Some places to go. And some places not to go.

Here are some reviews of some pubs that I went to last night. Apologies if I've forgotten any:

1. The Maltings
A small pub, guaranteed that it will be full of people that you know or worst case scenario, recognise. Dark Budwar is very drinkable.

2. Victor J's Art Bar
Now with brand new upstairs area and toilets. I got confused and used the staff toilet. It's downstairs where the public toilet used to be. I refused to be put off by all the signs saying "Staff only", "Private", "No Entry" and "Warning: Toxic Waste".

3. The Artful Dodger
This is a place. Used to be Walkers, then became the W Bar. Now it's had a bit of a makeover and isn't actually too bad. There's a 6'5" wasted guy called Oliver who spent a lot of time trying to convince me to get a new job.

4. Rumours
Don't go there. It's rubbish.

5. The Room
Don't go there. It's rubbish. Also, the pool table appears to be broken and doesn't allow me to do "trick shots". ie I lost.

6. The Micklegate
Hazy

7. The Nags Head
Not sure why we went here. Triples for the price of singles! Yeah, that's a great idea. They have an arcade table thing with a selection of games. I had a go at Arkanoid. I'm fairly sure that when I was a nipper and had this on the Spectrum that I could hit the little ball at least once. I was also crap at Ms Pac Man.

8. Reflex
Still stuck in the 80s.

And then it was time to go home, thankfully.

If this post was a password it would look like this:

***************

Biscuits come and biscuits go: Nothing really changes

I haven't had any biscuits at home for ages, but I bought some at the weekend, on a whim. At first I wasn't used to having biscuits. I'd get peckish and feel like a little snack and then have a packet of crisps. Later I might realise that I could have had biscuits instead.

Now, a few days later I have got used to having biscuits. Earlier for example, I went to the kitchen and removed some biscuits from my cupboard without even thinking about the other snacks competing for my attention. Then I ate them whilst sitting on the sofa.

Now I have run out of biscuits. I've eaten all of them.

In other news, there is none. Nothing of interest has happened. Absolutely nothing. Nada.

On the Orienting of Pizza

The funny thing with pizza is that it's normally round and has no particular orientation. You can put a pizza on someone's plate and they're not going to say "Hey! My pizza's at a jizzy angle! I need to turn it... like so! That's better." as they rotate it 18 degrees to the left. This is true no matter what topping goes on it. Pepperoni, olives, spicy chicken, oregano, asparagus, elephant or all of the above. It just doesn't matter how it's placed. An uncut fresh pizza does not have any preference for a particular direction.

But. As soon as you start to cut it into slices... something changes. The first cut is the major one. As soon as you've made it, then **bang** the pizza now has direction. It has orientation. It has motivation. It's now a pizza that wants to lie in a particular direction. It wants the cut to start as close to you as possible and end up on the far side of the plate. It then demands a second cut at right angles to the first, to form four even pieces. And then you're done, past the cut of no return.

Your pizza is quartered and from now on it can only be positioned in certain ways. It has been defined with four fixed quadrants. Top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right. These four sections have to remain in their positions, else the pizza would be utterly misaligned.

Furthemore, not only can the pizza now only be positioned in certain ways, the pieces have to be eaten in a certain order. The order is:

1. Top right
2. Bottom right
3. Top left
4. Bottom left

and if you don't eat them in this order... well, I don't know what would happen. It's almost an absurd concept, like wondering what would happen if the hours of the day came in a different order, or how would Beethoven's 5th sound if the notes were in a different order? Ridiculous, stupid concepts.

Once the pizza has been cut, then the future is mapped out and no mere mortal such as myself is able to change it. Top right, bottom right, top left, bottom left. That's how the pizza has to be eaten.

Top right, bottom right, top left, bottom left. As each piece is eaten the next one is waiting. And each piece knows its place. Each piece knows when you're coming for it. And each piece is ready for what must come next. Woe betide anyone who uses a different order. I'm honestly not sure what would occur but I figures it would have to be bad. Possibly very bad. I'd never try it. At least not without supervision and controlled conditions.

On a related topic, I once read about a man who tried to cut a pizza into five (what?!!! five???) pieces. Poor sod never recovered. Quite, quite tragic.

