Main Menu

Things that went over your head (non-prog-related)

Started by JayzusB.Christ, 10 January, 2021, 07:47:09 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Legendary Shark



When I was a wee shaving, in the dim and distant of three tv channels and playing out, I was fascinated by the graffiti in telephone boxes and bus shelters. Fag was one, the nickname of a much older, Fonzie-cool boy who lived in the corner bungalow nearby. His name was carved into numerous local amenities as far as two villages away and graced at least three bus stops in Town. One of them near a pub. Then there was Whitey, known to me only through fierce rumours - though I may have glimpsed him once, in all his hulking malevolence, on a school bus in the tender half of the First Year. His name was also in Town and on a few local amenities, but not as many as Fag's. Jack, Bungo, and Faz also figured amongst a fair few others, some fresh, some years and, in rare cases, decades old. Pretty tribal, I guess. I wonder if there's such a thing as graffitochronology?

Anyway, there was one name that was everywhere. Every village. The Town. Even the City. And I couldn't figure out who he or she was. So, one day, I asked my Mum, because she knew everything and everybody in the world. She also liked football. Boring, tedious football. When I think back to those interminable football matches I had to sit through in the depths of winter, on a torrential weekend, stuck in the front room because it was the only place with a fire and you can only read comics and draw pictures in a draughty bedroom for so long, with nothing on the telly but bloody football and my Mum, who knew nothing and hated me, sat there watching and knitting. She never even cheered or anything. Just sat there, legs folded beside her, watching and clicking and clacking and telling me off for, like, only everything. So, I finally asked her if she knew who Mufc was.

It is a disappointment that haunts me to this day.
[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




The Enigmatic Dr X

I just realised that a podcast is a play on words of broadcast.

I knew "pod" came from ipod. I just never thought about the "cast" bit.
Lock up your spoons!

JayzusB.Christ

I remember on my trip to Thailand, so many years ago now, I started noticing some place names rang a bell.  Chiang Mai. Fang.  It was Sukumvit that brought it back - Ian Livingstone had used them for Deathtrap Dungeon (the 80s role-playing book, like you didn't know).

It's just come back to me now after listening to the brilliant Hypnogoria podcast about said book.  And then I found this. http://officialfightingfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/05/who-wants-to-go-for-walk.html  He didn't even bother to change the names.  Still a great book though.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

sheridan

Deathtrap Dungeon - my first Fighting Fantasy book!  My fave is the Shamutanti Hills, closely followed by City of Thieves and a few of the other early books.

JayzusB.Christ

In those weird few minutes between sleeping and waking, I was trying to remember the name of Con Air for some reason,  and misremembered it as Air Con.  Which made me realise it's a play on words.  I think.


 
.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

JayzusB.Christ

I think it's only in the last year that I realised Oxo is so-called because it's cow flavoured.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

JohnW

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 09 July, 2023, 10:24:03 PMbecause it's cow flavoured.
Not so obvious, but guess where the 'Bo' in Bovril comes from.
(Where the 'vril' comes from is just downright odd. I'll leave you to look it up.)
Why can't everybody just, y'know, be friends and everything? ... and uh ... And love each other!

sheridan

Quote from: JohnW on 10 July, 2023, 08:44:18 AM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 09 July, 2023, 10:24:03 PMbecause it's cow flavoured.
Not so obvious, but guess where the 'Bo' in Bovril comes from.
(Where the 'vril' comes from is just downright odd. I'll leave you to look it up.)

The same source as "It was a dark and stormy night", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", "the great unwashed" and "dweller on the threshold".

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: JohnW on 10 July, 2023, 08:44:18 AM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 09 July, 2023, 10:24:03 PMbecause it's cow flavoured.
Not so obvious, but guess where the 'Bo' in Bovril comes from.
(Where the 'vril' comes from is just downright odd. I'll leave you to look it up.)

Now that definitely went over my head. Also, bó (cow, of course) is one those many Irish words which comes directly from Latin, which is a fact I would imagine Pat Mills wouldn't like one bit.

Are my memories deceiving me or did The Coming Race crop up in Zenith once?  Also I remember some DC character called Vril Dox, who I only knew about because he was connected to Lobo, who in turn I only knew about because he looked like Bisley's Sláine.

Just to bring this full circle, Sláine is based largely on Cúchulainn, and his main epic The Táin (liberally quoted in the Horned God) is not a story about a king ascending to godhood and uniting tribes against an ancient evil, but about people stealing cows from each other.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

JohnW

By God, but I don't think I've seen so much erudition packed into so few posts before.
Aren't we the fierce knowledgey lads altogether?
And to think it all started with a simple stock cube.
Why can't everybody just, y'know, be friends and everything? ... and uh ... And love each other!

nxylas

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 10 July, 2023, 04:18:23 PMNow that definitely went over my head. Also, bó (cow, of course) is one those many Irish words which comes directly from Latin, which is a fact I would imagine Pat Mills wouldn't like one bit.
Don't know about that, but I know he found this advert hilarious:
AIEEEEEE! It's the...THING from the HELL PLANET!

JayzusB.Christ

Now that is a belter.  Popes looked much cooler back then.  Modern-day Catholics are stuck with Jim Bowen with a stalk on his head.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

JohnW

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 10 July, 2023, 06:19:23 PMPopes looked much cooler back then.  Modern-day Catholics are stuck with Jim Bowen with a stalk on his head.

Why can't everybody just, y'know, be friends and everything? ... and uh ... And love each other!

JayzusB.Christ

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

JayzusB.Christ

I'm some eejit.  I just heard Jim Moon discussing movie Easter eggs in his excellent Hypnogoria podcast, and it's just occurred to me that they're so-called because they're hidden and you have to search for them.  I just thought it was because they were nice things to have.  I know, I know- I'm not the quickest on the uptake.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"