OLD NICKS

American presidential nicknames:

George Washington: Sword of the Revolution / The Old Fox / Sage of Mount Vernon / Father of his Country
John Adams: Atlas of Independence / His Rotundity / Father of the American Navy
Thomas Jefferson: The Sage of Monticello / Long Tom
James Madison: Father of the Constitution / Jemmy
James Monroe: The Last Cocked Hat / The Era of Good Feeling President
John Quincy Adams: Old Man Eloquent / The Accidental President / King John II
Andrew Jackson: Old Hickory / The Hero of New Orleans
Martin Van Buren: The Sage of Lindenwald / The Red Fox / Old Kinderhook / The Little Magician / King Martin the First
William Harrison: Old Tippecanoe / Granny
John Tyler: His Accidency / Young Hickory
James Polk: The People's Choice / Napoleon of the Stump
Zachary Taylor: Old Rough and Ready
Millard Fillmore: The American Louis Philippe / The Wool-carder President / His Accidency
Franklin Pierce: Handsome Frank
James Buchanan: The Sage of Wheatland / 10 Cent Jimmy / The Bachelor President / Old Public Functionary / Old Buck
Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator / Honest Abe / The Original Gorilla / The Tycoon / The Man of the People / Rail-splitter / The Ancient / The Illinois Baboon / Black Republican / The Sectional President / The Sage of Springfield
Andrew Johnson: The Tennessee Tailor / King Andy
Ulysses S Grant: Unconditional Surrender / United States / Hero of Appomattox / Useless
Rutherford Hayes: Dark Horse / Rutherfraud / His Fraudulency / Old Eight to Seven
James Garfield: The Preacher / Boatman Jim / The Martyr President
Chester Arthur: The Dude / The Gentleman Boss / His Accidency / Elegant Arthur
Grover Cleveland: The Hangman of Buffalo / Uncle Jumbo / Grover the Good / The Pretender / Big Beefhead / The Perpetual Candidate / The Stuffed (or Dumb) Prophet
Benjamin Harrison: Little Ben / The White House Iceberg / The Centennial President / Kid Gloves
William McKinley: The Napoleon of Protection / The Stocking-footed Orator / Wobbly Willie / The Idol of Ohio
Theodore Roosevelt: Bull Moose / Teddy / Trust Buster / The Rough Rider
William Taft: Big Bill / Big Lub / Uncle Jumbo / Peaceful Bill
Woodrow Wilson: The Professor / Tommy / The Schoolmaster
Warren Harding: Wobbly Warren / The First Negro President* / President Hardly
Calvin Coolidge: Silent Cal / Cautious Cal
Herbert Hoover: The Grand Old Man / The Chief / The Great Engineer
Franklin D Roosevelt: The Champ / That Man in the White House / A Traitor to his Class / The New Dealer
Harry S Truman: The New Missouri Compromise / High Tax Harry / The Man of Independence / The Haberdasher / Give 'em Hell Harry
Dwight D Eisenhower: Ike / The Swedish Jew
John F Kennedy: Jack / JFK / John-John / The King of Camelot
Lyndon B Johnson: Landslide Lyndon / LBJ
Richard Nixon: Tricky Dick / Gloomy Gus
Gerald Ford: Jerry / Mr Nice Guy / Jerry the Jerk
Jimmy Carter: Grits / The Grin / Hot Shot / The Peanut Farmer
Ronald Reagan: The Great Communicator / The Gipper / Dutch / The Teflon President
George Bush: Poppy
Bill Clinton: Slick Willie / The Comeback Kid / Bubba
George W Bush: Dubya / Shrub / Mini-Me / Baby Bush / The Great Pretender / Commander-in-Thief / Junior / 43 / King George II

*Harding's racial background is still in dispute.

Source: various

 
PUNUPMANSHIP

3 toe-curling sporting nicknames:

Martin Offiah, rugby league player - Chariots

Gordon Durie, former Scotland footballer - Jukebox

Corey Pavin, American golfer - Crazy

Ouch!

 
THREE LAWS

Godwin's Law

"As a discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." This is the theory of one Mike Godwin; the 'law' originated in the jargon of the Usenet world, but is now applicable to most lengthy arguments. The party dragging up the taboo subjects as a trump card automatically ends the argument on the losing side.

Sod's Law

There is no definite wording of Sod's Law. It is essentially a comic explanation of ironic misfortune. It maintains that a piece of bread and butter dropped will land butter side down. Basically, in a moment of crisis, forces beyond your control, inanimate objects, weather etc will join forces to make the crisis steeper.