--------------------------

[disclaimer: the words above apply only to pizzas cooked in one's own oven, where the pizza has a diameter of ten inches or less. take-away and delivery pizzas are exempt from all possible orientations and orderings. terms and conditions apply. your pizza is at risk if you do not keep up your repayments.]

Pull the other one...

Consider this scenario:

You're in this bar, a good bar with decent music, not too much smoke, comfy chairs, maybe some funky art on the walls, maybe not. You're drinking a bottle of beer - Corona with a slice of lime pushed in. It's cold beer which feels good because it's a warm evening. You're not sweating but you would be if you got up and had a dance. That's unlikely though since there's nowhere to dance in this bar.

You see a girl over the other side of the bar. Somehow, through the machinations of your friends you end up chatting to her and things go well. You get on great and it feels like you've known her for ages. Her name's something not too unusual like Sarah or Catherine or Buffy. Not one of those daft new-age names like Apple or Headstone or Funkmonster - that would have put you off and the conversation would never have got started.

Later on, you leave the bar, and you and her head off somewhere else.

You go on a couple of dates with this girl. On one of them, you find out that she's actually one half of a pair of identical twins. At first this feels a little odd, but after a while you get used to it and stop jokingly asking for threesomes. You get to know the other twin and she too becomes a close friend.

After a couple of months you realise that you're in love with Sarah or Catherine or Buffy. You propose and she accepts. You're married six months later in early Spring in a small church near Chichester. It's a lovely wedding, but then you would think that because you're in love.

The first few months of marriage are wonderful. You still see a lot of the other twin - she lives nearby and often comes around for dinner. On one of these occasions a horrible realisation dawns. You actually prefer the other twin. You're not sure why - it's nothing concrete, but she just has something, maybe a spark in her smile or a subtlety in her laugh. Maybe she's slightly more confident, or maybe she's quieter. But there's something that starts to attract you to her. And over the months you come to a horrible truth:

You should have married the other twin.

That'd be a right crappy thing, I expect.

So the moral here is: If you start to date an identical twin, get to know the sister too and ensure that you choose the right one. Of course, if one of them can't stand you, you should take the one that likes/tolerates you and just be grateful you have someone.

I don't know any identical twins, or at least I don't know anybody who's told me that they have an identical twin. I was thinking about why this might be, and I think I've worked it out. They have all been sequestered by the government for use in experiments testing Einstein's theory of relativity.

Because there's the so called "Twin Paradox" where you get a pair of identical twins and put one in a spaceship and leave one at home. You send the one in a spaceship out at something close to the speed of light for a 20 years or so, and then bring them home again. When they are reunited, the one who stayed at home is much older. The reason for this relates to time passing slower in a spaceship (possibly because of the antimatter drives?) and is not really a paradox at all. It still gets called one though.

I think that all the identical twins have been captured and separated. There are hundreds possibly thousands of twin-halves being sent out in little spaceships in all different directions, whilst the other twins are being kept in a holding facility somewhere (probably in New Mexico - they usually seem to be around there). This has been going on for years. None of the space twins have returned yet.

Personally I think it's not right to do this kind of research on real live human girl-twins, mainly because it prevents me being able to have threesomes with them. But I understand why the government feels the need to do these experiments so I will have to sacrifice my own happiness for the greater good.

I guess the good thing that comes out of this is that when in some years time all the identical twins are released back into society there won't be the issue with you potentially choosing the wrong one to marry. Because in each pair there'll be a horrid old manky one, and a young foxy one who also happens to have been into space, which is obviously way cool.

So it all works out in the end.

On wine

I've just been watching a film, Sideways. It's about a couple of guys - the blurb says they're 30 somethings, but they look way over 40 to me - who head off on a pre-wedding jaunt around California's vinyards and drink a load of wine and meet some girls and end up in trouble as guys always do. The film's not really about wine, it just happens to feature a lot of wine in it. It's a great film, funny, written and directed by the guy who did About Schmidt, the actuary film that I still haven't seen.

It'd be hard to watch a film with so much wine in it without cracking open a bottle myself, a 2004 Pinot Grigio (Is that good? I have no idea. It tastes good to me). It'd be like watching Withnail & I without having a drink or Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan without dressing up in Starfleet uniform.

So I have this bottle of wine open, which I'm drinking currently. I like wine. I like the way that if you drink it from sober you get kind of happy buzzy. And I like the way it tastes fruity and good. I bought some little shredded wheat cereal things with cranberry centres at lunchtime. They taste fruity and slightly wrong. They're like anti-wine.

