Via Tyler Cowen:

Yeah, I don’t know either.

EDIT: Apparently, it happens in Morocco. Neat. Immediately reminiscent of the famous Monty Python sketch:

Via Alex, I came across this story explaining one facet of England’s defeat at the hands of Croatia two days ago:

Tony Henry belted out a version of the Croat anthem before the 80,000 crowd, but made a blunder at the end.

He should have sung ‘Mila kuda si planina’ (which roughly means ‘You know my dear how we love your mountains’).

But he instead sang ‘Mila kura si planina’ which can be interpreted as ‘My dear, my penis is a mountain’.[^1]

That really made me laugh. Turns out, the Croatian team loved it too. It apparently helped to relax them before the match, which in turn supposedly lifted them to victory in the second half.

The article goes on to explain how the English opera singer was mortified and tried to apologize.

“It was the last thing that I would intentionally do, and all I can say is if I have offended any Croatians, then they have my deepest apologies.”

On the contrary, Henry is becoming a cult hero in Croatia… “The Croatians think it’s great, and they’ve invited him to come over and sing at Euro 2008…”

Such stories convince me of the validity of national stereotypes. There’s something in the soul of a Balkan slav that reliably lights up at unexpected ribaldry. It’s true of all the peoples of former Yugoslavia (with the possible exception of the Slovenes, who have a more Teutonic attitude towards humor). It certainly helps explain my own predilection for the filthy and lewd.

…’e fammi un macchiato, pronto!

Hitchens is in his obituary best. Apparently, Tough Guys Don’t Dance is a bad novel. That sounds about right.

I do want to look up this 12 page “heroic struggle to bring a stubborn woman to orgasm.” Nice bedtime read. If it’s online somewhere, I’ll link to it here.

EDIT: Here’s one description:

What is one to make, for instance, of the shocking story ”The Time of Her Time”? It recounts a sexual encounter between the narrator (Mailer in the guise of an Irishman named Sergius O’Shaugnessy) and Denise Gondelman, a middle-class ”Jewish girl” in her third year at New York University. Denise, though sexually experienced, has never reached orgasm, never lost her ”final virginity.” It takes three sexual encounters, an act of sodomy and a touch of Jewish self-hatred (Denise’s and perhaps Mailer’s as well) before she finally arrives at ”her time.”

Sounds promising.

EDIT 2: It gets better and better:

He constructed absurd melodramas of sexual conquest and then cast himself as their inevitable hero. His ubiquitous descriptions of sex are wince-makingly embarrassing. In “The Time of Her Time,” for example—a fictional sketch that concludes *Advertisements for Myself* and of which Mailer was particularly proud—the hero refers to his penis as “the avenger” and is taken to saying things like “For her, getting it from me, it must have been impressive.”

Off I go to Borders. This stuff is comedy gold.

Ze Frank is back!! I’ll try hard not to get my hopes up that this will be in any way a regular occurrence. I’m just so pleased to get to see a new one, as I’ve almost exhausted the archives.

To those of you who don’t know what this is about, start here. Leave your productivity at the door.

Via Feministing (via Yglesias): A 77 year old German sues a 19 year old for not putting out after having been wined and dined. She said he was too old for her.

“That was shattering. No woman has ever said that to me before,” Eden told the tabloid. “I was crushed.” He has filed charges with the prosecutors’ office, he said. “After all, there are laws against discrimination.”

Funny stuff. You’d think anyone would be able to enjoy in this lovely little bit of absurdity. But you’d be wrong. Feministing comments:

This guy sounds just awful. He once wrote, “I would like to die as I have lived — on a woman.”

Double-ha!

I’m for women having equal rights and being treated respectfully (while preserving my rights to use the c-word in fits of pique) as much as the next socially liberal guy. But seriously, my feminist friends, you don’t find this character at all funny? Not witty, not brilliant. Yes, in poor taste. But come on! Just look at him! This geezer’s pure gold!

Your eyes do not deceive you. Click through to see more.