philmophlegm | Entries tagged with humour

OK, we haven’t had a Phligm Phlagm post since mid-October, and the world was a different place back then.

I’ve been busy all right? Anyway, here’s the first load of links to catch up on. Feel free to take your time over them…

Christmas Reading List 2025

The Red Dwarf theme tune has secret lyrics, and they've only just been discovered. (But they’re actually suprisingly easy to hear once you know about them!)

What would you call a mystery species of aurochs / bison known only from cave paintings? The Higgs Bison of course!

I think we can call this "corruption", don't you?

Canoes are racist now, apparently. (Or to put it another way, the University of Victoria employs a complete fuckwit as its Professor of English, apparently.)

£250,000 gold coin found in child's pirate treasure collection.

"Kid needs permission slip to read 'Fahrenheit 451', his dad's response is brilliant." Of course, both teacher and dad (as well as almost everyone else) have in fact misinterpreted what the book is about.

One of the overlooked greats of RPG art: Russ Nicholson. I love his stuff.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams on being bullied by Clinton supporters.

True story: The raven in Poe's poem was inspired by Charles Dickens's pet raven.

OK, now will leftards shut up about tax 'avoidance'?

"...where he displayed upper body strength far beyond his supposed years and also was able to completely strip a rifle at a shooting range."

You don't need this laptop either.

BBC admits Bake Off is catastrophic social experiment

A pretty clever piece of political profiling and surveying from the Social Market Foundation.

Terror attack stopped by heroic activist who established a safe space in local mall.

A blog that examines the use of fonts in science fiction. What a time to be alive.

Labour's new shadow minister for domestic violence has personal experience of the issue - a police caution for domestic violence.

Typical day at the Labour Party conference.

Brilliant picture of Jeremy Corbyn at his own party conference protesting to bring back the position of Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health. Now, see if you can guess which politician it was who abolished the position of “Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health”…

Amazingly, there is an article on the website of Standard Life all about collecting tabletop games. Pretty good article too, although there are a couple of factual errors. They should have asked me! (One of the people interviewed described H1 Bloodstone Pass as “almost impossible to get hold of”. We had one in stock, although ironically we sold it last week to a bloke in Denmark.)

Epipens are really expensive in the US. Here's why.

Jewish Labour Movement heckled by Corbynistas at the Labour Conference. The speaker (not the heckler thank god) was a friend of mine at Magdalen.

You don't need this laptop.

Trying to understand the EU's actions against Apple and the Republic of Ireland.

It's not shocking that professional employers judge applicants for client-facing roles partly on their appearance and their dress. What is shocking is that not only do state schools not teach this stuff, they sometimes don’t like it when employers try to do it instead.

Useful smartphone test. When I last bought a smartphone, I read lots of reviews, but one question that was never asked was “How good is it at making and receiving calls?”, that is “How good is it at actually being a phone”"?”

According to the latest Rowntree Foundation definition, someone in the top 0.32% of global incomes is now "in poverty". Muppets.

British WW2 propaganda posters.

Think you're good at Lego building? This guy is better.

If you were an American games company raising funds on Kickstarter for a new family card game "that combines speed, hilarious gestures, and your silly side for 2-6 players, ages 6+", and you weren't that familiar with politically incorrect British playground slang, what's the worst name you could come up with...?

"Nobody ever got sacked for buying IBM" …but maybe in this case, someone should have been.

When I was an auditor, this sort of clever statistical analysis was called a logic check. This is a good logic check on why American police might treat certain groups differently. (Hat tip to ford_prefect42.)

Archaeological evidence of a major bronze age battle in northern Germany c.1250 BC.

Balls. Lots of little blue balls.

Do you not have enough ambient sounds in your life?

Have the Brexit predictions come true (yet)?

The most amazing D&D map ever created

Headline of the Month (2)

A very high percentage of male Pashtun Afghans are homosexual paedophiles. (Of course, they don’t consider it to be homosexual, which is forbidden by their religion, “because they aren’t in love with their boys.)

The first 'new England' - the forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the Black Sea coast.

31 Essential Science Fiction Terms and Where They Came From

Quality report on the impact of minimum wages, the 'gender pay gap' and high pay from the IEA.

A very clever analysis (in 59 tweets) of how Donald Trump came to win the Republican nomination.

Fear of angering muslims means electoral fraud will continue

Survival Guide for Conservative, Classically Liberal & Libertarian Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors

Seven Fantasy / SF Epics That Can Inform You About The Real-World Political Scene

The Jewish Chronicle gets hold of the report into Labour anti-semitism that the Corbynistas tried to bury

Headline of the Month (1)

Getting onto Stanford's MBA course. (I’m not involved in admissions, but I can’t imagine that any of my MBA students had to do anything like this.)

The Complete Conceptual History of the Millennium Falcon (including the influence of Space 1999)

A cube in a cube in a cube. Metalwork was easily my worst subject at school. This guy, not so much.

A weird (or perhaps not) correlation between maths and religion.

