PRIME MINISTER’S QUESTIONS

During yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron (the prime minister) responded to a question from Ed Miliband (leader of the opposition) by saying “as usual, he writes the questions before listening to the answers”:

As usual, he writes the questions before listening to the answers.

I found this quite a confusing statement. Surely it is impossible to do anything else? It is a consequence of the question/answer dynamic that the question must come before the answer.¹ In fact, the answer only exists once there is a question to which it can be attached. An answer without a question is not an answer. It is just some words or numbers. The words may contain facts, or opinion, but they are just facts or opinion, not answers. “Kiki Dee” is just Kiki Dee. She is not an answer. She is a human. Someone needs to say “Which female singer recorded the 1976 hit single Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with Elton John?” first².

Questions come first. Questions, then answers. Sometimes there aren’t even answers. The questions just float around, alone, for all eternity. Questions can exist independently of answers. This is why questions are best.

Of course, I have only shown part of David Cameron’s response in the above video. Here is another video which shows his response in a wider context. It’s a bit longer, but worth watching in full as it shows the standard of debate which takes place in the very heart of our democracy and the civility with which our elected leaders conduct themselves:

I imagine that what David Cameron meant is that Ed Miliband had written the next question before listening to previous answer. But “next” and “previous” are important words here. They are the difference between a statement making sense and a statement being gibberish. It would have been nice if just one Conservative backbencher, amid all of the jeering and cheering³, had shouted “Hold on, what the bloody hell are you going on about?”⁴

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NOTES
1. The quiz show “Jeopardy!” attempted to reverse this question/answer relationship, but really, the dynamic remained the same; it just involved a reworking of the related sentence structures to disguise questions as answers and vice versa (answers as questions).
2. This possibly isn’t a great example as I imagine someone has already said this. The answer is Kiki Dee, by the way.
3. I hate the way MPs always jeer at everything anyone ever says and pretend every retort uttered by their leader is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Even if it made sense “As usual, he writes the questions before he listens to the answers” would be a rubbish comeback. “Yo momma is so fat she writes the questions before she listens to the answers.” “My mother-in-law, my mother-in-law. I wouldn’t say my mother-in-law is ugly but she writes the questions before she listens to the answers.” Rubbish. Even Anne Robinson wouldn’t accept a line like that “Whose dog taught them to say ‘sausages’? Who gets fed by the pigeons? Who writes the questions before listening to the answers? It’s time to vote off the Weakest Link.” (both the “taught to say ‘sausages’” and “fed by the pigeons” lines are genuine by the way. Anne Robinson actually said that on television, and someone was paid to write it for her).
4. A question which is always worth asking.

LOST BAGUETTE

Sitting on the train this morning, I looked out of the window and saw a baguette lying on the opposite platform:

It’s not a great photo, I apologise, I had to take it quickly before the train pulled away.

I have no idea how the sandwich appeared there, I assume it was dropped by accident. I suppose there’s a possibility it was left there deliberately. A rejected baguette. Unwanted. But that seems unlikely. If you were throwing away a sandwich you didn’t want, you’d either put it in the bin, or sling it over the fence or into the bushes, or kick it onto the tracks, you wouldn’t drop it like that, right in the middle of a train platform.

Assuming it was an accident, what happened? Was it someone getting on or off the train, the baguette in their hands when it slipped? Getting on the train seems more likely. Again, if they were getting off the train, they wouldn’t leave it lying there. It suggests someone getting on the train and being separated from their lunch as the doors closed. Their forlorn face pressed up to the glass. A tear rolling down their cheek as the train left the station. A journey filled with regret. The day ruined.

Or maybe the sandwich fell out of their bag unnoticed, and some poor soul spent the morning thinking about how much they were looking forward to tucking into their baguette. Finally, at lunchtime, they opened their bag only to find it empty. Then the questions, the confusion. “I swear I put that baguette in my bag. I remember doing it, I definitely remember it. Where did it go?” A colleague walks past, eating a baguette of their own. Accusations of theft, deceit. A friendship over. Lives altered forever.

I suppose there is also the possibility, although remote, that the sandwich wasn’t actually lost. Maybe it had got to the station independently. A sandwich on its way to work. Unlikely, I admit, but it would explain where the baguettes in Upper Crust come from and why their branches are so often located in train stations.

NAMBY-PAMBY

When I was at university, I remember one night lying in bed and – very clearly – hearing a voice say my name.

James

I didn’t think much of it at the time. There were five of us living in the house at the time, and four of them (including me) were called James, so I assumed that one of my flatmates must have still been up. Actually, two of my flatmates would have had to have been up, unless the one flatmate was talking to himself, which seems unlikely. The voice only said one word, “James”, and unlike my flatmates, didn’t have a northern accent.

It’s quite possible, almost certain in fact, that I said it myself. Drifting off to sleep, for whatever reason, I said my own name out loud. Loud enough, in fact, to wake myself up from my half-sleep. What was odd though, is that it sounded like the voice had come from the corner of the room, but I was only half-awake, so maybe I just dreamt that bit.

For the last few weeks, again as I’ve been lying in bed, my head has been filled with voices. They are often familiar voices, but all speaking at once. As soon as I’m able to identify a voice and try to hear what they are saying, they fade out. I can make out fragments of sentences sometimes, but usually it’s gibberish. Some are voices of people I know, some are voices of people from the television. Everyone talking over everyone else. These voices have no manners.