Despite the amount of the stuff I tend to drink, I don't really know huge amounts about wine. Maybe it's something I could make an effort to learn about. Even if I didn't end up with much actual knowledge, I'm sure I'd have fun making the effort. I know that I like red wine, and I like white wine. I don't like Rose much, and I don't like sweet wines. Other than that I'm not hugely fussy. As long as it doesn't taste too much like sherry, I'm happy.

I dated a girl (for about an hour) once who owned a wine fridge. That seemed pretty cool. A whole full size fridge set at a temperature designed to keep wine great. Cellar temperature. A wine fridge is a much more practical thing to have in a flat than a cellar would be. A fridge can be installed anywhere where there's a plug socket and an amount of space. A cellar, on the other hand, is a complete bastard to install, especially if you don't live on the ground floor.

So anyway. Wine. Yeah, it's great. Cheers!

Poetry time?

It's been an awfully long time since I posted any poetry up here. I've almost forgotten what it's like. Maybe tomorrow...

Rock 'n' Roll Parties

I'm going to see Four Day Hombre play in Leeds tonight at the City Varieties. It's a pretty large gig (500 people) and as of the time of writing, it's nearly sold out. 

 

Since I'm great, I have invites to the after-show party in a nearby bar. I've never been to an actual after-show party with a real band and stuff before. I'm going to be heavily disappointed if, by midnight, I'm not snorting cocaine off the belly of a naked virgin, whilst dwarves serve canapes and the band drive limousines into swimming pools. Or possibly I'll be snorting canapes off the belly of a band member whilst the rest of the band serve cocaine and naked virgins give dwarves piggy-backs into the swimming pool.

 

Because I know that these things go on at rock and roll parties. I've seen them in films and on television.

Exam Corners

When candidates take an actuarial exam they have to write their name in the top right hand corner of the front page of the answer paper. This corner has a gummy bit along its edge which the candidate is supposed to lick before folding over and sealing the corner. This is to preserve a degree of anonymity.

Some people are very good at this and stick it down neatly and well. Other people are less good and their corners are sometimes at odd angles or only stuck down partly.

I was asked earlier in the week whether there was any correlation between quality and neatness of corner folding and overall mark in the exam. I wasn't sure at the time. I hadn't ever really looked out for this.

I finished marking a batch of twenty papers this evening and decided to use them for a spot of research on this matter. I looked for the paper that I'd awarded the highest mark to and checked it. Its corner was folded perfectly. Stuck tight, excellent angles. Cool, thinks I, maybe there's something in this.

So then I checked the paper with the worst mark... It was also a perfect specimen (apart from the quality of the answers, obviously). Just like the best one it was folded perfectly.

The moral here is that even stupid people can lick and fold the corner of an exam paper.

Aesop would have been proud of that story.

Lost: S2 Spoiler Warnings!

I watched the final 15 episodes of season 1 of Lost over the last two days. Good show. I think I might have overdosed a little though because I dreamt most of season 2 last night. I hope it was only a dream because otherwise the whole show is going to get damn silly. Here are the (possible) highlights of the season:

1. At the bottom of the hatch is... a short corridor that leads outside to the bottom of a nearby cliff. Kate is first to descend into the hatch. Once at the bottom, she leaves the corridor and then shouts up to the others to show where she is. The others ascend a path down the cliff. A couple jump down because it's not very high.

2. Soon they find a car at the top of a waterfall. It's got a male adult and two children inside, all alive and trapped, but looking very ill and probably contagious. They are left in the car to die.

3. There's a river, and by it is a door. It leads into a hotel. Not a normal hotel but one of those ones where the corridors all loop back on themselves and whichever way you go you always end up back in reception. One of those ones that's completely deserted. One of those ones where you finally find a way out that leads into a strange town...

4 ... A strange town where the longer you spend it the smaller you get. You can get bigger again but I can't remember how. There was an evil man here that Sayeed wanted to kill. A man who once he got too small would wrap his whole body in some substance which would envelop him and make him bigger again. The man was either played by a famous actor or actually was the famous actor. I forget who it was, though.

5. Kate's clothes all fall off and she spends the entire series totally naked (ok, I didn't dream this one, I made it up just now. How unfair is that? I get to dream about children trapped in a car but not naked chicks?)

