There's a cringe-making Martin Amis interview in today's Guardian. After three or four paragraphs (and the opening one had better end up in Pseud's Corner or I will sue) spent burying the "Amis is UK's Greatest Living Novelist" myth ("McEwan has won more awards; Rushdie more notoriety, Ishiguru greater success in Hollywood... Tibor Fischer calls his new book 'terrible'... Elements of Yellow Dog are ridiculous... You can spot the sentences that did for Fischer"), the mind boggles as to how journalist Emma Brockes could look the guy in the eye, especially when Amis says stuff like, "Every now and then at a book signing your eyes meet with a reader and they have a stoned look and you know that they've had a great time with you, and it's very moving and nice." I didn't learn anything about writing in this piece, and certainly not anything I didn't already know about Martin Amis. How disappointing.

Martin Amis Guardian interview quiz

Without reading the article, which of these quotes from Amis's new book do you think is cited there as "brilliant" and which as, er, not so brilliant?

1. "a boobjob of a raindrop gutflopped on his baldspot"

2. "The contrails of the more distant aeroplanes were like incandescent spermatozoa, sent out to fertilize the universe"

3. [bad sex is] "like someone doggedly trying to shoulder his way through a locked door"

4. [the husband of a distinguished woman exists purely for] "the radiation of quietly relentless approval"

For the answers, read the interview...

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The Guardian elsewhere reports on Tony Blair's testimony at the Hutton Inquiry yesterday, in which the PM insisted that the controversial BBC report undermined "'the credibility, I felt, of the country, never mind the prime minister. It was a very, very serious, charge,' he said, adding that nothing less than a BBC retraction would satisfy him." Apart from being very resentful of Blair's lumping-in of "the country" into his own defence, as if he never noticed millions of marchers protesting against the war earlier this year and late last, I feel the BBC should definitely not be tempted to make any such retraction, for one reason: if the allegations made against the Government that the dossier was "sexed-up" were actually lies, the Government would have sued the arse off the Beeb ages ago. The fact that it hasn't is just more grist to the BBC's mill.

Something else that irritated me about Blair's testimony was the following quote: "It is important to recognise that the September dossier was not making the case for war. It was making the case for the issue [of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction] to be dealt with, and our preferred alternative was, indeed, to deal with it through the United Nations route." All of which are empty words when everybody knows full well in retrospect, and suspected strongly at the time, that the dossier was just one of Blair's steps along the road to war.

I'm very pleased to read on the Guardian website this afternoon that Alastair Campbell has quit. About time too, and I hope a few more resignations follow toute de suite.

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Elsewhere in the Guardian today, Tony Blair is reported to have finally put himself "online", enabling the public to email him about areas of concern. "The prime minister will not read each one - or reply to any," reports the paper, "but officials will screen out the abusive, submit the most pertinent, and compile regular reports on the contents of the rest". Sounds less like an email system than a Big Brother manifesto. And it's not even a proper email address - one screen gives you a list of possible subjects (interestingly, "Iraq" isn't one of them, while the obviously more essential "This email system" and "Internet" are), and then you get a box and a submit button with which to "send your email". All looks fittingly Blairian to me.

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"Woody Allen has made a good film," Fiachra Gibbons enthuses about the maestro's new movie Anything Else elsewhere in the Guardian, as if this was some kind of exclusive. According to her, Allen's last masterpiece was Crimes and Misdemeanours, some 14 years ago, and everything else is "dross". What about Bullets Over Broadway, or Sweet and Lowdown? Come, come, Fiachra. Can't wait to see the new one, though - that is, if the poor guy can even get a UK distribution deal for it, as this article in the Independent reports is doubtful.

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Meanwhile, HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAA!!!!! Teenage author of Blaster computer virus identified, reports the Guardian.

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"More Americans have died in Iraq since President Bush declared the end of combat operations than were killed trying to topple Saddam Hussein," reports the Times today. "His May 1 speech, delivered from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, spoke of work still to be done. But it was delivered under a banner saying 'Mission Accomplished', and the event had all the trappings of a victory lap." Tragically premature for everyone involved, George.

