“A Chicken Is a Noble Beast”

William Topaz McGonagall is renowned as the worst poet in the English language. Sample:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

He didn’t even get the facts right here — 75 died.

In the opening to his Poetic Gems, McGonagall wrote, “The most startling incident in my life was the time I discovered myself to be a poet.” Millions agreed. Stephen Pile, in The Book of Heroic Failures, calls him “so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius”; his temperance speeches were wildly popular with “poet-baiters” in Dundee, who pelted him with eggs and vegetables, and he was allowed to play Macbeth only if he paid in advance.

When Tennyson died, McGonagall visited Balmoral to ask if he might become poet laureate. He was told the queen was not at home.

| Art · Humor · Poems

Churchill Anecdote #1

When Winston Churchill won a seat in Parliament at age 26, he grew a mustache to make himself look older.

“Winston,” said a female opponent, “I approve of neither your politics nor your mustache.”

“Madam,” he replied, “you are not likely to come in contact with either.”

| History · Humor

Leggo My Soul-Corroding Ennui

If you work in a spirit-crushing cubicle farm and can’t remember the innocent joys of childhood, here’s a compromise: Get a cube farm playset, including office furniture, a meaningless job title generator (“Domestic Engineering Associate”), and downloadable decorations.

If that’s not highbrow enough for you, theory.org has Lego versions of social theorists Judith Butler, Anthony Giddens, Angela McRobbie, and Michel Foucault. Post-structuralism sold separately.

| Humor · Society

Rimshot

A guy walks into a store and says, “Excuse me, I’d like to buy a guitar pick and some strings.”

The clerk looks at him uncomprehendingly. “Pardon?”

“I’d like a guitar pick, please, and some strings.”

The clerk thinks for a moment and says, “You’re a drummer, aren’t you?”

“Yeah! How did you know?”

“This is a travel agency.”

| Humor

Churchill Anecdote #7

In 1931, George Bernard Shaw wired Winston Churchill: “Am reserving two tickets for you on opening night of my new play. Come bring a friend — if you have one.”

Churchill wired back: “Impossible for me to attend first performance. Would like to attend second night — if there is one.”

| History · Humor · Literature