Now this is disturbing.
According to Wikipedia (which could be wrong), before the Muppets got to it, the ‘m’nah, m’nah’ song was used as the soundtrack to a Swedish softcore porn film…
That puts the sketch in a slightly different light… 
In the process of moving stuff from one server to another, I found this:
The sad thing is – I can’t actually remember creating it, or why I did so.
binidj..? 
As you may know, after Steve’s death we decided to ask for contributions to come up with some sort of fitting memorial. There were lots of contributions, more than we could easily list here, which is wonderful. A particular mention should go to the folk at Shards LRP who collected a large sum on their own.
We threw suggestions back and forwards between people, settling on the fact that he would have wanted something practical rather than a meaningless monument.
In the end, we had enough money to sponsor a quarter of an acre of woodland via the Woodland Trust; at Wick, not far away from Merthyr Mawr. You can find details – maps and directions – of the sponsored area here:
http://www.crookedhouse.org/steve
We’ve sent the certificate and other details to his family. We’d like to thank everyone who contributed and hope that what we’ve done is a fitting tribute to Steve. Given how he fought against the commercial developments around Merthyr Mawr, we think it is very much in keeping with the way he lived.
Wherever you are, we hope you’ll join with us in raising a glass to his memory this weekend.
Many thanks,
Ian, Rachel and everyone else at Crooked House
P.S. Sorry this has taken so long – we were still collecting money up until recently, and then had to wait for the certificates etc.
Remember the Innovations catalogue? I don’t think it exists any more; but as a kid I always enjoyed browsing through it, looking at gadgets I would never actually own; window-shopping, if you like.
At around the same time, Private Eye used to publish fake adverts, and I remember their collected Gnome Mart Catalogue having such brilliant items as a silver electric toothpick sharpener, or a wig warmer, or wellies with built-in headlights.
The Innovations catalogue left an indelible mark on my soul; I can’t help picking up the tat catalogues that come through the post and leafing through them.
So last night I was looking through some random gardening-kitchen-gadget catalogue that someone had sent Rachel, and came across an item which I think ranks up there alongside all the fake tat in Private Eye. I couldn’t believe it when I read it, and am still having trouble coping this morning; my ‘faith in humanity’ stat has been lowered by several percentage points…
(Yes, it plays four different tunes: “Happy Birthday”, “Jingle Bells”, “The Wedding March” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”).
Stop the world, please, I’d like to get off…
Just in case it hasn’t registered on your radars; next year a film called 300 will be released. It’s based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel and is about the battle of Thermopylae – the holding of the pass by the Spartans against the Persians. It’s filmed using the same techniques as Sin City, and stars Gerard Butler as Leonidas.
Sounds worth a look!