26th August

24th August

Worse for verse as young poets get the chop, reports The Independent on Sunday today: "Fewer young poets are being published than ever before, according to new figures from the Poetry Society," runs the report. Apparently, "just" 28 of the poets published by the UK's eight major imprints are under 40. OhmyGodhowterrible!!! What a disaster for those lines that don't reach the edge of the page! "Simon Armitage's [excellent - TC] debut collection, Zoom!, sold 12,000 copies - yet even he is nearly 40," James Morrison goes on. Armitage nearly 40??!!!!? Heavens, heavens! But what's he supposed to do exactly - retire? Good poetry is good poetry no matter how old you are when you write it. It doesn't follow that the younger the poet, the more interesting or appealing he or she or their work. If you're truly good enough, you'll always get a break. Besides, Brian Patten, Benjamin Zephaniah and John Cooper-Clarke are young-at-heart poets who are well over 40 now and show no signs of giving up or getting old. Anyway I hope the news doesn't prompt any more buttock-clenching attempts among the 40+ bunch to "make poetry trendy", as evidenced most recently in Andrew Motion's "rap with a silent C" poem celebrating Prince William's 21st birthday. (TC notes: The fact that I am a sometime young poet myself and despite seeing a few poems in magazines never managed to get a book published does of course have no influence on the opinions expressed in this item.)

23rd August

Okay, things appear to be back on track tech-, thought- and cat-wise. Apologies again to anyone who may have tried to log on yesterday and found half a page, a frame missing, an image missing, an image in the wrong place, half a frame, no frames at all, a walking frame, or indeed a fan site for You've Been Framed. As Basil Fawlty once said, "There have been a lot of cockups today, and I'm very happy to say that if you have any queries my wife will deal with them. Thank you so much!"

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22^nd August

They say pride comes before a fall. Well, in my case, pride at finally catching the MS Blast virus last week has led to my PC falling apart almost completely, and along with it half my software. The jury’s still out on whether the virus was directly responsible, especially since I downloaded the necessary patch, but seeing as my PC was perfectly fine before some bastard wreaked the thing on an unsuspecting world, I blame them. For the time being I’m updating the site on another PC using Word 2000, which I haven’t got the brain power to work out how to implement with a frames page, so while I can type what you’re reading now, we’re having to stick with the same thought and the same cat as last week (although they’re a pretty good thought and a very nice cat, it has to be said, even if I say so myself). Eccentricities in Word mean you may also find rolling the cursor over some hyperlinks won’t always give you a “hand” cursor, but the links should work anyway. Best just to try clicking on everything really. For everyone still awake, you may now continue reading the week’s blog. Not that there’s much to it, actually, as I’ve had a very productive week on the short story-, novel- and freelance-writing front as well as putting the finishing touches to the new Loyd’s Names site, and haven’t done a great deal of surfage. So apologies for neglecting anybody, I mean I know you sit with bated breath for Friday lunchtime (that’s enough “apologies” – Ed.)

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There’s a very interesting and revealing article by the author of the screenplay of the Sylvia Plath biopic Sylvia in today’s Guardian about how the script was put together, revised, taken apart, thrown across the room, and finally made into a film with Gwyneth Paltrow playing the tragic poetess. I’m not entirely sure that scriptwriter John Brownlow doesn’t come across as slightly shallow and crude from time to time in the piece, but that’s Hollywood, I guess.

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Six Brazilians have been deported after failing “the Beatles test” while attempting to visit a Fabs festival in Liverpool, reports the Times today, in what must be one of the cheesiest news reports I’ve ever read – not to mention one of the most patronising. “Six of the [72] new arrivals ignominiously failed their impromptu examination,” writes Robin Young. “There [sic] answers, frankly, were here, there and everywhere. They had never heard of Yoko Ono, they thought Ringo Starr was dead, and believed Sergeant Pepper was a condiment.” All of which is ironic when it often seems that some of the people presiding over the UK’s immigration policy probably don’t even own a stereo.

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I’m not big on science fiction personally but the Independent today has published an exclusive new Brian Aldiss short story about Mars.

21^st August

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Elsewhere the Guardian has an excellent report on some of the pathetic testimony from the civil servants at the Hutton Enquiry. “Yesterday was a day of evasion,” writes Oliver Burkeman, “of hairsplitting and nitpicking and distinctions without differences. One imagines the sign on the desks of Sir Kevin [Tebbit] and his colleagues: ‘The buck? Well, no, it doesn't stop here, exactly. And I'm not sure that I am entirely comfortable with the word “buck”, which, I would emphasise, was your word, not mine...’” Meanwhile, an email from one civil servant about the Iraq dossier was revealed to read, "Can we insert a few quotes [to] demonstrate that he [Saddam] is a bad man?" Another said, "I think we need a device to convey that he is a bad and unstable man." How very English, all of it. Yes, Minister would never have stooped to such depths.