Murphy's Law

"If anything can go wrong, it will."* Attributed to Captain E Murphy of the Wright Field Aircraft Laboratory. Or is it engineer Ed Murphy of the Edwards Air Force Base, California? Already, a mist settles on the true derivation. Some claim the original saying was a slur on a sloppy technician: "If there's a way to do it wrong, he'll find it", which is semantically quite different. Whatever, it is more likely that the attribution is due to that mildly pejorative sense of pithy, homespun logic which the Irish are said to treasure.

The difference between Murphy's and Sod's Laws is quite subtle and can get a bit mathematical. Don't bother with it.

*Note: while typing this short sentence, I made nine typing errors!

Source: various

 
Q HE?

A list of noted people with the Q factor:

1 Francois Quesnay - French economist
2 Randy Quaid - actor and comic
3 Willard Quine - US philosopher
4 Edgar Quinet - French writer and statesman
5 Niall Quinn - Irish footballer
6 Aileen Quinn - child actor who played 'Annie'
7 Mary Quant - fashion designer
8 Raymond Queneau - French novelist
9 Robin Quivers - US radio presenter
10 Dennis Quade - US actor
11 Anthony Quinn - film critic
12 Gene Quill - saxophonist
13 Dan Quayle - US politician
14 Joanna Quinn- Oscar winning animator
15 Peter Quennell - biographer and historian
16 Salvatore Quasimodo - Nobel Laureate poet
17 Denis Quilley - actor
18 Manuel Quintana - Spanish classical poet
19 Serafin Quintero - Spanish playwright
20 Aidan Quinn - US actor
21 Marcus Quintilianus - Roman thinker
22 Kathleen Quinlan - US actor
23 Dan Quisenberry - baseball star
24 Vidkun Quisling - Norwegian politician
25 Francisco Quevedo y Villegas - Spanish satirist
26 Tommy Quickly - US singer
27 William Quantrill - US soldier
28 Johann Joachim Quantz - musician and composer
29 Roger Quilter - composer
30 James Quin - early theatre actor
31 Franck Queudrue - French footballer
32 Finlay Quaye - Scottish pop singer
33 Manuel Quezon - first Philippine president
34 Suzi Quatro - actor and pop singer
35 Josiah Quincy - US anti-slavery congressman
36 Anthony Quinn - actor
37 Arthur Quiller-Couch - writer and academic
38 Ed 'Snoozer' Quinn - guitarist for Bix, Bing etc
39/40 Stephen & Nicholas Quay - animators
41 Ivy Queen - New York rapper
42/43 Artus & Arnold Quellin - father and son sculptors
44 Eimear Quinn - Irish singer
45 Diana Quick - actor
46 Alvin Queen - jazz drummer
47 Francis Quarles - 17th century poet
48 Caroline Quentin - actor and comedian
49 Fernand Quinet - Belgian composer


Source: from various by RcL

 
WORLD CUP MATCH

Last year, against Bury in the Worthington Cup, Fulham fielded a team of players from eleven different countries:

England
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland
Latvia
Republic of Ireland
Japan
Jamaica
Cameroon
Morocco
Denmark

Only the English player was not a full internationally capped player.
Fulham also had players from Portugal, France and Argentina on the bench.

 
BERRY BERRY FEVER

20 strawberry-flavoured infowisps from the world of arts and entertainment.

1 I Me My! Strawberry Eggs is a curiously titled Japanese animation series in which a male teacher poses as a woman to expose a school's sexist regime.

2 In Othello, the notorious handkerchief which leads to Othello's downfall is 'spotted with strawberries', a pattern which symbolises fidelity and virginal blood.

3 In the book and film The Caine Mutiny, Queeg's madness is exacerbated by the theft of a quart of frozen strawberries by someone else on the ship.

4 The 1982 LP Strawberries, by pop-punks The Damned, came with a scratch and sniff sleeve which smelled of the eponymous fruit.

5 Over 20 films have name-checked the red berry, including Strawberries and Wine, Strawberry Flavour, Strawberry Spring and The Strawberry Blonde, starring Cagney, de Havilland and Rita Hayworth.

6 'Strawberries', and other favourite love poems by Edwin Morgan were somewhat reassessed when Morgan 'came out' rather late in life. 'Let the storm wash the plates.'

