Huh The Things People Say
The sermon this morning: ‘Jesus Walks on the Water.’ The sermon tonight: ‘Searching for Jesus.’ – From a US church bulletin
Branding a whole group of people as ‘undesirables’ led to Hitler’s gas chambers. – In a letter to a constituent, Conservative MP David Wilshire claims that MPs’ treatment in the expenses scandal compares to the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. Mr Wilshire is set to quit at the next election after allegations that he paid £105,000 from his Commons expenses to his own firm.
The boat came to the window. – A resident of northeast Scotland describes how he left his house in early November, when a month’s worth of rain fell in 48 hours.
No one will need more than 637kb of memory for a personal computer. – Microsoft owner Bill Gates in the early 1970s
I am getting to know how Picasso and Van Gogh must have felt. – Actor-turned-artist Tony Curtis (Dream on, Tone.)
This is asking where art fits into our lives and where life fits into art. We’ve transformed this plinth into something that is closer to the examination couch than the traditional symbolic or hierarchical form. – ‘Artspeak’ from artist Antony Gormley on his 100-day project One and Other, in which members of the public each spent an hour on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square
We romanticised him a bit. – Mel Gibson admits to historical inaccuracies when portraying William Wallace in Braveheart. The Times placed the film second on a list of the most historically inaccurate movies. Gaffes include: portraying Wallace as a poor villager (he was actually a knight); having him sleep with Isabella of France (who would have been eight years old at the time the film is supposed to have taken place); and the wearing of belted plaid by Wallace and his men. Historian Sharon Krossa points out that in the period in question, ‘... no Scots ... wore belted plaids (let alone kilts of any kind).’ She compares the inaccuracy to ‘... a film about Colonial America showing the colonial men wearing 20th century business suits, but with the jackets worn back-to-front instead of the right way around.’
The health status of the animals is at such a high level that the length of time involved is more than adequate. the animals are under constant care, unlike pets and farm animals. - William Cartmell, the official vet charged with overseeing the welfare of animals used for testing at Wickham Laboratories in Hampshire, which tests drugs for pharmaceutical companies. (Mr Cartmell is also a founder and major shareholder in the company.) Lab records seen by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) showed that Cartmell’s weekly inspections sometimes took 15 minutes, with one visit in March this year lasting only eight minutes. A BUAV undercover investigation found that thousands of animals being used at Wickham to test a wrinkle-erasing rival to Botox were subjected to cruel and agonising experiments. Official guidelines allow mice to have their necks broken to ensure a quick death, and ballpoint pens are often used to do this. However, secret footage shot at Wickham showed that some were left writhing after their backs were mistakenly broken by staff. The pens were then used to fill out their death records. The film also showed staff botching injections of rabbits, which are immobilised in ‘stocks’ for up to eight hours in experiments which test whether drugs cause fevers.
I thought we deserved to get something out of the game, but to be fair, at the end of the day, if you don’t take your chances at this level, you’ll get punished. – Every losing football manager ever interviewed.
What kind of business is that? – 118118 operator when asked for the number for Cafe Vivo Is that in Edinburgh? – 118118 operator when asked for the number for the Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel Could that be listed under any other name? - 118118 operators when they can’t find a number
Halloween pushes new generations towards a mentality of esoteric magic and attacks sacred and spiritual values through a devious initiation to the art and images of the occult. - Aldo Bonaiuto, head of the Catholic Church’s antioccult and sect unit. Mr Bonaiuto also said that Halloween the could spur ‘pitiless Satanic sects without scruples.’