Official Hutton Inquiry website

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Dave Awl meanwhile points TC to the strange story of the Thai man who died while laughing in his sleep. “I’ve never seen a case like this before,” said the doctor who pronounced the poor man dead. I could think of worse ways to go though.

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“From struggling through Mr Duck the Postman,” says the Guardian, “to searching for Paradise Lost, from puppeteering to selling her first short-story collection... This is the transcript of AL Kennedy's talk at this year's Edinburgh Books Festival, 'On Being a Writer’”.

20^th August

TC’s Auntie Fiona provides a link to a story in the Guardian today about a new “extreme sport” called free-running. “While most of us stride calmly along the [Paris] pavement,” writes Amelia Gentleman, “the free-runners leap from bollard to bollard, vaulting over benches, scaling up tree trunks. Not content with merely turning corners, they swing around lampposts. Where most pedestrians will avoid a road barrier, they jump on it, do a headstand and dangle themselves from it upside-down. Walking, in its traditional form, is dismissed as a bourgeois convention.” Quite right too. The article also has a glossary of free-running terms, of which clearly the best has to be the Cat Jump: “Run towards the target, place both hands on the wall, leap through them - with the legs through the middle of the arms. Land on both feet.” I’m not sure even Thoughtcat could manage this feat but if I can do it mentally I shall post documentary evidence on the site forthwith.

Official free running website

19^th August

Taking a break from novelling today to Google for Thoughtcat (not vanity at all, but essential web research, you understand), I came upon a new result pointing to an unofficial site for the 1994 Spider-Man movie – specifically, a list of “Spider-Man related websites”. Without wishing to seem ungrateful, I did wonder how on earth TC ended up on that. The answer? Of course: one of the entries submitted to TC’s very own Noel Gallagher Four Noun Autobiography Title Game (see 4 nouns in the left-hand frame) is “Diet Pepsi and Veggie burgers, Arachnophobia and Spider-man: The hypocritical life of Sean Hennessey, Portland, Oregon”. And a very good title too, I have to (belatedly) say, Mr Hennessey. I doubt however that linking to a Spider-Man website was what you had in mind, but this is the way of the web, you see. Incidentally, I guess it may have helped that the Spider-Man website which listed TC as a related link was itself “enhanced by Google”.

18^th August

“The universe is fading away,” says this report in the Guardian, quoting an astronomical character called Professor Heavens. This melancholy news reminded me of the scene in Annie Hall when 11-year-old Woody prototype Alvy is sitting in the psychiatrist’s office, depressed. “The universe is expanding,” he explains, “and one day it’ll break apart and that’ll be the end of everything.” “What is that your business?” says his mother. “He’s stopped doing his homework!” “What’s the point?” says the kid. Great stuff.

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I received a very nice email today from David Thair at a new BBC website called Collective being very complimentary about Thoughtcat and asking if I’d be interested in posting a link to a new Jake Arnott interview. Of course I would. The piece is quite short but the author of The Long Firm and new novel truecrime says some interesting things about the important differences between research and writing from the imagination. It’s also great to see Thoughtcat is being read by a Beeb personage... no chance of a job, I guess??

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Meanwhile, crime writer PD James is interviewed at the Independent. The paper had invited posers from readers for the Baroness for one of their “You ask the questions” pieces several weeks ago, but nothing seems to have come of it – perhaps the questions submitted, such as my own (“Presumably you can afford to employ a team of lawyers to research the legal aspects of your plots, but is there a more affordable alternative you can recommend to less well-off writers such as myself?”) just weren’t interesting enough. Anyway, I’m not bitter. She doesn’t say a huge amount about writing in this article but one interesting comment is that writing is, for her, less an exercise of wish-fulfilment than a matter of “trying to make order out of disorder”.

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I post less and less about the news on Iraq these days because it’s all so depressing, and to do justice to all the injustice involved would take up a whole website, which is done perfectly well by other websites like the Guardian, but for some reason I was particularly angered to read in today’s Times that the US army has acknowledged it had killed Reuters TV journalist Mazen Dana after soldiers had “mistaken his camera for a rocket propelled grenade launcher”. He was no less than the 17^th news organisation employee to be killed in the war. Although this figure pales in comparison to the minimum 6,113 civilian Iraqi deaths (according to http://www.iraqbodycount.net/), it’s still outrageous.

