Fact Ten

Factosis Level: High - Additional warning: this post contains a particularly poor and smutty joke

Whilst he was in prison, the US Government struck a deal with renowned mafia boss 'Lucky' Luciano (the man who had formed the National Crime Syndicate) to use his mafia connection to assist in the WW2 war effort.

Luciano provided Mafia assistance to counter possible Axis infiltration on U.S. waterfronts, and his connections in Italy and Sicily were used to obtain intelligence and ensure an easy passage for U.S. forces as they moved up through the Italian peninsula. Both during and after the war, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies reputedly also used Luciano's Mafia connections to root out communist infiltrators in Government departments.

It is rumoured that in return for his services, Luciano continued to run his crime syndicate in prison without interference. He was later parolled for his help but forced to return to Italy.

*** I got 64 & 65% for my assessments which has goes down very nicely indeed thankyou very much.

Website of the Day: http://www.marryyourpet.com/ for those of who you want to cement the bonds of a life long relationship. Or alternatively, if your bitch has run off with another pussy you can divorce them as well.

I HAVE LINKS!!!

I figured how to add links at last.

Hurrah !!!!!!


Me and Ron are going out to celebrate.

Oh Dear

I get my results back tomorrow. Having handed in 31,000 words, I'm rather hoping that some of them may produce positive results?

While I resist the urge to wet myself, I thought I'd draw your attention (if there is anybody there...hello?) to some fabulous articles what I wrote.

Writing For E-Commerce - Does exactly what it says on the metaphorical tin

Mark Le Fanu - He's an important person. General Secretary of the Society of Authors no less

And there's also Please Don't Eat Me a poetic sage of cannabalistic parents attempting to devour their children.

I shall try and adds these to my website www.davepaulnixon.co.uk without ruining the whole thing.

Have I mentioned www.davepaulnixon.co.uk? Yes I think I must of, how could anyone possibly forget www.davepaulnixon.co.uk

Quote of the Day: "Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them" Samuel Goldwyn.

Or it could've been: "Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day."

Or: "Why did you name him Sam? Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named Sam!"

Bless you Goldwyn, an anecdotists dream...

My Complaints

I've sent this letter to Virgin Trains today. Let's see if they respond and what they've got to say for themselves.

Dear Sir/Madam

To say I was dissatisfied with the service provided, prior to and during my, return journey from Penryn Cornwall to Stone-on-Trent on 10/06/06, and back on the 16/06/06, would be an understatement.

I continually checked your website for discounted tickets for the five weeks prior to taking my journey. On none of these occasions were there any discounted ticket for the 10/06 or on 09/06 or the 08/06. I was therefore forced to purchase the Std Saver for £73.50. That’s almost £20 more than I’ve paid in the past. I was then upset to find this ticket did not even feature a seat reservation. I called up the customer helpline to see if something could be done about this; the last thing I would want on a 7 hour journey is to stand. The advice I was given by the operator was to turn up early to get on the train first. How very helpful. I tried to complain at this point via your website only for my e-mail complaint to be rejected and returned twice.

I followed the train instructions on the ticket arriving in Truro at 11:30 with a forty minute wait until my train to Birmingham at 12:14. Fortunately I checked the departures list before leaving the station. The 12:14 train did not exist. I was able to run over the platform and get a train to Plymouth and change there for Birmingham. Neither of these trains were more than half full so why were there no discount tickets?

Thankfully the journey was smooth from then on. This could not be said of the journey back. Where the 10:49 from Wolverhampton was over an hour late. With no seat reservation I ended up switching seats three times in a carriage with no air conditioning.

I think you would agree that I have not a reasonable level of good service and would expect to compensated for the considerable inconvenience I have suffered.


Yours faithfully

David Paul Nixon.

Quote of the Day: "When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, But what's my motivation?, I say, 'Your salary.' ~ Alfred Hitchcock

Stoke Glorious Stoke

I’ve been holidaying this week in sunny Stoke-on-Trent, the countries leading county for derelict buildings, call centres and smoke damage.

