5 Worst New-Car Names

Spies Sources tell me that the following names for new car models were once suggested in various countries, but rejected for some strange reason or another.  From bad to worst (and one which was actually accepted):

  • Toyota Vajeena (Japan)
  • Nissan Clitty (Japan)
  • Ford Anil (India)
  • VW Fahrt (Austria)
  • Lamborghini Urus (Italy)

(Actually, both Lambo and  VW have been jointly responsible for some of the worst car names in history, so no surprise that they’re #1 and #2.)

Your suggestions in Comments…

Alternate Universe

We often imagine how things might have turned out if instead of X, we’d done Y or Z, and so on.  Imagine how TV show Gilligan’s Island might have turned out with this cast:

  • Raquel Welch for the role of Mary Ann
  • Jayne Mansfield as Ginger
  • Carroll O’Connor as Skipper
  • Jerry Van Dyke as Gilligan, and
  • Dabney Coleman as the Professor.

Whoa.  In fact, all the above auditioned for those parts in the show, but were rejected.  And here’s Mary Ann in the alternate universe:

For the record, I’ve only ever watched a few episodes of Gilligan’s Island  because boredom, and not since because brain bleed.  With the above cast, I might have been tempted to watch more, and not just because of Raquel.

Here’s an exercise.  Put your favorite modern actors (at any age) into those roles, and imagine how the show would have changed.

Here are my suggestions, by way of example, which I think would have made the show not only more grown-up, but more watchable (and funnier):

  •  Helena Bonham-Carter for the role of Mary Ann

  •  Kate Walsh as Ginger

  •  Bob Newhart as The Skipper

  •  Robin Williams as Gilligan

…but I can’t beat

  • Dabney Coleman as the Professor.

Go on, it’s your turn (and it’s harder than you think).

About Last Night

I think this tweet thread from last year says it all, really:

My standard response when a younger child does the “Trick or Treat?” thing to me is to say:

“I don’t know;  which one do you want me to do to you?”

If I say it loudly enough, it’s generally enough to have a Helicopter Parent come steaming up to the door and snatch Their Precious Child away from me.  Then I throw gumballs at their retreating figures.

News Snippets

Roger Simon finally wakes up and smells the coffee.  Now all he has to do is persuade his hoplophobe rabbi to allow him to carry his piece into the shul.

While the Usual Suspects are squalling once again about gun control after some anti-Semitic asshole kills Jews, they are absolutely silent when a good guy gun owner snuffs out a homicidal maniac.

Our troops are thirsty lil’ buggers.  Good.

Brazil looks set to pivot sharply to the right Sunday with the election of a Trump-type guy who wants to privatize state companies [in an ailing economy], liberalize gun ownership [in the face of ubiquitous violent crime] and mine the rain forest.  Needless to say, the Meejah are clutching pearls and forecasting the Apocalypse.

Some government employee brought several .gov systems crashing down with Russian malware after visiting 9,000 porn sites.

Best Comedy TV (Part 8)

Absolutely Fabulous (UK)

Absolutely nobody I know likes this ridiculous, over-the-top, outrageous and over-acted series, but I absolutely fucking love it.  The fact that the show is based on an actual PR person (no names, no pack drill) makes it even more delicious.

The point is that from beginning to end, AbFab is not actually a comedy, but satire — and it lampoons everything, from the PR business to fashion to feminism to family relations and oh so much more.  Whether it’s the frantic, hysterical Edina’s latest fad diet, the feline Patsy’s fondness for Bollinger at 8am or insufferable daughter Saffron’s earnest espousal of everything PC, AbFab doesn’t so much skewer it as either a bludgeon it with a club or flay it with a razor.

Saffie:  I’m sorry, mum, but I’ve never seen what it is that you actually do.
Eddie:  PRrr.
Saffie:  Yes, but —
Eddie:  PR.  I PR things.  People.  Places.  Concepts…
Patsy:  Lulu.
Eddie:  Lulu.  I make the fabulous…  I make the crap into credible.  I make the dull into —
Patsy:  Delicious.

