Some amusing anecdotes from the weekend

Listening to Radio 4 on Saturday morning, I heard Adam Hart-Davies investigating laughing gas and Humphrey Davy. He was chatting to a dental anaesthetist, or something like that, who was telling him about concerns of recreational use of nitrous oxide, but among other things, Hart-Davies said "Come on then, turn it up and tell me a joke."

The anaesthetist said "Ok, I'm turning you up to 60% now. Tell you a joke? Well, how much are the BBC paying you to do this?" "That's not a joke", replied Hart-Davies, and collapsed into hysterical laughter.

Then there was the Russian festival, where they had written Happy New Year in Russian on Nelson's Column, with lasers. Only they'd taken a single Cyrillic character that looked a bit like two Roman Characters, and split it into the Roman characters. As a consequence, it didn't read right, and they didn't have enough room for one of the letters at the bottom. Effectively, Nelson's column read "Happy Nevv Yr". Quite aside from Ken's meeting with the somewhat unwholesome Mayor of Moscow, in which (we later decided) Ken said "I'd like to symbolise the synergy between our two cities, by accepting this brown envelope full of unmarked, non-sequential hundred dollar bills."

And then there was the Hokey Pokey (the American version of the English original, the Hokey Cokey), in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet. Courtesy of Radio 4, talking about the Washington Post's Style Invitational (you'll need to regiister and search to read articles).

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.