Two of my friends got married. They also have a kid and house. I myself have debts, a room in a house with a landlord who I would happily pour petrol on if he was on fire, and an uncertain and tough career future.

My life is f****d

In the meantime it’s time to celebrate the launch http://www.davepaulnixon.co.uk/.

Yes that’s right http://www.davepaulnixon.co.uk/ where you can learn all you could possibly need to know about me as a writer.

The site address again? http://www.davepaulnixon.co.uk/ and admire the wonderful wood finish I’ve used as a background.

All this and more at www.davepaulnixon.co.uk

The phobia of the day is Phagophobia, the fear of being eaten.

Please Take a Moment to Read This Urgent Appeal

"I too didn't used to take that dreaded affliction of Factosis too seriously. It seemed like a ridiculous thing that someone had probably made up to flog some books and newspaper articles. But then it struck the very heart of my own personal life.

My father, whilst surfing the internet, suddenly discovered the fascinating fact that the only member of ZZ-top who didn't have a beard was called Frank Beard.

This sent him into a dangerous spasm. Levels of interest in the brain are sustained by tiny endorphins called Trivians. This nugget of information was so tantalisingly interesting that trivians gathered so quickly around the knowledge centres of his brain, that he fell to the floor and scrambled around like a badger in a cement mixer. And this was a man used to all kind of interesting bits of information, he was an accountant after all.

This could've been avoided. If he had known about the dangers of Factosis then he would still be making sense today. A small donation of £72 .61 a week would pay for someone to have a full frontal lobotomy and stop these tragedies from occuring."

Stay in doors and don't learn anything. And stop to think about the dangers of Factosis"

- that bloke out of steps, not H.

For further information please e-mail philogley@yahoo.co.uk

Fact Nine

Factosis Level: Medium

Martha Mitchell, the wife of US Attorney General John Mitchell, claimed illegal activities were taking place in the White House during the Nixon administration. She was subsequently diagnosed as having delusions as a result of mental illness.

Of course once the Watergate Scandol broke, she was revealed to have been totally correct and totally sane.

This lead to the creation of The Martha Mitchell Effect, where a psychologist accidently believes a patient to be delusional because there claims are unbelievable or held with excessive conviction.

Quote of the Day: "My neighbour asked if he could use my lawnmower and I told him of course he could, so long as he didn't take it out of my garden" - Eric Morecambe

Taxing

As usual, I cannot do anything right.

When I finished my job as an Oxfam bookstore manager (yes, someone actually gave me a position of responsibility) last September I had been taxed in full.

Sensibly then, come April, I decided to apply for a refund.

I could not find one amongst the 20 odd phone lines that applied to me. But I phoned one, and they were able to put me through to the right person who was then able to send me a form.

I returned the form.

Unfortunately there’s no box on the form to say ‘full time student’, so without any box to tick, I ticked the one which said ‘self employed’ on the basis that this would maybe be the case in the future. I then put my earnings as zero.

I then, with relish waited a whole month, then on my doorstep a beautiful brown Inland Revenue envelope. I opened with considerable admiration, 500 quid would once again be mine. What did I get?

A full length tax return to be returned at the end of the year.

Happy? Was I f**K

I phoned up the Revenue, and the third person I spoke to was able to help me. Unfortunately my records had been transferred down to Cornwall, they will have to be retransported back to Cardiff, before I can have my refund processed.

It would probably have been quicker had I sat down and put a cross or a zero in every bloody box.

Sigh

The delusion of the day is Unilateral neglectwhere one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of ones body

Fact Two Revisited

Factosis level: Medium

The 2001 Paedophile episode of Brass Eye received 2000 complaints and 3000 calls of support after it was first aired.

MP Beverley Hughes described it as ‘unspeakably sick’ but had to admit she hadn’t seen it and neither had Tessa Jowell who advised the ITC to take measures to assure that such a programme could be prevented from broadcast.

