessential tracks of 2007

2007-12-21T10:31:00.000Z

[As hinted at here]

10. Kanye West
"Stronger"

9. Justice
"D.A.N.C.E."

8. Foals
"Mathletics"

7. Patrick Wolf
"The Magic Position"

6. Broken Family Band
"Leaps"

5. The Twilight Sad
"Cold Days From the Birdhouse"

4. Tunng
"Bullets"

3. LCD Soundsystem
"Someone Great"

2. Okkervil River
"Our Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe"

1. Kleerup featuring Robyn
"With Every Heartbeat"

What tunes did YOU like?

The meme they couldn't hang

2007-12-12T01:05:00.000Z

Lolcats is an internet phenomenon that shows no sign of abating any time yet. I am a little concerned at the correct spelling and punctuation of recent variants, however - seems like some people are missing the point.

Anyway, the spin offs keep coming. First there was LOLCODE, then LolVogue and now Lolsheviks.

I present my own concept, LolArt:

Can you do better?

UPDATE: Bollocks. Someone else had the same idea.

Towards a new nemesis

2007-11-27T20:47:00.000Z

As you know, my nemesis is Lembit Öpik who is a frightful arse.

However, I might trade him in for professional friend of Ewan MacGregor, Charley Boorman who is an egregious cunt of the highest order.

Argh! Just fuck off! I hate you Boorman!

Quote of the day

2007-11-25T15:25:00.000Z

It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent. - Henry James

Mad Thought #1

2007-10-22T19:37:00.000+01:00

What if socks were chiral like shoes and it's only through sheer luck that I've been putting the correct sock on the correct foot all these years?

Bayes, House and Lupus

2007-10-19T00:12:00.000+01:00

It's NEVER Lupus!

But why is it never Lupus?

Bayes helps us here. The test for Lupus has a false positive rate of 5% and has a prevalence of 1 in 1000. If you test positive in a random assay, what are the odds that you actually have the disease?

If you said 95%, congratulations! You have now been struck off by the GMC!

Think of it this way, If you test 1,000 people for Lupus, 1 of them will correctly test positive and 50 of them will falsely test positive. The chances are only 1 in 51, less than 2%, that you actually have the disease even though you have tested positive!

In summary then, if you're a corrupt, drug abusing doctor, a textbook on Lupus is the best place to hide your Vicodin.

Allium

2007-10-17T10:56:00.000+01:00

This news story reminded me a lot of this.

My solution? Make your NI contributions based on your BMI and therefore your subsequent risk of needing medical treatment. Simple.

Exactly the sort of dull pedantry I look for in a wikipedia article

2007-10-08T16:20:00.000+01:00

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did not make the trains run on time. Much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in 1922. Accounts from the era also suggest that the Italian railways' legendary adherence to timetables was more myth than reality

And there's much much more.

A wish

2007-09-24T22:50:00.000+01:00

Please let this be a real product.

UPDATE: Hooray! It's Real!

Pac

2007-09-17T14:46:00.000+01:00

Two Pacman things:

1) Hey kids, it's Anti-pacman!

2) A fonny:

A law unto myself

2007-08-20T20:51:00.000+01:00

The excellent recent piece by Andrew Anthony is indicative of an internet phenomenon that I would like to christen "Davies' Law" as google tells me there isn't one already and I am nothing if not an egotist.

Davies' Law states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of some wiseass mentioning Godwin's Law approaches one.

PS I recommend Anthony's book on penalties, called "On Penalties". Not least for its excellent cover, sadly changed for the paperback edition.

I have created a monster

2007-08-10T10:16:00.000+01:00

Or, as some might say, a forum for middle-class white men to be boring about football.

God knows there aren't enough blogs in the world, never mind enough men talking about football. This is a small step to rectifying that imbalance.

Cartophilia

2007-08-08T13:49:00.000+01:00

Like many people who are N's in the pseudoscientific Forer effect that is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I really fucking love maps.

It's no surprise then, that this site rocks my world.

PS I really need to move to New York...

Et tu, X?

2007-08-06T20:35:00.000+01:00

Being bang up-to-date with this blogging shit, I've only gone and done a poll! It's about snowclones.

PS I'm no Latin scholar, but it's nice that Caesar still used the familiar form of "you" even with the knife in his back.

Do I know what Rhetorical Means?

2007-07-31T12:53:00.000+01:00

ESPN The Magazine has David Beckham on the front cover, asking a frankly baffling question:

Will Beckham have legs?

I suggest the answer is: Yes. Two of them.

"My dilemmas reach one short of one hundred, however none of them involve a fine woman"

2007-07-25T21:57:00.000+01:00

Loving RapTranslations.com

A Public Service Announcement

2007-07-17T10:13:00.000+01:00

To the people who had any moral dilemmas about buying the Mail on Sunday last week to get the new Prince album I say this:

Suck it up, bitches.

Noseybonk

2007-07-08T23:03:00.000+01:00

The Internet and Inevitability

2007-07-04T20:10:00.000+01:00

I suppose if you're going to go around posting photos of yourself sitting on the toilet with a shaven head, you're going to get favourited by someone who appears to really get off on that sort of thing.

Seriously, look at his "public groups". I assume it's a "he" of course. Because it so is.

That is that. The end.

2007-06-29T12:51:00.000+01:00

I'll get me goat(se)

2007-06-04T16:51:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the maus for pointing this out (image 5).

Has Sean Stayte slipped a goatse past the bbc? Or did they get the joke and put it up anyway?

UPDATE: It's gone! But lucky I saved a copy eh kids?

UPDATE 2: The whole thing is now on wikipedia. God bless the internet.

UPDATE 3: On BBC London news too!