This might sound like mad ramblings. Well, you're just lucky that I didn't write this in the morning when it was fresher in my mind.

And if it comes to pass... you heard it here first.

This is the last time...

Marking. Exams. Kills. My. Brain.

Wrong Numbers

A foreign sounding bloke called me up on my mobile phone this evening. I don't think he wanted to talk to me. The only word he was saying was "James" or possibly "Jane" or possibly something else. It was hard to tell because he was foreign. I told him that I thought he had the wrong number but he just kept repeating the name. Maybe he couldn't hear me. Maybe he just liked the sound of my voice and wanted to hear me repeat several times that he had the wrong number. Or maybe he just didn't believe me. I have sometimes found in the past that people find it hard to conceptualise that they've been stupid enough to dial a wrong number. They think you must be hiding "Jane" in a closet somewhere. But I wasn't. I was genuinely here alone and ultimately the phoning man had no choice but to accept that he was wrong and that he was not going to be able to talk to whoever it was that he wanted to talk to.

I hope he found his friend.

Or here's a thought, maybe he was an evil terrorist phoning in a code word as a warning. That would be bad since I am not in a position to act on such a warning - I've mislaid my book of evil terrorist code words (I must get around to ordering a new one from Amazon).

I Like Pies

Today was York's 3rd annual Pork Pie Festival at the Tap and Spile. Pork pies are a great food. I'm not sure whether other countries have them or not so for the uninitiated, pork pies are a combination of Meat, Pastry and Jelly:



Four English pounds buys a plate of pie:



There are ten pies, numbered from one to ten. You eat them and then score them on a scale of one to three in the categories of meat, jelly, pastry and taste. There is therefore a maximum score of 12 to be had. I didn't eat all the plate of pies myself, I shared with a Welsh man. Our highest score was 8 out of 10, and our overall favourite pie was Pie #2. It was a good pie. Sadly I have no idea which butcher produced it.

All the pie was eaten. Yum.



Yum.

A Picture of a Bed

Never let it be said that I won't satisfy my readers. Amy requested a photo of my new bed. Here it is:



There's a TV in the background. It's not plugged into a TV socket. Totally useless. If anybody wants it...

I rock

This evening I think I played my best ever game of pool. I potted five balls in four consecutive shots. All balls were the correct colour. And no fouls. I still lost the game, mind.

Tonight's TV

Should I have managed to stay awake towards midnight tonight, I will have a choice of viewing on terrestial television.

Either:

The Monastery: in which "Five members of the public experience life as a monk for 40 daya and 40 nights..."

Or:

Rhona Cameron's Lesbian Moments: in which "The comic selects her pick of the best sapphic scenes on film and TV..."

Yes, tonight on telly it's Monks v Lesbians! If I'm awake I know which one I'll be watching. Monks are cool.

Challenge #2: Bed - Complete!

My spare bedroom has been bedless since I moved into my flat two and a half years ago. This hasn't been much of a problem, but I figured that if I mean it to be a bedroom, it should have some form of bed in it. I wasn't really bothered what kind of bed this would be since I have no intention of sleeping in it much. It just needs to be something that would sleep a couple of guests should I ever have any (it could happen!).

I carefully considered various different kinds of bed, speculating on the advantages and disadvantages of each: Wooden framed beds, metal framed beds, divan beds, sofa-beds, futons, beds of nails and flowerbeds. Don't be daft, I did no such thing. As I said in the first paragraph, I wasn't really bothered. I just did what I always do when faced with this sort of choice: Choose an idea I vaguely like and then wait for a bored Sunday to go on the internet and find something half-decent.

The bored Sunday in question came a few weeks ago. I ordered a wooden framed. It came last Friday and then sat unassembled in the spare room for a few days. Then last night I found myself with some spare time and decided to have a go at putting it together. It was surprisingly easy and took way under an hour. And maybe half of that was taking the bits out of their packaging and then disposing of said packaging.

I bought a mattress to go on it at the same time. Not a brilliantly high quality one since I figure it won't be used too much. And there's no point in making your guests too comfy - it simply encourages them to stay. Thankfully the mattress came ready assembled and simply required me to manhandle it on to the assembled bed frame. I even found an old duvet and a couple of pillows and some bedding to put on top.

