The Damned to turn on Cambridge’s Christmas lights, provoke fury amongst local clergy.

Why didn’t anything exciting like this happen when I lived there? We normally got some has-been like Christopher Biggins or that git from Big Brother (behind whom I once queued for a bus, excitingly enough) to switch them on. Utter mundanity while I was there, and after I leave, something exciting happens (about all that Cambridge gets in the news for these days, that and the whole monkey-torturing thing).

Edinburgh can’t possibly top this, not unless they ask Selfish Cunt…

I don’t normally like Damien Hirst’s work, but his rejected cover for the new Band Aid single is actually quite good. Especially compared to the ridiculous cutesy-poo graphic that was chosen in favour of it - at least the Hirst one makes the point that there are people out there who are fucking dying right now as you buy it.

This just in from the Institute for the Study of Ursine Defecation in Forested Areas: Prince Charles’ household is “hierarchical and elitist”.

The best bit, is when HRH himself spouts forth in a memo:

“What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of a child-centred system which admits no failure. People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability.”

And that rant was brought to you by the letters B and C, which were the grades with which Charles got accepted into Cambridge.

The smuggest, most self-congratulatory piece of blog-centric masturbatory bullshit you’ll hear all year. (via MeFi)

Has anyone else noticed the spammers’ latest strategy? Rather than “get viagra cheap!!!!!”, they’ve taken the opposite tack and are now using some sort of thesaurus program to put in more complex and florid words.

Our pills are just equal normal pills but they are specially formulated to be pampered and dissolvable under the lingua.

…and:

Have you at any time cogitate how much a normal person hires for his medication? Analgesics, tablets to amend the choice of life, mass trim down tablets, and many more. I fetch you the same specific, the generic version — the equal quality, the equivalent formula at a very sensible price.

…and:

This chemicals cardinal of the planetary’s most widely fixed antidepressants; it has been inflicted for more than 90 million citizens international. somebody you know is incuring finer because of this product.

Which gives them a sort of Engrish feel to them. Unfortunately, bloody Thunderbird isn’t picking up any of them, and sometimes even Gmail misses them. Bastards.

Wonderful. Ladybird books from 1971 and 1979 explaining how computers work (via MoFi)

Although the technology is laughably primitive compared to that of the modern day (check out the “small digital computer designed for the businessman”), the general principles behind how the computers worked are pretty much the same ones we use today.

The book uses very sophisticated language and goes into some aspects like magnetic storage and binary arithmetic in almost mind-numbing detail (even at degree level, we wouldn’t have done some of this) - especially for a book by Ladybird. I’m not sure whether this is a sign we’ve dumbed down since the 1970s, or if the guy who wrote it was just really out of touch.

One for all you impoverished students (like, er, me): using a Brita water filter to make cheap nasty vodka taste as nice as the premium brand (via MoFi). Though it’s not a strictly scientific, double-blind test (though I suppose if it didn’t work then they would be quite blind by the end of the evening), it offers convincing evidence that it works such as:

“Tessa (my cat) licked the glass, and didn’t die.”

Aside - my worst hangover ever was after a night playing the Moose game with a bottle of Spar own-brand vodka. It took me three days to stop feeling like I was about to die.

Firefox is officially launched this week - a special Google start page has been created for it as well.