Friday, April 04, 2008

The sound of 3350 kazoos kazooing

I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue at the Hammersmith Apollo last night. Producer John Naismith reckoned it was a world record for a kazoo ensemble, having called the people at Guinness earlier in the day. So that’s two world records I hold (the other, admittedly unofficial, being least competent shopper).

And the show was fantastic. The rapport between Humph and Samantha was excellent, and Jeremy Hardy’s ‘Thank You for the Music’ made me wish I’d had a lighter to hold up. I love the fact that it’s just a bunch of blokes sitting at some tables. Totally unassuming.

It’s a kind of ‘best of’ tour, and I recognised a fair bit of the material, but it was still tears-rolling-down-the-face funny. I wish I had a better memory for jokes. The letter exchange between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson was clearly new, and a real treat (done in pairs, with players taking alternate words – then the other pair replies):

Dear
Ken
Ah
Um
Er
Ah
I
Er
Gosh!

Now I’ve seen it, I can die happy.

(If you don’t know the show, then the above will mean utterly nothing to you. Here are some clips and an alarmingly thorough fansite.

In honour of the game, let’s have an open thread playing Uxbridge English Dictionary. In this game, the teams are asked to suggest some well known words for which they have identified some brand new meanings.

I’ll start you off with a few of my own:

  • Sorcery: like a small plate
  • Passable: to issue a Papal edict
  • Impolite: when a pixie gets off a train
  • Seizure: the French coast
  • Ovaltine: a moderately rounded adolescent
  • Dichotomy: surgical procedure to remove a lesbian
  • Incandescent: coming down one of the Andes
  • Diarrhoea: a bad behind

Over to you…

9 comments:

Andrew R said...

Metabolic: At a party, to have encountered an individual with several ingrained character flaws.

Diabolic: To complete one's alloted span on earth without overcoming any of one's ingrained character flaws.

Shambolic: An object which, on closer inspection, turns out to be merely a pale gooseberry.

Replete: To mispronounce a word for the second time

Anonymous said...

An all-time favourite - countryside: to kill Piers Morgan

Tom Freeman said...

Great!

Louche: drunkenly promiscuous.

Dilate: to survive long past the point at which your children were hoping for their inheritance.

Marmite: supporter of Her Majesty.

Unknown said...

Archery: Resembling bad literature.

Economist: Cut-price fog.

Hydrangea: Flea.

Configuration: Making up bogus statistics.

Execrable: The people who run student unions.

Philippic: The contents of the Duke of Edinburgh's sinuses.

Chris said...

Piano - how to mark a circle in the snow.
Weekend - the final scene of any Dr Who episode written by Russell T Davies.
Edinburgh - having one's cranium stuck down a rabbit hole.
Parish - a loosely defined golf score.
Keyboard - getting fed up with C minor.
Botany - having purchased a tablet of methylenedioxymethamphetamine.

Tom Freeman said...

Dilatory: Conservative Party telephone sex line.

Manicure: energetic medical treatment.

Occident: mishap involving an ox.

Unicorn: meat, unaccompanied by two veg.

Chris said...

Hospice - Carling Black Label

Anonymous said...

I can only think of cantaloupe, embryophyta (Cardinal O'Brien), and hydrocephalus.

Considering amatory, I fancy dilatory ("You can get it if you really want it" always did seem like a challenge).

Anonymous said...

Subservient : butler in a submarine