Malthby Collection by David Nobbs

February 29th, 2008 radio

Rod: When I get to my office, if I ever get to my office, I’m going to commend your diligence
Des: Oh, you’re going to commend my diligence, are you?
Rod: Don’t you want to have your diligence commended?
Des: I do. I very much want my diligence commended. I love having my diligence commended. My diligence is all too rarely commended.
Rod: Good. So can I go and start work now?
Des: Not so fast. Now if I’m going to have my diligence commended, I’d better justify the commendation of my diligence, by being diligent!
Rod: I wish I’d never mentioned the commendation of your bloody diligence now!

R: I’ve heard talk about your prowess on the football field
D: You ‘ve, ‘ve ya, heard talk about my prowess on the football field?
R: I have indeed. Men have waxed lyrical about your long balls.
D: Oh men have waxed lyrical about me long balls, ‘ve they?
R: Men have waxed lyrical about your long balls.
D: What sort of men have waxed lyrical about my long balls
R: All sorts of men, Des. But…
D: But?
R: But please don’t keep repeating everything that I say, Des. It gets on my tits.

Julian Crumb-Loosely: I, erm… Prunela, the Crumb-Looselys find emotions very difficult to express…
Prunela: For goodness sake Julian, can’t you speak it yourself and not with the inherited disabilities of 5 centuries of chinless wonders?

Wubai & China Blue

February 26th, 2008 Uncategorized

I have been telling big fibs about my karaoke prowess. I have boasting to all and sundry my ability to sing every Wubai-and-China-Blue-song-yes-even-Hokkien-ones. Today, putting on one tune from the Xuang Mian Ren album, and another, and another – and this is a bloody nightmare – I found I have forgotten most if not all of them. This is really really really bad. The concert is on the 5th of April, and I’ve got FRONT ROW SEATS. I need to somehow re-learn the whole repertoire before the concert and I haven’t been following the new releases after Xuang Mian Ren, and he’s got two out since. OH, CRAP.

A lot of money

February 25th, 2008 books

HIGGINS. I suppose we must give him a fiver.

PICKERING. He’ll make a bad use of it, I’m afraid.

DOOLITTLE. Not me, Governor, so help me I wont. Don’t you be afraid that I’ll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There wont be a penny of it left by Monday: I’ll have to go to work same as if I’d never had it. It wont pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it’s not been throwed away. You couldn’t spend it better.

HIGGINS [taking out his pocket book and coming between Doolittle and the piano] This is irresistible. Lets give him ten. [He offers two notes to the dustman].

DOOLITTLE. No, Governor. She wouldn’t have the heart to spend ten; and perhaps I shouldn’t neither. Ten pounds is a lot of money: it makes a man feel prudent like; and then goodbye to happiness. You give me what I ask you, Governor: not a penny more, and not a penny less.

Shrinking family size in cities

February 22nd, 2008 popscience

Reproducing in cities has always been costly, leading to lower fertility (that is, lower birth rates) in urban than in rural areas. Historically, although cities provided job opportunities, initially residents incurred the penalty of higher infant mortality, but as mortality rates fell at the end of the 19th century, European birth rates began to plummet. Fertility decline in Africa only started recently and has been dramatic in some cities. Here it is argued that both historical and evolutionary demographers are interpreting fertility declines across the globe in terms of the relative costs of child rearing, which increase to allow children to outcompete their peers. Now largely free from the fear of early death, postindustrial societies may create an environment that generates runaway parental investment, which will continue to drive fertility ever lower.

Write up by Zimmer in Wired.com on the abstracted article outlines the curious study. The comment thread list some reasons for it.

What a difference twenty years makes

February 22nd, 2008 Uncategorized

I’m surprised that my cousin’s Primary Five class had
events where mothers are allowed to attend and that it makes her unhappy when her mother didn’t go with her.

I remember being 7, my father bringing me to class on the first two days of school year. I also remember being 8 and being brought to school on the first day. I remember having to bring my brother around on his first day because my parents were working and I was expected to do it since I was elder. I think I would be publicly humiliated by classmates if my parents still came with us to school after the first week or my parents continued to come to school with me when I turned 9. We were expected to be independent, because the class was mercilessly contemptuous about ‘babies’ who needed attention from their parents all the time. If you had cried once, you would be ‘cry-baby’. If you had shat or peed in your pants once, you would be ‘Pampers’. If you didn’t shower or perspired too much after strenuous catching/marble/rope skipping games before Assembly, you were Smelly or Stinky, depending on intensity of the pungency and the tolerance level of your neighbours in front or behind you at Assembly. I do remember crying once at Primary Six because a classmate sitting next to me wrote a long letter saying she won’t be friends with me anymore. We were best friends and I lent her my Whitney Housten ‘Greatest Love of All’ tape. I wept for two periods and the entire Row was very kind (”Don’t cry, we’ll be friends with you”) but this was only after I shared with one girl the letter and she agreed that the boohoo-ing was justified by the harsh letter. Perhaps the younger set now have gotten use to the close attention paid by their parents so it’s no longer stigmatic to want attention and to demand it unlike then, when parents had to attend to business or siblings.

Late warning sign

February 22nd, 2008 atschool

Shopping for pearls, I came across this article.

Revenue for his company, which sells pearls wholesale and retail worldwide, had been growing rapidly at 100% or so annually. But in October and November, the usual pre-holiday spike in sales didn’t happen. Customers who did buy were purchasing lower-priced pearls.
…snipped some…
“We were lucky enough to see it coming early, and we made the right moves to offset any major losses,” Shepherd says. “We’re taking a pro-active approach. We’ll be able to hit it head-on and not have to close our doors or lay off people.”

I find the claim “see it coming early” odd. While pearls are luxury items and are therefore highly income elastic compared with normal goods, according to what I remember of economic theory, belt tightening happens only when the income is expected to be permanently decreased and savings have been dipped into. In other words, only when the economy has become like a woman having her period – subdued – the belt tightening will occur. When a retailer sees it, it is not an early warning sign anymore.

Delong’s blog links toFeldstein’s article on WSJ:

Although it is too soon to tell whether the United States has entered a recession, there is mounting evidence that a recession has in fact begun. Key measures of economic activity stopped growing in December and January or actually began to decline. The collapse of house prices and the crisis in the credit markets continue to depress the real economy.

I am, however, going to laugh in the face of doom. I will be spending money on the pearls. As last reported, my economic incentive plan worked in ensuring that I finish up my essay. I’m setting incentives for my exam. Then my thesis. They are all in pearls.

House S4 Finale

February 15th, 2008 screen

The season finale of House is extremely fan pleasing. I’ve disliked the entire season so far because the new cottages are uninteresting rubbish but the writers have gained some plus points back with this last episode.

1. CTB is back! I love this character and the actress Anne Dudek is so right for the character.

2. CTB is dating James Wilson! Although I find it strange for CTB to call Wilson Wilson. Since she’s dating him, wouldn’t she call him James? She called House Greg.

3. Cuddy being rough with Wilson. I thought that it is nice for the show to worry about Wilson once in a while.

4. This episode is just for some fans wanting Wilson and House to date. Surprisingly, the thought and the full play out turned out unpleasant in the extreme.

What a beautiful day

February 14th, 2008 Uncategorized

Birds twitter about me Disney style and the first 30 seconds of Clair de Lune looped endlessly in my ears. On the computer, I trying to decide which set of pearls shall be mine. O, happy day!

The two most beautiful words in the English Language

February 13th, 2008 atschool

I have just put together my 11000+ word essay. I’m quite surprised it required so much work. By that word count, it seems so small, almost as though it should require no effort.

“Great! Go buy pearls for yourself, “C. said to me when I told him that I’ve met my economic incentive plan. Everytime it works, I’m amazed. I keep expecting it not to work. But it does! Amazing!

In these festive times

February 12th, 2008 Uncategorized

there are thousands who bravely bear the fierce daily winds of an emotional desert and those around them would be so kind to remember this and refrain from the mention of it.

Oldie but goodie