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Hi - Welcome to Peacockshock. My house on the internet. I'm Ian Peacock |
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I live in Hertford - a quaint but cool town just north of London England. I'm a media person. I run a consultancy, present radio programmes, do a bit of television and write too. I'm mad about animals and live with my eccentric but fabulous cat Bollinger. I go to the gym, swim a lot, and listen to music non-stop. My family mostly live up north, but also in Denmark and the USA. And I've lived in Newcastle, Durham, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Cambridge, Oxford and London. So...don't dither on the doorstep. Come in and have a wander round. You can either just scroll down this page and see what takes your fancy. Or you can mouse around the house and click on the different rooms and areas. And keep coming back for new stuff. Enjoy your stay. Ian
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Six Degrees
RIP Mollie Sugden (most famous for playing Mrs Slocombe who was, like me, obsessed with her pussy). And, in the Peacockshock tradition of ludicrously indirect namedrops, I feel obliged to tell you I once met Mollie's colleague John Inman (Mr Humphreys in Are You Being Served?) It was backstage at a theatre where I was doing an interview. He was there with Vanessa Feltz and ten semi-naked male dancers. It was one of my more surreal moments. Mollie was a fantastic actress and great British institution. I feel sad that she's no longer with us. Myself Thinks Therefore Myself Am
Please send emails to myself if you disagree with what myself is about to write in this posting. Myself and Bolly promise to reply to yourself. Why do people – particularly business and admin people with spreadsheets for brains – use 'myself'' all the time, instead of 'I' or 'me'? 'Myself and Darren will be joining you for the 17-hour PowerPoint presentation,' they write. Or 'Please alert myself to any scenarios.' Or 'The meeting will be facilitated by myself.' Could it be that such people actually have no self, and so they use 'myself' to convince themselves that they exist? In 99.9% of cases, they should be using 'I' or 'me'. The rule for checking is: remove the other people from the sentence and, if 'myself' makes no sense by itself, replace it with 'I' or 'me' straight away. (1) 'Tim and myself will walk the dog.' Basically 'I' is used for the person performing an action. 'Me' is used for the person receiving an action. 'Myself' is used when the speaker does something to himself. 'Myself' can also be used (sparingly please) for emphasis. Myself kindly requests that you avoid 'myself' yourself wherever possible. Myself hereby bans it from Peacockshock. Question Time - You've Been Tangoed
Tango the cat (he's the one on the left - they do look a bit similar) I love this story. Last week, cat lover Jackie Ellery was watching BBC1's Question Time from her hometown of Newquay in Cornwall. She was also wondering where her ginger tom Tango had got to. And then - a ginger cat suddenly popped up on the Question Time stage on TV, idly strolling around behind David Dimbleby and various politicians debating world issues. It was Tango, who'd gatecrashed the show. He arrived home shortly afterwards, totally unaware he'd just made an appearance on national television. Poms in Heatwave HysteriaI just had a look at some international coverage of the Great Heatwave of 2009, and they clearly think it's hilarious. I was particularly shocked by an Australian newspaper (it's winter there - 26°) which accused us of being pathetic and whinging. This is typical of Antipodeans, who have nothing better to do than stroke kangaroos and go up at the end of sentences. But the author did concede - 'In the Poms' defence, most public transport and workplaces in the country are only set up to accommodate for the standard conditions: cold and miserable.' ABC (Australia) The National (Gulf States) How to be a Cool Cat
It's 2.05 am and too hot to sleep, so I'm downstairs with the Boll. Here are some top tips on sleeping in hot weather from an Australian source - Put your sheets and pillowcases in freezer bags in the freezer Have a cool bath or shower before you go to bed Run your wrists under cold water before bedtime (an important vein runs through your wrists so your blood will cool down) Put a fan at the foot of your bed, on the floor where the coolest air lurks Sleep on feather or down pillows with cotton pillowcases (synthetic pillows retain heat) Sleep under a damp towel Wear wet socks in bed Use migraine ice patches Hire or buy an aircon unit Move to Iceland I made the last one up. Hertford Hotter than Bangkok
my junglistic garden this evening I've just checked. Hertford's hotter than Bangkok tonight. A friend of mine, who runs a timberyard not far from here, says the heatwave has caused various frightening tropical creatures to pop out of the woodwork ... literally. They're being overrun by pterodactyl-type dragonflies from the Amazon. And they've put a scary insect chart up on the office wall in case someone gets eaten by one and they have to identify it. Meanwhile, a pal from Gran Canaria is in Hertford for a visit and finding it too hot. Boll's responding by sleeping all day. Plus ça change, plus c'est le même chat...
