What Is "Languages"?

Languages is very important. Especially, if, like me and hundreds of others, you need to make yourself understood to another human being (or a small horse).

Languages was invented in 1833 by Sir Geoffrey Languages, the then vicar of Dibley. The idea came to him after a particularly frustrating exchange with his wife, the honourable Lady Ga Ga, of the Cheltenham Ga Ga's. Up until then, domestic disagreements were conducted entirely through a complex arrangement of gears and pulleys attached to the minds of either and/or both parties.

In his seminal 1932 essay on "The Birth Of Languages", Prof. Shane Ritchie, head of Bristol University's Department of American-style Singing, wrote:

"Languages is arguably one of the most important developments of the last century. Without langauges, not only could I not convey to you how important languages is, but you would most certainly not be able to read it even if I could. Indeed, I would not be able to tell you that you would not be able to read it, since, without langauges, such protestations would fall on deaf ears (even though you are reading this with your eyes, as such.)"

Professor Ritchie is quite right. Languages is a necessary ingredient for both speaking and writing, as well as hearing and reading.

But what is "languages"? Being an inquisitive soul (I have conducted at least a dozen inquisitions this very Michaelmas, and that's no exaggeration), I endeavoured to discover the secrets of languages, using a combination of the Internet, my local library - from which I am thankfully no longer barred - and the gift of languages itself (since both library books and the Internet are written using languages of all shapes, sizes and hues.)

Here are just a few facts about languages I was able to glean:

• "Languages" is derived from the Latin word "Lingua", which, literally translated, means "languages"
• There are more than twelve languages in common use today, including English, French, Welsh and Klingon
• Languages was used, albeit sparingly, in all four Terminator movies, and is now a common feature in many Hollywood productions
• The world's tallest languages is Flemish, towering a truly eye-gouging 1.2 million ft above sea level, and is the only languages visible from Kent
• No two languages is alike. Except for German.
• In a panicked response to a wave of languages-related crime, languages was made illegal in the United States between 1919 and 1933. This prompted many bar and club owners to open illegal venues where languages could be freely used, commonly referred to as "speakeasies"
• Linguaphobia, or a "fear of languages", is a rare psychological condition suffered by a small group of unfortunate people. The patron of the Royal Society for Linguaphobes is author and fellow sufferer, Dan Brown, whosed best-selling books famously require no understanding of languages at all.

Julian Georgia Wonder Right Big Toe

4.5cms Broken 1997 In Motorbike Accident


Check out Georgia Wonder's new EP

They have quite literally arranged sounds of pleasingly related frequencies into a series of regularly spaced time intervals.

I quite like the lady, too. Ladies are my one weakness.



DISCLAIMER: Julian's broken toe will not actually be doing any robotic dancing

Bingle Bongle Bangle Bungle

It appears my dear friend and fellow Twittererer, Dame Stephen Fry of Hatstand, is another coffee drinker.

Yes, they're all it. Coffee is everywhere (including here). But what do we really know about "coffee"? I decided to check out the facts, and then relay them here so that you can read the words and then use your mind to apply the appropriate semantics.

• Coffee (pronounced "kor-foo") was invented in 1833 by Sir Bernard Coffee, who won the idea in a game of latenight backgammon from His Royal Highness the Chaka of Khan
• Major coffee-producing countries include Mexico, Belgium, Siam and - of course - Narnia
• The coffee refining process, perfected over centuries by successive generations of Zorro, is very complicated and involves a sophisticated variety of tubes, bunsen burners and spirit levels
• The essence of coffee is extracted from the stalks of wild burberry mushrooms, which can only be found on the most inaccessible slopes of Mount Corbett
• It takes more than 16 tonnes of burberry mushrooms to produce just one cup of pure coffee, at a staggering cost of £16,900
• Which is why chains like Starbucks often cut their coffee with cheaper ingredients like gravy, boot polish and cement
• Coffee is enjoyed by literally hundreds of people as far and wide as Tokyo, Towecester and Twyford Zoo, where bus loads of schoolchildren delight at the antics of the coffee-drinking chimpanzees (unaware, perhaps, that their caffeine-fuelled shenanigans are anything but. Chimpanzees have been drinking decaffeinated coffee since 1967 to comply with EU primate/beverage-related legislation. It's for similar reasons that you will never see a chimpanzee drink a real cuppa soup.)
• Prince Charles of Belgravia currently holds the world record for drinking the most coffee in one sitting. In 1971 he drank 7 cups in just under 3 hours.
  

My Dream Dinner Party

A lot of people - well, when I say "a lot" I mean "three" (and when I say "people" I mean "faces of people I cut out of Heat magazine") - ask me about my ideal dinner party. What would be on the menu? Who would you invite? And so on and so on etc.

So I had a think about this, and now I can reveal the details of My Dream Dinner Party to you, dear lucky reader, such that you are.

My Dream Dinner Party Menu would be as follows:

Starterses

Pan-handled solenoids of Scottish chicken, with a lobster and watercress bisque, served on a futon of burberry mushrooms

Poached Isle of Skye onions and laminated halibut, served with a lobster and watercress salad

Lobster and watercress soup, with spinettes of radish, served with gites of pigeon breast defenestrated in a mushroom and white wine coquette


Main Courseses

Roast Highland squirrel, potato brochures and wild watercress and lobster gravy

Montage of Scottish lobster, with honey-glazed peas, served on a sofa of grilled watercress and Spanish celery

Contratemps of smoked squirrel, with a bijoux of lobster and watercress risotto, served on a pasquale of wild burberry mushrooms and redacted ham


Dessertseses

Lobster and watercress sorbet

Tarte citroen deux chevaux, avec l'homard et le cresson

Choc ices


That's the food taken care of. What about the company? Who would I invite, and why for so?