World rankings of country by average IQ.

How the West can win the new Cold War

Brexit - a story in maps (thanks parrotknight)

A really comprehensive fake name generator.

A useful summary of how many types of people disapprove of Pokemon Go. (Christians, muslims, moral guardians, leftards, gaming purists, conspiracy theorists, nanny-statists, more leftards, SJWs, puritans…)

Remember when the Democratic National Convention used a photo of Russian warships by mistake? No? That's because it got very little coverage over here.

I love these Game of Thrones posters that HBO did. One per episode (almost)!

The plot of all three major Tolkien works in a single haiku.

Pretty much how I feel about both babies and cats.

The IMF was wrong and I was right. (I feel smug.)

Some clever statistical analysis of the EU referendum.

"How did the language of politics get so toxic?"

Considering the impact of cheaper Sterling.

Clare Short is responsible for a lot of the bad things that have happened in Zimbabwe.

The Class of '92's Lost Genius

"Actually it was *Advanced* Dungeons and Dragons that I played”, clarifies Gove.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of Uganda.

14 tips for aspiring humanities academics.

To a leftard, "all lives matter" is racist.

Some idiot left the floodlights on all night before the Euro2016 final. Moth-based hilarity ensued. (By half-time, the moth that landed on Cristiana Ronaldo’s face had fifty different accounts on Twitter.)

Former Swansea and Liverpool manager Brendan Rogers is the new manager of Celtic. His first match in charge was arguably their worst ever result since they were founded in 1887. Well done Brendan.

What did Neanderthals sound like?

Of all the people leaving British public life in the last few weeks, will any be missed quite as much as Barry Scott?

Now why might the son of a famous fascist, himself famous for NAZI-themed orgies, want to ~~bribe~~ [make a generous campaign donation to] a politician who campaigns against freedom of the press...?

Big Chinese statue.

Is it just me, or is the new Cabinet very...blonde?

Every review of the new(ish) Ghostbusters film you will read this week.

CoiffeurGate

Philip May might be no SamCam, but he's more stylish than Dennis. (Except for those turn-ups.)

Prescription drug or Tolkien elf? Take the quiz! (What, you mean there isn’t a prescription tinnitus remedy called ‘Tinfang Warble’…?)

The American fake hate crimes epidemic.

The Game of Thrones theme played by a (very good) jazz band.

Millions of Americans are _not_ living on $2 a day.

Wrexham's new central defender has the best footballer name ever.

The Worldbuilding forums on Stack Exchange are a nice way for GMs to pass the time. (Thanks eledonecirrhosa.)

H.P. Lovecraft Lego.

This is how I imagine that beer tastes like.

The only way an independent Scotland could meet the EU's entry requirements would be to implement massive public expenditure cuts and / or tax rises. That might be fun to watch.

Who would have guessed that two men who campaigned for the right to bugger small boys would turn out to be paedophiles...? (This is the same organisation that had links with former Labour ministers Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman.)

The latest target of the PC police - Gilbert & Sullivan.

"Controversy as Chester Zoo opens 'Wrexham Scally Enclosure'". (I should point out that Homo Wrexhamius Scalliensis Chavus is pretty much confined to the southern part of Wrexham, not the nice bit where I’m from…)

Why Gandhi is such an asshole in Civilisation.

The Curious Case of the (Medieval) Weapon that Didn't Exist

Why you can't just have more quantitative easing to get rid of the national debt.

This is not a 512gb microSD card.

The worst football kits of all time. They’re all bad, but Colorado, seriously…?

This month's best headline is from an astronomy website.

"A lousy, stupid, no good, bad, law is being proposed."

Star Wars Episode IV in a single image. (OK, it’s a very big image, but still…)

Minimalist, anonymous rooms are probably not a good place to do teamwork.

"We all owe a significant debt to Richard Murphy." No, really.

I'm an only child, so I can't really relate to this. Nevertheless I thought it was a sweet film about growing up being “Player Two”.

Woman accidentally joins search party looking for herself.

Today's most widely misinterpreted piece of economics, from the IMF. There are two arguments put forward in the paper. The first is that there are risks associated with capital account liberalisation (allowing money into and out of the country with less regulation). The second is that although high public debt is bad for growth and welfare, for countries with excellent records of debt repayment, like the US, the UK and Germany, a “credible medium-term fiscal consolidation” makes more sense than a “fiscal noose today”. In other words, slowly bringing down debt as a percentage of GDP, not slashing everything to balance the budget as soon as possible. Now that’s pretty much what the UK’s current fiscal policy is. Still I suppose “IMF economists broadly agree with George Osborne” isn’t quite as good a headline as “You’re witnessing the death of neoliberalism – from within”. Seriously, this is a paper that says “There is much to cheer in the neoliberal agenda. The expansion of global trade has rescued millions from abject poverty. Foreign direct investment has often been a way to transfer technology and know-how to developing economies. Privatization of state-owned enterprises has in many instances led to more efficient provision of services and lowered the fiscal burden on governments”… and Facebook (and one of our less reputable newspapers) is full of idiots claiming that “we are witnessing the death of neoliberalism”.

