No New Posts- but we have been working hard over here, honest!

As some of you may have noticed, I have installed a filter on my comments box.  It is like the ones that deter spam, but instead what it does is block comments by anyone not called John (or Jonathan, or Johnny, or Jon).  As you can see it seems to be working quite well so far: the nett effect is to make my comments box resemble that scene in Goodfellas (I think, or could it have been Donnie Brasco?) where a newcomer to the 'Cosa Nostra' (Robert De Niro, I think, or could it have been Johnny Depp?) is being introduced to the entire New York Italian community at once (who are all gathered together for the purpose in a cavernous downtown restaurant).  The De Niro/ Depp fellow is being led across the floor and faces are being pointed out to him.  Gradually he realises (although the bloke doing the introducing clearly is oblivious to the fact, which is what makes the scene so funny) that all the men are called Paul (or Paulo, or Pablo) and all the women are called Mary (or Marie, or Maria).  It is my favourite scene from the film (whichever film it is), and so I have installed a filter in my comments box in its honour.  It is called the ThatSceneInGoodfellasOrWasItDonnyBrascoYouKnowTheOneWhereEveryoneHasThe SameName Comment Filter.  If you are not called John (or Johnny, or Jon, or Juan, or Johann) then your comment will have been referred for moderation and will probably appear within 48 hours. Please bear with us during this time. Or consider asking a friend called John to leave the comment for you (there will be one nearby, it is a very common name, you know).   Thank you for your patience.

While you are waiting for your comment to appear you may wish to peruse some of the other new developments we have been working through the night here at Crinklybee Towers to delight you with.  For instance we now have a state-of-the-art photo album (look! Down there at the bottom, on the left!).  I say 'album' but for now it is just really one photo- a view of Oxford Road, Manchester, looking towards the town centre from outside the Royal Northern College of Music.  If you look carefully you will see there is a man coming towards you on a bike.  Are you that man?  If you are then you have just won this week's special prize of £500- congratulations!  Please identify yourself via the normal channels and a cheque will be forwarded, subject to the usual conditions. 

If you have not won our special prize you can console yourself with a visit to our final, and perhaps most exciting, new development- the 'Best of Crinklybee' feature (right down at the bottom, there, just under the 'photo album').  This is something I have planned to put together for some time as I am just a big show-off at heart- but also I realise that you may be comparatively new to the site and not want to trawl all round the archives to find the best bits.  So I have done the job for you- it was excruciating to the point of near-impossibility let me tell you, like having to pick the favourites from among your many children.  In the end and after much soul-searching I managed to limit myself to just 10 posts (out of 60 or so altogether so far).  Heartbreakingly, The History of Pie Club never quite made it in, but all three 'life stories' did, as well as a very old one about the horrors of gardening, which is included largely for nostalgic purposes.  Oh, and as a special treat each post has been accorded a brief summary, which appears in a little yellow box when you hover over it.  Go on!  I know, we really spoil you here, don't we?

Right then- finished hovering?  Not the man on the bike??  Waiting for your comment to appear cos your name is not John or Juan or Giovanni???  Well in that case you have sampled all of our new delights.  I will be back soon with more of the usual just as soon as I have time- and have recovered fully from Newcastle United's humiliating European exit last night at the hands of Sporting Lisbon, as well as their upcoming humiliating FA Cup exit at the hands of Manchester United (let's not fool ourselves, we will be lucky to get nil, and should in all probability get Graeme Souness to ring the FA this afternoon with some half-baked excuse for not being able to turn up, like the team coach has broken down, or the players have been attacked by a swarm of hornets.  Anything, really to stop us actually having to face Wayne Rooney at the height of his powers). 

With which ludicrous proposition I will leave you, for now, to your own splendid Friday afternoon devices.  Thank you for reading, and do come back soon, y'all!

Comments

[Ben]

Good stuff on sorting out a 'best of' section - it means I can catch up on one or two posts I've missed. Shame about Pie Club missing out, though!

It's really hard not to feel defeatist after last night's match and in advance of Sunday, isn't it? Let's just hope and pray half the Man Utd team are struck down with a mystery illness. Actually, you're in Manchester - can you not nip out to the training ground and slip something dodgy in their food in the cafeteria? Arsenic would do nicely.

[Not John]

Is Man United not human? If you prick them, do they not bleed? And didn't they just lose to a relegation candidate, or was that just a dirty rumor I heard, or did they somehow come back and win after being down 2 nil? I get my football news randomly and through dubious channels.

In any case, congrats on the fab new features. Just as a point of interest, you might wish to know that no little yellow box appears when you hover over the "best of" choices when the viewer is using Safari on a Mac. However, there are probably only about 14 of us in the world, and we do get a little notice in the gray bar at the bottom of our screen, up to a certain number of characters.

I must say I had hoped when I clicked on the little picture, that a bigger version of the picture would appear, but instead I got the same little picture on a page all its own, making it look, if anything, even smaller. I may be the man on the bike, but I'm not sure. I can't see the man. Hell, I can't see the bike. I'm not entirely sure I can make out the street. Still, art is art, and a man shouldn't complain.

[jonathan]

If you had seen the embarrasing ease with which the skimpy Magpie resistance was brushed aside in Lisbon last night, NotJohn, then you would understand better our gloomy outlook. Mind you our opponents did resort to underhand foreign tactics such as fancy footwork, passing the ball among themselves in neat triangles (triangles must always be described as 'neat' where passes are concerned, it is the law), and, most underhand of all, striking the ball accurately into the corner of Shay Given's net, four times. Faced with such a cynical display of dastardly gamesmanship our honest-to-goodness British approach, relying on manly scurrying and hopeful sixty yard punts towards the head of a burly, talismanic target man, could not hope to prevail.

Sixty yard punts, by the way, should always be described as 'hopeful' when they are directed towards a target man- who in turn must be described as 'talismanic', if he happens to be Alan Shearer. It's the law.

Meanwhile the two of you appear to have found some way of evading my new comment filter. Damn it- those people at Goodfellas/DonnyBrasco Novelty Web Tools Inc must have bleedin' well seen me coming.

[jonathan]

Oh and by the way I can't help you with your hoverboxes young man, but if you click on the little photo once it appears on the big page all on its own, then it appears again, only bigger! And there's a man on a bike, look!

[Axwell Frank]

Agree with everything you say and applaud your intricate scheme to prevent the jurns getting through.

[John Jon Jonathan Johnson]

Saw the man on the bike and I think he looks like that dodgy skinhead out of the old Guardian advert on the television. Very nice picture. Very Urban. The lack of other photos reminds me of Yves Klein's famous 1953 exhibition, "La Vide," which featured an empty gallery painted pure white:

"Klein decided to exhibit nothing -- at least nothing that was immediately visible or tangible...Others spoke of a complete break with conventional humanism, and Albert Camus reacted with a poetic entry in the visitors' album, "Avec le vide, les plein pouvoirs," (with the void, full powers)."
Oh, and just so you know, today is WORLD FLEEING DAY!

[Mutha Baker]

What about the pie club, my all-time favourite. Surely it should be in the top 10.

Mutha Baker

[jonathan]

'Avec le vide, les pleins pouvoirs'. Exactly. A woman at the bus stop was saying precisely the same thing to me just yesterday.

Meanwhile I am heartened by the groundswell of support being shown here for that classic revolutionary tract the Pastry-Fanciers Charter, and may well reconsider the top 10 on the strength of it, quite possibly over a Ginsters steak and onion trellis.