One's opinion of the late Baron Lawson might depend on how well one fared financially whilst he was Chancellor.
I would be in the majority who benefitted. During his tenure the rate of taxation also came down. The basic rate was reduced from 30 per cent in 1983 to 25 per cent by 1988.
I don't doubt that he was better at the job than some more recent holders of the office.
Indeed. During his time as Chacellor he did not have to deal with any wars or health crisises.
Settlers of Catan is one of our go to family board games. Just looked at my Amazon history and we bought our set in 2009. My eldest must have been only 8 when he first played it.
I never cared much for Jaffe's visual style. I did like his drawing of Mad's Weapons Dealer Of The Year(fake interview), making him look like Daddy Warbucks. (More tribute than parody, since that was Warbucks' implied occupation in the original strip.)
Also, he did a serious piece featuring his own suggestions for new products. Hardly a day goes by when I don't think about his idea for peanut-butter jars with unscrewable lids on both sides. Just the other day, I thought about it while trying to squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube.
And his best Snappy Answer To A Stupid Question...
A dopey looking guy is bringing his two kids up to the box-office of a theatre advertising an obviously pornographic movie, and asks the clerk "Is this picture okay for kids?" To which the clerk responds: "Yes. You'll need them to explain to you what's going on."
That made me laugh pretty hard, not so much because of the teller's comeback, but just the absurdity of the situation, plus the moronic expression on the guy's face.
I was surprised at how old Mary Quant was too. I loved her make up and had loads as a young girl. Going to the exhibition at the V&A a couple of years ago brought it all back. I brought some plastic earrings from the shop in her trademark daisy shape. I can't believe she was only two years younger than my mum, I thought she was at most about ten years older than me.
Aunty Faith Thomas, the first Indigenous woman to represent Australia, not just in her sport of cricket but in any Australian sports team, has died aged 90. A great innings, one worthy of the highest respect.
Charles Stanley, longtime senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, founder and president of In Touch Ministries, and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, died last week at age 90.
Harry Belafonte was also a stalwart of the Civil Rights movement, raising $70,000* with Sidney Poitier and hand delivering it to Mississippi. There was a point where a pickup truck tried to run them off the road. How this story hasn't been made into a movie yet I don't know.
I can't remember ever watching his show - was it on terrestrial channels in the 90s? - but I do remember his somewhat random appearance on the Saturday morning kids' tv show SM:TV Live, a staple of my Saturday mornings. Somehow it's found its way to YouTube here (Americans may recognise a young Cat Deeley who I think hosted Dancing With The Stars there).
Jerry Springer just died of pancreatic cancer, at 79.
Telford's final thought....His show could be very entertaining
I think I would have enjoyed it quite a bit, except that whenever I tried to watch it, the constant bleeping-out of obscenities got really annoying. Given that the whole thing usually seemed, shall we say, less than spontaneous(*), I wish they had advised the guests to reduce the curse-words a little.
I did get a kick out of the ending, where Jerry would deliver "Jerry's Minute", and purport to glean moral lessons from the debauchery just witnessed.
(*) Some of it was obviously fake, eg. a dirty-old-man exhibitionist with a walrus-moustache and a shriner's fez. Plus, the "shocking revelations" where a couple would come on, the woman would tell the man she loves him, the man would reply in a dreamy voice(as if he was expecting to hear something sweet and romantic while sitting there on the Springer show) "Oh, I love you, too, honey!", and then she would announce that she was involved in a relationship with her own sister, and he'd get all outraged, and say "How could you do this to me?!"
And reports of guests trying to leave during the mindless brawling, and being told by the staff that they needed to get back on stage.
(*) Some of it was obviously fake, eg. a dirty-old-man exhibitionist with a walrus-moustache and a shriner's fez. Plus, the "shocking revelations" where a couple would come on, the woman would tell the man she loves him, the man would reply in a dreamy voice(as if he was expecting to hear something sweet and romantic while sitting there on the Springer show) "Oh, I love you, too, honey!", and then she would announce that she was involved in a relationship with her own sister, and he'd get all outraged, and say "How could you do this to me?!"
If your spouse invited you on Springer, you had to know that something truly weird and/or offensive was about to happen between you. I suppose the "surprise" was from finding out which weird and/or horrible thing it was.
(*) Some of it was obviously fake, eg. a dirty-old-man exhibitionist with a walrus-moustache and a shriner's fez. Plus, the "shocking revelations" where a couple would come on, the woman would tell the man she loves him, the man would reply in a dreamy voice(as if he was expecting to hear something sweet and romantic while sitting there on the Springer show) "Oh, I love you, too, honey!", and then she would announce that she was involved in a relationship with her own sister, and he'd get all outraged, and say "How could you do this to me?!"
If your spouse invited you on Springer, you had to know that something truly weird and/or offensive was about to happen between you. I suppose the "surprise" was from finding out which weird and/or horrible thing it was.
I think the whole routine was fake. The preliminary conversation sounded so lovey-dovey, like they were out on a date and someone was about to propose.
(*) Some of it was obviously fake, eg. a dirty-old-man exhibitionist with a walrus-moustache and a shriner's fez. Plus, the "shocking revelations" where a couple would come on, the woman would tell the man she loves him, the man would reply in a dreamy voice(as if he was expecting to hear something sweet and romantic while sitting there on the Springer show) "Oh, I love you, too, honey!", and then she would announce that she was involved in a relationship with her own sister, and he'd get all outraged, and say "How could you do this to me?!"
