The Mantelpiece Fruit Guide

...for dogs, cats, children, and other curious creatures.

We interrupt this blog to bring you a special feature: The guide to our fruity awards. You know, the metal fruit we give now and then – you can find the laureates on the right column on this page. Golden Bananas and Leaden Cucumbers have been confusing to Frog the Dog, who did not hesitate to stand up and courageously ask for explanations. Many adult people pretend they understand things and then you ask them to explain something and they get angry and call you stupid, just to conceal the simple fact that no, they themselves don't know.

So let's start with something easy. The Golden Apple. A golden apple can only be good, right? An apple is an interesting round fruit, very nutritious, and some would say seductive. And it smells lovely. A golden apple is an apple made of – or coated with – gold, which is shiny and expensive and looks gorgeous. A golden apple can also be an orange, which is very tasty and juicy. We can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to have a Golden Apple! If we give one to somebody, we must have liked or approved of something about them.

A cucumber is a very silly vegetable. Some would say offensive. Children rarely like its taste and adults tend to object its shape. Unless you are into silliness, like we are, bearing a cucumber is not very pleasant or decent. A leaden cucumber is a very heavy and dark cucumber. Nobody wants to display a leaden cucumber on their mantelpiece or to have to carry one down to the basement. The Leaden Cucumber award can only be a form of punishment.

And what about the Golden Banana? Is it good or bad? It's not very clear, is it! A banana has a beautiful color and smell, it is very nutritious, and everyone loves the taste! But like the cucumber, the banana also has a silly and some would say offensive shape. To peel and eat a banana in public looks very stupid indeed. Only apes do that and nobody wants to be associated with apes. Well, a golden banana, although expensive and shiny, has all the shape of the banana, but none of the flavor and nutrients. And it's deceptive too: Gold is a very tempting thing to own!

If you've earned yourself a Golden Banana, chances are that you've said or done something you thought and probably continue to think was very clever and cunning and would serve your purpose or your image, but actually, to us at least, appeared like an ape biting into a golden banana in public, breaking his teeth on it and giving us a broad, ugly smile. You will be tempted to display your Golden Banana on the mantelpiece. Because it's Gold! Are you supposed to be ashamed of Gold??! Since when is Gold an embarrassment?

Well, that, our friend, is your drama, and the genius of it all.

--

We hope this has been helpful, Frog! In any case, do try and have your five servings a day, but make sure no metal has been added to the fruit by humans! Or dogs. Or Obi-Sven.

In Bed With Chevron

It's weekend, dear readers – almost. We are lazy. Laziness cannot produce a good post. Like goodness, it is a reward in itself and we will indulge. So we leave you with some more one-liners, made in our household. It's been a while! If you don't like them, scroll down, we still have some fruit and veggies to give away!

--

On TV: A cricket player's hand is injured and he needs surgery.
RTG: What happened? He burnt it on a cup of tea?
ML: A heavy cup of tea?

A movie on TV, the Matrix-genre. Looks crappy.
ML: What is this, Matrix 215?
RTG: Matrix – the Inverse?
(It was The Matrix.)

CNN: “To close Guantanamo would be a logistic nightmare for the US. Especially, what to do with those detainees, who the US believe to be senior Al Qaeda members?”
ML: ...based upon?...
RTG: They are older.

London, the sign reads: New Scotland Yard.
RTG: What's that: Scotland Meter?

--

Finally! The moment we've all been waiting for! Another Golden Banana! Our fresh Golden Banana goes t o Chevron. An oil company, who is proud to be “part of the solution”, pioneering alternative energy, because “we live on this planet too”! Plans to manufacture their own planet failed badly and now they have to keep this one clean.

Chevron's advertisers are not content with a golden banana, so they had to take it one step further. The ad voice-over, a male, is aware that it's all about everyone's future, “for YOU [image of 11-year-old pretty girl in nightgown] and for ME [man in his 30s taking shower]”.

Leaden Cucumber along with the Golden Banana. Bon appetite.

Must it be so very bright?

What kind of artist will not throw themselves into the fire? It is not a rhetorical question. You can't define talent any more than you can define the divine. You just know it when you see it. (So here's one reason why we could not become art critics: We only care to write about what we care about.)