In the aftermath of the show, The Daily Star wrote a damning article about Morris next to a piece about the then 15-year-old singer Charlotte Church's breasts under the headline "She's a big girl now", and The Daily Mail featured pictures of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who were 13 and 11 at the time, in their bikinis next to an anti Brass Eye article entitled, "Unspeakably Sick."

The Quote of the Day is from Neil Innes of the Bonzo Dog Band, who performing playing at a charity concert stated that “I’ve suffered for my art, now it’s your turn.”

Woe Is Me

I am, as those who know me will testify, a person with a tendency toward misfortune. Let me give you an example:

Last week I put on the post below about my article on cufflinks.

I wrote a rather unkind remark about the sort of people who might buy cufflinks.

I attached a link to the site.

The owner of that site discovered a new link had been created to his site and checked where it had been linked to.

In his view writing an article, which in theory encourages people to buy cufflinks, and then effectively takes the piss out of these people, tends toward the counter productive side.

And he was not very pleased with me.

Oops

Apparently things have been smoothed over, but I would like to apologise to him and assure him that I was very grateful to have the opportunity to write for his site, and was only attempting to funny ( I attempt quite often ) and realise in hindsight that this was pretty inappropriate when you think about it.

I hope I have grovelled enough now.

Ron sympathises with me

Everybody loves Cufflinks

That legendary article I wrote on those wonderful cufflinks is now available.

History of cufflinks

And there's an article about Sheffield Silverware.

Sheffield Silverware

Neither of which have been credited to me. This will be rectified!

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where exactly are bad intentions going to take you?

Phobia of the day is Christianophobia, fear or dislike of Christians

Fact Eight

Factosis level: HIGH

The sport of dwarf tossing originated in either the United States of Australia, the sport involves men of extremely small stature being padded up and thrown onto mattresses by comepetitors.

The sport has attracted much contraversy. The sport was popular in Florida but a ban in 1989 meant the governor could revoke the licquor license of any bar taking part in the sport.

The sport was prohibted in France in 2002, on the ground that it caused a public disturbance with considerations of human dignity. It is however up to local authorities to enforce this law. No legal action against anyone has yet taken place.

A fine of $5,000 is payable in Canada for those breaking the 2004 'Dwart tossing Ban act' however this law failed to define the size of a dwarf and as a result many contest now use more contestands of a more average height.

The winners of the Dwarf Tossing world championship held in 1986 were the English team of Danny Blue, Roy Merrin and Lenny The Giant.

The official dwarf tossing chant:

This dwarf is made for tossing,
and thats just what he'll do,
One of these days this dwarf,
is gonna toss all over you...

Delusion of the Day: Fregoli Delusion, the belief that various people you meet are in fact the same person

Check a real life case of the male fear phobia on the comments for the aborted fact 5

Fact Seven

On 24 March1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn actually died laughing while watching an episode of The Goodies.

The episode 'Kung Fu Capers' caused a playground stir by introducing the Lancastrian martial art of Eckthump, which involves hitting an opponent over the head with a black pudding.

A scene in which Bill Oddie, master of the art, defends himself against bagpipe whielding Scotsman, caused Mr Mitchell to laugh solidly for 25 minutes until he died of heart failure.

His wife later thanked the Goodies for allowing her husband, who had been unwell, to die in such a 'pleasant' fashion.

Quote of the Day 'Writing about music is like dancing about architecture' - Elvis Costello

I-pod hell once again.

Davepod IV is now on the critical list with little hope of recovery.

Cure you Apple blah blah... revenge etc ete... Long live Davepod V and so and so on.

I feel I must apologise for the poor (even by my standard) punctuation of the previous post. The thought of my factosis attack made me less receptive to sensible editing. That coupled with the Blessed picture obviously. I will see to it that it does not happen again - to that extent.