If I'm honest, the duvet and pillows are very grotty and will need replacing as soon as I can be arsed (ie 2007).

So I now have a second bed and I declare Challenge #2: Bed to be complete.

Please, no comments about me now having to "Christen" the bed. Though I will consider any offers :-)

Bruise-chetta

On friday night I seemed to acquire a UDI (always a sign of a good night out). Here it is:



I am still pretty much at a loss as to where it came from, but yesterday I found that my ironing board's legs had become bent. There may or may not be a link.

The hills are alive with the sound of victory

Today was apparently a great day for England, as we regained The Ashes from Austria after a series of cricket matches. For anyone who doesn't know, I think the story goes that a long time ago, England played Austria at cricket and one side lost and for some reason burnt the cricket stumps and kept the ashes in an urn. Rather than then let that be the end of it, the ashes became The Ashes and the two countries have been competing to get them back from each other ever since.

Now, I personally wouldn't be that bothered about taking home an urn with some burnt wood in it but that's perhaps why I don't play much sport.

I think we play for The Ashes every few years or so. Not every year, but more regularly than The Olympics. England has entirely failed to win every time since the mid-eighties, which is a bit rubbish given that Austria is renowned for its hills and mountains. These are highly unsuitable environments for practicing cricket, a sport which delights in flat fields. But somehow they have kept on winning (maybe it was the lederhosen)... until this year.

The Test Series (see, I know technical cricket terms!) comprised five matches. After the first four we'd won two, lost one and drawn one, which meant we needed only a draw today to regain The Ashes from the edelweiss-lovers. Here is a summary of the most recent match: They played cricket for five days. On the last day they played cricket until teatime, then the sun went in and they called it a draw. I just don't understand how people can think cricket isn't an interesting game.

So anyway, well done to England and bad luck to Austria. Let this be a lesson to you for giving Hitler and The Sound of Music to the world.

It only takes one gardener, to plant a 1000 bulbs

Today I have been to Harrogate to see Four Day Hombre, a band who have oft been mentioned in these pages before. The train over was more than usually busy. In fact it was packed full, mainly of raw 16 year old army recruits, fresh out of school and full of naivete. They all seemed to think their new life would be lots of fun and that killing people was entertaining. I, however, have seen Full Metal Jacket and know the truth.

Not sure why they were all going to Harrogate though.

FDH were playing in the teeny-tiny Blues Bar again. It's just below Betty's Tea-Shop and it's quite entertaining to see old ladies walk past the window looking slightly bemused at the loud music being sprayed out onto the daytime Harrogate streets.



Anyway, a quick plug: Come along to Leeds City Varieties on the 22nd September for the official launch night of the single 1000 Bulbs. It'll be a great night.

(nb, photo shown does not depict Blues Bar. It's Fibbers from Wednesday. Same band though)

I'm not drunk, I've just had too much cheese

I went to a bar with a friend last night and the bouncer on the door wouldn't let him in because he was wearing Sportswear (a football or rugby top or something similar). We got around this problem by me removing my fleece and the aforementioned friend putting it on. We were then allowed in with no further problems. Luckily, I was not wearing Sportswear myself. Actually, that's a lie. I was wearing swimming trunks.

Important Announcement

Since I'd never wish to be left out of a growing trend amongst the more important parts of the British press, I can exclusively reveal that from next Monday, World of Lint will be appearing in an all new smaller format.

Everything will be smaller - the font size, the pictures, the size of the computer screen you read it on, the brilliant writer (me), even you people who read it, everything will be reduced in size by up to 36%.

And I hope you like the new look when it comes because It's cost me a f**k load of money to get the new equipment installed. I've lost the use of my larder because of it! It now holds the machines that will emit the shrinking rays. And god only knows what it'll do to my electric bills (maybe I can shrink them too?).

The revolution is coming. And the revolution is smaller than expected.

He leaps tall postboxes in a single bound!

Last night I saw a small man attempting to jump over a very large postbox. He nearly did it too. He may or may not have been the lead singer of The Playmates. Either way, he gained my respect just for making the effort.

iPod Nano: Who says flat is bad...

Look, I know I shouldn't get overexcited by new iPods anymore, but this one is just too cool. It's like an elephant has sat on my iPod Photo. Want one...

Sponsor this!