No better description of public relations was ever penned.  And as for PR awards:

Eddie:  They don’t matter, do they, darling?… Awards, Pats?
Patsy:  Oh, Eddy. We’ve been here before.
Eddie:  It’s just… you know… I WANT one. I don’t just want one, darling, I NEED one. My career is on a toboggan run of failure at the moment… I just need one. It’s the only thing that seems to mean ANYthing these days… I need one now before the menopause drags me into her gaping jaws. Before my creative hormonal oil-well dribbles to a halt. Before my bottom becomes just a patch-work quilt of monkey glands, darling.
Saffie:  But, Mum, menopause can be a very exhilarating and positive experience for a woman.
Eddie:  Oooh, yes.  And the curse is a blessing and childbirth is painless.  No.  Unless that gaping hole on my mantle piece is filled pretty soon, darling, I might as well… I might as well lick this light-switch and do us all a favour, darling…

And:

[to daughter Saffron, after a heated argument]
Eddie:  With any luck we’d get Roman Polanski interested in you.
Patsy (snarling):  She was never young enough for him.

Not to mention the booze:

Patsy:  What will you drink if you stop drinking?
Eddie:  I shall drink water.
[pause]
Eddie:  It’s a mixer, Pats.  We have it with whisky… I mean, you‘ve given up drinking before? 
Patsy:  Worst eight hours of my life.

Finally, there’s Eddie’s mother, played by the amazing June Whitfield:

Eddy:  Mother, are you still on the computer?
Gran:  Yes, dear.  Sometimes you get into a porn loop and just can’t get out.

And then of course there’s Patsy:

“The last mosquito that bit me had to check into the Betty Ford Clinic.”

Fabulous.  Absolutely fabulous.

Best Comedy TV (Part 7)

The Young Ones (UK)

Not many people in the U.S. saw this anarchic comedy, I suspect, and theirs is the loss.  Headed by the incomparable Rik Mayall, the ensemble cast of misfits and social failures living in a boarding house somewhere in one of the seedier parts of London managed to savage not only the house itself, but just about every social institution as well.  (The house, despite being partially — and once, completely — destroyed each week, somehow managed to rejuvenate itself by the following episode, much as South Park‘s Kenny was killed each episode and came back to life ditto.)

Trying to explain the plot of The Young Ones in a few lines is akin to doing the same for James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake :  quite impossible, and something I’m sure the late Rik Mayall, one of the principal writers, would have enjoyed to see me try.  But the way the all-male cast played off each other was incredible — the loutish thug Vyvyan, the dreamy hippie Neil, the suave gangster Mike and the hapless homosexual Rick took turns in sabotaging each other’s plans, insulting and /or assaulting each other and doing much worse to the outside world.  Whatever they did, I would cry with astonished laughter pretty much all the way through each episode, before rewinding the VHS tape (yes, that again) to re-watch the show in amazement.

To give you the smallest hint of the insanity, let me just list a few of the bit-part actors who appeared in The Young Ones — and the actors of the time would fight each other to be invited onto the show, such was its cachet.  And the names of some of the guest characters will only hint at the barely-concealed insanity:

Alexei Sayle (the Balowski Family)
Jim Barclay (Policeman in Comic Strip)
Robbie Coltrane (Bouncer)
Ruth Burnett (Goldilocks)
Gareth Hale (Gravedigger)
Dawn French (Easter Bunny)
David Rappaport (Ftumch)
Jennifer Saunders (Helen Mucus)
Alan Freeman (God)
Jonathan Caplan (Knight of the Square Table)
Stephen Fry (Lord Snot)
Hugh Laurie (Lord Monty)
Tony Robinson (Dr. Not the Nine O’Clock News)
Emma Thompson (Miss Money-Sterling)
Damaris Hayman (Woman Pushing Corpse)
…and so on.

There were only twelve episodes of The Young Ones.

There was no regular female part on the show (which kind of added to the fun), so I’m going to feature the ever-silly Dawn French, who appeared in three episodes: