Census 2011: Give The Beardless A Voice

IF YOU'RE NOT HIRSUTE,

FOR GILLETTE PROGLIDE™'S SAKE SAY SO

Haiku proudly supports the "No Beard" Census Campaign.

Time For A Close Shave?

Why You Should Tick "No Beard" In 2011 If You're Beardless

It's very important that people answer the question on what kind of beard you have, despite the fact that it is optional. We understand that your style of beard may be personal, or private, and we respect the right of people to wear their beards in secret, or behind an opaque beard-sheath.

However, we strongly advise people to tick the "No Beard" box, because:

1. It is important that the census generates accurate figures. This data is used to allocate limited resources, such as combs, pomade and women. The more people who tick "No Beards", the less inaccurate evidence there is to suggest the government should listen to bearded lunatics.
2. There will be no personal negative repercussions if you do. The Hairychins will not sneak into your quiet place and steal your teeth.
3. This may be the last census ever taken. The Curly Old Ones wait between the stars. They approach!

The Elder Shoggoth Greets His Mustachioed Herald

If You Tick "Moustache" Out Of Habit, Here's Why You Should Rethink

The Office of National Hair (ONH), government lint inspectors and other equality bodies have all recognised there is a problem with the Census statistics on beard-style. Other than beard length, what is being measured? Is it-

• Beard Length?
• What do people believe?
• Circumference of moustache curl?

The leading question "What kind of beard do you have?" meant that lots of people chose "Franz Josef" even though they do grow hair on their chin, are female, or both.

After the 2001 census, figures were collected to justify the following policies:

• National Mutton-Chop Awareness Month
• Commissioning BBC Radio 4's topical quiz "Beardly, Beardly Beard Buzz"
• Brian Blessed
• Construction of The Goatee'd Angel of the North-North-East
• Public funding of "interbeard" schools and youth centres

By selecting "Hollywoodian" you'll be supporting an agenda that may affect you negatively in future. For example, local social clubs and salons may be "beard-only", but your pubescent tufts not "beard" enough to grant entry or membership.

FAQ: Lambchop? Soul Patch? Garibaldi? What If I'm A Woman?

I am Handlebar by extraction, but do not practice regular waxing. Should I tick "Handlebar"?
No, your flaccid tips betray your lassitude, condemning you to a life of unruly Mexican bushiness.

Is there a "Designer Stubble" box to tick?
Yes. It's found under the orientation question, and is labelled "Gay".

I wrote "Jedi" last time. Should I do this again?
We understand this is a form of protest for failing to understand topical and/or substantive issues generally, and for wasting tax-payers money under the mistaken impression that you are some kind of radical. We understand this. And we pity you.

Doesn't God have a beard?

Yes, but in his omnibarbate luxury, he also does not have a beard. He also only/also has a moustache. This is what is meant by "The Holy Trinity".

THANK YOU, AND BE(ARD)WARE!

REMEMBER - "NO BEARD" MEANS "MO' FREEDOM"

Turn it into Gas: Heston Blumenthal Inspires New School of Thought on Self Improvement

Heston's delicious bowl 

Proving that Heston Blumenthal's influence now extends far beyond food and television, a new self help movement has come to prominence, adapting Heston's experimental cheffery techniques into rules to guide everyday life.

Dubious about whether the teachings of a British TV Chef and Restaurateur can improve your life? Try out these handy Life Directives and see the difference for yourself.

1. Visualize the Problem as a Gas - Much like the way Heston will take a problem like Christmas Dinner and turn it into a delicious gas; you should try to imagine obstacles to your happiness as a gas consisting of the essence of the predicament. Facing discrimination at work? Visualize all of your colleagues as a billowing cloud of flavoured smoke or gas. Then imagine the very concept of discrimination as a scented vapor. Try feeling repressed by a vapor... You can't. 
2. Turn Negative emotions into Gas - Fear, Anger, Rage, Lust, Greed; all can be comfortably managed when transformed into a collection of molecules unbound by an electric field or something. The next time you are violently attacked by a gang of inner-city teens as part of an initiation ritual; imagine it as a gas. 
3. Imaginate Hyper Personalised Dry-Ice Positivity Fields - Connectorate double yes tumbling soft curds of liquid nitrogen. Force yourself to go up to someone and weep hot-cold cascades of magnanimity smoke (Or Gas) into their being from the core of your Spiced Spirit Pear... (In Gas Form) 
4. Heat Memories Past the Point of Liquidity (...But not Plasma!) - You are no longer afraid of being buried alive. Ha ha ha. 
5. Personal Shortcomings Should Fill Any Container They're Whence Contained- Be that a Tupperware box or The Subconsiouce.  Turn it into a Gas. All into a Gas, mate. 

Eh... ehp. 

I'm feeling better already. You?

The Ice Cream Hasn't Set - A Short Poem

...And to finish I'm going to do a passion-fruit ice cream.

