For those tip-of-the-tongue moments when you're surfing the Zeitgeist but can't quite remember where you are, here is malapropism for the 21st-century. Compiled by Christopher Norris. All views expressed are my own
Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 derived its title from the temperature at which paper burns. Florida is feeling the heat from around the world about the pastor Terry Jones on/off campaign to incinerate copies of the Koran at the Dove World Outreach.
This is the stuff of fatwa. You don't hear stories of people burning Bibles, Torahs or, to the frank, any kind of book (apart from the Nazis), so this proposed action is incendiary to the Muslim world.
The proposed compromise, to move the location of an Islamic Centre in Manhattan, is probably a non-starter in that the site is two blocks away from Ground Zero.
This row is dangerous and, whatever happens, Mr Jones has succeeded in strengthening the common stereotype of the United States as an arrogant, intolerant state. Although this is a simplistic and wrong-headed view, there are extremists in the country who play to the gallery.
Terrorism may increase in the short term, Osama bin Laden will probably release a video, and Mr Jones may need to employ enhanced security measures for himself and his church.
The Tati Estate has been very cautious about anyone producing the story, so Sylvain Chomet (the maker of the classic Belleville Rendez-Vous) needed the tact of a fox to convince the family to let him loose on the crown jewels as a feature-length animation.
Big on atmosphere, father-daughter relationships and the disappointment of fading dreams, The Illusionist is a period costume piece without nostalgia. It's a rites of passage story about growing up and growing old, sad without being tragic and with a strange nobility invested in the central character: Tati himself as the illusionist.
Almost a silent film, the movie has a great chance of an Oscar next year as Best Foreign Picture. Go see it for yourselves.
Other than tasteless publicity on a sad anniversary, the Fund should use unofficial channels to explore ways of shutting down the trade. A trademark infringement case, should it go wrong, would simply open the floodgates to products seeking their main chance.
The USA hierarchy is steaming about the Afghan papers put up on the web by Wikileaks. Where Amnesty International trod by raising publicity about whistleblowers and democrats held in prison and/or being tortured, Wikileaks has posted classified information from the aggressor's mouth.
This is TheBourne Identity for real. What price for the US secret services persuing the Wikileaks board and information moles with every thing they have got. Welcome to spying in the 21st century.
Until now. Cheryl Cole has malaria and may be starting a trend. Amir Khan, the boxer, has collapsed with the same mystery disease.
No one famous has recently croaked from tuberculosis, syphilis. polio, cholera or a flu epidemic but with global travel increasing and the losing battle against bug evolution means it may just be a matter of time.
Frank was way ahead of his time, celebrating the naffness and desperation of celebrity and over-promoting the banal: he, like me, was born and bred in Timperley, Cheshire, and name-dropped the place at every opportunity.
The bones of the artist have been identified in Tuscany and they show signs of lead poisoning.
Caravaggio died at 38 after an eventful life. But how come the likes of Michelangelo (89 years), Leonardo da Vinci (67 years) and Titian (91-plus years) lived into old age, despite prolific output of paintings?
Is this a genetic pre-disposition to absorbing lead, was Caravaggio a workaholic, or did he simply use different paints to the others?
No doubt there will be an inquiry. The bottom line? You can't really know your neighbours well enough. And disaffected loners seem to be a common theme.
At least, unlike the USA, such shootings do not tend to be committed by young people. Dunblane was perpetrated by an adult outsider; Columbine was enacted by students at the institution. But this is probably due to a respective lack of access to arms rather than a difference in morals.
Now they are going for the grand finale: cutting the pipe in half further down its length to get a clean break, and then trying the capping procedure all over again.
Hmm. Immigration policy may be tricky to implement this new parliament. Two Pakistani students, alleged to be linked to al-Qaeda, have been judged to be dangerous but impossible to deport due to the threat of torture or possible execution back in the old country.
Western values trumps the law of the jungle in this case. Perhaps there ought to be counter-madrassas, teaching against fundamentalist religion, here in the UK and perhaps in the USA? But who would teach the curriculum? Presumably moderate Muslim clerics?
John F Kennedy was a talented golfer who dare not be photographed on a course lest he be thought not be be working at the coal face of the Cold War.
Barack Obama is happy to be snapped over a putter (32 times since his inauguration and counting) to demonstrate his control over his work:life balance.
Attitudes to golfing habits of presidents shows how public attitudes have changed over the last fifty years.
Who knows? But you can now download your own 'Nick is Barack', 'Clegg is Churchill' and 'Nick is Che' posters from the web. The blogosphere news cycle is spinning at warp speed, but the froth of a new-kid-on-the-block story solidify from exuberant pastiche to solid change in the next few days.
Conundrum: how to convince the world's media and football stars that the forthcoming World Cup will run like clockwork without a backcloth of bullets and bombs?
And will young fans ever more proficient at using the internet be prepared to fork out hard-earned cash for products that are bound to be pirated as soon as they get released?
Predictions? Pop stars tend to have more staying power after death than other celebrities because of the potential to release unheard material. Actors have to 'be there' on set appear in new films, theatre being a de facto no-no (except for Oliver Reed in Gladiator, Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassusand Marlon Brando in Superman Returns); writers can be ghosted after death, but turn into franchises (witness Robert Ludlum, Virginia Andrews); fine artists' work is finite, but obscure and famous stuff excites auction houses and markets when it resurfaces to realise some wealthy person's investment; but dead musicians often have the potential to release original material for many years, albeit with diminishing returns on quality.
The more intense the perfectionism trait of a pop star, the higher the probability of there being a hoard of releasable stuff deemed too flawed to share publicly after the performer's death: this is a likely Michael Jackson scenario. Sony plan to release ten albums in the next seven years, some of which are bound to feature original material.
As for downloading songs illegally, yes there will billions of dollars leaking out of the system for any new releases. The jury is out, but evidence may suggested that persistent download freeloaders may also spend more money on products they really want. In the round, the Michael Jackson estate and Sony are unlikely to lose out as loyal fans will want to own full collections of material.
The new factor in this case is the degree to which people feel comfortable downloading pirate material of a recently dead icon. Will it feel like grave-robbing, a little tacky, to fans used to sampling music for free? My guess is probably not, as the 'music wants to be free' meme has held sway now since the heyday of Napster.
The problem with any release of accurate information about Mr Venables' recent return to prison, 17 years after his release with a new identity, is that it would render any future trial impossible. The rage since James Bulger's murder in 1993 has not diminished: any mob vengeance against Mr Venables would muddy the morality of the case and bring society down to the level of gangsteranarchy.
Meanwhile, newspapers seem to be printing what they like. The moment an editor goes to jail in the instant the public will know truth from rampant speculation.
There's an argument to be made for Mr Foot being the missing link between the long-gone soapbox era of policy exposition and the current obsession with personality and celebrity.
Mr Foot's adherence to socialist policies, genuinely felt, lead to the 1983 Labour manifesto, dubbed the longer suicide note in British political history. His other claim to lasting media fame was the 'donkey jacket' he wore to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday.
And yet he fulsome tributes given today go beyond the usual clichéd platitudes. The politics of Michael Foot's youth was a very different country.
Winston the younger was a war reporter and Conservative politician, like his grandad, but without hitting the same heights of success.
The family tradition alternates male children with the forenames Winston and Randolph: the most recent late Winston did the family business proud. His has a son called Randolph.
got there years ago, although a 21st-century remake would be unlikely to be so demure.