16th August

That Booker longlist in full

Click on a title to buy it at a discount from Amazon

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Today's Guardian Review meanwhile has a very interesting profile/interview of former Booker winner Pat Barker.

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When it comes to music, I prefer guitars to synthesisers, and The Beatles to Kylie. I also quite like Paul Morley, although I think he is sometimes pretentious. What I don't like are ridiculous generalisations about art and audiences, like Stephen Poole's in his review of Morley's new book "Words and Music", also in today's Guardian Review. He concludes: "There will ... be readers who claim to find Morley's extravagant prose experiments 'pretentious', but since anyone who can use this violently resentful, very English word with sincerity has already committed to the idea that it is better not to try than to try and fail, that clever and creative people should in general shut up rather than try to provoke an audience out of its aesthetic complacency, and that art overall has no business attempting to be transcendent, such readers may be well advised to stick with their grubbily thumbed Nick Hornby collection." Poole clearly fails to understand that countless geniuses have created transcendent art without once being pretentious. It is for this reason that audiences recognise them as great artists.

In any case, all this is rich coming from a guy who writes: "[Morley's new book] begins as it means to go on, with a yoking together by violence of two heterogeneous things, which he claims are his current favourite pieces of music ever. One piece is Alvin Lucier's 'I am sitting in a room', a piece of 1960s experimentalism featuring spoken-word tape-loops: this confirms the author's intellectual status (as he disarmingly confesses: 'I fancy myself for liking it'), and foreshadows one story the book tells of how pop music grows directly out of the experimental side of classical music, from Erik Satie to Steve Reich. The other piece of music is Kylie's hit 'Can't Get You Out of My Head', and anyone who feels unable to acknowledge this song's genius had better look away now, because Morley's project is in part about stripping away the Nietzschean ressentiment that lurks in the dank indie bedroom and celebrating those rare moments when art can intersect beautifully with commerce; when, as he puts it, we can recognise pop's 'occasional odd shine of mind-changing art'."

The words "shut" and "up" spring to mind. Which doesn't mean Poole is either "clever" or "creative".

15th August

Yes! At last I've caught a virus. At the risk of getting bombarded with the bloody things now, I seem to have managed to avoid all the previous ones, which left me feeling rather left out. But this week I contracted the MS Blast virus without evening knowing it. Things kept disappearing, crashing, dropping off, falling apart and generally collapsing - and that was just the PC. Most annoyingly, my cut, paste and drag functions conked out, and as they say, you never know what you've got till it's gone. For a while, little suspecting I'd caught a virus ("I'm a good girl, I am!!!"), I was considering buying a new hard drive or even a new PC altogether. I should probably do this anyway, of course, but at least it appears there's no need for such drastic action quite yet. However, I did manage to rid my PC of the Blast worm with the aid of this extremely helpful article from yesterday's Guardian, which contains a link to the Microsoft patch and instructions for how to delete the guilty files. It also has a very useful link to a firm called Grisoft who are offering a free virus-detection program.

Anyway, the upshot of having the virus is that my PC has been down for most of the week so I haven't had a chance to update the site, look at the web or do much writing. I'm coming to the conclusion that the news is too ridiculous or tragic to even comment on half the time (I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger running for office in California and a comedian dressed as Osama bin Laden managing to set off seven alarms while gatecrashing a royal party and still get in pretty much makes deliberate irony redundant). However, a few interesting bits and pieces I have managed to pick up on over the past few days include an Ingmar Bergman article in the Guardian, an Irvine Welsh interview in the Independent, a profile of Martin Amis and his new, much-criticised novel in the Independent (curiously listed under the "enjoyment" section of the site!), another piece from the Independent about lad lit (never heard of it), an article from ZNet about an agreement between the European Commission and the US federal authorities allowing personal information about holidaymakers to the States to be communicated, without their consent, by the airline company to US Customs (thanks Fionacat), and most interesting of all, some exclusive extracts from my favourite writer Russell Hoban's new novel "Her Name Was Lola" from the Bloomsbury website ahead of its publication in November - the first chapter of which has the brilliant title "Not a Dog, Not a Cat" (thanks to Dave Awl for that one). Phew...