Are you sure, you only have an hour. 


I'm confident. Pretty Confident.

Are you sure the ice cream will set in time?


I've never done it before but now's as good a time as any.

Brave, brave, brave. 


One Hour Later


Awh, no.

What is it?

The Ice Cream Hasn't Set. 

What are you going to do?


I'm going to serve it as a shot.

Get it out there. 

Verbatim Winkleman Transcription

This weekend saw the book launch of Verbatim Winkleman Transcription: The Collected Film Criticism of Claudia Winkleman hot on the heals of "The Winker"'s appointment to head-talking-head on Film 20whatevertheyear. Winkleman's unorthodox brand of film criticism has earned her widespread noticed. The lengthy book gathers together verbatim transcriptions of Winkelman's Film reviews from her television show along with low resolution phone-camera images of food, pictures of her throughout her life and drawings of people she has met.

"When I made the book, it's made of paper and... some of it isn't just paper, what's cardboard? Is that just lots of paper squashed together?  I've always had books in my house but I don't... I don't... what do you think of the book? I love it." said Winkleman whilst rubbing the book rapidly and shaking hair out of her face. "I love that I have it and you can have it too."

Coinciding with the launch of the book is an iPhone App, iWinkleman giving users the opportunity to check short, pithy reviews of movies on the go. Example reviews include the following...

Drive Angry 3D: When I go to the cinema I drive there in a car sometimes but I'm rarely angry because I love the cinema but this film is not why I love the cinema. It is because of other films. Like Tarkovsky.

Howl: I've read many poems so I already knew.

The King's Speech: I don't know what I think.

Never Let Me Go: We have the same hair. But I've had it longer.

Brighton Rock: I feel like I've seen this before but everyone looked different.

The Green Hornet: What I thought was, look, when I was a child my family and I used to play a game and when we went to see a great piece of art or theater or read a work of great literature we used to have to describe it in one word but the only problem with this film is I don't know how to spell 'meh'

[The last review actually makes more sense written down than it did on screen where she didn't need to spell 'meh' because it was television and not a written review. This counts as bonus material.]

Winkles' review style has caused much debate in Critical Circles, a bar where critics go to criticise each others criticism. While some viewers revel in Winkleman's long digressions about family holidays and favourite types of cloud, others find her stream of consciousness reviews to be distracting and sometimes infuriating. Said Alan Cliffe; "Winkles seems to have watched the films in question, and even understood them in the most part, but then it all falls apart when it comes to expressing what she thought about them in actual words. I'm all for digressions, I once bought a boat called "Salty Gambit" just of the coast of Jersey, but you need to come back to your point eventually rather than just talking and talking until a thin man with a side-parting cuts you off."

It's clear on reading Verbatim Winkleman Transcription that Winkleman approaches films in a different manner to Cosmo Landesman. Winkleman's reviews are far more subjective; for instance during a review of The Bourne Vasectomy, Winky-dinks spends the last four paragraphs essentially reviewing her own face noting that "It's really, really,eh  really hard to see anything when I'm... squinting, squinting through all of this dark eye make-up and my fringe, on my head,  makes it virtually impossible to get a good look at anything in the top quarter of the screen... eph!"

Already, rumours from disgruntled cinema staff suggest that Winkleman may not be taking her duties as seriously as she should. Clifford Allen from the Vue cinema in Harrow recounts one particular incident "As she came to the counter clutching her ticket, she fixed me with a curious stare and said 'If I can keep my eyes closed all the way through, will you give me a tub of Haaaaagen Daaaaaz for nothing?', that's how she said it as well; Haaaaagen Daaaaz. I said yes because I didn't think she'd do it, True Grit  is quite long, she didn't manage it in the end but she almost did. I sat with a torch shining in her face right until the end when she opened her eyes and said Buggers."

Eph!

Whatever the thoughts of these popcorn shovels, it seems Winkleman is here to stay, Verbatim Winkleman Transcription has already sold more copies than any book ever made and a sequel is in the works.

Verbatim Winkelman Transcription is available at all good book stores for £17.99.9

TV Week: Podium Masterpiece Theatre

"You smell that? Do you smell that?"

If I had to name one show this season that you're not watching and should be, it's Podium Masterpiece Theatre on CBS. Struggling in the tough Wednesday early-morning timeslot, and facing off against a killer double-bill of America's Next Top Next Top Show and The Shit Whisperer on NBC, its days may be numbered, but this critically-acclaimed show needs your attention. My advice? Don't wait for the DVD.

With blink-and-you'll-miss-it podium cameos from such diverse performers as former President Bill Clinton reading the DiC logo title card, and Susan Sarandon as Kanye, this is a show like no other. It's passing will be deeply regretted by those lucky few who tuned in.