The Dellusion of the day is Capgras delusion: the belief that a close relative, friend, or spouse has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.

Fact Five

The original fact five had to be removed from this blog because it was so quite interesting, so jammed packed full of trivions, that it threatened to send my readers (all 3-4 of them) into a state of total factosis, a condition where the mind becomes so receptive to a piece of information that it literally overloads. I myself once fell victim to a full blown attack of factosis which, sent me rolling around the floor like a rabid horse in an earthquake.


To recover, I had to be placed in a sensory deprevation tank where I was able to learn no new factual information for at least 48 hours until my mind returned to a state of absolute calm.

Factosis is not a laughing matter. It is one of my long term ambitions to set up a foundation and a helpline for people have suffered and lost valuable pieces of information through this debilatating condition. A helpline number is now pending.



Todays phobia is Androphobia — a Fear of males

Fact Six

Pies have been around since 2000 BC in Egypt and was later passed onto the Greeks and then spread to the Romans by around 100BC (already a thousand years old). The first known pie recipe came from the Romans and was for a rye-crusted goat cheese and honey pie.

The Pie came to England in the 12th century and were predominantly filled with meat. The crust was known as the Coffyn and was used as a container, for a long time the pastry was not eaten.

Pies, are of course, also used for acts of comedy. Here are some people who have fell victim to random pie attacks.

Jeremy Clarkson
Prince Charles
Jean-Luc Goddard
Bill Gates
Calvin Klien
Kenny Rogers
William Shatner
Claire Short
Anne Widdicome
Andy Warhol

Today's Phobia of the day is 'Lalophobia or Laliophobia' a fear of speaking

More Great Things By Me

I have more spectacular things (2 articles and 1 story no less - careful, contain that excitement) on the bloc website.

www.bloc-online.com

An interview with multi-milllion selling author Robert Goddard (he talked to the whole class, I taped and then wrote it down), Publishing a magazine (It's on that magazine I'm writing for so it's only fair I write about them) and 'The End of Summer' ( A short weepy).

Phobia of the Day: Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia — Fear of the number 666.

Fact Four

No one knows for sure why moths are so facinated by the light

It is thought that moths navigate by maintaining a constant angular relationship to a bright celestial light (such as the moon), but on encountering a bright artificial light it navigates by maintaining a constant angle to the light, resulting in the moth flying in a spiral until it hits the light source.

This cause problems because moths circulate the pollen from night blooming flowers. Could this be a harmful long term problem for the environment?

What Not To Eat

The following conversation appeared on the Falmouth College Writing Message board and is relayed here in appropriate chronological order.

Please see below the contents of a memo we have received from Channel Four.
Please remember that the reputation of the MA in Professional Writing course is dependent on students and staff ensuring credibility with industry professionals.
The Editorial Team is taking this matter very seriously. We are in the process of identifying those responsible for this misconduct.
From: Lifestyles Programme Editor, Channel 4
To: Editorial Team, MA in Professional Writing, UCF.
Re: Celador Productions: 'You Are What You Eat'
Sirs,

We are concerned that considerable time and expense has been wasted from our limited budgets by students attending University College Falmouth.

Dr Gillian McKeith Inc., (the 'World Authority on Nutritional Eating and Bowel Movement Studies'), received details recently of a potential candidate for the forthcoming series of 'You Are What You Eat'.
The information came from someone calling themselves 'Vince Matthew', and suggested a fellow student named David P Nixon as an individual who might benefit from Dr McKeith's guidance and nutritional programme.

Mr Matthew included details on Mr Nixon's current diet, which he suggested consists of 'various forms of cheese, Pringle crisps and litres of Coca Cola - supplemented only by a bi-weekly carrot'.
You are no doubt familiar with the format of the programme. Dr McKeith and her crew scheduled a weekend down in Penryn, and began secretly filming Mr Nixon in preparation for confronting him with evidence of his imbalanced diet.

