Things that you hear other people say as you walk past them that really make you want to eavesdrop further and find out what the heck they are talking about only they are going in the opposite direction, so you can't exactly turn around and follow after them to hear the rest of the story, explained thanks to someone who picked up on the reference, #1

Yes, something of a novelty here. My Ivy League Professor correspondent writes to point out that what I overheard was actually a line of dialogue from The Big Lebowski, that is "She's not my special lady friend, man. I'm just helping her conceive." Which, I suppose, is a somewhat less exicting explanation than any of the others that I had in mind.

Why not start your own Ivy League? Collect different pieces of Ivy and play them off against each other. The winner wins some holly!

Unrelated to any of the above, I keep seeing Amy Sedaris. Well, not even that. I keep finding out that things that I have seen have starred Amy Sedaris. She was in an episode of Monk, playing Sharona's sister. She was in 'Strangers With Candy', a Comedy Central show that I never paid much attention to, as the main character. And she's in this new Will Ferrel movie, Elf, from which title you can pretty much induce the entire concept. The thing is, I still don't really know what she looks like so I would know if I saw her again. In Strangers with Candy, she's under so much makeup that you wouldn't really be able to tell. Still, anyway, watch out for her. As my ad hoc postdoc Cambridge points out, she often features in her brother David's writings, and usually seems more interesting than him. I must get around to buying her co-authored book, Wigfield [Not to be confused with Whigfield. Of course. Or posisbly the other way around].

Meanwhile, to something which is connected only if you live in my head, I was watching an old episode of Press Gang (well, there's no other kind. This was from the final series 5, which is not quite so weak as I remembered it -- perhaps it was series 4 that I was thinking of as being somewhat lame), and I spotted Geoff McGivern in a supporting role. What I didn't realize till the credits rolled was that his wife was being played by Jo Unwin. [Relevant connections: GMcG was, amongst many other roles, the original Ford Prefect in HHGTG; Unwin is probably best know for being married to Chris Morris].

It's not interesting, but it's true.