A single appreciative moo
Trial by wombat, non-squirrels, long bois
Morning! Slightly belated this morning because my laptop would not connect to the internet on my absolutely perfectly functional router. I would throw it out the window but I live on the ground floor and that would be a bit pointless.
The lack of Donald Trump has started silly season a bit early over at the New York Times, with three exceptionally fun stories this week.
First, a ten year retrospective of Ed Balls Day.
Each year, on “Ed Balls Day,” Twitter users — mostly in Britain, but some worldwide — pay tribute anew to the tweet’s unintentional comic genius, an eight-character masterpiece seen by many to encapsulate the best of the site’s humor. Brevity is the soul of wit. It allowed people to laugh at someone else’s mild misfortune. It juxtaposed a quite serious politician with a relatable clunker. And, while wholesome at its core, it had a pure schoolyard appeal.
“When I was 12, I might have been appalled for my name to be part of a joke, but by the time I was 45 I was well beyond that,” Mr. Balls said. “If my name was Ed Smith it wouldn’t have been the same amusement in there.”
Second, a glorious story about a music school which regularly plays to cows, containing this absolutely glorious one liner:
When it was over, amid the fervent applause and cries of “bravo,” there could be heard a single, appreciative moo.
And it turns out the cows have pretty specific tastes.
“It’s actually nice playing for cows,” said Gray. “We saw it in rehearsal — they really do come over to you. And they have preferences. Did you see how they all left at one point? They’re not really Dvorak fans.”
And third, the guy who attempted to park in every space at Sainsbury’s has gone international. (In addition to being featured in pretty much every UK news outlet. My theory is that like policy professionals, journalists are slightly too easily impressed when someone has a spreadsheet.)
Michelangelo spent four years painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Tolstoy devoted six to “War and Peace,” and the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan took more than twice that to erect the Taj Mahal.
But did any of them park in every single spot of their local grocery store?
Still though, spreadsheets are great.
Mr. Wild does not know yet what form, or meaning, his next project will take. “Maybe some other kind of spreadsheet adventure, because spreadsheets are great,” he said. “But I’m probably done with car parks.”
My family has long had the saying of an issue with too many choices as “an empty car park problem” and I think we now know that the solution is to PARK IN ALL THE SPACES.
I had to. Side note: did you know how easy it is to generate memes now? Literally takes 45 seconds.
And finally, the relaxation of restrictions on outdoor dining does not just mean that I can get brunch, it means that restaurant reviews are back, baby. And this is a particularly fine specimen from Grace Dent in the Guardian on a restaurant in Selfridges that is too expensive, not quite good enough, and still somehow worth a visit.
But in terms of efficient world-building - is that a term you can use outside of fantasy novels? - it’s hard to argue with this first paragraph.
En route to Alto by San Carlo, on the rooftop of Selfridges in London, I thought about how for a long time eating in a department store was never anyone’s idea of “destination dining”. That’s the fancy term, by the way, for a dining experience that you covet from afar, then map a journey towards, before packing a weekend suitcase to be within thrilling proximity of a big-name chef. No one ever felt like this about the all-day breakfasts at BHS Bournemouth. Or, for that matter, a scone with jam in an M&S cafe, which is generally a self-consoling act after another doomed search for a reliable strapless balconette bra. I’ve long argued that the goths and indie kids of Carlisle bankrupted the House of Fraser cafe by loitering all day discussing Bauhaus B-sides, sharing one 57p whipped cream-topped hot chocolate, before inevitably stealing the mug.
I’ve never so much wanted to be a goth. (And I am looking forward to my next self-consoling M&S scone, although my clothes traumas are mercifully slightly different.)
Let’s get to the tweets.
Oh, we have an update on Prancer from a couple of weeks ago:
Niche one for people who spend too much time on the internet, there.
Speaking of ducks, a lovely story about a man going to quite some effort when a duck decided to hatch ducklings on his ninth floor balcony. (It seems like being a military survival specialist does help…)
And BBC local news has delivered video:
This will be stuck in your head for the rest of your life:
And this will just make you want to listen to a load of Harry Belafonte:
More next week. Off to make more memes, inevitably.
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