Two things nicked from other people

Thank you bagrec for the intentionally amusing one:

Garfield minus Garfield

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

And thank you, kasku (via chiller), for introducing me to this guy:

Getu Hirpo



Superstar In The Making

Getu Hirpo also known as Gates is a very intelligent, talented versatile and creative musician... His goal is to make a major breakthrough in the music industry globally with his own brand new style (New Sound) which is a winning combination of African and Western popular music.

Getu is currently unemployed and working on his music project from home.

If you can’t get sound at work then I urge you to listen later on at home. It will be a short experience, I suspect, but a rewarding one.

“Labour Were Thinking What The Tories Were Thinking”

Unpleasant though it is to find myself quoting Guido Fawkes—life’s too short to be swamped by that much bile—the fact remains that here he’s absolutely right:

Immigration minister Liam Byrne told BBC News this morning that the Australian immigration control model had been closely examined by the British government: “I think that people want to know that only those who we need to come to Britain should be allowed to come and I think a points system has worked extremely well in Australia so we have studied that hard, we think it would work well in this country.”


The 2005 Conservative Party Manifesto promised: “We will introduce a points-based system for work permits similar to the one used in Australia. This will give priority to people with the skills Britain needs.”

Remember how the Labour Party made a huge issue of the policy and campaign posters ... condemning the commitment as a racist dog-whistle policy? Less than three years later Labour is implementing the same policy. [article]

“Naked bar”

A group of drunken British soldiers went amok in a bar in northern Norway earlier this week, stripping off their clothes and ultimately urinating on the floor and each other. The decidedly ungentlemanly behaviour shocked other bar patrons, many of whom had been harassed by the soldiers before they launched into their striptease.

Cecilie Kleppe, age 29, told newspaper VG that the soldiers had been bothering several of the female patrons in the bar before they suddenly shouted “naked bar” and stripped off all their clothes. “Some of them even started waving their private parts at the other guests,” Kleppe told VG. “Two of the Englishmen urinated on a fellow soldier who was lying on the floor. It was disgusting.” [Aftenposten]

Incidentally, one of the news links currently on the right of that page, while a pretty anodyne story, is one of the most Scandinavian headlines you will ever see:

Moose cancelled ski race

Indefensibly puerile item #406

A phrase in large type in a newspaper ad caught my eye. Sadly it turns out that “King Fuad’s Nile Steamer” is just a ship.

James "Whitey" Bulger

In mid-January it was reported—here, for example—that there had been a sighting of one of America’s most wanted men, Boston organised crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, who has been on the run for over 10 years, in Italy with his girlfriend. The FBI and Scotland Yard were both said to be involved in tracking him.

The story made it to Germany’s equivalent of Crimewatch, Aktenzeichen XY … ungelöst, which broadcast the photo on the right allegedly showing Bulger on holiday with his girlfriend. Unfortunately the picture the police had got excited about was actually of German estate agent Frank Anselm and his wife, a fact not lost on German estate agent Frank Anselm and his wife as they watched the programme with some surprise.

“Mr Schmidt, my neighbour, came around with a bottle of beer and said he didn’t know I had a sideline, while my mother-in-law took it as an opportunity to tell my wife of 30 years what a mistake she had made in marrying me,” said Anselm. “I spent the next two days convincing the neighbours, boss and family that I am not a crime lord from Boston who has served time in Alcatraz.” [Source: Ananova]