i am sparticus: Words

If I Were To Write A Cartoon Show...

It would be about American's developing time-travel in the Cold War and using it to fight Communists who have also discovered time travel (or more likely stolen it from the Americans) and prevent them from altering history. A bit like "where in history is Communist Spy Carmen San Diego and her hippy loving friends". McCarthyism meets Back To The Future and then kicks Doc's ass because he sympathised with Commies.

It would go something like this:
"That's why we had to kill William Henry Harrison"
"What? But he was president!"
"He was a Commie Spy! He would have sent us into economic crisis. We'd all be eating turnips if we'd let him live"
"But Communism didn't even exist back then!"
"That's what the time travel Red's want you to think."
"And didn't he die of flu?"
"Not flu. Communism! And yes, being injected with a lethal strain of the flu virus. But mostly communism!"

It would be great.

Self-Service

Today, a new item joins Mark's list of things he hates and doesn't understand the point of (but may just hate because he's a klutz and can't work out how to use them properly).

There's a self-service Tesco's just down the road from us, and while not the nearest supermarket (there are two nearer Tesco's and two nearer Sainsbury's, not that competition is fierce or anything), I occasionally go there and every now and again for novelty I queue up for the self-service aisles because, you know, you get to serve yourself, in a supermarket! And then you remember that self-service in supermarkets is the dumbest idea in a long period of time. You put your basket down, press a button, take an item out, swipe it, faff around for a shopping bag, put it in the shopping bag, then get another item, swipe it, swipe it again because it doesn't work, swipe it again, look around embarrassingly at everyone queuing behind you, swipe it a fourth time, put in the shopping bag, get out another item... and then eventually you get to paid, and you have to fiddle around for your wallet, play around with money (or your card) and then stick it in the machine, take your receipt, find your wallet, put it away, and then try and leave before the person queuing up behind you gets impatient and starts giving you the 'I went for drinks after work because the boss called them and I really want that trip to France and he spent all evening talking to Susan and didn't even buy a round and now I'm really hungry and have forty minutes on the Northern Line before I'm home' look. Self-service tills equals not really that sensible. It strikes me as an idea dreamt up by people who get other people to shop for them, or whose shopping consists of picking up a bottle of wine, something in a plastic container with a polythene cover and a box of mars bar ice-cream every evening.

My new policy, from now on is to give my shopping basket to the helpful people who are professionally trained in how to handle these sorts of things and let them deal with it.

Great Movie Adaptions

Why Why Why Delilah?

In answer to Phil Brown's question:

Why Why Why Delilah?

In attempting to answer this problem I have felt it appropriate to consider the question from each of the three different sources before trying to reach one unified conclusion. It is my hope that this discussion will lead to some clarity over this profound issue.

Delilah in the Canon of Scripture

The first and indeed last reference to Delilah appears in Judges 16:4-18, where it is made clear in verse 5 what she is going to do and where her motivation comes from:

⁵ The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, "See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver."¹

Money clearly appealed to Delilah, as is revealed in the next verse:

⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

This therefore seems to be on the surface the answer, however later on it is revealed that as Samson is not easily won over, Deliah becomes, or at least gives the appearance of being, very upset at Samson's rejection of her.

¹⁵ And she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies." ¹⁶ And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death.³

It is probably not too much an assumption to say then, that while initially Delilah tried to sell out Samson for money, she probably grew attached to Samson and felt that his refusal to tell was a rejection of her as a person, therefore her struggle to find out what his secret was was probably influenced by her own personal quest to gain acknowledgement.

Delilah in the Canon of Tom Jones

Though Delilah is given her own song in the Canon of Tom Jones, she is a character much less fleshed out than that of the book of Judges.

I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
She was my woman
As she deceived me I watched and went out of my mind⁴

As we see Delilah is a woman who was dating the singer of this song and has been unfaithful to him with another man. What she doesn't seem to realise is that the singer was watching her as he happened to walk past her window. He sees her in the act silhouetted on the blinds. Understandably frustrated he laments to the world with the cry of "why why why Delilah?"⁵. He turns up the next day and she is unrepentant.

I could see that girl was no good for me
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free
At break of day when that man drove away, I was waiting
I cross the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more⁶

The song then continues, with the singer holding some metaphorical knife over her.

My, my, my delilah
Why, why, why delilah
So before they come to break down the door
Forgive me delilah I just couldnt take any more⁷

Wait. Hang on a second. That's not metaphorical. What? Seriously? No-one told me he stabs his own girlfriend. What kind of sick and twisted song is this? This is horrific! And now he's asking for forgiveness from his girlfriends hacked up corpse? What? Good grief! Why did no-one tell me he stabs his own girlfriend?

Footnotes

¹ Judges 16:5

² Judges 16:6

³ Judges 16:15-16

⁴ Tom Jones | Delilah lyrics

⁵ ibid.

⁶ ibid.