If your spouse invited you on Springer, you had to know that something truly weird and/or offensive was about to happen between you. I suppose the "surprise" was from finding out which weird and/or horrible thing it was.
Oh it was clearly fake in the same way WWE is fake.
(*) Some of it was obviously fake, eg. a dirty-old-man exhibitionist with a walrus-moustache and a shriner's fez. Plus, the "shocking revelations" where a couple would come on, the woman would tell the man she loves him, the man would reply in a dreamy voice(as if he was expecting to hear something sweet and romantic while sitting there on the Springer show) "Oh, I love you, too, honey!", and then she would announce that she was involved in a relationship with her own sister, and he'd get all outraged, and say "How could you do this to me?!"
If your spouse invited you on Springer, you had to know that something truly weird and/or offensive was about to happen between you. I suppose the "surprise" was from finding out which weird and/or horrible thing it was.
Oh it was clearly fake in the same way WWE is fake.
I think a LITTLE BIT more spontaneous than WWE, which, based on what I've seen, follows actually written scripts, with some extensively planned-out and rehearsed stunts.
Back in the heyday of Weekly World News(before they started hiring professional gag-writers to create Bat Boy etc), I think the basic idea was that anyone could walk into their office with(real example) a positive pregnancy test, claim she loved Hitler and had been impregnated with his frozen sperm, get the editors to call her doctor for a quote: "Well, she's pregnant, and she loves Hitler", and walk out with a small cash payment. I think Springer's staff recruited their self-professed social deviants the same way. Basically, people who wanted to get on TV, and weren't particularly bothered by social embarrassment.
Carolyn Bryant Donham has died. For those who are scratching their heads about who the heck she was, this opening paragraph is how most of her obituaries are likely to memorialize her.
The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of whistling at and accosting her in Mississippi in 1955 — causing his lynching, which galvanized a generation of activists to rise up in the Civil Rights Movement — has died at 88.
Comments
His daughter is an excellent chef.
She's not a chef and would be the first to point that out!
I don't doubt that he was better at the job than some more recent holders of the office.
Also, he did a serious piece featuring his own suggestions for new products. Hardly a day goes by when I don't think about his idea for peanut-butter jars with unscrewable lids on both sides. Just the other day, I thought about it while trying to squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of a tube.
And his best Snappy Answer To A Stupid Question...
A dopey looking guy is bringing his two kids up to the box-office of a theatre advertising an obviously pornographic movie, and asks the clerk "Is this picture okay for kids?" To which the clerk responds: "Yes. You'll need them to explain to you what's going on."
That made me laugh pretty hard, not so much because of the teller's comeback, but just the absurdity of the situation, plus the moronic expression on the guy's face.
Coolio died in September 2022. I'm not disagreeing with the tribute but I was confused for a minute!
Yes, sorry, I saw the coroner's report, and misread it.
I saw that. Another icon of my youth gone (along with the youth itself obviously).
She was an answer in the programme 'Pointless' the other day. The clue was 'Fashion designer' and we were given the first letter of her surname.
I was amazed that very few people knew of her.
I was surprised how old she was, it's strange to think of her as being of the same generation as the late Queen.
Good night possums .
A reminder of the Great Dame.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/video/2023/apr/24/everyone-can-dance-a-look-back-at-len-goodmans-life-and-career-video
He did an excellent job in Carmen Jones even though he wasn't allowed to actually sing as his voice wasn't stong enough.
In other news it seems that Jerry Springer has died.
*This is the equivalent of about $680,000 in current day terms.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/is-jerry-springer-show-indecent-british-judge-asked-to-decide-1.603256
Telford's final thought....His show could be very entertaining
I think I would have enjoyed it quite a bit, except that whenever I tried to watch it, the constant bleeping-out of obscenities got really annoying. Given that the whole thing usually seemed, shall we say, less than spontaneous(*), I wish they had advised the guests to reduce the curse-words a little.
I did get a kick out of the ending, where Jerry would deliver "Jerry's Minute", and purport to glean moral lessons from the debauchery just witnessed.
(*) Some of it was obviously fake, eg. a dirty-old-man exhibitionist with a walrus-moustache and a shriner's fez. Plus, the "shocking revelations" where a couple would come on, the woman would tell the man she loves him, the man would reply in a dreamy voice(as if he was expecting to hear something sweet and romantic while sitting there on the Springer show) "Oh, I love you, too, honey!", and then she would announce that she was involved in a relationship with her own sister, and he'd get all outraged, and say "How could you do this to me?!"
And reports of guests trying to leave during the mindless brawling, and being told by the staff that they needed to get back on stage.
If your spouse invited you on Springer, you had to know that something truly weird and/or offensive was about to happen between you. I suppose the "surprise" was from finding out which weird and/or horrible thing it was.
I think the whole routine was fake. The preliminary conversation sounded so lovey-dovey, like they were out on a date and someone was about to propose.
Oh it was clearly fake in the same way WWE is fake.
I think a LITTLE BIT more spontaneous than WWE, which, based on what I've seen, follows actually written scripts, with some extensively planned-out and rehearsed stunts.
Back in the heyday of Weekly World News(before they started hiring professional gag-writers to create Bat Boy etc), I think the basic idea was that anyone could walk into their office with(real example) a positive pregnancy test, claim she loved Hitler and had been impregnated with his frozen sperm, get the editors to call her doctor for a quote: "Well, she's pregnant, and she loves Hitler", and walk out with a small cash payment. I think Springer's staff recruited their self-professed social deviants the same way. Basically, people who wanted to get on TV, and weren't particularly bothered by social embarrassment.