666 and all that

I wonder if the "number of the beast" was a genuinely prophetic announcement of our worshipping of our chosen lottery numbers, week in week out? I leave you to ponder on that exegesis (personally, I go for the lucky dip).

Who should I vote for, mum?

Say what you want about Scousers, even the hardest-bitten Man Utd fan would have to concede, well, at least they hate The Sun.
Last night I was in the pub watching the cricket when I inadvertently picked up a copy having failed to spot the masthead. Horror! I'd just ordered food that had to be eaten without cutlery and I thought "Arrgh! Fecal matter!" and proceeded to smear some on both front and back pages.
So they decided to ditch Gordon Brown's Labour for David Cameron's Tories, and lo! and behold, the Tories have jemmied their way in.
It reminds me of my five-year old who walks in while I'm watching sport on the box and checks out the score before announcing who he wants to win (i.e.: the team that's winning). Then again, that's probably about the literacy age that you'd associate with that sorry rag.

What the foreigners are saying

Ever wondered what those what those quaint foreigners are really warbling on about when news teams are reporting in voice-over on their life and times? There may be more to it than meets the eye. Take the report on French TV news last night covering the British election campaign. A fairly nondescript overview of the situation in the country, with a few talking heads in Brixton and one or two toffs at a foxhunt in the shires. Yet as one particular twill-and-tweed beclad huntsman led the camera around the dog pen area, and the French reporter droned on about issues economic with the huntsman's words muted down in the background, those of us with English as our mother tongue could just about make out what the chap was saying: "...and these dogs are the females: in English we call them 'hot bitches'." Went totally over the heads of the newshounds, both in the recorded report and back live in the studio. Absolutely priceless!