One of the things that annoys me most in the world is people who can’t use acronyms properly. You know the people I mean – those who say the acronym, then follow it with a word which has already been shortened to a capital letter in the acronym itself.
PIN number. No it isn’t. It’s a PIN. It’s not a Personal Identification Number Number, is it? It’s not an ATM machine and neither is it an ISA account.
Gah.
Thankfully, no-one referred to David’s Jam as a NOCHYN Now Jam, as that would have ended up in a rant far more passionate than the hatred of ignorant German students, folk music, buttons or music teachers called Fiddler.
NOCHYN stands for ‘No One Can Help You Now’ and the premise of the evening was to encourage people to push on through the natural end of any ideas/comedy and, well, just keep on spewing out crazy shit until something happens.
To this effect, the subject matter for the evening was varied and bizarre. Whilst there were many highlights, I did enjoy Lloydie’s attempt to become the new Professor Brian Cox by inventing a simple co-ordinates system for identifying stars. “9 x 5 x 2” were the co-ordinates for one bright star, although he appears to have based this regime on the sizes you can buy MDF in from Wickes.
We found love in the Elastoplast factory, a garden centre that sells harmonious bonsai greenhouses and a brand of trainers that may not be cool, but that really last. We faced up to the harsh reality of Edward Norton’s giant army of Scientology lawyers and learned that once you’ve got a bike, you ‘don’t need a fucking car any more’. And, we learned that buttons are the ‘retard of fashion’ and that there’s not much glory in the trenches.
And, we considered the world’s big questions. Why is a Winnie the Pooh Treehouse so hard to get out of the box? Whatever happened to white dog poo? Can you play the flute American Pie style? Why don’t you toggle a bathroom light on and off? Why don’t Nickelodeon get with modern times and make a cartoon called Stab and Jacket? Why do people in glass houses insist on throwing Baby Cherries?
And, in a sentence I may take to my grave, we learned that an umlaut ‘is a perfectly natural process of phonological assimilation.’ Amazing.
[Finally, on a personal level, the sheer quantity of improvisers called Nick is beginning to do my head in. I am considering a re-brand to Parky – a nickname that most other people use for me. Any thoughts?]
