If you made this stuff up, people wouldn't believe you:

BBC News reports on a man forced to marry a goat, after being caught making love to it, by the owner. Full story here.

One wonders if they'll have a kid.

I'm not sure what to say about this, or where to even start in trying to describe it. "Freaky" doesn't do it justice. Neither does "Bizarre". Best of all, absolutely no explanation whatsoever is given by the creator.

Who needs mind-altering drugs, when you can watch Nosepilot*.

*Speakers/headphones required for the full effect.

I don't normally click on banner advertisments, but one intrigued me today, because I couldn't believe it was a real product. It is, and it's available in the UK.

It's a gadget to help you cut bread straight. No, really. It doesn't actually cut the bread for you - you need something called a 'breadknife' to do that aparently (batteries not included) - it just helps you cut your bread, in a straight slice.

Link: here.

My curiosity was then peaked to see what other essential devices they had to offer. I eschewed the "Boil-a-Bag" - a set of bags you could freeze stuff in, then cook within the bag, to avoid extra washing up. By the time I realised they had not just a single egg poaching tray, and a four-egg poacher, but also a triple egg poaching tray I'd lost the will to live.

I mean, buy the four-egg version. You never know, you might one-day gain an extra friend, and think how stupid you'd feel if you bought the three-egg version and then found yourself having to go back and buy the four-egg one.

That was just the cookware section. I imagine somewhere there's a "Maternal Senior Citizen Poultry Ovum Suction Device" - just in case your grandmother can't actually suck the eggs herself.

A lot happened in UK popular culture, during my years living in the US. Sit-coms came and went, reality TV phenomena rose out of the ashes of decent programming.

Thanks to the modern miracle of cable tv, I'm able to catch up on the good stuff (and the not-so-good stuff), should the urge come upon me. I'll skip over the good stuff for now (Little Britain, and more recently, Tittybangbang), and cut to the rotten:

Two Pints of Lager (And A Packet Of Crisps)
Apparently this dire non-chucklefest, has been running since 2001, although quite why I'm not sure. The humour is weak and predictable, and the main characters have so little that's likeable about them, it's on a par with Seinfeld. The very name of the show, reeks of the unoriginality found within. Of course, its target audience (the young and the stupid), are unlikely to even be aware of the punk classic from which it got its name.

The Catherine Tate Show
I'm sorry but half an hour of shouting in an Estuary English accent, whilst wearing different wigs, and laughing at your own jokes, does not constitute a comedy show. I've tried to watch this show, if only to see if I could spot anything remotely funny, or original about it. I found neither.

This show is being hailed as some sort of comedy masterpiece, but I think this accolade comes from the same dolts who thought, "'Allo! 'Allo!", was funny. The characters are one-dimensional and writing is weak.

Case in point, Lauren the teenager, vs. Little Britain's Vicky Pollard. Fans of CT say that Lauren is a much more accurate observation to today's inarticulate youth. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but the bottom line is, the Vicky Pollard character is entertaining, and has grown as the series progresses, and the Lauren character is just fucking annoying, and (CT trademark here) not actually funny.

It may go deeper into the psyche than that (no, I can't believe I just wrote that either). Vicky is a grotesque, and a bit of a sociopath , but she is invariably defeated each week. Lauren, from what I've seen, is allowed to win each week. Not by being right, intelligent, or kind, but by what amounts to verbal bullying. Gee Catherine, what a great message to send out to the nation.

Actually, I rather more worried about the other messages that her show sends out to the nation: "Shouting equals funny.... repeat things enough and they'll become funny... There's nothing funnier than someone with an Estuary English accent". Hmmm, not with you so far Cath.

Humour based on predictable catchphrases is fine, provided it's backed up by a script that's imaginative and varied. Yes, we all know a character will say certain catchphrases, and we might also know some of the things that will happen to them in every sketch, but the difference between The Catherine Tate show, and something well-written, is the script that surrounds the catphrases.

You could compare Catherine Tate's show to the presidency of Dubya. He never won people over by being right, intelligent or kind either, but he did have better scriptwriters.