Crawling along

The light-hearted topic on this morning's Today programme
(that's on Radio 4, for any philistines among you) was the origins
of pub names, and very interesting it was too.
Lucky old author Albert Jack has the joyous job of examining and explaining such titles as The Pickled Parson, The Bucket of Blood
and The Swan With Two Necks.
Here's a link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8230000/8230024.stm

This is a rundown of the pubs in my, if you like, home town.
If you know where that is, do share, but don't be expecting
a prize or anything.

Bear's Paw
Bellemonte, The
Bull's Head
Cheshire Cheese
Cholomondeley Arms
Golden Lion (known locally as The Cornerhouse,
but nothing like the place of the same name in Manchester)
Helter Skelter (which used to be The Gaping Gander, and painted pink,
from what I remember)
Netherton Arms (formerly, I think, The Whalebone,
which is far more intriguing)
Queen's Head
Red Lion
Ring of Bells
Traveller's Rest
(I have not included Kydd's Bar, as it is just too awful, or The Aston Arms, which I believe these days may be trendy flats or some such.)

More on names, and lists, soon.

Time for tee

One of the side projects that keeps Words & Fixtures busy in any downtime is the loose cataloguing of slogan T-shirts, of which there are tons of totally tasteless ones worn mainly by unsuspecting foreigners. Presumably these poor, misguided individuals believe it's cool to wear clothes bearing English words yet don't actually speak much in the way of English themselves. Perhaps they should think about calling on the services of a translator other than the fast-talking London stall-holder who duped them into making the inappropriate purchase in the first place.

Here are the worst examples I've seen recently:
- a rather misinformed football presenter on French TV with "I love porn" emblazoned across his chest
- an inoffensive-looking young man at a filling station in Prague wearing a wholly offensive number printed with the disability logo and the word "spastic"
- a man in his thirties, walking down the street holding hands with his smiling, straight-laced wife in the very twee town of Potsdam in Germany, proudly sporting a tee bearing a man icon, a woman in a wedding dress icon and the maxim "game over"

Holy strawberries, Batman - we're in a jam!

Taken in traffic en France: proof Batman was really European - he drives a batmeuble.



Wonderful Batman-Robin conversation, found in a Google trawl (other search engines are available):

Robin: "You can't get away from Batman that easy!"
Batman: "Easily."
Robin: "Easily."
Batman: "Good grammar is essential, Robin."
Robin: "Thank you."
Batman: "You're welcome."

A winning style

The glittering 2009 Manchester Blog Awards are now clear on the horizon, "celebrating the best of the city's online writing". There will be a right proper knees-up on October 21 at the all-new Band On The Wall and gongs will be awarded in no less than six categories.
Nominations for your favourite blogs are open until September 18.
Words & Fixtures? Just a thought...


Follow @mcrblogawards on Twitter (there's even a hashtag, folks - #mcrblogawards) or visit the website at http://www.manchesterblogawards.com

Totally foxed

Here's a great sign that was posted on the noticeboard of the campsite we stayed at in Berlin. It reads: "Do not let stand your shoes outside! We have a fox, he robs the shoes!"
Apart from it being a lovely example of literal translation, it also taught us that the German word for fox is "Fuchs". Tee hee!
The other foxy pictures are of a German bottletop and one of my knockers. I just thought I'd include them for your delectation.