Obvious Things You 0nly Just Realised - 2020

[JesusAndYourBush]

Terry / Terence
Gary / Garence
Harry / Harence
Barry / Barence


New page, um... thing.

[olliebean]

And, again, FIFTEEN QUID!!!!!!! A MATCH!!!!!!!!!!!! ON VE TELLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not enough. I'd want at least fifteen quid a half to sit through it.

[beanheadmcginty]

The area of Glastonbury called Silver Hayes is a pun on a strain of cannabis called Silver Haze.

[touchingcloth]

Louise Ford, who plays Kate in The Windsors, is the partner of Rowan Atkinson and mother of one of his kids, and her former partner was James Acaster. With the amount of Off Menu I've listened to and other Acaster bits, I'm surprised this fact has escaped me until now.

[touchingcloth]

The list of best-selling singles in the UK is either batshit or depressing if not both:

• Candle in the Wind 1997[nb]"1997" is actually in the title. [/nb]/Something About the Way You Look Tonight[nb]The idea that this was a double A-side blows my mind, but it's what she would have wanted. [/nb]
• Do They Know It's Christmas?
• Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are the Days of Our Lives
• Mull of Kintyre/Girls' School
• You're the One That I Want
• Relax
• By the Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring
• Happy
• She Loves You
• Love is All Around

Bohemian Rhapsody's 2.5 million sales are half of Candle in the Wind's 5 million. Wings are five places ahead of The Beatles.

Boney M are also at 11th place with Mary's Boy Child, so not only do they have a single which sold more than the highest-selling Beatles single, their second highest-selling is also higher than 18th-placed "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

The top ten list is one-third double A-sides.

Britain.

[famethrowa]

I like to remember that CandleWind97 was technically the b side at first, I love the idea that the biggest selling song ever is one that absolutely nobody knows or cares about.

[touchingcloth]

I can't even bring to mind how Something About the Way You Look Tonight goes. I keep getting bursts of Lady in Red.

[Ferris]

I can't even bring to mind how Something About the Way You Look Tonight goes. I keep getting bursts of Lady in Red.

I can only remember that specific line, which is infuriating. Or would be, if I wanted to actually remember the song in the first place (I don't).

[Rizla]

Fusilli (spiral pasta) = Fusillade (from the french fusil, meaning rifle)

[Sebastian Cobb]

Relax is the only real banger in there. Bony M are alright but those two tracks aren't great, Rasputin is way better.

[Ferris]

All books for kids under 5 end with the protagonist going to bed because you read them to kids at bedtime. Took me far too long to clock that.

[touchingcloth]

All books for kids under 5 end with the protagonist going to bed because you read them to kids at bedtime. Took me far too long to clock that.

Finnegans Wake ends with someone asleep in bed, and the whole book is an attempt to capture the spirit of the night and dreams, so maybe you should try reading Finnegans Wake to your under-5-year-old tonight. I haven't read it myself, but it's apparently thematically rich if a little tricky to understand, so I wouldn't recommend kids read it themselves until they hit a reading age of about 7+, but I reckon it would be perfect for reading aloud to them.

[studpuppet]

Madame Cholet is named after a place as per the other Wombles. I just assumed she had a French-sounding name, but she must have cheated on the old 'sticking-your-finger-on-the-spinning-globe' bit to get herself a French place name.
Even worse, I may well have driven through or past Cholet about ten years ago whilst on holiday.

[jenna appleseed]

Finnegans Wake ends with someone asleep in bed, and the whole book is an attempt to capture the spirit of the night and dreams,

Hang on does that mean In The Night Garden was actually Finnegans Wake for kids?
That explains everyth..... nothing.

[buttgammon]

Hang on does that mean In The Night Garden was actually Finnegans Wake for kids?
That explains everyth..... nothing.

Bloody hell, I think you're right!

Something worth mentioning about the Wake is the fact that it repeatedly shows childlike games, songs and stories, with the caveat that there's often a loss of innocence (including two brothers trying to guess the colour of their sister's knickers). It also happens to be one of the most pornographic books I've ever read, so it's not remotely child-friendly despite having so many elements that deal with childhood.

[touchingcloth]

"The lady's not for turning" is a pun.

[Menu]

"The lady's not for turning" is a pun.

Whoa, never knew that. Although I did wonder why she said "The lady" rather than simply "I'm". It sounded a bit Walliams.

[touchingcloth]

Whoa, never knew that. Although I did wonder why she said "The lady" rather than simply "I'm". It sounded a bit Walliams.

[Speechwriter, playwright Ronald] Millar had intended the "you turn if you want to" line, which preceded it, to be the most popular, and it received an ovation itself, but it was "the lady's not for turning" that received the headlines.

Imagine if the cultural touchstone was "turn if you want".

[Andy147]

Madame Cholet is named after a place as per the other Wombles. I just assumed she had a French-sounding name, but she must have cheated on the old 'sticking-your-finger-on-the-spinning-globe' bit to get herself a French place name.
Even worse, I may well have driven through or past Cholet about ten years ago whilst on holiday.

She's not actually French in the books IIRC, she just affects a French accent to go with her name (and with being a cook).

[Menu]

EDIT

[Menu]

Imagine if the cultural touchstone was "turn if you want".

It nearly was! In 2009 Hazel Blears changed it to "YouTube if you want...." to criticise Gordon Brown's weird smile on a YouTube video.

Remember when politics was just a bit shit rather than absolutely petrifying?

[touchingcloth]

Yeah, I've just realised that "you turn if you want to" is a pun on "u-turn". It's definitely a stronger line, I've only just realised the pun is of The Lady's Not for Burning because I saw the play mentioned somewhere else in passing. Like Menu I used to know it solely by association with That her, and always thought it was clunkily-worded.

[jenna appleseed]

Yeah, I%u2019ve just realised that %u201Cyou turn if you want to%u201D is a pun on %u201Cu-turn%u201D. It%u2019s definitely a stronger line, I%u2019ve only just realised the pun is of The Lady%u2019s Not for Burning because I saw the play mentioned somewhere else in passing. Like Menu I used to know it solely by association with That her, and always thought it was clunkily-worded.

phew, for a moment I thought the pun was the tories going full homo/trans phobic jokes.

(eta: fuck knows what's buggered up the quotes)

[Menu]

Yeah, I've just realised that "you turn if you want to" is a pun on "u-turn". It's definitely a stronger line, I've only just realised the pun is of The Lady's Not for Burning because I saw the play mentioned somewhere else in passing. Like Menu I used to know it solely by association with That her, and always thought it was clunkily-worded.

I wonder how many people even at the time knew it was a pun.

[famethrowa]

I wonder how many people even at the time knew it was a pun.

I've never heard of the original, but there's something in the odd phrasing that you know it's a reference to something. And sometimes that's enough.

[Menu]

I've never heard of the original, but there's something in the odd phrasing that you know it's a reference to something. And sometimes that's enough.

True. And this has just reminded me that in another conference speech she did a version of the fucking Dead Parrot sketch. Apparently she had absolutely no idea what the reference was and needed to be persuaded not to bin it. Although, again, I wonder how many in the hall had any idea what she was going on about.

[famethrowa]

Like if I may reference the Smith & Jones sketch, as "The Boy!" says.... "it's like something sometimes".

[Jockice]

True. And this has just reminded me that in another conference speech she did a version of the fucking Dead Parrot sketch. Apparently she had absolutely no idea what the reference was and needed to be persuaded not to bin it. Although, again, I wonder how many in the hall had any idea what she was going on about.

Hat fucked! I have no recollection of that at all. I'm going to have to try and find it now.

[kalowski]

I've definitely seen an interview with Steve Nallon where he talks about Thatcher having the line, "The Labour party, like Moses, need to keep taking the tablets" written for her and apparently she wanted to change it to "The Labour party, like Moses, need to keep taking the pills"

[The Cloud of Unknowing]

True. And this has just reminded me that in another conference speech she did a version of the fucking Dead Parrot sketch. Apparently she had absolutely no idea what the reference was and needed to be persuaded not to bin it. Although, again, I wonder how many in the hall had any idea what she was going on about.

Hat fucked! I have no recollection of that at all. I'm going to have to try and find it now.

Jongleurs, Bournemouth 1990.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ6TgaPJcR0

Funny, funny stuff.


ETA  More background https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/margaret-thatcher-didn-t-get-monty-python-s-dead-parrot-gag-a6680081.html
        And see the Personal section of Whittingdale's wiki page for something that looks like it's from the New Statesman book.