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I normally like to think of myself as very much down with what the kids on the street are saying. I have been known to refer to my friends as “blud” or “bredren”. I occasionally call things “grimy”. I think these examples are sufficient to demonstrate that I am at least as black as David Cameron.

So I was somewhat taken aback when, passing by some youts on the street tonight, I overheard a snatch of conversation that I found utterly incomprehensible. The scene: this one dude was talking to his friend, and laughing gleefully.

Yout’ 1: …I am going to be roaming in mayonnaise tonight!
Yout’ 2: May-o-naaaaaiiiise!
Yout’ 1: Nice and creamy!

So, my question: what the fuck were they talking about? There’s only two colloquial meanings attached to mayonnaise I can think of. I’ll assume that they can’t, surely, have been using mayonnaise as a euphemism for semen: “I’m going to be roaming in semen tonight”? Unlikely, at the very least. Which leaves the other meaning, namely the stereotype that black people don’t like mayonnaise (this study notes that a major mayonnaise manufacturer in America once refused to buy ad-time on a major black radio station on those grounds). So, a possible connection – has it become used as slang for anything black people don’t like, or that’s particularly un-black. “I’m going to be amongst people or things that I don’t like tonight,” perhaps? Maybe, but as I mentioned, it was said with some joy, which doesn’t really fit that explanation. So, anybody who has any idea – please, please help. I’m confused.

On the faint possibility that they were, in fact, talking about actual mayonnaise, the question seems obvious: how exactly do you roam in it?

Ack. I can’t resist it. It’s not often I get to do a bit of Language Log-esque bashing of journalists for sloppy writing about linguistics – that’s mostly because I don’t know anywhere near enough about linguistics to actually correct anybody. But Jackie Ashley in today’s Grauniad (in an article that was slapdash, ill-informed and hysterical enough already) managed to pull from somewhere a sentence that crams so much astounding wrongness into a few simple clauses that you’re simply left gasping it its dunderheadedness. Talking about how bad evil technology is irreversibly turning us all into lolloping imbeciles, she says:

This is not just the obvious ageing person’s whinge because my kids can sort out computer or digital camera problems that baffle me. It is more about the way they absorb information and entertainment.

There are the “icons” (a word to dwell on) of the iPod or Windows, those cute and reassuring little pictures that perform the role of Chinese ideograms rather than western culture’s words…

In the thirty-two words of that sentence, I count at least seven different things that would have had me – were I Jackie Ashley’s editor – frantically circling with a red pen and writing “WHAAAAA?”. Let’s ignore the cheap scare quotes around “icons”, the condescension of “cute and reassuring”, and the bafflingly meaningless pseudo-erudition of “a word to dwell on”. (I’ve dwelt on it. I’m getting nothing.)

We’ll gloss over her failure to notice that the iPod is largely text-based (you know, what with all those song titles and everything) or that Windows icons normally have a text identifier helpfully underneath them. It’s understandable that it would have been a bit hard for her to go and fact check those.
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Tony Blair at PMQs yesterday, on the prospect of turning Iran into a giant decorative glass bowl:

In respect of the President of the United States, let me just say this. The President of the United States is not going to take any option off the table—neither, incidentally, do I suspect that any President of the United States would at this moment in time. That is perfectly sensible for all the reasons that have been given many, many times by the President himself.

Compare and contrast with, er, Tony Blair at PMQs yesterday on the subject of Zimbabwe:

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in his analysis. The question is, what is the solution? I am afraid that the solutions are necessarily limited. Yes, what the regime in Zimbabwe is doing is a disgrace… The only issue is what we can do about it. What we are doing in this country is our very best to ensure that the right diplomatic pressure is put on the Zimbabwean regime to change, but I am afraid that there is a limit to what we can do.

From this we can conclude that the Americans have a much bigger table than us, and so can fit more things on it.

As we remember in awe the silky skills, deft wizardry and blistering pace demonstrated last night by the Champions League’s latest star, it’s perhaps time to pause, reflect, and remember the other great sporting squirrels of our times:

“As they teed off on the 10th hole, Ron Nimchuk and Fred Paranchych could only shake their heads at the menace lurking in the shadows of the evergreens lining the picturesque fairway.
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You know what? Those Matt Zoller Seitz links are going to fall off the sidebar soon, and it occurs to me that I’ve been abusing the ever lovely Nielsen Haydens’ bandwidth for too long now. So, having finally got round to hosting the jpeg of THE GREATEST BAD FILM REVIEW EVER myself, I thought I’d share it with you. As far as I’m aware, it’s not available as text anywhere on the web, so this scan (originally via a MeFi thread) is the only version you’re likely to see – unless you have old, mid-nineties editions of the New York Press lying around your house.

All that kerfuffle done and dusted, all that remains is to ask you to sit back, pour a drink, kick some puppies, and enjoy the Greatest Bad Film Review Ever:
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New pointless and stupid internet sport: finding portmanteau del.icio.us tags (e.g. batshitinsane) that have been used to tag one – and only one – url.

For example:
bestnewsever (how am I the only person to have used this tag?)
stopit
badman
annwiddecombe

Just missing out:
ohgodno

If you don’t limit it to portmanteau tags:
aaaaargh (me, I use “aaaargh“)

OMG IT’S A MEME!!! BUTTS LOL

Birth date: October 1st

Events:
- 959 – Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England.
- 1843 – News of the World began publication in London.
- 1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.

Births:
1953 – John Hegley, British poet
1985 – Dizzee Rascal, British musician

Deaths:
1985 – E. B. White, American author (b. 1899)

Via Tim W’s BritBlogRoundyUppyThing, Paul Linford suggests that the Lib Dems electing Vince Cable perhaps wasn’t the wisest idea in terms of broadening their demographic appeal:

We keep hearing that the Liberal Democrats contain the “brighest and best” young talents in British politics, as well as the most promising batch of new women MPs.

So why is that, hard on the heels of the election of 64-year-old Ming Campbell as party leader, the party has now elected the 62-year-old Vince Cable as his deputy?

To which I say…
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