Meanwhile, dedicated Thoughtcateers will have noticed that the main URL now goes to a general front page advertising Thoughtcat's various services, with a link at the bottom to the main site. As you can see, nothing substantial on the blogzine has changed except the URL (the direct link is www.thoughtcat.com/blog.htm), but I am in a position now where I need to be slightly more serious and generate a bit more business, so if any of you out there require freelance writing or a bit of web design, please let me know.

10th August

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During my week in Wales I didn't read a paper, watch any TV, check my email or surf the net. And I didn't miss any of it at all. What a joy to get away from it all and spend the week writing (even if you do return to 196 emails, of which 164 are spam). I only found one story of much interest in today's papers, concerning a severely disabled 16-year-old woman with "locked-in" syndrome who's won a scholarship to Oxford. Hero Joy Nightingale runs a website called From the Window and has managed to cajole Melvyn Bragg, Kofi Annan and Stephen Hawking among other luminaries to write for it. Thoughtcat wishes her congratulations and the best of luck.

9th August

From: Auntie Elizabeth

Date: 09 August 2003

To: Auntie Fiona; Thoughtcat

Subject: Oh, a "writing seminar", eh??

Naked Walker Continues British Trek by ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Wearing little more than sun screen, socks and boots, Steve Gough Richard Cooper is walking the length of Britain to celebrate the joys of nudity. Efficiency isn't one of them.

8th August

From: Auntie F

Date: 08 August 2003

To: Auntie E; Thoughtcat

Subject: Squids and things for Thoughtcat

Dear R and E,

Actually it's just squid, giant ones and not 'things' that I thought you should know about for your Thoughtcat columns Richard. There's an article in last week's New Scientist on giant squid entitled 'Monsters of the Deep',  concerning more recently discovered super-giant squid, yet more recently found colossal giant squid and, possibly, impossibly huge super humongous giant squid too, plus other as yet undiscovered major monsters lurking in the deep! It makes fascinating reading, for instance this choice sentence from squid expert Steve O'Shea: "This is an animal with a 20 gram brain. It's not very bright and it is trying to coordinate a metre-long penis. He's going to get confused." I'll say! The females of the species aren't too bright either and are apt to get hopelessly muddled during mating too, which can be bad news for the male. But read all about it! The New Scientist is only available on subscription but there is a report on the article (headlined "Scientist to use scent to attract sex-crazed giant squid"!) on www.stuff.co.nz at http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2589632a11,00.html

It's still bloody hot. I'm on my own today so am leaving now and going to have a nice cool shower when I get home.

Speak to you next week,
Love,
F.

7th August

From: Auntie E

Date: 07 August 2003

To: Thoughtcat; Auntie F

Subject: FW: If women ruled the world

Dearest F,

These are TOO funny!  I will have to forward them to at least a dozen people.

I'm glad you're back safe and sound and I will look forward to hearing all about your Swiss adventures, unless of course I tell you about them myself first.

Richard, I also hope you are having a good time in Wales and managing to behave yourself.  I want to hear all about it when you return.  I want to know what hot writing tips you've gotten from Ms. Cheek.  Which reminds me, there are a couple of hot writing tips I've been meaning to share with you.

The weather here has been hot and muggy and awful, sometimes with rain.  But I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as what you've been having over there, which sounds horrendous.  I can't imagine how unhappy I'd be living in a really hot climate.  I'd never be able to concentrate on anything.

Well, I'd better go irrigate the cat.  We had good news at the vet's the other day:  Floyd's blood urea nitrogen is down to 55.  (Normal is about 24, but his had been as high as 109.)  According to our vet, the goal is to keep it under 60, since kitties seem to feel significantly more comfortable then.  So I feel better knowing that his health isn't quite as dire as it was a few months ago.  Renal failure isn't curable, but it can be managed for a while.  Thank heavens our petsitter knows how to administer subcutaneous fluids, so she'll be able to do it while we're away in the first week of September (Montreal film festival).

Well, more later.....   I do wish I knew how to work the digital camera and had it rigged up to my computer so I could send you pictures of all these creatures of mine......

Love,
E.

6th August

From: Auntie F

Date: 06 August 2003

To: Thoughcat

cc: Auntie E

Subject: FW: If women ruled the world

Richard this attachment is for wimmin only, I'm trusting you not to peek at the attachments. But I know you won't you're a good boy! Aren't you? AREN'T you?? Hope you're enjoying your stay in Wales and that it's a little cooler and fresher than the cook-house London is at the moment. How is it in Vermont, E? It's closing in on a 100 degress fahrenheit here and no swimming pool to lounge beside and no hunky waiters to bring me Pimms on ice or nuthin.