Prof. Sir Stephen Fry of Hampstead

For his rapier-like wit and his encyclopedic knowledge of encyclopedias. I would get him to fix my PC, too. I hear he's a dab hand with Windows Vista.

Lord Haw Haw of Plumsted

What a nice chap he is, everyone tells me. Or am I thinking of Peter Ustinov?

Dame Hingent-Bracket of Wanstead

For hilarious musical interludes, and bags me be her partner in the obligatory cross-dressing parlour games after coffee and cigars

Halle Berry

For sex, obviously



I know some people can be very fussy and formal when they entertain, but I'm not one to stand on ceremony and would prefer to have my guests relax and make themselves at home.

I do have a terrible memory for names, though, so I must insist that my guests arrive in alphabetical order.

War. A Poem By Arnold V Sputnik III

War.
What are it good for?
Absolutely.

What?
Eh?
I can't hear you,
Because war's quite loud, actually.

A man.
He's quite a tall man.
He has a gun.
He are at war.
With himself.
It's ironic, you see.

War.
What are it good for?
Nothing.
Nobody.
Nada.

Are you going to eat that pastry, Phil?

Numpty Dumpty

What’s the latest celebrity fashion in Hollywood? That’s right – squid. Squid are the must-have accessory for 2006, and anybody who’s anybody (or has even stood next to somebody who’s been close to anybody) has got their own pet squid.

You can buy squid clothes and accessories, too. Elizabeth Taylor spends more than $50,000 a month on her pet squid Marmaduke. He has his own little squid palace, complete with luxury squid furnishings and a special squid ballroom with chandeliers and a glitter ball. On Saturdays, she takes him to the ball game, where he has his own private box. And on Sunday morning they both go to a special squid church where Marmaduke meets all his little squid friends.

Personally, I think he looks a bit silly in his tartan coat and deerstalker hat, and as far as I can tell a squid has no use for a pipe whatsoever. But Ms. Taylor seems to think he looks good in them, and as long as she’s happy then I suppose its okay.

I draw the line at putting him in Wellington boots, though – and dragging his tentacles along the ground to make out like he’s walking: well, that’s just low, in my opinion.

Jelly Fish. Marzipan Crab.

My local supermarket is having a sale on random numbers. You can get them in packs of 6 for just £1.99, which is a positive steal compared to what so-called “specialist” Random Number stores are charging. Granted, you won’t get the in-depth product knowledge when you buy in bulk at a supermarket. But the savings are simply too great to ignore.

And at the rate I get through random numbers, the cheaper the better! In our house we seem to live on nothing else. Take this morning, for example. I had to make an obscene phone call to a complete stranger living abroad. That’s five random numbers gone before I’ve even had breakfast!

Then for my daughter’s school science project she had to assign random numbers to a colony of frogs. The frog with the highest number won a prize. (I think it was a hairbrush.)

And my wife gets through them they’re going out of fashion. Which they’re not. Mind you, I recently found a whole stack of random numbers hidden under the seat of her car. I think she likes to carry a bunch around with her, just in case. She mainly uses them to confuse sales people who call her up at work. They’ll ask something like; “Madam, are you happy with your existing* vacuum cleaner?” to which she’ll reply; “24 6 78 253 13”. It usually does the trick.

I plan to grab a year’s supply of random numbers while the sale lasts. The only question now is where to store them. Perhaps in the loft with that supply of right angles that I won in a raffle?

* Happier than she would be with a non-existent vacuum cleaner, I would wager.

Bird Flu. Fish Swam. Cat Poo.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s having red hot needles inserted under my fingernails. It’s never actually happened. I was just taking an educated guess. And that’s what separates us from the beasts: that and the electrified fence I’ve had installed around the perimeter of the camp. You can’t be too careful these days. Okay, actually you can be too careful. Take my Uncle Charlie, for example. He used to insist on eating boiled eggs wearing a space suit. Come to think of it, it was Auntie Jill who insisted on the space suit. She’d make him wear it in bed after he’d had a curry, too.

Adolf Hitler. Now he was an odd sort of chap, wasn’t he? Some people collect stamps. Other people make model railways. Adolf Hitler used to stuff his ears full of live moths and recite poetry to them. It didn’t catch on, of course. The moths would get stuck in his copious earwax and Herman Goering and Albert Speer would waste hours digging them out with tiny little silver jewel-encrusted trowels - a gift from Queen Latifa to commemorate the anniversary of Britain’s entry to the common market.

Queen Latifa is renowned for her generosity. In 1833 she donated the left hemisphere of her mind to Unicef, which they used to finance a series of ill-advised sitcom pilots written by Sir Ben Elton. Barely a century later she gave the King of Luxemburg a dozen hippopotamuseses, which he later sold at auction to pay off debts incurred when he ill-advisably wagered his entire fortune on a race between a hare and a tortoise. (To be fair, nobody saw that one coming.)