7 In the Bergman film, The Seventh Seal, the characters Flock and Jof discuss the plague while eating a bowl of fresh strawberries - heavily symbolic, no doubt.

8 Sitcom characters Frasier Crane and Private Fraser are both berry-men, the names being derived from a French surname meaning strawberry.

9 Strawberry Studio, in Stockport, was used to record many well-known LPs, including ones by 10CC, The Ramones and Joy Division.

10 Strawberries have appeared in the titles of both Harry Secombe's autobiography and a book about sex by Vanessa Feltz.

11 Ruth Rendell wrote The Strawberry Tree for television. It starred Eleanor Bron and Simon Ward.

12 Strawberries have cropped up (excuse the pun) in LP titles by Pat Benatar, Johnny Cash and Paul Butterfield.

13 Strawberries make regular appearances in children's literature. Favourites include the cutesy Strawberry Shortcake character, Flicka, Dicka, Ricka and the Strawberries, and Strawberry Girl, Lois Lenski's homely classic telling of the struggles of a Florida frontier family.

14 Jessica Stirling, leading author of romances such as The Strawberry Season, is actually an elderly Scotsman named Hugh Rae.

15 In Henry V, 'Shakespeare' notes metaphorically that 'the strawberry grows underneath the nettle'.

16 Wild Strawberries, the Bergman film, is properly known as Smultronstället.

17 The folk song 'Strawberry Fair' slowly morphed into the song 'Scarborough Fair'.

18 The Fragaria fruit has found its way into many band names, including The Strawbs, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Wild Strawberries, Strawberry Minds, Strawberry Switchblade and Strawberry Slaughterhouse.

19 In the Peter Weir thriller Fearless, Jeff Bridges' character believes he is invincible, after surviving a plane crash. To prove it, he eats strawberries, to which he previously had a chronic allergic reaction.

20 Part of New York City's Central Park was renamed Strawberry Fields after the shooting, outside the nearby Dakota Building, of John Lennon.

Source: various. Thanks to Tim Wells for the idea and some of the info.

 
MELONS, MANGOS, MORRIS MARINAS!*

16 strange spokes of the Aroma Wheel:

1 Horsey
2 Artichoke
3 Dusty
4 Concrete
5 Tar
6 Skunk
7 Burnt Match
8 Wet Dog
9 Filter Pad
10 Wet Cardboard
11 Fishy
12 Soapy
13 Soy Sauce
14 Butterscotch
15 Burnt Toast
16 Sweaty

The Aroma Wheel, used by wine experts to describe the smell of wine, is divided up into 10 categories (fruity, woody etc), each of which is sub-divided (eg citrus, berry) and sub-divided again into around 100 scents. These are some of the less likely ones.

*This being the caption to an old Private Eye cartoon of a Jilly Goolden type sniffing a glass of plonk.

 
THE PEOPLE SPEAK

A collection of buzz phrases and hollow clichés gathered during only two visits to the letter pages of teletext:

1 truly remarkable
2 millions like him
3 mortgaging our children's future
4 the ramblings of hypocrites
5 carry on the good work
6 the sudden realisation
7 I was horrified recently
8 willing to proclaim
9 the majority of the people
10 costing the taxpayer money
11 British legal history
12 rightly concerned
13 stop this nonsense now
14 in jeopardy
15 and all her ilk
16 here we go again
17 solve this once and for all
18 so-called do-gooders
19 we don't need reminding
20 utterly sick and tired
21 wreak havoc
22 the _____ brigade
23 blood price
24 let us not forget
25 people of my age
26 whose only crime was to
27 bleeding heart liberals
28 hands up all those who

These language strangling floggers make my day - better than 50 press-ups. Oddly, the most common location for them appears to be the pretty-seeming Lincoln, to which I once very nearly moved for a job.

Source: Ceefax p 145 / teletext p 147.