Despite falling ratings, this season's PMT has still been improving week on week, decisively answering those critics who argued it had peaked last year with the Emmy Award-winning season finale "Michael Sheen reads excerpts from O Magazine".

The New Yorker lavished the show with praise, calling Sheen's performance "White... toothy, grin!" and urging its readership to give the desperate PMT a try. The resulting buzz may have granted a renewal this season and second chance to find an audience, but many insiders felt this was more of a stay of execution than a reprieve.

"What Oprah Knows For Sure"

But the show's producers have not rested on their laurels, and are determined to go out fighting. In an interview for Vanity Fair last month, showrunner Alan Cliffe was defiant.

"We've got some big names. Real talent. Hell, we've got titans. Last year we had Michael, Martin, Charlie. Hell, all the Sheens. You thought Emilio's rendition of It's Not Easy Being Green was a tour de force? This year, we're going even bigger."

When it was leaked last Summer that network execs wanted PMT to go mass market, fans outrage was palpable. Would Podium would dumb down in an attempt to reach a wider audience? Cliffe dismissed the claims with equal vigour.

"Man, don't go believing everything you read on Twitter. Yes, some guys at HQ said some things over coffee. Yes, meetings took place. And yes, we told them no. From day one, this was a show that was not going to be for everyone. Not everyone wants to see a naked Kevin James stand behind a podium and read the book of Genesis. We get that. The network gets that. PMT is for the fans. Always has been."

True to his word, the commitment of Cliffe, along with his team, to the ideals of Podium has been stronger than ever. As promised, acting heavyweights Ian McKellen and Lil' Kim joined the cast this year, and if their joint podium reading of Huckleberry Finn in episode 2 is any indication, if Podium Masterpiece Theatre is going down, it's going out with a bang.

Colin Farrell Once again Mistakes Himself for Colin Firth at Recent Awards Bash

Colin Firth being Henry VIII

In a scene that was cut from television footage of the ceremony, Colin Farrell committed another serious media boo-boo by bounding on stage at the Golden Globes to collect Colin Firth's award for feature length Tourist Information Centre promo The Kings Speech. "Both of our names are Colin" apologised Farrell  on stage "It's not a huge mistake to make."

It's not the first time Colin Farrell has managed to mistake himself for the Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason star. In 2008, Farrell turned up on the set of Michael Winterbottom's unremarkable Genova and insisted that he was there to play the part of Joe, even going so far as to introduce himself to a bemused cast and crew before Firth showed up to set things straight. "Both of our names are Colin and both of our surnames start with an F" Farrell continued after the awards ceremony. "We both have names that start very similarly. Also we are both actors so we move in the same circles so to speak"

Firth was mostly untroubled by the mix up but later commented "Farrell has two syllables and Firth has one, it's not a case of mishearing - they have microphones so it's not mishearing." Does Firth suspect that Farrell is doing this on purpose? "No"

Commentators await the Oscars to see whether Farrell will once again mistake himself for Firth or whether Firth will purposefully mistake himself for Farrell to even things out.

New Year's Fez-olutions 2011

Why? Because fezzes are cool.

That's Doctor Who, that is.

 Right, now that's got the attention of almost nobody, we may begin...

WELCOME TO

2011 TWO-IZZLE-OH-LIZ-EV-EN 2011

INTERNETS!

As is the custom for all blogs, everywhere, we humbly submit a list of self-promoting guff, taking the form of a blog-subject-matter-driven "New Year's Resolution" feature. As this blog's subject matter is generally a heady brew of bile, spite and dementia, readers should be warned that expectations of utility, or indeed legibility, are as unwise as they are unwarranted.

Presenting:

Your Haiku 2011 New Year Resolution List Solution

1. Join more cults (both millenarian and celebrity, e.g. Church Of The Latter Day Kardashians)
2. Discover a lost Amazonian tribe who communicate solely through the language... of love.
3. Prove conclusively that hamsters, earthworms and glue can be jury rigged to make a Rat King (as depicted in that A-Team episode, you know the one)
4. Dance, dance, wherever you may be.
5. In alphabetical order, write a book about your favourite organs, starting with the appendix.
6. Meet your heroes, the cast of cancelled NBC show, Heroes.
7. Wear a fez.
8. Start a beautiful friendship.
9. Play it again, Sam.
10. Compete in the upcoming Musical Reality Show Contest, Britain's Next Top-ol
11. Topple a government, install a puppet ruler, help puppet ruler escape from inside a whale and become a real ruler.
    
12. Learn to read palms.
13. Learn to read.
14. With the aid of the Black Arts, re-form the Jackson Five.
15. Repeat ad infinitum.

We hope that you found this list useful - and who knows, it may have even triggered some thoughts for resolutions of your own! Just remember, everyone's resolutions must be unique. If there is evidence of any plagarism, we'll have to start the year all over again, with a maximum pass mark of 50%.

Happy New Year, you sons of motherless dogs!