Open plan offices are bad. There are two people in my workplace. I’m married to the other one. And we work in different rooms. Imagine how bad it is to work right next to people you don’t even like…

Ranking British universities for free speech.

If you needed body armour, why wouldn't you want it to look like Boba Fett's?

Male competitive athlete? Little chance of winning an Olympic medal? Here's what you need to do.

This is the best headline of 2016 so far. (I take no responsibility for any distress caused by your own imagination after reading this. Those mental images are all yours.)

Useful discussion on minimum wage laws. (Thank you ford_prefect42)

John Cleese on political correctness.

Denmark is not a socialist utopia.

Fair Trade coffee. Good idea? Let's ask some economists.

Stock Photo University

Finding Boshek - The Man Who Could Have Gone to Alderaan

Honestly. I was just scrolling around Google Maps, looking at a part of Wales I don't know very well. Basically, Wales has a pretty large and very empty area in the middle of it with few roads. I thought I'd have a look around using Streetview and was intrigued that the Streetview camera van seems to have gone up one road and then just stopped (and presumably turned around) without continuing on.

I wondered what could be so horrific that it would cause the Google Streetview van to flee in terror.

This is the location:
52.1203249,-3.7640881

If you paste those coordinates into a Google search box, it will take you to the location I'm talking about. Click on the map. Drag the little yellow man to the blue line that ends just south of the bridge to switch to Streetview.

Then turn so that you're facing north.

Brilliant.

The Russian Navy is a LOT smaller than the Soviet Navy.

Someone asked me the other day if we had any "politically incorrect" board games in stock in the Shop. I had to admit that we didn't. I'm all for tweaking the sensibilities of the terminally politically correct, but I think even I would draw the line well before this point.

Bill Gates's philanthropy will achieve more than Mark Zuckerberg's. Why? Because while Zuckerberg is just giving money away, Gates is using his skills and his contacts to get things done.

"We are all Jews here." The US soldier who led a revolt against German prison guards.

Fitness advice: How to Lose Fat.

Reports of 'Giant Rats' in London leads to increased sales of Chainmail and +1 Longswords.

What does the galaxy need most after the destruction of the Second Death Star? A Central Bank. (I would actually love it if this is the plot for Episode VII, but then I liked all the stuff about taxation of trade routes in Episode I…)

McLaren's idea of what F1 cars might look like in the future.

The genius of Tusk. (And isn’t Christine’s hair truly tragic in that photo?)

The Stop the War Coalition's Greatest Hits.

Solidarity with the Brownsons - a Gofundme project.

Medieval-style Lovecraftian art

Cats. From the 16th century. With frikkin ROCKET PACKS!

Star Wars / Back to the Future easter egg in Doctor Who

Chairman Mao "on balance did more good than harm". I love Michael Portillo’s expression of horror/incredulity/hilarity in this clip. Remember people, if Labour win the next election, this woman will probably have an important job in government.

If Star Wars had been a Ken Loach film.

While this is very, very cool, I can't help but feel that his money could have been better spent on a house somewhere other than a city where the average traffic speed must be something like 5mph.

Better names for paint colours.

American weathergirls seem to have a very strict uniform.

Why did the Great Depression last for so long in the US? The US Government's economic policies.

In a university of several thousand students, all with smartphones, how likely is it that precisely none of them would take a photo of a "poop swastika"?

Right wing? Apparently it's your fault that muslim terrorists killed over a hundred people in Paris. Who knew?

10 top writing tips and the psychology behind them.

"Why I wish I hadn't sold my Star Wars toys." (This guy’s lucky. Mine were either given away or chucked out.)

One of Jeremy Corbyn's own frontbench team thinks he's a "fucking disgrace".

Yay, one of my old politics tutors got mentioned in Guido Fawkes! Not necessarily in a good way…

Problems that normal people don't have.

Let's not give the vote to schoolchildren. (I wonder if people who think this is a good idea have ever spent much time with schoolchildren. Hint: They’re like students, only even less mature and even more extreme.)

More problems that normal people don't have: "We earn £190k a year. Do we need to sell our flat to afford private school fees?"

"Seumas Milne will finish Labour off"

I wonder if the Ugandan league is included in Football Manager...

The D&D monsters based on cheap Chinese toys.

Why We Should Defend The Right To Be Offensive. (I reserve the right to believe that some of the comments on this article were made by idiots.)

Tax credits are complex and expensive. Why not simply a negative income tax?

Good advice for writers, especially of non-fiction. This article grabbed me early on when he took the piss out of Neil ‘my hair will blow ever so attractively in the wind if I stand on this clifftop’ Oliver.

37 brilliant Halloween costumes

Are we seeing the beginnings of a new species in north America?

Paedophiles should be allowed to adopt. (How could that possibly go wrong?)

Former Labour minister: "Labour has jumped the shark."