:: The Festive Nadir ::

...Thus spake Bezuhoff and forthwith
Appeared an atom bomb,
To fry the bastards in their beds
Ere Christmas came along.

Or something like that. It's nice to know that there are other people out there who share my scepticism for the enforced jollity at this time of year. That's not to say I disapprove of Christmas per se: I simply loathe the media hype and rabid consumerism which festoons the modern celebrations. Unswerving from controversy as ever, L Russe Bezuhoff called for a Weihnachtsendlösung in his most recent missive. After my last minute present shopping dash down Oxford Street yeaterday evening, I'm inclined to agree.

As I shall be leaving London shortly, this is likely to be the last of my regular posts for a couple of weeks. Whilst hanging with the olds and visiting the bright young things in New York, I shall endeavour to capture the spirit of the day in blog-post form; however, I make no promises. Grudgingly I therefore include a rundown of festive fun:

• You can tell the silly season has well and truly begun, as Ananova gleefully recounts the tale of a farty Tesco sprout tester. 5 kilos a week! I'll be lucky if I manage to force two of the things down my throat without gagging. Brussels sprouts are much maligned because of their tendency to become overcooked for Christmas Dinner. Budding chefs who would like to make something at least vaguely palatable from them should consult this handy selection of decent recipes. My personal favourites involve bacon and chestnuts.

• The Guardian has kicked off the traditional round of Review-Of-The-Year type articles with a selection of the year's funniest letters. Several made me chortle, but the one about Ms Dynamite made me laugh out loud - even on second reading.

• Accused of mean-spirited malice by many (by the looks of the guestbook at least), Cheesy Gifts 4 Teachers casts a critical eye on the seasonal offerings given to school staff by their little darlings. As old ma Devukha is a primary school teacher, I'm familiar with this seasonal round of grateful smiles and private grimaces. In fact, my mother and her colleagues often keep a league table of who has received the best gifts. Although I appreciate that the presents are usually well-intended, those on the guestbook who castigate the author for unkindness are over-reacting in the extreme. Yes, many of the items received are unutterably tacky and perhaps warrant the odd piss-take, but the number of comments like "this proves all teachers are heartless wankers" is unbelievable. Come back Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, all is forgiven...

• And finally, if the family festivities are inescapable, bear this in mind. Scientists have worked out how to win at pulling crackers, so you can deprive all your little nieces and nephews of their plastic rings and paper hats.


Of course b3ta's eager contributors are unable to refrain from seasonal jollity. Their inevitable weekly photoshop competition involves making the ideal Christmas card. Although many of these are classics ("It's a girl"/"Fucksocks!" being a case in point), I was particularly tickled by the following from mozza. the prospect of Prince Phillip attempting to make jokes about the regions in irresistable:

Well, that's it then I suppose. I've had my fill of Christmas cheer, although the prospect of decanting and drinking the sloe gin tomorrow is warming my cockles already. One final thought - I wrote this poem when I was living in Russia four years ago. I think it's still applicable...

Humbug

Not dreaming of a “White Christmas”,
Just like the ones we never knew;
Where the tinsel glistens
And no-one listens
To the songs of hearts broken in two.

Just dreaming of a “festive season”
Without those tacky, tawdry, trite
Tunes whose anodyne pleasure
Puts us at leisure
To forget the true of others’ plight.

:: Friday Engrish ::

A delightful poem, extolling the virtue of Uni-President's products:

An F major symphony,
Alive and vibrant,
Showcasing love and care.
Effusing harmony and fluency
It presents the most primitive tone and voice.
Translucent and up-bright melody, lively and cheerful as the sound of spring
Sometimes growling like ocean current gently hitting on the sandy shore
Sometimes beating on the rhythm of the deep blue.
Sometimes like birds humming spritely in the woods,
It is the keynote of our planet
It is green.
It is the motif of the nature.

Albanian word of the week: gushtit = "August"

That is all. Happy weekend, campers...

:: Two beeps, or not two beeps? ::

Apologies for the lack of posting this week. Having taken on Stage Management of the following, I'm all booked up:

It's a shameless rip off of Shakespeare's "best bits", spliced together with a catchy 50s rock 'n' roll soundtrack. Not my kind of thing, you opine? Well you're right, but it could be much worse. I'm trying not to let the enforced jollity get to me too much... L Russe Bezuhoff has been in touch regarding my impending visit with Jude. He has called for a Weihnachtsendlösung during the festive season...

In other news, I note that large numbers of Mills & Boon novels were used in the construction of the new M6 toll road. If this isn't a fillip to start the silly season, I don't know what is - cue eager headline writers quoting "never has the course of love run smooth" etc. Groan...

:: Hair today, gone tomorrow? ::

Anyone who hasn't seen me for the past two weeks will be unaware of the fact that I have acquired a beard. For PopBitch readers, I can reliably inform you that I don't mean that type of beard. Indeed, you may wish to indulge in a little Devukha Beard Bingo and try to guess the precise style of follicular chin-sprout I am currently wearing. Aside from the fact that yesterday it felt like I was wearing a hessian nose-bag, I must confess to it having been a success. The compliments it has received have far outwighed my expectations, even to the pont of disbelief. Whilst La Gribouilleuse is not a dedicated fan, most other people have avoided downright derision. The Organisation for the Advancement of Facial Hair is an institution worthy of my patronage, I thought. But then Wilverine pointed out one of the fundamental flaws of facial hair: after a centimetre or so, it becomes difficult to eat soup. So, the chin-bush might be heading down my plughole rather soon, and I shan't get an opportunity to enter the World Beard Championships...