Pin-Up of the Week
This week's pin-up is a fennec fox. Fennec foxes have big ears to dissipate the desert heat and to hear small creatures, such as locusts, walk on the sand. Friends' Websites - Lea
Lea is a brilliant naive artist and her website leagoldberg.com features vibrant, imaginative, funny and uplifting paintings of cats, badgers, rabbits, crows, humans and angels. As she puts it, 'naive art is characterised by a certain innocence, a rich colourful palette and idiosyncratic use of scale - often, but not exclusively, the artist is untutored and their work benefits from lack of classical training.' And so naive art offers a 'unique prescription for happiness.' The site includes some great new paintings of angels, with curious titles such as 'The angel of the tulips - closely watched by a ginger cat' Lea has recently exhibited in London and St Ives and will be appearing at the Festival International d'Art Naïf at Verneuil-sur-Arvres in 2010. You can buy her wondrous paintings, bags, cards, post-its and so on via the site. I personally have an owl and pussycat bag, in which I keep my runcible spoons.
A Bifidus is a Bifidus is a Bifidus...
...to quote Gertrude Stein, sort of. I'm seething. I got all excited recently when the Danone yoghurt ads started going on about Bifidus Actiregularis. I was thrilled at the arrival of a new friendly bacterium. It seemed like a positively jolly bacterium too, with a purposeful and uplifting name. But then I looked it up. And I discovered that it's exactly the same as Bifidus Digestivum. Bifidus Digestivum has basically just nipped out to the microbe deed-poll office and changed its surname. It made me apoplectic to then discover that both Bifidus Digestivum and Bifidus Actiregularis are made-up brand names for Bifidobacterium Animalis. I for one will make a point of openly calling it Bifidobacterium Animalis from now on, as its unique hexose metabolism passes through my phosphoketolase pathway. Six Degrees
I once spent a day with Michael Jackson's sister LaToya in 1988. We were at an American airbase in Suffolk, with Bob Hope. Yes - Bob Hope. That means I'm one degree of separation from Michael (and Bing Crosby, come to think of it). Sign of the Times
I noticed this interestingly amended sign in an important office in a well-known broadcasting organisation today. Pin-Up of the Week
This week's pin-up is a pleasing otter. Green Shoots
An encouraging harbinger for the economy. My Norwegian Spruce has suddenly developed green shoots. IPeacs
I just read an article about Robert Pattinson from the vampire film Twilight. And it had to happen - the newspapers have started calling him RPaz. Susan Boyle, the Hairy Angel, has now mysteriously metamorphosed into SuBo. Stray into the limelight nowadays and it's difficult to survive with all your syllables intact. This is, of course, so lazy journos can fit them into headlines. They've been using abbreviated nicknames for decades - JFK, JR, Posh, Becks, Madge and so on. But the random selection of syllables in a HipHop styly is pretty new. The US tabloids now call President Obama OBams, Bams or Bam (as in 'Hil Slams Bam'). And US sports stars get it too. ARod (Alex Rodrigues) is probably the most well-known. But I'm not convinced the two-syllable treatment works on everyone. If Dame Barbara were alive today, would we be calling her BCarts? Or DBabs? What would I be, I wonder? IPeacs I suppose. Bollinger would be BPeacs. And Peacockshock - PShok. I actually prefer old-skool rap names, like Grandmaster Flash, Queen Latifah and so on and I was amused to find a Rap Name Generator My name came out as Gunshot Ian P Sheets Here are a few more - Gordon Brown - MC Golden Gordy B (please don't start using it Gord) Hazel Blears - Diva HH Ritz (spookily accurate) Alan Sugar - Sir Alan (weird - I didn't put the sir in ... it just came up with it) Osama bin Laden - Bad Silver Osama B - aka Justice Smirk Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - DJ M - aka Busta Assassin Ann Widdecombe - Gangsta Annie A Cookies and finally... Camilla Parker Bowles - Dirty CP Humps
Gangsta Annie A Cookies
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