Artists are God's creations too. And it seems as though, more often than not, they need to set themselves ablaze, to destroy themselves, before they can become creators. They do it themselves, or somebody else does it. A rite of passage. We should be praying for them to survive, so that they can continue to report from the front. Or from the other side. Not scoff at them.

Many artists don't seem to have experienced a hard rite of passage, and we appreciate them just as much. Some people are born with a third eye, a vision, and the details of their Bildungsroman become irrelevant. (Conversely, booze and drugs alone don't make you rock'n'roll. The headphones are on, but the planes won't land.)

So we're back to where we started this post. Typical! Well, it's a blog, not the Notebook section of Harper's!

--

End of the year! It is statistically safe to say, the worst is over.

Still no sight of a second Golden Banana award on this bblogg. That's good. In fact, we have a sweet Golden Apple to give to Liam Gallagher, of Oasis of course. Saw him on TV and he was in a great mood! He can be very convincing when he says he's as big as Elvis. He was also very convincing when he explained his generation's attitude towards politics: The biggest figure of British politics in the past 30 years, no other than Margaret Thatcher, crushed the working class in the 80's. And when the Labor party came to power, what did they do? Squeeze what was left of it. No wonder people save their votes for where they count, namely reality TV shows. Hail Little Britain.

This is the right moment for us to declare: We would be glad to have another, preferably single-digit, percentage of our decent income taken away for us, if that's what it takes for every one's health, income and retirement plan to be insured (including ours - still dreaming of the Swedish Retiree Model). Sure we can survive with one designer lamp less. Unfortunately, the way democracy has been giving way to plutocracy as of late, it's not very likely to happen. We stay tuned, but meanwhile, designer lamp it is.

--

We've seen another celebrity on those TV Annual Reviews: Heather, Ex-Mrs Paul McCartney. The fascination with the Sir himself we don't get, but the fascination with his divorce must be due to the amounts of money involved. She was in tears, trying to defend herself against all those bad people who wrote all those bad things about her.

One piece of advice for all the Heathers out there: Take the money and run. Go some place exotic and enjoy it. Enough with those vultures. The accountants of motives and truths, of eyes and teeth. They will never enjoy anything.

--

And now, back to the cookies for us! Happy holidays everyone, if you have any! Whetever it is you're celebrating, not celebrating it would be a sin indeed.

A Leaden Cucumber for Us?

We were planning to just say a sweet goodbye-and-see-you-soon before our upcoming

Leave of Absence #1,

that's a 7 to 10-day period, during which we will be on the road and possibly not in a position to post... and then it hit us again. You may think you're done with the blog, but the blog is not done with you.

It was such a heart-warming message that the French Minister of Agriculture was conveying through our very TV set. So they do know it's Christmas after all! He was going to loosen certain restrictions and allow French farmers to cultivate a larger portion of their land, because there are people in the world who starve. They're all waiting for the French grapes to arrive!

It just so happens that a couple of days ago we read how they solved their famine problem in Malawi. After one more disastrous corn harvest two years ago, they were indeed facing serious starvation problems over there. And then the new president Bingu wa Mutharika decided to henceforth ignore the suggestions and free-market preachings of the EU, the US -- and perhaps other U's we may be forgetting and the World Bank of course -- and subsidize fertilizers, which farmers there could absolutely not afford otherwise. Alas, no more free market in Malawi, they could go straight to hell! Well, they are now exporting corn to Zimbabwe. And the food aid that arrives there is being forwarded to Uganda.

The aforementioned U's do subsidize their own farmers. They just wanted Malawi to continue to export, say, tobacco and use the money to import their food. In that way U's would get the tobacco and the money U's would have paid for it. Hypocrites? U's?

This is not a Golden Banana anymore, this calls for a Leaden Cucumber up U's.

Aaaaanyways!

Dear Very Honorable Readers, as we said already, we'll be gone for several days. Posting is not guaranteed. Have a nice time this weekend, and let us remind you that you should air yourselves sufficiently -- physically and mentally.

By the way, as all Reading Heroes know, reading is a good way to air your mind, and helping Santa is another great one too! Dancing is highly recommended as well - it seems to keep Ms Quarks sane, sometimes. If you'd fancy some brain jogging, try and memorize the name of the Malawian President, see above. If you're German, you know what to do, we call it hiking.

