Irony - that's nice isn't it? Americans seem to have it now, judging from the shocked response of a friend of mine in NY Doing Fashion. He sat next to an ironic Amercian on the flight over who catered to all his judgmental whims by going "I love how you english build your castles right next to your train stations, so convenient." Marvellous.

Token Australian Friend sent me questions from potential visitors to Oz, posted on an Australian Tourism site and answered by the webmasters who clearly have a sense of humour.

Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on
TV, how do the plants grow? (UK).
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks?
(Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of?

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia?(USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which does not... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? ( UK)
A: You are a British politician, right?

Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. (USA)
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Do you have perfume in Australia? (France)
A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia? (USA)
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? (France)
A: Only at Christmas.

Q: I was in Australia in 1969 on R+R, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Kings Cross. Can you help? (USA)
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first

I have just achieved nirvana in that work has given me a Newsround Press Pack cap. The sheer joy of wearing such a hat is some consolation against the fact that the sales team takes impish joy in calling me "Kat the student". Sigh...

Plus the fact it looks NOTHING like this.

Blimey! Yesterday I was one of a mere 28 citizens (most of whom were techies congratulating themselves on their site working) and now there's 3731 - a bit of a tight squeeze given our country is, er, a comedian's flat.

Some unoriginal soul has come up with name 'Danmark'. Bless.

One thing I love about London transport is a) the fact that it's working again and b) the poetry that is sprinkled around everywhere. Don't subscribe to the stupid rule that says you have to find your favourite poems in a small, dark cupboard shop in Morocco, handed to you by a wise beggar whose dying moments you spent conversing in the finer points of Cocteau. That's bollocks. This is why that's bollocks.

Oh. My. God. They're *actually* making a game of Jaws! With really, really shoddy graphics. Apparently there are "twenty five points of dismemberment" when you rip up your victims. Lovely! Watch the trailer.

Magic Numbers doing Beyoncé = utterly marvellous.

Holy Moly didn't hide behind fluffery this time: Sienna Miller's 6 weeks gone. Way to get revenge on Evil Jude (tm) I find it worrying that this is news, but I don't really care enough to feel an intellectual quandary coming on. In the words of BBCelia, could her luck *get* any worse? Oh, and Helen McCrory's probably going to play Bellatrix Lestrange in HP5.

Hilariously rubbish alumni news from Durham:

"Dr. Anthony Peabody who attended St Cuthbert's in the 1960's, where he studied Botany, has this year been appointed President of the International Banjo Circle."

duefiori says:
dunno if i ever told you, but once i overhooked and overchatted a jeovah witness.
like HE was the one checking his watch nervously, and hurried away, and never came back

Battle Kat says:
My god! that doesn't happen! Except in dreams and really kick ass films.

duefiori says:
i proudly did. hooked him up with MY line about agnosticism and math applied to religion

duefiori says:
with ample examples from pythagorean

duefiori says:
for HOURS

My friends are fabulous.

Slightly troubling in a ghoulish kind of way - Why Typing Is Wrong. Ta to Paddy for sending this one (maaaaaan!)

One of the benefits of spending your afternoon trawling the web for trivia questions is that you get to find out that Justin Timberlake sang the Pokérap.

I Can't Believe It's Not In The Times! News of the day:

Berlusconi's arse fat gets turned into $10,000 bar of soap.

Restaurant called Car Crash is forced to close after, er, a car crashes into it

Father of 12 admits he's gay and that he only made his wife pregnant to "give her something to do".

Bear learns to knock on doors, villagers not convinced.

I can't really say how lovely the new Joy Zipper song is, so I'll leave you a link to watch the video so you can find out for yourself. It's called 'One' and is delicious like cherries.

I am drinking Moet at the BBC. Clearly I am living the middle-class dream.

Oh for god's sake, I wish people would stop trying to blow us up. It's very inconvenient and doesn't make us feel any more sympathy for their cause.

Take my quiz and you could win an exciting MP3 player!

I'd quite like an MP3 player but I'm not allowed to enter these competitions anymore. Boo hiss.

Oh yes. And as if I could forget, check out Polly Paulusma. I can't spell her name but she's easily this generation's Joni Mitchell and Carole King combined. Beautiful.

Best band of the week: Louis XIV - their entire album is listenable to on www.louisxiv.net and is like the Stones with more balls.

Best album: Paul Anka, Rock Swings. Utterly, utterly, brilliant: big band covers of, among others, Van Halen's 'Jump', 'Eye of the Tiger' and that bloody Nirvana song. Steal a copy if you must.

Delightful fact of the day: Uncut's music editor is extremely fond of Girls Aloud and insisted the office put the new single on immediately. He even did a little dance which was excellent.

Yah boo sucks to anyone who thinks England is a cold miserable place. The office is 32 degrees which makes it a hot, miserable place. I love my fan. I feel like Scarlett o'Hara with a more impressive cooling system.

Be warned. The ugliest dog in the world is not even remotely cute. At least his owner loves him.