Christmas is looming and my wallet's getting thin in the rush to complete the present shopping whilst holding down a job and stage-managing a musical. So it was with some amusement when one of our directors sent round a message to say our company had received an enormous gift from Ferrero! I'll leave you to guess what it might have been, but this might give you a clue (courtesy of b3ta's Northern_Blerk).

While we're on the topic of the dreaded festivities, I ought to mention these delightful crackers. What a pity they're not commercially available - I think someone's missing out on a business opportunity.

And finally, in the week when EU tried to outlaw spam and many top UK websites were found to fail on these privacy criteria, I decided to take action. My email inbox, once impervious to the spam menace, has become a repository for pleas for money from starving Nigerians, offers of cheap-rate mortgages and links to those pictures of Paris Hilton. All this come through naughty web-bots plucking my address from this site for spam-xploitation. I found a rather useful site which details the measures you could take to make your "mailto:" link more secure. God knows if it will work, but I know quite a few people who would appreciate not having to wade through mountains of crap to read their mail, so, fingers crossed...

:: Headless Chickens Don't Come Close ::

As if to fuel the claims that my inter-nominal moniker should be "two parties" I had two social appointments each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. With the annual company booze-fest for starters, I was well-oiled by the time I got to Tigger's on Friday night. So much so, that once I'd greeted a few people and imbibed a cheeky Moscow Mule, I fell asleep in the lounge accompanied by a range of banging drum 'n' bass and hip-hop. To the astonishment of all, I remained so until the final guests left, then crawled into a sleeping bag. I awoke early and smugly hangover-less, just in time for a spot of cleaning...

Saturday evening started with an excellent Youth theatre production; I then hot-footed it to a Slovenian St Nicholas' Day party hosted by the lovely Miss Glam and her amiable side-kick. The food was excellent, the mulled wine abundant and the company scintillating; those who had been naughty through the past year were ceremonially whipped with a birch-faggot, as tradition dictates, and the sound of cheesy Euro-pop rang through NW1. Two more mulled wine efforts followed on Sunday, but my passion for describing them has waned nearly as much as for that piping hot spiced seasonal libation.

Without wishing to drone on, I have been rather busy of late - in my work and extra-curricular activities. Rehearsals on Monday (Return to the Forbidden Planet) and last night (Shakers Re-Stirred Revived), mean that I could quite reasonably expect a night off tonight. Oh, for the joys of weeknight trash TV with a glass of wine and the crossword.

However, the lovely Sphynx has designated tonight as her pre-Christmas bash. I hope she will understand why I avoid the mulled wine and mince pies.

Of course the world does not revolve around my social life, so the inclusion of a couple of "newsy" items might appease those who don't give a shit about some twat from London. I suppose you've all heard about the Czech porn star who wants to become a Euro MP? Maybe, but are you also aware of the future uses of origami in space technology? And if you're desperate for a fix of corporate bullshit, this explanation of a company logo defies belief.

Oh well, the gurgling cauldron of spicy vino awaits...

:: Find What You're Looking For ::

...aka "how to manipulate Google to amusing effect."

Regular readers will be aware of my current obsession with random search terms - and which ones end up directing the hapless googler to this very site. The latest faintly droll combination to reach Devukha is short rude lyrics your mum. As many of you will be aware, Google uses an system called PageRank, which assesses a given site's importance, when prioritising search results. The simplest view of this would be to say that the more people that link to your site, the better your PageRank would be. In this way, small private blogs might be tricky to find if searched for using very common words. Of course, I circumvent this by using the very obscure Devukha as the blog's name. A rather less inventive name, say Bob's Blog, come up with large numbers of results (in this case about 17500!), making it hard to find out about your mate Bob's exploits down the pub, rather than the preoccupations of some pre=op transexual named Bob in Minnesota. The art of ensuring a high presence on Google searches has therefore become a very significant part of the prefessional webdesigner's job. At my company, for example, the Website Designer had to put in huge numbers of extra hours when Google recently changed the way in Which PageRank works - we no longer appeared at the top of some significant searches.

With this in mind, I was surprised to discover the results of typing the following into Google: miserable failure. The first result is as much a testament to the vagaries of Google's PageRank Algorithm as to those who have learnt to manipulate it.

We now move seamlessly from techno-babble to techno-bollox as a new site offers you the opportunity to send emails from beyond the grave. Whether this is a spoof or not has yet to be established...

And all this on the day when it was announced that Macca and Britney are to appear in the new (bound to be awful) Carry On London. Apparently her character is going to be called Rhoda Freely, sexy daughter of (you guessed it) IP Freely, played by Burt Reynolds. I still maintain that none of the Carry-Ons have been funny since Carry On the Khyber. Oh well, another one to miss - unlike tonight's bAsTaRd, which features at least one very special guest...

:: Bingo! ::

It's really happening - Shakers Re-Stirred Revived has got the go-ahead for January. So all you slackers who didn't make it the first time round will have another opportunity to witness my directorial début. La Gribouilleuse is the heroine of the hour, stepping in to fill Adele's shoes for the play's new incarnation.

Excited and relieved, I've almost forgotten how much there is still yet to organise (again) in so little time. Of course it's not all that helpful that I will be in the Big Apple for 10 days shortly before the play goes up, but then that's probably my come-uppance for gloating to all and sundry.

Well, there's not much more for me to say, except I rather like this from b3ta's Choaderboy:

And all this on the day when riders on a brummie ferris wheel thought they could see they Eiffel Tower and some Dutch shoplifter got arrested for shitting on a security guard. No further comment required.