Following the awesome display of Chinese fembots in the recent Beijing Commy Parade,

I thought I’d repost this cutesy little cartoon.

Now that’s what I call progress.

Inevitably, there were comparisons with the 1976 Tangshan quake, but then during the discussion afterwards one of the History Profs piped up that actually China has had 3 huge disasters in the last 50 years. There are of course the well known and much discussed Tangshan and Wenchuan quakes but he claimed that the third is very rarely talked about. The Prof put out the question to the 50 odd collection of Western and Chinese academics: “Has anyone here heard of “Banquiao”? No one had, or at least if they had they were not admitting to it. I chased the Prof up later about it and he gave me some links to follow.

Can’t remember why, but I found myself reading Peter Mandelson’s Wiki profile and came across the below. Old, but priceless…

In 2008, melamine added to Chinese milk caused kidney stones and other ailments in thousands of Chinese children, and killed at least six. To show his confidence in Chinese dairy products, Mandelson drank a glass of Chinese yoghurt in front of reporters. The following week, he was hospitalised for a kidney stone; despite the apparent irony, the events were probably unconnected.[25][26]

Stumbled upon this link and thought I’d check it out.

http://www.pekingduck.org/2008/07/positive-things-about-china/

Could I access it? Could I duck.

First song, first line. RIP

The Irish problem.

Scene

A middle-aged Irishman is in a dark and dirty prison. He has been there for a very long time, has not shaved for weeks, and is thin from insufficient food. He has recently had an extremely painful ear infection which he thought would make him deaf, but was refused medical attention for weeks. He should not be there, he is in a prison simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is innocent and is being held for belonging to a certain culture.

As is well known, the world is divided into two types of people: those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t. For the purposes of this post, I am going to plump my arse firmly in the former camp and be lavish with my dichotomising divisions.

You have to have binaries if you want to have meaning. Without yin there can be no yang. Without evil there would be no meaningful good. Without contraries, there is no progression. Where is West without East? Where would North Korea be without the South?

And what is a nation without a foil? The Irish stand-up Tommy Tiernan once pondered aloud the question “What does it mean to be Irish?’ and quickly answered, “It means we’re not fucking English…that’s what it means!”

This was one of the recent entries sent into the Torygraph’s collection of “Jolly Amusing Foreigners’ English”.

My new job title is “EAP Tutor” and because the term is used consistently throughout university documents, I am reminded of this honour on a daily basis. I have never been a “tutor” before and I quite like the quaintness of my new title. But also, for some reason I am unable to explain, I kind of prefer the American pronunciation [’tu:tər], and will occasionally use it if asked what my job is.

In one lesson I asked my students to read out this little limerick in US then UK accents…

A tutor who tutored the flute Tried to tutor two tooters to toot; Said the two to the tutor “Is it harder to toot or To tutor two tooters to toot?”

which only works properly in an American accent.

The ant in the trench Was French.