Dr McKeith was disappointed and angered by the results of this investigation. Rather than a nutritionally dysfunctional intake of food, the following eating diary compiled by Gillian suggests that in fact Mr Nixon sets an excellent example to his peer group of young males:

Saturday: Breakfast - 'Activator Smoothie' and pumpkin seeds; Lunch - Tofu and Bean Burger with Watercress;

Dinner - Mackerel and Pine Nuts with Avocado Sauce. Mineral Water.

Sunday: Breakfast - Quinoa Porridge with sunflower seeds; Lunch - Pumpkin Stew with Butternut Squash Mash;

Dinner - Miso Soup with Tofu, and Spinach Sprouting Seeds Salad. Mineral Water.

Dr McKeith and her team were furious at this misrepresentation of David. Her team observed, however, that Mr Nixon appears to wear a padded corset to hide an extremely impressive six-pack and toned abdominal definition. They did wonder, therefore, if this time-wasting exercise did involve an element of collusion...
We would be most grateful if you would ensure that those responsible for hindering Dr McKeith's international crusade to improve eating habits and stool formation be identified, and Celador Productions be notified of the miscreants in anticipation of potential legal action.

A letter of apology has been sent to Mr Nixon, who regretably received an e-mail from Celador Productions before this hoax had been uncovered, which included the phrase 'We have been watching you, you cheese-chomping coke-guzzler, and your malnourished over-caffeinated days are numbered'.

Yours in anticipation,
Hilary Killjoy
Lifestyles Programme Editor, Channel 4.
___________________

RajanGuest Group31 March 2006 at 2:11pm

I, for one, would like to support the investigations that the Editorial Team are conducting into this serious matter.
I think it is dreadful that members of the course should behave in this way.
On behalf of all career-minded, right-thinking students, I would like to apologise unreservedly to Ms Killjoy, Dr McKeith - and indeed to David - for this very poor lapse in judgement displayed by nameless members of the course (another excellent reason that Christina quite rightly insists that we do not put up entries on this board under false names - childish behaviour).
If I can help in anyway in tracking down the culprits, please let me know.

Yours disgustedly
Rajan

_________

Editorial TeamGuest Group31 March 2006 at 2:16pm

Thank you for your support, Rajan
____________________

RajanGuest Group31 March 2006 at 2:17pm

You are welcome.
____________________

Legal TeamGuest Group31 March 2006 at 3:05pm

In view of recent events David Paul Nixon is currently seeking legal advice in reference to the ‘You are what you eat’ incident. Our client has been greatly troubled by these accusations and feels that he has been misrepresented as a cheese-chomping coke-guzzler. We would also like to point out that any corset Mr Nixon may or may not wear is for medical purposes only, and that any accusations of collusion are totally false.

We were also asked to relay the following message on behalf of Mr Nixon.

“I’ll get you next time Rajan, you massive W*****”
________________________________
RajanGuest Group31 March 2006 at 3:15pm

Guys, want to find out more about having the confidence to alienate people, make yourself generally unpopular and gain an official David P Nixon-accredited 'Massive W*****' nomination*?
Take the test...
http://www.nomoremrniceguy.com/ngs.php
* more valuable than a Blue Peter Badge at the moment - and you can sell your title on e-bay...

Fact Three

Many films released in Malaysia are significantly edited and cut.

The following is a selection of films banned entirely.

Saturday Night Fever, Babe 1 & 2, Zoolander, Schindlers List, Bruce Almighty, Daredevil, Sin City, Brokeback Mountain, Saving Private Ryan, South Park, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Blade, Underworld.

In Zimbabwe 'The Interpreter' was banned by a September 2005 interdict from President Robert Mugabe Office, stating that the film is “mischievous” and a “subtle denigration of our head of State by the Bush administration and the CIA.”

Dirty Harry is currently banned in Finland, From Dusk Till Dawn was banned in Ireland for 6 years after its release and What's New Pussycat was banned in Norway for some reason.