yonmei

10:55 pm: Jerry Springer: Have I Got News For You
I watched the extended edition of Have I Got News For You with Jerry Springer: it was funny, I love TV when it goes meta.

(I don't know whether Jerry Springer really is that ignorant of British politics or humour, or if he just thought it was funnier if he acted as if he was reacting like that to the lines off the autoprompt. I suspect the latter, but it's certainly more amusing.)

I'm watching a Harrison Ford film I missed when it came out, probably because it sounded really unpromising: he plays a career banker whose family is kidnapped. He was sixty-four when the film was made and he looks it: but it's still kinda fun. For my own particular values of fun.

Tags: films, have i got news for you

11:56 pm: Today
I got to watch Doctor Who at Versailles, and write nearly 2000 words (not about Versailles) and see Tom Baker on the extended edition of Have I Got News For You. He is totally cute. Though I did feel for the 36-year-old who had to remind Tom that even though he'd watched Doctor Who back then, he wasn't a boy.

Tags: doctor who, have i got news for you

12:48 pm: Doctor Have I Got News For Who
Poll #1693 Doctor Have I Got News For Who
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which two Doctors ought to be guests on Have I Got News For You?

Who should compere the Have I Got Who For You show?

Tags: doctor who, have i got news for you, polls

10:58 pm: Have I Got News For You is BACK
( a poll )

Tags: have i got news for you, polls, tv addiction

11:16 pm: Have I Got News For You
( spoilers )

Tags: have i got news for you

11:35 pm: Cat politics 2: Have I Got News For You
I am about to go to sleep. I watched Have I Got News For You with Bob lying on my chest: meantime Gallus had occupied the chair in front of my computer upstairs. Now I am upstairs and the two of them are having a quiet stary confrontation on the upstairs landing, punctuated by occasional growls. (Mostly from Gallus.)

I'm glad livejournal reminded me about Have I Got News For You, because not only did Paul tell Ian "We're still on for the 20th, then?" which by the way was a fib, because they're not one of the half-dozen couples getting a civil partnership in Scotland (though I suppose they could be among the couples getting registered in Northern Ireland) but also Ian Hislop told Lorraine Kelly that her comments about "what boys do" made this the most sexist programme he'd ever been on. This from the sperm of Satan...

( a poll )

Tags: bob, cat politics, gallus, have i got news for you

08:50 am: Monopoly
I used to like playing Monopoly. Though I got unhealthily obsessed over it (so what else is new) and once actually managed to scare my brother when he got me bankrupted at the end of a particularly intense game.

(House of Pink have made themselves a Have I Got News For You set of Monopoly, which I badly want to play. (It should have things in it like "A tabloid publishes a story about you taking cocaine and having sex with a call-girl. The other players mock you and you lose your turn.") Also it must have the Winning Rule in some form, which if you do not already know about, I do not plan to explain.)

An American Quaker, Lizzie J. Magie, invented the board game that eventually became Monopoly at the beginning of the 20th century: she patented "The Landlord's Game" in 1904. ("The Landlord's Game" is pretty much the same as "Monopoly", except that you rent, not buy, the properties, and the street names are all different.) The Landlord's Game is a teaching game: the object of it is to illustrate how (under the system of land tenure) the landlord has an advantage over other enterprisers. (It was also intended to show the advantages of a single federal tax based on land ownership, which was proposed by another American Quaker, Henry George, as a means of encouraging small-business enterprise and discouraging wealth based on land ownership.)

The game spread as Quakers tend to share things: the board was drawn on a tablecloth, the cards and pieces would be handmade - much as, I imagine, House of Pink are making their set. You'd make your own street names as appropriate.

In 1935 - by which time several versions of "The Landlord's Game" were known, including the version which is now formally called Monopoly - a salesman, Charles Darrow, sold a version of the game he'd learned from someone else to a toy company, Parker Brothers. The royalties made Charles Darrow a millionaire. Lizzie J. Magie got $500.

( Monday's poll )

Tags: have i got news for you, quakers