The Surprising Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I love Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar from That Mitchell and Webb Look. It's utterly absurd, darkly humorous, and poignantly tragic. And it pokes fun at BBC. Don't get me wrong, I love BBC costume dramas, love the Sherlock Holmes stories, etc. But that doesn't mean I can't laugh at them.

This is my collection of favorite quotes from each Sir Digby episode.




Episode 1 quotes

"On a lonely planet spinning its way to damnation amid the fear and despair of a broken human race, who is there to fight for all that is good and pure and gets you smashed for under a fiver? Yes, it's the surprising adventures of me, Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar."

When a coin is tossed at him... "At last! My grant from the foreign office. Now we'll finally crack this mystery."

"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible."

On being caught by police "...One of my nemesis's henchmen, wearing a cunning disguise, tries to foil our plan."

While bumming a cigarette... "I'm indebted to you, madam. Write to my club for full remuneration."

After Ginger has spent a night in jail... "Forgive me, you must be tired. Have a sip from my can."


Episode 2 quotes

"It's been very fine to see you, Great Aunt Marigold."

"In a city gripped by fear and greed, on streets greased with blood and tears, who is there to look out for the little guy and see if he's got any money on him? Yes, it's the surprising adventures of me, Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar."

"The story so far: I've successfully couriered the top secret machinery back to its rightful owners at the heart of government... But now my thoughts inevitably return to my trusty companion Ginger, who is not so lucky at the hands of our pursuers."

"It's going to be an Easter weekend to remember!"



Episode 3 quotes

"In a time future historians will one day call 'the past,' in a place I wish I could name but it's been a confusing week, who is there to look out for the man in the street in case he wants his mobile back? Yes, it's the surprising adventures of me, Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar."

"The story so far: In my continuing quest to find out just who is behind it all, and by 'all' I do mean ALL, Ginger and I have been invited to an evening at Her Majesty's pleasure, but we can't get there because we're in prison."



Episode 4 quotes

"Look Ginger, my nemesis has left a calling card -- a single monogrammed glove. Pick it up, Ginger! Look Ginger, my nemesis has left another calling card -- a single monogrammed panty liner. Pick it up, Ginger! ... Look Ginger! My nemesis has left another calling card ... there on that fat man's wrist. Quick pick it up before the police bungle onto the scene and contaminate the evidence."

"Excellent use of the monogrammed pantyliner!"

"We must make good our escape, Ginger! I'll drive."

Sir Digby: "I believe we are looking for menstruating child who is waterproof to a depth of fifty meters. Where can he be hiding in such a fiendish disguish?"
Ginger: "I smell sausage rolls."
Sir Digby: "You mean, something fishy?"
Ginger: "No, I -- I smell sausage rolls."
Sir Digby: "You mean, you detect the dread hand of my nemesis's arch-rival, Viscount Von Sausage Roll?"
Ginger: "No, I can smell sausage rolls!!!"
Sir Digby: "Fucking what?"
Ginger: "I can smell sausage rolls."
Sir Digby: "Stop saying that, Ginger!" (sniffs) "Can you smell sausage rolls?"
Ginger: "Sometimes."
Sir Digby: "Gadzooks! He must be hiding amongst these cake-eating dwarfs."

"How did my nemesis shrink himself? When will Ginger find a better method for discovering waterproof dwarfs? Why don't kids parties have real booze any more, like they did when I was a dwarf? Find out in the next enthralling installment of the surprising adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar."



Episode 5 quotes

"We're not having sex!"

"In a country lacerated by the sharp shards of broken brown-eyed promises, in a world bent low by the burden of disease and war and the price of thunderbird, who is left to make a full account to god of Britain's depleted moral minibar? Yes, it's the surprising adventures of me, Sir Digby Chicken Caesar!"

"This bears all the hallmarks of ... the Countess!"

"Ginger, beat the crap out of her!"



Episode 7 quotes

"Quick, get the copper out of the walls!"

"In a society whose toothy fake smile is ravaged by the plaque of debt and the vodka burp of sub-prime mortgages, who will floss into the darkest cavities of our despair, and see if there are any gold fillings you can swap for a can of peppermint-flavored antifreeze? Yes, it the surprising adventures of me, Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar."

"Excellent work, Ginger. You've infiltrated my nemesis's lair."

"In a world where it's important to know who your friends are, rather than who your daughter is, who will prise open the fist of international conspiracy and see if it's got a 2p in it? Find out next week in the surprising adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Ceasar."

"Keep up, Ginger, you little turd!"



Red Nose Day episode quotes

"Would a mustache on a stick help?"

