venta | Some disparate things

1. I was given a small collection of Iain Pears (aka Mr instant Fingerpost) art=world whodunnits for Christmas. I started reading one on the train this morning, and there on page one, is this description of California:

"a part of the world where legs now [serve] mainly a decorative function"

I like it already.

2. I never again thought I'd encounter an anagram anywhere near as apposite as the well known rearrangement of Virginia Bottomley. However, running it a rather close second is this gem, courtesy of the News Quiz a couple of weeks ago (I heard it, but then forgot about it till last night).

CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE USA
->
TO COPULATE, HE FINDS INTERNS

(

onebyone is excused from reading the following, as he's heard this rant at least twice)

3.

To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person of my acquaintance who has managed to slip on a banana skin. Twice. (Two separate incidents, I hasten to add, not twice on the same one). One of these involved the full-on legs-in-air landing-on-arse cartoon sprawl.

Now. Since the second one, I've started keeping an eye out for the damn things. And they're everywhere. I passed three coming in to work this morning (one on my road, one at the Iffley Road bustop, and one lying about in the middle of the pavement to the business park where I work.)

Yet, if ever I mention this to people, they point out that you just don't get banana skins lying about in the streets these days.

Do me favour. Keep an eye out for a week, and let me know how many you see. I want to know whether this is an international conspiracy, a delusion on my part, a little known public health risk or an indication that I'm being stalked by an orang-utan.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was certainly an abandoned banana lying on the pavement outside our place yesterday. Does that count?

Could you go out and check if it's slippery? Preferably by experimentally standing on it while walking along.

If so, then yes, it counts.

(And if it isn't, it probably will be in a week or so :)

It wasn't a fresh banana. It looked a few days old.

I slipped on a banana skin once, probably between five and ten years ago. The skin was black; it was a relatively poorly-lit street on a fairly wet sort of day. In short, it was a well-camouflaged stealth banana skin - the most dangerous sort. I'm pretty sure that I stood on the skin where the inside of the top was in contact with the inside of the bottom, so friction was low and hence perilous.

I'd guess that I see banana skins on the street between once per month and once per three months.

I read recently (i.e. may be imagining) that the danger on Tube platforms was not from banana skins but crushed grapes. Fruit distribution is probably different overground.

String Stu Francis up now. He's a danger to public health and safety. You might be able to get the Krankies as accomplices as well.

Venta, have you ever fallen over a grape?

I prefer to think of it as an experiment in the first stages of small-scale wine manufacturing.

I certainly shall, especially when i'm wearign either of my new pairs of pointy wobbly shoes (erk)

Jo in "Wearing Pointy Shoes" shocker :)

I'm being stalked by an orang-utan.

Well, I didn't have time to do it myself, and he owed me one for rescuing him from the zoo.

Is this how you learned to do the excellent baboon impression that nearly cleared out a pub last April ?

Gosh, which pub was it? I don't remember doing that. But the baboon impression was taught to me by an overexcited Scottish baboon very late one evening by a campfire.

As I remember, it silenced the whole of the Elsinore one Sunday afternoon.

Ah right, I vaguely remember that now.
Some day I might grow some social graces.

I heard it before as well. And I have never fallen over a Banana skin either.

You're obviously catching on to my International Banana Conspiracy.

Seriously, I don't know what it is but they seem to crop up quite frequently, especially around the Plain. Fortunately wearing nice shoes has gotten me in the habit of looking where I'm stepping, so I'm somewhat immune to this.

(That's about all the jinx I need to go break my leg on a banana skin this evening, eh?)

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Stalking

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Can I be excused..

Damn, I've been caught!