Politicians form a band! MP4 is made up of Labour's Kevin Brennan (guitar and vocals) and Ian Cawsey (Bass and lead vocals), the Scottish National Party's Pete Wishart (keyboards) and Conservative Greg Knight (drums) and are releasing a single for Charidee (aww, bless their little MP hearts). You can download the single, a cover of 'Can't Buy Me Love' at http://www.7digital.com/downloads/mp4/ if you really must, or you could just pop a couple of quid in a tin. (CMU)

Urban Rocky is awesome. Shame about the lack of steps though.

Quality odd news courtesy of CMU Daily. So much for being at one with the earth (although having witnessed how the fruit farm has underpaid my brother for the last four years, I'm not entirely surprised.)

After MyCokeMusic and whatever it is McDonalds does, the California Tree Fruit Agreement have done a deal with iTunes (Apple! Oh the hilarity!) which allows people who buy three pounds of fruit and some form of salad package thing (which I doubt you'll need after three pounds of fruit but never mind) you get three iTunes free. Oooh fancy! Couldn't they just start growing apples anyway? It would be ever so funny.

Having suspended our belief for the last week I reckon we can just about stretch it til Saturday morning - it's almost Harry Potter o'clock! A very nice lady answered at my local Smith's, sounding just a mite harassed at the prospect of a midnight opening. The very fact that Petersfield is having a midnight opening at all goes to show how the place is growing up - they'll be having sushi bars next. Blimey...

The inevitable left-wing middle-class guilt about yesterday has started. One friend, aka Mr Slim embarked on a weary diatribe featuring the words "war" "Blair" and simliar. 'I just found myself thinking "well these things will happen if you spend long enough fucking around with foreign countries you don't understand" and things like that,' says he. not that it's not terrible for the people involved of course, but it just seemed inevitable and not even that shocking any more tbh.' Fair enough. 'I guess I would have felt differently if I'd been near any of the scenes,' he said realistically, followed by the killer, 'as it was I was in bed.'

This was counterpointed (delicious word, DELICIOUS) by Niall, splashing through London from Glastonbury en route to Korea, curling his lip in contempt, and saying: 'Yes the commuters clearly said "Excuse me, Mr Terrorist, please blow me up to sate my guilt at the horrible inequalities of this world".

Whatever. It's easy to put yourself in someone else's shoes, but if they do the same you end up where you are to begin with. Oh god, the tortuous pseudo-philosphical tarting of it all. It hurts my brain.

La Repubblica was sadly pretty much right - around 50 fatalities substantiated. Let's all shower love on Alabam 3 who have amused me greatly this morning with this post on the Gumtree LDF.

"Alabama 3 are ok apart from Orlando who sustained cuts and bruises at kings cross. Furthermore, he blames their agent for getting them up at 0700hrs for the first time in months to be at Caledonian Road for 0915hrs to proceed to catch a plane to the Czech republic for a festival - this caused him to be at Kings Cross at the fatal timel. the band reiterate to their agent that it is dangerous to get them up before midday. Their thoughts are with all their fellow sufferers in their home town.

LarryLove"

La Repubblica is reporting a far worse story than the BBC can, for obvious reasons. While here we have suggestions of 90 injured and two confirmed dead, at Aldgate, LR is reporting at least 70 dead, with 150 injured. Jesus Christ.

There are rumours flying around everywhere: that police shot a man with a bomb strapped to him in Canary Wharf, that Leicester Square's been affected (it hasn't, we'd see anything from our window)...it's just so crazy.

Tony Blair gave a wonderful speech at Gleneagles. That's it. Our music editor is now getting pissed off at receiving PR emails telling us about so and so's new gig. Life must go on, but some PRs seem to be intensely vampiric. Bless. What a surprise.

Three buses have now blown up and there are a lot of casualties. Phone networks are jammed and it's pretty much impossible to get in touch with people. Bloody ridiuclous, you're right up at the top of a building, look outside and you can't see any signs of anything being wrong: people strolling around, cars dragging through the roads, London Eye still turning.

This is ridiculously weird. I've got a horrible cold feeling running through me.

Woo! We won the Olympics! And in celebration the whole of London has been shut down due to a 'power surge' on the Tube. However, it's markedly unlikely that a similar 'power' surge' could be to blame for the bus which exploded in Tavistock Square. What the fuck is going on? Our news editor has been on the phone cheerily saying that, up in a socking great building as we are, we're "Bully's Special Prize". Charming, bless him. Whoever blew up this bus has got their timing perfect - coincidence or not, the power surge is going to amplify the effects of the bomb, so that from just one explosion, it's now as if they're to blame for everything. Started with the G8, now it's spread. Wankers.

Gossip essentials Popbitch and lame pretender Holy Moly are having what seems to be the lamest hissy fit in the history of cat fighting. In this week's newsletters they use the age-old 'copy/paste' technology to slag off one show and add 'dignity' to the other: Popbitch slams Big Brother while Holy Moly does the same for Celebrity Love Island. *Yawn* - HM tries, and looks terribly shiny, but its gossip's just not as diverting. Popbitch had to make yet another apology this week, this time to Lisa Moorish. Oops.