In any case, be sure to enjoy whatever money you're making. If you absolutely can't, at least let somebody else enjoy it.

Great Blunders And Golden Bananas

We are still alive indeed, and we sincerely hope the same for you, dear readers.

More than three weeks on line and we realize that we have given only one Golden Banana through this blog, and that was in this post. We had great fun writing that! Since then, we have watched Sarko's awkward attempts to pat Bush on the back in front of the cameras – like Bush had done to him a couple of times (making him look like a shy and rather touchy self-conscious débutante, the height difference working against him) – and his love declarations to the US made on behalf of the French people. And he still has to push his reforms at home. We are really worried about his welfare. We shall spare him the Golden Banana. We will even give him a tip for free: Talk to Merkel instead! The American Century was Last Century!

We almost had another perfect Golden Banana candidate. We were watching the DVD of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The road to God knows where (by Uli M. Schueppel). Touring America in black and white, with a really useless manager. That was before the Kylie Minogue duet. So Nick Cave is in LA and he's waiting to be interviewed for LA Weekly. What a disaster! This indie-llectual airhead enters, the lights are on but you're not home. Tries to make small talk. She even declares she has “a list of exciting questions” for him. We feel embarrassed in her place, but we don't blame her, she doesn't know better. And then the interview begins. Here is an excerpt:

Journalist (staring at her notes): Seems like there's interest in... I guess inspirational qualities... this kinda like... southern white trash kinda guy that goes... that kind of image of that kinda guy that so many songs are written about... seems like you have that kinda... sometimes that vein kinda comes up in different songs... some particular... just one of the things that you find interesting or...

NC: Well, yeah, I guess I do find that interesting.

Here she is, having the chance to interview the greatest poet anyone she ever knew will ever shake hands with, and this is what she comes up with. Again, this is a tragedy, not just a blunder. Sad. No Golden Banana.

Do you homework, do your homework, do your homework. That's what we say.

The next interview on the DVD looks more professional and we get to hear Nick's voice for a change:

NC: ... I'm not really comfortable with that sort of labeling, actually. I think these songs are written with a fair amount of disgust for things, yeah.

Journalist: Why's that?

NC: Because I'm a pretty disgusted person, really.

In short, we will sit on our Golden Bananas for now, no pun intended. And remember: If you too are a disgusted person, don't suppress it or feel guilty about it. It's healthy, harmless and can produce great art.

Happy Weekend!

--

The contest is still going on, see previous post and comment therein. Tip: Start by trying to guess right Nick Cave's contribution.

Blogging was not invented in France

The French railway workers are on strike, this time because the new government wants to strip them of several benefits; some of them retire at age 50. The German railway workers are on strike too; they retire at age 67. Who's got the fastest trains? The French! Vorsprung durch Technik! It is obvious to us that the Germans have something to learn from the French here. It is obvious to the Germans too, that's their struggle. But Americans and their likes are really baffled by the French, they are jealous of them and lovehate them, because the French appear to enjoy life -- even when they are not at work.


In the following we quote the new finance minister of France remembering her good old days at Baker & McKenzie with nostalgia:

"The more hours you worked, the more hours you billed, the more profit you could generate for yourself and your firm. That was the mantra."

Well, she's now in a position to work her frustrations on the French people. This Delphine-Roux-success-story – who still cannot argue with a cabdriver, let alone the French unionists -- went on to deliver the following punch-line and find her place in stand-up politics:

"What was really striking to me when I came back from Chicago in 2005 was that the law on the 35-hour week had passed and [...] had produced disastrous effects. [...] People did not really talk about their work. They talked about their long weekends."

Anyway, this week's Golden Banana goes to Christine Lagarde and Roger Cohen for this.

--

With this and with that we wish you a lovely weekend. Of course we won't be blogging during the weekend, we keep it for when we suffer the office bore-out. So here's your homework: recite ten times and upload to your blog the following Blackadder moment:

"I've no desire to hang around with a bunch of upper-class delinquents, do twenty minutes' work and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of moist, pink, highly experienced French peasant girls galloping up and down my - hang on..."