Concepts for which I have no words: the act of holding down the little paper thing on the end of the string attached to a teabag (another concept for which I have no word...) whilst pouring in the boiling water in order to prevent the piece of paper flying into thecup and thus failing in its designed purpose of giving a dry and non scarifying method with which to remove the teabag from the cup. Or am I the only person who gets this?

Saw an advert for continental airlines this weekend, which advertised "More direct flights. Less agita." For a while I thought that this was some copyediting mistake, or some misnomer for aggro, but it turns out that agita is some italianate word meaning, roughly, hearburn or indigestion. Huh.

Apparently the UKs spectacular failure in the Eurovision contest was down to politics, not the song being crap. Well, whatever; I just wish people would stop bandying around this phrase "nul [or nil] points": it's an entirely made up phrase that has nothing to do with Eurovision -- no one ever says the phrase at any point in the proceedings. Surprisingly, the phrase has fairly low currency on that arbiter of all things, google (a friend showed me some google goodies he'd picked up from their Noo Yoik depot: the highlight being Google Gum, a chewing gum described on the side as "Googalicious"). What no one seems to have mentioned is the utter superlative fantasticness of the Austrian entry. You can get the full scope, including the kickass video, from the Eurovision site, but hurry, it might not be around forever. How can anyone not love a song which (in translation) includes the lines:

The difference between animals such as apes and primates
Is no bigger than between noodles and pasta

But whoever wants to know more about animals should study Biology or inform himself on my homepage

No truer words have been spoken at any point in the history of mankind. Ever.