Verse And Worse

Random Wit, Errant Rhyme. Not A Literary Crime

Phlegmatic Bertie Wooster, he never had any peeves
Except when he was bereft of the inestimable Jeeves
You could traverse the world, from Bombay to Calais
And never would you find such a multi-gifted valet

Mars Is His Mission

Naked Cowboy Wants Sweet Revenge

New York's Naked Cowboy is suing Mars (the confectionery giant, not te planet) for millions of dollars for "stealing" his image. Robert Burck is unhappy that a blue M&M was dressed in his skimpy trademark outfit for a video billboard advertisement. The ad, which shows the animated sweet in a white hat, boots, guitar and underwear, attracts customers to M&M's Times Square store. It is virtually identical to the outfit worn by the Naked Cowboy each day in Times Square, where he has become a tourist attraction. The candy-coated chocolate electronic alter ego has since disappeared from two video billboards.

FOOTNOTE: He's been spurred on.

Life And Debt Situation

Millions Of Reasons To Strive For Accuracy

A Chinese official learning about local government in New York has discovered a $314.78 million error in a budget document. Ellie Su, 27, noticed that a debt service document entry for Nassau County read $34.98 million instead of $349.76 million. Nassau County is getting Su's expertise for free, with China paying the intern's salary while she works with the Office of Legislative Budget Review.

FOOTNOTE: Debt before dishonour.

Fleet(est) Street

New York Doctor Straps On Rollerblades

Fleet-footed New York physician Thomas Bolte doesn't just make house calls, he responds to medical emergencies the fastest way he can - on rollerblades. It's the quickest way to beat the traffic, the 45-year-old medical maverick reasons. ``Some of these cases are very urgent - rollerblading is the only way I can get there fast,'' said Bolte.

FOOTNOTE: He’s quicker than a Bolte from the blue.

Flee For All

Keeping Badge Company

It's so not cool to impersonate a police officer. It's even worse if the person you stop just happens to be a real cop. Robert Lane, 25, had flashing lights on his SUV and what appeared to be a police badge in his hand - but the other bloke was the genuine officer. Lane unwittingly pulled over the off-duty New York detective on a Long Island highway. The detective got suspicious when Lane drove up alongside him, identified himself as an officer and flashed a small police badge. After trying to flee, Lane was arrested on charges of criminal impersonation and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

Have A Long Weekend

We Can Streeeeeetch Two Days Into Three

We'll stop time marching on. Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

You’re wondering how the weekend can last three days? Easy, mate. Thanks to the International Date Line, it sure can. You see, New York is fifteen hours behind Melbourne, and LA is seventeen hours behind. So my weekend begins even before you start work on Friday - and I’m back at work Monday morning while you’re sleeping in Sunday mid-morning.

So now that we’ve grasped the concept of long weekends (okay, so it’s also a stretch of the imagination) let me tell you that I’m going to post a couple of things each weekend to give you a bit of fun - and also to direct some of my readers to your blog/ blogs as well.

The first one will be called Rite Of Reply. I’ll post a simple question. You leave a simple answer as a comment. And at the end of the weekend, I’ll collate the answers and post them, with links to the sites of all those who left replies.

And I’m re-introducing the popular Passing Sentence game. If you’re new to this blog, a couple of months ago I wondered aloud if 15 different sentences - written by different bloggers - could possibly make a cohesive, interesting story. I called it the Passing Sentence Game, because it was literally a case of passing one sentence on to the next person.

I’ll provide the first sentence, the next 13 sentences come from anyone who wants a bit of fun; and the big challenge is for me to wrap it all up with the fifteenth sentence. Then a big name critiques the game and I can reveal that among the judges I’ve lined up are a veteran author and a BBC columnist.

If you want to have a look at a previous Passing Sentence Game and get an idea of how freewheeling they really are, simply go to One Small Steppe For Man.