Retro Yakking

Following his conviction for actual bodily harm earlier this week, former Premier League footballer Marlon King has signed for prison team Wormwood Scrubs FC on an 18 month contract.

Though he will be taking a massive paycut from his previous post as a goalpost at Wigan Athletic, King is relatively content with the upgrade in accommodation quality:

It’s the best I could hope for considering the circumstances. I wanted a double bed, but in the end managed to negotiate three cakes of soap and a copy of Roy Keane’s autobiography as a signing on fee, which I suppose is better than a punch in the head. — Marlon King

By signing for Wormwood, King will follow in the footsteps of many illustrious names that turned out for the side at some point in their career, including Newcastle’s Joey Barton and Notts County forward Lee Hughes.

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YouTube have labelled their latest big media stunt, a live concert webcast, as a ‘big win for the community’. Reports suggest upwards of ten million viewers logged on to watch Irish rockers U2 perform at the Rose Bowl, Pasadena at 3AM on Sunday morning.

Further reports suggest anybody who got up early to watch the show is clinically insane, seeing as it is currently being rebroadcast for viewing at any time — and in higher quality to boot — via the video sharing website. Over 1 million people have already done so within less than a week of the original broadcast, which is being hailed as a record for an internet streaming event.

The concert could possibly pave the way for other artists to embark upon similar webcasts, but is unlikely to tempt rockney duo Chas and Dave out of retirement. Had one of them known how to work a computer, things would be different.

As it is, Chas can’t even stop his desktop clock from displaying Pacific Standard time, which is of no use to somebody living thousands of miles away from human civilisation in the UK. Dave has had a bit more success, but struggles with the concept of an inanimate mouse - he still thinks they are powered by cheese.

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The ballpoint pen replaced scratching messages onto walls with stones in the year 1945, at least in parts of Manchester.

Though the humble Biro isn’t really suitable for writing on buildings, it can be used to draw moustaches on sleeping drunks.

In the — granted, very small — world of ballpoint pens, Bic are veritable giants. Bigger, even, than… well, anyone else who ever tried to make ballpoint pens. Of which there are relatively few. Let’s just say Bic make very good ballpoint pens and leave it at that.

Though the modern ballpoint pen is credited to László Bíró, it is argued that Galileo Galilei, he of the stargazing obsession, first drew up plans for a primitive ballpoint pen. Apparently he wanted a pen that would write on the surface of the planets he observed, blissfully unaware that they were thousands of light years away.

Legend has it that the Father Ted ’small… far away’ sketch (below) was influenced by Galileo’s repeated attempts to grab the stars from the sky with the handle of his walking stick.

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 Google’s St. Patrick’s Day logo from 2000.
Doesn’t look too different, does it?

If, like me, you’re one of those people fascinated with how things used to be, then the Internet is indeed a useful source. However, have you ever stopped to think what the Internet used to look like? If you’ve been around the Internet scene since the early days then there’ll be nothing here you (possibly) haven’t seen before.

For those of you still reading, however… Today, we’re going take a trip back nine years to 2000, the date many people consider a turning point in the popularity of the web. Prior to that date, or at least that time period, organisations did not see the profitability in creating websites that nobody would visit so largely shunned the opportunity to embrace the online revolution. As a result, compared with today the Internet was relatively sparse.

That’s not to say nobody was using it, however - I, for one, was introduced to the world wide web in this year. My early net experience consisted mostly of downloading guitar tabs from early music websites, looking for video game cheats for Super Mario 64 and mucking about with Say… (awesome tool, maybe I’ll go into greater detail on that some other time).

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The Yak’s dumb emails are back! This one’s pretty self-explanatory, I should think.

From: davejones@tesco.co.uk
Date: 27th October 2009
To: Mr. Harry Yack
Subject: Re: Tesco Value fish fingers

Dear Mr. Yack,

We write in response to your various claims regarding Tesco Value fish fingers. Our chefs would like to assure you that this product is made from 100% fish, not floor sweepings or shoe rubber and certainly not radioactive tramps as you asserted in your post dated 22nd April 2009.

Any ingredient you may find in our product other than cod, breadcrumbs or reconstituted glucose syrup is most likely due to a discrepancy in the quality control process. In future, we would prefer it if you could inform our public relations officer rather than simply writing about it on your internet world wide web site for all to see.

We would be more than happy to replace your product or provide you with store credit should you do so, providing you do not tell everyone about it.

Thanks,
Dave, Tesco.co.uk

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