 
OLD MASTERS

15 dogs of famous writers of yesteryear:

1 Alexander Pope - Bounce
2 Elizabeth Barrett - Flush
3 Charles Lamb - Dash
4 Walter Scott - Maida
5 Lord Byron - Boatswain
6 F Dostoevsky - Sharik
7 Charles Dickens - Turk
8 Thomas Hardy - Wessex
9 Emily Bronte - Keeper
10 Eugene O'Neill - Blemmie
11 Matthew Arnold - Geist
12 WS Landor - Giallo
13 Anne Bronte - Flossey
14 Robert Burns - Luath
15 John Steinbeck - Charley

Source: Brewer and elsewhere; thanks also to JBQ

 
TOP SPOT TUSSLES

Long term number one hits, and the songs which finally knocked them off:

1 From Me to You (I Like It)
2 Green Green Grass of Home (I'm a Believer)
3 Hello Goodbye (Bonnie and Clyde)
4 Sugar Sugar (Two Little Boys)
5 In the Summertime (The Wonder of You)
6 Bohemian Rhapsody (Mamma Mia)*
7 Mull of Kintyre (Up Town Top Ranking)
8 You're the One That I Want (Three Times a Lady)
9 Summer Nights (Rat Trap)
10 Two Tribes (Careless Whisper)
11 (Everything I Do) I Do It For You (The Fly)
12 Stay (Deeply Dippy)
13 I Will Always Love You (No Limit)
14 I'd Do Anything For Love (Mr Blobby)
15 Love Is All Around (Saturday Night)
16 Think Twice (Love Can Build a Bridge)
17 Unchained Melody (Boom Boom Boom)
18 Wannabe (Flava)
19 Believe (To You I Belong)

*Thereby being replaced by a song title from its own lyric!

All songs (from last 40 years) at the top for seven or more weeks.

 
I FOR AN EYE

Some versions of the Cockney alphabet, aka the taxi driver's alphabet etc:

A for 'orses / Gardner
B for mutton / you go / slive in Canada
C for miles / yourself
D for dumb / payment
E for brick / knocks you out / either
F for vescent / ready
G for goodness sake / Indian
H for a scratch / a ride
I for an eye / the Engine
J for screepers / oranges
K for Sutherland / teria
L for leather / pixie
M for sis / a mock chop at the Deep Sea
N for Hoxha / a penny / ness
O for the wings of a dove / the rainbow
P for a whistle / relief
Q for the pictures / playing snooker with
R for Ashe / bitter
S for Rantzen / you
T for two / sharp
U for me / got to come
V for Las Vegas / pitch
W for a quid
X for breakfast
Y for heaven's sake / mistress
Z for the doctor

Source: various, including some new ones.

 
LOVE HANGOVERS

The Diana Ross alphabet:

A B C C D E F G H J K L L M
O P Q R S S T U V W X Y Z

Source: As told to Tuscon police when she was stopped for alleged drunk driving.

 
PASTURES NEW

Of limited interest, I know.

Ten places I visited for the first time in 2002:

1 Coventry
2 Lewes
3 Shrewsbury
4 Weymouth
5 Leeds
6 Oswestry
7 Bristol Zoo
8 Easter Dalguise
9 Westbury
10 The Wobbly Bridge

Ten places I visited for the first time in 2002 (foreign list):

1 Baton Rouge, La
2 Calgary, Alberta
3 Stockholm
4 Burlington, Vermont
5 Tuscaloosa, Alabama
6 Brooklyn, NY
7 Athens, Georgia (my favourite)
8 Charlotte, NC
9 Greenville, SC
10 New Orleans

 
2002 - A QUICK MUSICAL RESUME

Bit of a disappointing year. The only new CDs I really took to were:

1 Robin Holcomb - The Big Time
2 Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
3 Sigur Ros - ( )
4 Kathryn Williams - Old Low Light

Although I did also like bits of records by: Tori, BDB, Boards of Canada, Delgados, Eminem, Neil Halstead, Miss Kittin, Montgolfier Brothers, Mum, James Yorkston, the Streets and Beth Gibbons.

My retro listening included bits by: Donovan, Eno, Nyman, The Wake, OMD, Railway Children, Stockholm Monsters, Rusby re-recordings, Talk Talk, early 10,000 Maniacs, late Undertones, Weekend, Wim Mertens (as always), Magazine.

 
Welcome to Vitamin Q - remember, the archives are stuffed with hopeless crumbs of knowledge. Click on the dates to the left for the monthly archives... if you can't see a list of dates, you may have Java or Active X or scripting, or something else I don't really understand, disabled - change your internet settings.

 
EYE CARAMBA!

Three things you didn't want to know about your eyes:

1 Behind the human eyeballs, there are pads of fat which were considered delicacies by cannibals.

2 Those having corrective laser surgery for poor sight can smell their eye tissue as it is burning.

3 Each of the follicles of the lower eye-lashes consists of a tiny pool of grease which is home to one (just one) minuscule crab-like creature.

Source: RcL (and no, 3 is not made up. Sleep well.)