What Price One's 15 Minutes? Some people will do anything to get their name in the paper.

Statue Kerfuffle "It should be removed a.s.a.p.and melted down and the sculptor should give back the money got for this obnoxious, disgraceful, disgusting excuse for a statue. The sculptor Iann Brennan(sculptor you must be joking ) does he specialize in sculptuing freaks? because that's what he has made Ted Bates look like" .....Disgruntled Southampton resident
TSO, currently here on a jaunt, points out the present fuff-fuffing going on in Southampton over a recently erected statue in honour of former 'Saints' on and off field legend, Mr. Ted Bates. There has, it appears, been a mixup at the casting foundry and somehow the statue of the great Cornelius from Planet of the Apes' torso has been wrapped in a double breasted suit, conjoined with the head of Dame Barbara Cartland and the whole lot shipped out (past an evidently napping QC dept) to Southampton under the guise of Ted's cast bronze likeness. It could also pass for diminutive jockey from the Emerald Isle, Eddie Ahern or indeed a hundred other jockeys, given its diminished vertical stature and elongated, almost simian arms.
Locals, perhaps understandably, are irate and the statue may already have been removed. We here at New Soup. thrive on this sort of thing, of course and are a little miffed its all over, frankly.

The Funniest Thing I've Seen In Ages

Muddy I love Youtube for the fact that you can just think up a performance you once saw and it'll more than likely be on there somewhere for instant viewing. This is a pristine '60s performance by Muddy and the boys, including James Cotton on Harp and The great Otis Spann on piano. I just love the whole scene - everyone in suits and ties, trying to act like they're respectable and not full of 'the sperit' but occasionally, as in when Cotton stands up and throws himself back in his stool to emphasise a phrase - it's so damn powerful.

The Palsy of Bell the fact that its a condition named after a Scottish doctor brings me no comfort whatsoever. I am visited by a pox that goes by the name of Bell's Palsy About a week ago, I had a small throbbing pain behind my left ear for about a day. Then I started to notice that my left eye wasn't blinking right. Then, when I flared my nostrils (something I'm quite gifted at, incidentally) I noted a deficiency on my left opening over my right. Trying to open my mouth wide, I found it would only open wide on the right and the left took on a sort of gimpy, weak, un-meant smile. Soon, my eye on the left wouldn't close fully so I went to the doctor. He confirmed that I have Bell's Palsy and put me on a monster dose of steroids. My eye, I found, becomes extremely irritated when staring at a computer or TV screen for longer than about twenty minutes at a time. My work was rendered difficult because of this and I ended up losing hours last week. When you sleep, what with the eye not closing properly, the eyeball becomes quite dry and stingy. It's a strange feeling, not being fully in control of your face. Last night, when talking to people, I was acutely aware that I may have been sort of spraying out of one corner of my mouth, cos your lip is like that way after the dentist, you know? Sort of duck-ish and flaying about, though only on the one side. I'm horrified that the poster boy for the condition, the epitome of how this condition might leave you looking, is Jean Chretien. I've a lot of respect for the man's career and personal politics, not to mention the punch he laid on that protester that time, but I do not want to look like Popeye Chretien. The fact that it occasionally leaves one with a rakish, lop-sided grin like George Clooney or Sylvester Stallone, however, fills me with hope. Mind, I don't think I'm going to have the loppy eye socket and that, as the symptoms apparently peak after about 48 hours, which is long past. So, apart from a non-responding half-grille and heartburn from all the 'roids, I'm in the pink.

Bowl I attended a works bowling night. My score has become a fallacy, my once shaky level of consistency now in tatters. I didn't break two hundred in two games! But I had fun. I wish I lived near a set of lanes - I find something very satisfying and fulfilling in the simple act of knocking down wooden pins with a big heavy ball.