Pardon?

2:49pm

So it's obviously not the singers' fault:

The National Year of Reading, a group created to celebrate reading, recently surveyed 4000 Brits aged between 18 and 65. It found that 62 per cent claimed not to know the words to their favourite tunes because the lyrics were inaccessible online.

Apologies to Joe Cocker fans, but this is a good one.

[Thanks: Patti McCracken, alias The American Lady]

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Poop, poop

2:36pm

Oh, give me a break. James Delingpole uses his column in Standpoint to deliver a lament on how life is so hard for motorists:

We daren’t floor the accelerator on the open road – not even when it’s wide and straight and it’s the middle of the night – ­because we know for near-certain we’ll be blatted by a speed camera. And we can’t eat or drink or smoke or use our phones behind the wheel, no matter how dextrous we are, because that could easily cost us our licences. As for drink-driving, are you kidding? What kind of an evil, selfish psychopath would you need to be to commit a crime like that? Truly, there is almost no end to the myriad pettifogging ways in which we’ve contrived to make the whole driving experience as miserable as possible.

Does he...

Continue reading...

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Greatest games

2:31pm

James Hamilton has devised a new pastime: Football Desert Island Discs. Good idea. Carlos Alberto's goal in the 1970 World Cup Final would be one of my choices.

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SEBPL - Stuff Educated Black People Like

1:13pm

Taking its inspiration from the popular white bread site, an African-American blog pokes gentle fun at materially-minded types. More, please, says one unabashedly middle-class admirer:

Some wear it with a badge of honour, using it to describe themselves as educated, well-read, worldly and so-cool-that-they-don't-even-have-to-try. A number of entities have popped up to cater specifically to the UBBP (Unapologetically Bourgie Black Person—I made that acronym up myself.) Jam Donaldson (the brain behind HotGhettoMess.com) is now selling a line of T-shirts encouraging proper speech and grammar, with phrases like "Conversate is not a word" and "No Questions 'Axed.'"

In case you're wondering, EBPs like gated communities, aspirational children's names and... the idea of golf (ha!). Not to mention jazz:

It is also the preferred date, as it shows true sophistication and understanding, while always impressing the ladies.

Why, only the other night I introduced beige brother PooterGeek to the joys of Ronnie Scott's. In a purely platonic sense, naturally. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as they say in "Seinfeld".)

PS: I just noticed that Ta-Nehisi Coates is a fan too.

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Overhead

12:40pm

Workers re-install the largest panel of the ceiling at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. Adorned with work by the 17th century painter Robert Streater, the panels have been meticulously restored over the last four years. Photo: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images.

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