⁷ ibid.

We Welcome Our New Bug Overlords

Sunderland

So, the girlfriend supports Newcastle United. That's fair enough, they're no Ipswich Town certainly, but they're decent enough and a respectable team to follow if you want to pay attention to all the nonsense that is the Premiership. So when watching Match of the Day the other day she told me I should be cheering on Newcastle in their Premiership fixtures, I had no real objections to that. After all, when watching Match of the Day, you have to pick one side to want to win for each match or otherwise it's pointless, and being the team of your girlfriend is a lot better reason that some of the reasons I've given for wanting a certain team to win ("Kit's not as ugly as Watford's", "Playing a diamond formation", "The best haircuts").

Of course, one of the best reasons to support a team is not what they do, but what they're not compared to the other team. So, you should have supported Everton last Sunday because they weren't Chelsea. Likewise, you should have supported every team playing Bolton last season because they weren't managed by Sam Allardyce (unless they were Chelsea in which case, dilemma).

Which is why the decision for Newcastle to appoint Sam Allardyce as their new manager is such a terrible burden on my soul right now. Alas, what to do with myself come the restart of the season?

That said, the headline to this article cheers me up somewhat.

What If Zorbing Had Taken Off?

Sitting upon a steep green hillside under the clear summer sky are two men in their late-twenties. Both are wearing thigh-length shorts and having a smoke, next to them are two large and battered Zorbs.
"Newbies." one says as they see a bright green Zorb start to roll down a hill, snag on a tree root and divert into a thorn bush, where it sticks.
"There's a petition online to ban Zorbing on public land."
"Good. If it wasn't for all these morons getting one for Christmas and chucking themselves down the local park we wouldn't get so much crap off the press. The sooner the ban it, the better."
Both inhale deeply, and blow out much practised smoke rings. The Zorb in the bush rolls to the left slightly and a hand pulls itself out of the access hole.
"Some kid drowned the other day, thought if he was fast enough when he hit the water he'd get across it."
"Muppet."
"You'd think he'd have watched Back to the Future."
They both pause and think about Marty McFly for a bit.
"That was the second one wasn't it?"
"Yeah."
"That one was bloody awful."
The hand has now developed into an arm but as a leg starts to emerge the Zorb shifts to the left again and the access hole, along with the arms, get pushed into the briars.
"Think we should give him a hand?"
"Nah, he'll be all right. Anyway, it'll be a good learning experience."
The Zorb rolls to the left again, freeing itself from the bush and starting down the hill properly.
"See."
They both sit up to follow the path of the Zorb as it careers down the hill before it collides into a large oak tree, and even from this distance, there is the unmistakable sound of a large amount of air rushing out of small hole.
"He's gonna hurt tomorrow."
"Good learning experience."
The first man finishes his cigarette off, and stubbing it out on a small stone nearby he puts the butt in his pocket.
"Pub?"

How to prove you're a good youth worker #1. Forced analogies

"So, pool, it's a lot like your life. No. I mean really. No listen. Imagine that the yellow and red balls are like periods of your life, and the white ball is like, uh, death. No wait, no it's probably Jesus. Yeah, but the black ball is death. So yeah, when you've potted all the periods of your life the only thing left is the black ball, which is sin. I mean death. Yeah. Death fits. And then that goes down and there's nothing left. Except the white, but you know what I mean. Anyway, you can't get rid of the black ball yourself, like pick it up or something because that'd be a foul, and that'd just make things worse, somehow. So you have to pot it right to finish right? But that means death or sin or general badness yeah? So, what happens if someone else came along and took the ball away. Someone who was perfect and didn't have his own black ball? Yeah?"

Next week: How falling apart table tennis tables are actually a good analogy for the Trinity.

Teenage Brains

In running for the most fascinating article about teenagers written from a biological perspective ever award, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, "The Teenage Brain". Curious as to why teenagers sleep more? Take more risks? Can build up such a high tolerance of Alcohol¹? Find the answers to that and more here! See also. Interestingly, both articles seem to recommend that consequentially you need to give teenagers less freedom, not more.

¹ I mention this last one because for ages I've had a theory that you can only drink lots (and eat very hot food) if you do so when you're young. I think this article proves me right, but it does come with the caveat, that if you drink lots when you're young, you're much more likely to be addicted to it when you're older.

Wobble

Regarding this, a motion-sensitive laptop and the quote that says;

" 'PCs are still very complicated. We are interested in the older user who is slightly fearful of this technology. The PC, monitor and mouse puts them off.' He said the idea was to make using a computer as easy as using an Etch-A-Sketch toy."

I tried to make a house once in an Etch-A-Sketch...

Maybe you want to think that through before you start giving them to people with Arthritis?

That said, I know someone reads this who works for BT in Ipswich, so if someone could maybe send me a prototype, I know a whole bunch of old people who could try it out for you. Or just send me one for kicks...