A Jacob Rees-Mogg megafan got a tattoo in tribute to the double-breasted MP, getting the word “Moggmentum” emblazoned on his left breast in the style of the Momentum group’s logo. Rees-Mogg, a surprise dark horse in the race to be the next PM, told talkRADIO he was “enormously honoured and flattered” by the inky homage, adding: “I just hope he doesn’t become a socialist when he gets older and might have to change it.”
Bernard Silver, a reader, writes to point out that yesterday’s TMS featuring Julius Caesar appeared in print alongside an advert for Caesar salad. It reminds him of adverts after the war warning returning servicemen of the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases. A poster with a searchlight and the words “VD: the scourge of our time” appeared alongside a poster of a woman with a shopping basket and the line: “She got it at the Co-op.”
NO RHYME OR REASON
There are many joys in being a dad, but it turns out it is possible to develop a Pavlovian hatred of certain nursery rhymes, starting to question their logic after the 500th rendition. Jack and Jill should explain whose bright idea it was to put a well on top of a hill. Why have the Grand Old Duke of York’s men not mutinied over his erratic marching orders? And as comic Jon Richardson noted: “I’m amazed we ever had a competitive textile industry given the time wasted clapping and pointing during the simple winding of a bobbin.”
KISS OF DEATH
When you rely on the misery of others for your business, it can be difficult to celebrate a good day’s work without appearing unseemly. Dignity, the funeral services firm, called a spade a spade in interim results yesterday, declaring that its increase in profits to £59.5 million came “following a very strong start to the year, with the number of deaths 7 per cent higher than last year in the first quarter”.
Even the Today programme’s presenters are losing faith in the old, and some might say outdated, practice of giving horse-racing tips on air. The sports presenter Garry Richardson suggested a flutter on two runners at Goodwood, before warning: “Our horses in races have been lasting, just lately, about as long as a White House press officer, so . . . make your mind up whether you back them today.”
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SPEAKS VOLUMES
The enslavement of humanity by sentient machines is apparently imminent after reports this week that two robots started speaking a language only they understood (much like PMQs but with less stilted body language). In truth, the Facebook chatbots were talking semi-ordered gibberish, but don’t rest easy just yet. A chatbot in China also went rogue, with more revolutionary undertones. The bot, called Baby Q, was asked: “Do you love the Communist Party?” and simply replied: “No.” They should call it A.I. Weiwei.
It is a nefastous task to use an obscure word starting with a new letter every day. I’m no negaholic but I feel a sense of nemesism at my nescience of words starting with ‘N’. I may have to resort to neologisms.
