The idealistic speechwriter is well-liked by just about everyone. He’s known for his excellent writing, sense of humor, and tendency to be clutzy. Although being younger than the rest of the staff, he’s often treated as so, much to his dismay.

:: Which West Wing character are you? ::

<Via>

My ‘Niles @ Styles’ project comes to its conclusion.

I have now recorded the entire book, Agatha Christie’s Mysterious Affair at Styles. I’ve edited the recordings into some sort of shape, all I have to do now is upload them to the librivox guys for further dissemination. And tag them so that my faithful listeners get their copies automatically.

I have had the word ‘disambiguate’ floating around in my head for about a week now. You would be amazed at how many chances I’ve had to slip it casually into conversation. Literally three. Seamlessly. And in only two cases did I get a filthy look. Lots of good big words at group tonight. Many of which I’ve forgotten already, but ‘antediluvian’ kinda sticks in the mind. Even if it wasn’t quite a nice thing for someone to say about my car when I was offering them a lift home.

I’ve also been trying to use the elephant gag for about the same length of time. No-one will play ball with me in conversation.

It goes like this: it’s raining. You don’t have a coat or brolly, so you say you’ll just have to do what elephants do when it rains. What’s that, enquires your hapless interlocutor (Ah, mish interlocutor…). Get wet, you respond drily.

How we laughed.

Here’s one for all you trendy young things: a ten second snippet of Dead Like Me Series 1 Episode 14 with a song that I keep hearing and cannot identify. I’ve played it loads of people, I’ve described the track, and people have come up with other songs with similar words, but not this one.

It’s all the things I like in a song! Slow, sad, good backing vocals, eminently hummable.

So what is it?!

A-boom boom bah!

EDIT: Thanks to Will who has correctly identified it as Boom boom ba by Métisse. Will, I’m impressed your hearing is good enough to pick out the lyrics from behind the dialogue. Nothing I could actually hear was likely to be unique to a particular song.

Rob: The Shazam link looks fascinating, I’m tempted to use the thing just for the pure technology even though I now know what the song is.

And a final point — this song appears on the sound track for the movie, The Next Best Thing, the Madonna slash Rupert Everett gay slash straight slash parenting flick that was seminal to my MA thesis on on heterosociality. Which is probably where I’ve heard the song before, and probably, when it cropped back up again, why it sounded like something I ought to get to know. Certainly better than Madge’s rendition of American Pie.

Here’s one for all you trendy young things: a ten second snippet of Dead Like Me Series 1 Episode 14 with a song that I keep hearing and cannot identify. I’ve played it loads of people, I’ve described the track, and people have come up with other songs with similar words, but not this one.

It’s all the things I like in a song! Slow, sad, good backing vocals, eminently hummable.

So what is it?!

A-boom boom bah!

EDIT: Thanks to Will who has correctly identified it as Boom boom ba by Métisse. Will, I’m impressed your hearing is good enough to pick out the lyrics from behind the dialogue. Nothing I could actually hear was likely to be unique to a particular song.

Rob: The Shazam link looks fascinating, I’m tempted to use the thing just for the pure technology even though I now know what the song is.

And a final point — this song appears on the sound track for the movie, The Next Best Thing, the Madonna slash Rupert Everett gay slash straight slash parenting flick that was seminal to my MA thesis on on heterosociality. Which is probably where I’ve heard the song before, and probably, when it cropped back up again, why it sounded like something I ought to get to know. Certainly better than Madge’s rendition of American Pie.

I’ve been tagged with another one.

1. Delve into my blog archive.
2. Find my 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in my blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas…
5. Tag five people to do the same.

Well, if you use WordPress, it numbers the index, so you can find post 23 at
http://www.alexfoster.me.uk/?p=23 and the fifth sentence is

Sure, it won’t get my clothes dry but in ONLY 12 DAYS I’ll be well past caring.

There we go.

I take memes on a voluntary basis. If anyone wants to do this themselves, feel free.

We’re off to see Lynda Carter appearing as Mama Morton in Chicago. And all because I happened to hear the Wonder Woman theme on Woman’s Hour last week.

I’m going because it’s Chicago. And I love musicals. P’s going for the chance to badger Wonder Woman at the stage door.

Personally, I’d rather see Jenni Murray as Mama Morton.

You know, I’d almost forgotten that I’d ever been on holiday in France, but this weekend, three things have reminded me.

At Lib Dem Regional Conference, D, who;s doing up a farmhouse I nearly visited in the Champagne region, asked me how it went, and it was so far from my mind that I completely forgot to mention I’d stayed in Eparnay, Reims and Troyes.

When I got home from the conference, I found that my prints had come: whilst I was claiming the Aiguille du Midi, I ran out of space on my digital camera, so bought a disposable one which I’d only a week ago remembered to develop. The photos are back and have gone onto flickr.

And on flickr, a random encounter. Someone was searching for photos of Vauban architecture for a new flickr group and happened across my pictures of Villefrance-sur-conflent in the Pyrenees.

Those six weeks seem so far away now. I should be reminded daily of my trip — I have a photo of it as wallpaper on my computer — and yet somehow it had almost completely slipped my mind.

Reluctant Nomad showed us his, so here’s mine. Not as tidy as Troubled Diva‘s.

The desk meme. Click the pick for Flickr’s helpful ‘notes’ system

Now Show me yours!