"Lady Annabelle... has the skin of a lovely angel's bottom."

"Christ's whiskers, Ginger! It's Sir Rupert Dubair, and his man, Badger."

Ginger: "Robots, sir!"
Digby: "Metal bastards! Run the other way!"

Exercise won't help you lose weight

When I was in college about 20 years ago, I started going to a gym because I was dating a guy who thought my 5-foot 9-inch body wasn't thin enough at 145 pounds. That was in California, the state of body-image and food issues, and he was an asshole. But I learned something interesting from a muscle-bound personal trainer who took it upon himself to mentor me because he wanted to get into my nylon exercise pants: Working out won't make you thin and lean; eating low or non-fat is what lets your ripped abs show.

Recently, TIME published an article called "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin" by John Cloud. Cloud cites several studies which indicate that excessive, intense exercise, the kind so often recommended for losing weight, doesn't actually help you lose weight at all.

The personal trainers, the grueling runs, the countless classes and ridiculous equipment, might be doing more harm than good, especially if you don't understand the relationship between food, body, and exercise.

"People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases — those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated."

Basically, if you exercise more, if you exercise harder, you get hungrier. A half a muffin or a sports drink is all it takes to fuel all the calories you just burned in an hour at the gym.

Yes, muscle burns more calories than fat, but if you worked out hard enough to convert ten pounds of fat to muscle, you would still only be able to eat just an extra 40 calories per day. Which is one Oreo cookie or a tablespoon of mayonnaise.

Plus, if you tire yourself out with a burst of rigorous activity, you are much less likely to move around any more for the rest of the day.

"Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder."

Moving around is good for the human body and mind. Studies indicate that exercise is not only good for the heart, and prevents several diseases, but also helps maintain cognitive function and reduces the disabling effects of chronic back pain.

But we don't necessarily need to stress out our bodies at the gym. The "sweaty, exhausting, hunger-producing bursts of activity" are not any more useful than just regular movement during our waking hours.

"(T)he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says our leisure-time physical activity (including things like golfing, gardening and walking) has decreased since the late 1980s, right around the time the gym boom really exploded."

The problem is the way we've come to define "exercise." Frequent, low-level activities, the sort that humans have been doing for thousands of years before leaf-blowers, Roombas, and corporate farming, may actually work better for us.

"You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles," says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. "The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day."

What about the sacred exercise truths, such as raising heart rate and sweating as necessary to strengthen the cardiovascular system, or getting "ripped" in order to build muscle? Vigorous exercise isn't necessarily any more beneficial than carrying groceries or climbing stairs at a moderate pace.

And, get this, people who are obese already burn more calories than everyone else, anyway. This chart shows that a 100-pound person will burn 57 calories walking a mile. While a 275-pound person will burn 156 calories in the same distance. So, hell with the gym, I'm going for a walk. It's certainly cheaper.

By the end of the article, Cloud writes, "In short, it's what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight."

That personal trainer I mentioned, he recommended lean protein, fruits and veggies, and low or non-fat foods. In just a few months, I'd dropped to 124 pounds and a size 4, and had a raging six-pack. Unfortunately, it took me several more months to drop the stupid boyfriend.

The secret of life

Over at The Sneeze, Steven's son Lux, age 9, decided he could answer any question. With his dad's help, the aspiring life coach took his act to Twitter. My favorite:

Q: What is the secret to life, the universe and everything?
A: "Everybody is here to be themselves. And mostly play video games."

Amen.

Parental Public Service Post

For all those parents who are desperately looking for the lyrics to the Barney "Cookie Song," because they're tired of their 4-year-olds singing just "COOKIE COOKIE..." at the top of her lungs ... over and over and over ... and would like to at least add a few more words, like "lookie" and "lookie."

This doesn't seem to be posted anywhere else on the internet. I've lookie lookie-ed.



Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
A cookie that I'm going to eat
Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
Yummy and nummy and sweet
First we make 'em
Then we bake 'em.
I can hardly wait until they're done!

Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
Cookies are wonderful fun!

Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
With a glass of milk and a plate
Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
Smelling and tasting great
First we make 'em
Then we bake 'em
Then we decorate them one by one.

Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
Cookies are wonderful fun!

They might be chilly
They might be gooey
Maybe crunchy and munchy when they're done.

Lookie lookie it's a cookie cookie
Cookies are wonderful fun!
Cookies are wonderful fun!
Yum yum!

Best crap-hole to raise kids

BusinessWeek.com recently created a list of "Best Cities to Raise Kids" and they chose Jacksonville in North Carolina.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. I've lived in Jacksonville. It's the LAST place I want to raise kids.