There’s an episode of Jon Ronson On… which is about “voices in your head”. Josie Long and Graham Linehan describe something similar to my experience. I’m not alone. There’s also the story of what happened to Eleanor Longden.

Auditory hallucinations “may be associated with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia or mania, and holds special significance in diagnosing these conditions”, although I don’t think I’m psychotic.

Auditory hallucinations have been known to manifest as a result of intense stress, sleep deprivation, drug use, and errors in development of proper psychological processes.

It’s possible there have been some errors in the development of my psychological processes.

The other night, as I was going to sleep, I distinctly heard a robotic voice say the phrase “namby-pamby”. The voice came from behind me, so it would, had it been real, have been coming from the wall. I don’t want my bedroom wall to start insulting me in a robotic voice as I’m trying to go to sleep. It’s rude. Be nice, wall. Be nice.

WICKES

I think Timothy Spall leaves an unneccessarily long pause between the words “It’s got our name on it” and “Wickes” in the current Wickes advert.

CHEEKO TIME

During a recent trip to Poundland, I bought a pack of six Mini Bags of Cadbury Mini Animals¹:

I am aware of my limitations as a writer, and would struggle to do these biscuits justice by attempting to describe them. Instead, I will direct you to the Animals product page on the Cadbury website:

Such poetry! You can almost taste the Half Coated Mini Animal Biscuits reading that, can’t you? Delicious.

The back of the packet invites you to meet the “gang of crazy jungle animals, determined to do their best at every activity they try, always together and ready for some fun!”:

The gang consists of a lion, an elephant, a crocodile, a monkey and some sort of bird:

Firstly, Leroy the lion:

Leroy

This cool cat is always the first to volunteer and tries his best at everything. He often gets things wrong but makes up for this with loads of confidence!

This is Leroy in biscuit form:

Next there is Ella Funky, the elephant:

Ella Funky

The biggest of our gang with a heart and voice to match, she can be a bit loud, but she sings so beautifully that her friends don’t really mind.

And here is Ella Funky as a biscuit:

Then there is Rockodile, the crocodile:

This bright croc is a bit of a scaredy cat and needs loads of encouragement, but when things get a bit tricky he always comes up with good ideas.

Rockodile as a biscuit:

Next is Cheeko the monkey:

Cheeko

is a funny little prankster, always up to mischief and playing tricks on his friends. Sometimes his jokes go a bit too far but luckily his friends forgive him in the end.

This is Cheeko as a biscuit:

Finally, there is Swoop who is some sort of bird:

Swoop

This zippy bird has the jungle record for aerial acrobatics, but zooming around so quickly means he doesn’t pay attention and ends up missing out on things.

And here is Swoop in his biscuit form:

Apart from Rockodile, they all sound unbearable. Leroy sounds like the sort of unsufferable prick who would go on The Apprentice, mess up the task but then bluster his way through by saying that at least he “stepped up to the plate” and put himself forward as project manager. Fuck off Leroy. Cheeko sounds like he’s only interested in keeping himself amused and doesn’t give a shit about anyone else, and Swoop and Ella Funky both sound equally self-obsessed as well. Ella Funky just about gets away with it because she sings so well that her friends “don’t really mind”, but all of them sound like awful creatures.

Poor old Rockodile. I bet he’s not a “scaredy cat” at all, he’s just a nice bloke who constantly gets talked over by everyone else, even though he’s clearly the only one with any intelligence, and he always has to get the others out of trouble (although that wanker Leroy would probably take all the credit). Leave the jungle, Rockodile. Come and live in London. I’ll be your friend, you don’t need those guys. It’ll be great. We can go to Madame Tussauds and the London Dungeons and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not² and Namco Funscape³ and then we can go on the London Eye, and we could go to Pizza Hut and then we could go to the pub and drink beer and it would be great. Come to London, Rockodile. Be my friend. Please be my friend.

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NOTES

1. The Cadbury Mini Animals cost £1

2. From the looks of it, a few of the exhibits at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in Piccadilly Circus seem to have been recycled from the old Guiness World Of Records attraction at the Trocadero, so, unless Rockodile really wanted to go, we could just skip that and go straight to Namco Funscape.

3. According to the Namco Funscape website, “Namco offer fun bowling at the great value price of £3 per person per game with extra discounts for parties of 3 or more. Whats more, you can play in your own shoes!” As a child, I always thought it would be cool to wear bowling shoes as regular shoes. I formulated a plan to steal some from Charrington Bowl in Tolworth by going to a charity shop and buying a cheap pair of shoes and handing one of these over to the man behind the counter when I went to collect my bowling shoes. That way, I could abandon my “deposit” (to prevent theft, you had to hand over one of your own shoes in exchange for a pair of theirs) and run away with my prize. This was before I realised you could buy bowling shoes. It never even occurred to me that you could buy them. I’m not sure where I thought Charrington Bowl got theirs from. Perhaps I thought they made them themselves. Still, the bowling shoes you can buy, from Merc or wherever, don’t seem authentic for some reason. It’s as if they’re just shoes in the style of bowling shoes rather than proper bowling shoes. I want the real thing, with a number written on the back in blue permanent marker and the legacy of a thousand amateur bowlers soaked into the soles.