O.K. I'm back and safe and had a great holiday but haven't time to say more right now - will report fullerly anon. Uncle J is still in Switzerland and is coming back next Sunday.
 
All for now me dears,
Love and Swiss chocolate kisses,
F.

Attachments follow: "If women ruled the world..."

4th August

From: Thoughtcat

Date: 04 August 2003

To: Auntie Fiona; Auntie Elizabeth

Subject: Catch you later...

Hi you girls,

Just a quick one to say I hope you had a good holiday Fiona, and your cats are okay Elizabeth, and I hope you're both busy Googlewhacking by the time you get this. I won't be able to update Thoughtcat this week as I'm attending the Ty Newydd creative writing course in north Wales and won't have time, so if either of you spot anything in the news you think should go in then by all means bring it to my attention. In fact, rather than disappoint Thoughtcateers around the world with no update next weekend, maybe you two would like to write this week's content between you? Just email me whatever comments you have on whatever you think would be fun/relevant/irreverent/ironic etc and when I get back I'll paste it in and apportion blame, sorry, I mean attribute it all to Thoughtcat's Aunties. In fact maybe I could call it The Sex Life of My Aunties...

Don't worry yourselves if you haven't got time, and have a great week in any case,

Lots of love,

Your virtual nephew

Richard

2nd August

The Guardian magazine today has a real treat - a bumper fiction issue featuring nine new short stories by Dave Eggers, Ali Smith, Haruki Murakami, AM Homes, Julie Myerson, Michel Faber, Arthur Miller, Jackie Kay and Alan Warner.

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As a longtime guitarist, I send my best wishes and congratulations to teenage Brit axemistress Zoe McCulloch, who, judging by this report in today's Independent, appears to have "cracked America" despite the fact that she's more or less unknown over here. Funny old world, etc.

1st August

Thoughtcat's Man in Nam (Glos.) emails me thus: "Have you been to see/had any experience of/heard about the latest stage offering from Dave Gorman, one of these youngish British comedians who use obscure (and slightly contrived) bets to go round the world, meet people and do zany things (apologies for that word, it just seems that that is what they are trying to be)?  He is appearing at the Everyman in Cheltenham in Autumn (and on tour around the UK, including the Edinburgh Festival) doing a show called Googlewhack.  I can do the usual web searches (very appropriate in this case) but wanted a respected opinion.  Any thoughts?"  Well, Thoughtcat, being flattered (although circumspect) to be considered respected, went straight to, er, Google and, well, didn't get off it for about the next four hours. As Gorman explains on his site, Googlewhacking is the trick of finding two words which are so rarely juxtaposed that when entered as search terms on Google they return only one result - for example, ambidextrous scallywags or insolvent pachyderms (both taken from the incredible Googlewhack site, where you can register such unlikely pairings). Given that entering almost anything on Google tends to return at least 136,374 web pages (of which you only ever look at the first 4 and hardly any are any use anyway, but that's another matter), it's easy to see how hard it is to produce "a whack". At one point in the annals of the internet, "Dave Gorman" was apparently itself (or himself) a Googlewhack, although entering those two words now returns some 81,000 websites, so evidently the boy (or maybe all boys called Dave Gorman) dun good. Thoughtcat, being slightly on the sleepy side of Bagpuss, has only now caught up with this phenomenon and had a whale (or at least a cat) of a time trying to "whack Google", finally coming up with tenebrific arse (from a non-TC-endorsed page discussing Thom Yorke of Radiohead... don't ask, especially if you're Thom Yorke). The only complaint I have about Googlewhacking is that it takes so long to find a "whack" that constantly looking for whackful search terms, failing and then clicking back on the Google search box to try two more gives you dreadful RSI. Then again, if you're going to get RSI, you may as well have a laugh while you do it, eh? And it is an addictively fun game, although what's just as entertaining is entering what any sane person would think would have to be a Googlewhack, only for it to turn up several hundred (or even thousand) results. Here are some of my favourite Non-Googlewhacks That Should Be:

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Meanwhile, Thoughtcat congratulates Felix Baumgartner on his Icarustastic flight across the Channel yesterday, a feat so bold and imaginative it would be cheap to make a silly comment on it. And anyway I can't think of one.