I don't know whether it's something in the weather or something else but in recent weeks everybody at work seems to have started running, cycling, triathaling or anything else they can claim is hard work but that they actually quite enjoy, all in the name of charity. Which inevitably means sponsorship. I can't remember a time when I've seen so many sponsorship forms in so few weeks. I started off being quite generous but as the sponsor forms kept comming I have been trailing off a bit and am now down to £5 a pop. Which has already cost me £15 future pounds this week and it's only Tuesday. I've lost count of how much I owe from past weeks.

By the end of this week I expect I'll only be able to afford around 20p sponsorship for someone who is willing to run all the way to the moon and back. And that would be a pretty big achievement, even for someone who's a pretty decent runner, like what I am.

Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I just know too many people, or maybe I just need to learn to say No. But can't people just sit around on their arses at home for a bit and leave me out of it? Please?

NO!

(oh, that was easy)

NO! NO! NO!

NOOOOOOOOOO!

Only one thing for it - I think I'll start a aponsored sponsoring with all proceeds going to pay off my sponsoring debts. I'll get people to sponsor me for the number of times that I have to sponsor people or perhaps for the number of future pounds that I sponsor them for. If I get enough people to promise me money I'll be able to use it to pay the sponsor money that I owe to the stupid charities and use my own money to do nice things like buy chcocolate and beer and girls.

NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Thinking about it, this is a pretty good idea! Sponsor me in the comments if you like. I accept hard cash, personal cheques, electronic bank transfer, Paypal or beer. If you also leave your name and address and you're also a UK taxpayer then I may be able to get Gift Aid from the UK government. And remember, your money will be going to charity because I'll be using it to pay sponsorship money that I do or will owe, so you'll be able to feel good about yourself too, lucky you.

And remember, every pound, dollar or rupee that you pledge will help me to help others. Think of the children, the cancer sufferers, the lepers and the righteous Campaign To Bring Back Busted. You can help them. You can help them all today.

Rabbits v Cyborgs

I think any book that uses the line: "The rabbit snarled and hefted his submachine gun angrily. Ears back and teeth visible, he hissed at the cyborg.", deserves an element of respect. So far I've only found one such book. Odd, that.

Mercury 2005: Predictions

It's the announcement of the winner of the Mercury Music Prize tomorrow. The shortlist has some pretty decent albums on it. In full, with my scores out of 5 for each one and a mysterious ? if I haven't heard it:

# Antony and the Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now (4)
# Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (3.5)
# Coldplay - X&Y (4.5)
# The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike (?)
# Hard-Fi - Stars of CCTV (4 for the couple of songs I've heard)
# KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope (5)
# Kaiser Chiefs - Employment (5)
# The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers (4)
# Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger (?)
# MIA - Arular (?)
# Polar Bear - Held on the Tips of Fingers (?)
# Seth Lakeman - Kitty Jay (?)

I have to say, I have no idea who the last three bands/people are. My money's on either Antony and the Johnsons or KT Tunstall to win. Me saying this will probably have cursed both artists since I never manage to predict this one right. I got it wrong last year - I thought it'd be The Streets. It was actually Franz Ferdinand. Doh!

Do not be afraid...

This weekend I've been at a wedding. Two people got married. etc, etc, etc.

Now, without a doubt I think that I can claim that it was the best selection of post-wedding-dinner music that I've ever experienced at a wedding. This is in part because there were several songs by Belle And Sebastian (Best band in world ever... tm). Yay.

Free beer is also nice.

Anyway, congrats to all.

And I'm brilliant too.

Small paragraphs!

On a totally different note, I helped out a Damsel In Distress tonight. If I'm honest, damsel is a little generous. But the sentiment was there.

And ain't that the truth

There ain't nobody here but me and my guitar.

This is how it is...

I think this is something that we should live with:

The Red Hot Chilli etcs are a shit band.

Learn to live with it.

I should stop this thinking lark

Here's what I've been thinking about today:

 

Out of all the male humans in the United Kingdom are there more that have the first name John, or more that have the initials JS (ignoring middle names)?

 

I'm really not sure. There are a lot of people called John to be sure, with all sorts of surnames (eg John Prescott). But there are also a lot of people with the initials JS (eg Jackie Stewart). There are also many people called John with a surname beginning with S (eg John Smith) who would score a tick in both categories.

 

Now, this isn't a life or death matter but it would be nice to have a definitive answer.