Yes, I met my husband there (and he hated the place). We spent most of our time SOMEWHERE ELSE while we were dating. We held our wedding SOMEWHERE ELSE -- down the road in Wilmington. Our first child was born SOMEWHERE ELSE -- again, in Wilmington -- because it was the closest place with certified nurse-midwives willing to support me in a natural, non-invasive childbirth.

When our baby was only three months old, we relocated SOMEWHERE ELSE -- to Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina.

Jacksonville had way too many strip clubs, massage parlors, bars and pawn shops, and way too few opportunities.

We wanted to live in a place with excellent medical facilities, birth centers, doctors and dentists. A place where there's a diverse population. Where racism wasn't rampant, families didn't disown their daughters for "dating a colored boy," confederates weren't still flying their flag, political and social views weren't Bible-thumping right-wing and narrow, and the population, on average, was much better educated (Raleigh is the 3rd highest educated city in America). And we did not want our daughter growing up in a town where, as one person put it, "The crack of dawn ain't safe," due to the significant population of rowdy, randy young men from the military bases.

In Raleigh, we are within a few miles of history museums, historic sites, art galleries and museums, world-class restaurants, theaters, festivals, several parks and greenways, and science museums. We have Peace, Meridith, St. Augustine's, and NCSU, and are close to Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. There's a wide range of educational choice at the lower grades, as well, with a large number of charter, magnet, and private schools, and several large homeschooling support groups.

Jacksonville is surrounded by wonderful local farms, and has a lot of fresh fruits and veggies. But, we have that here in Raleigh, too. Plus, we have the state fairgrounds, and the state farmer's market, Whole Foods Market, and tons of restaurants and shops which aren't found in Jacksonville's chain stores and strip malls.

The job opportunities here, versus Jacksonville, are so much better, too. If parents are happy and stable, that has a huge impact on children. Choices for employment in Jacksonville are basically between various low-paying retail establishments, or the military. The Triangle, however, is a thriving spot for the tech field and medical research, among other things. Raleigh ranks #1 on the Forbes "Best List for Business and Careers." It's #1 on MSNBC's "Best Places to Live" list. As of June 2008, Raleigh has appeared on at least 22 different "Best Of" lists.

I cry SHENANIGANS, BusinessWeek!

Look at what BusinessWeek wrote about Jacksonville:

"Population: 71,922... Jacksonville, a former farming town, is now a commercial hub and home to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River."

Now look at the Jacksonville city website:

"Jacksonville is the commercial hub of Onslow County and home to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River. Some 72,254 people make the city their home. The once quiet farming community has grown into the business, retail, medical, banking and cultural center for Onslow County."

BusinessWeek looked up a few statistics, copied from the Jacksonville city website, and voila, chose a crap-hole as "the best place to raise a kid" in North Carolina.

Incredibly pointless junk fails to fly off shelves as Americans forced to focus on things that matter

The Associated Press reports that retail sales took a steep decline in October, "as the financial crisis and mounting layoffs left shoppers too scared to shop."

I don't know if I'd call it "scared." How about "Forced Reassessment of Junk I Don't Really Need"?

The article goes on to state that prices are being slashed on everything, including holiday ornaments, and that luxury merchants and teen retailers are suffering deep declines. Linens 'N Things has been forced to liquidate. Saks and Gap both recorded 16 percent drops.

Only Wal-Mart seems to be treading water, which is good, because they are the largest private employer in the country.

"Even teens stayed away from malls. American Eagle Outfitters Inc. reported a steeper-than-expected 12 percent drop in same-store sales, while Abercrombie & Fitch Co. had a 20 percent drop," AP reports.

While it is unfortunate that the retail sector will be forced to lay off workers, I can't say I'm surprised or dismayed that Americans' once seemingly limitless appetite for pointless shit is coming to an end. How many fondue pots and matching bathroom sets do we really need? That snowman ornament there is cute, in all it's shiny sugar-glaze looking goodness, but is it $30 cute? I don't fucking think so.

I'm no financial expert, but are retail sales truly the only basis for our economy? To the extent that, if we all stop buying incredibly stupid shit, then our nation collapses?

If so, that's a problem which needs immediate attention. Considering all the infrastructure which needs repairing, alternative energy which needs developing, aging boomers needing health care, and schools needing improvements, that fact that our economy is tied so precariously to whether or not I need a new set of holiday ornaments and an over-priced shirt is just so WRONG.

Are you horny, baby?

My husband and I have a long-running disagreement (approaching 10 years, now) over the fact that women are just as sexual as men. He says they're not.

He points out that pornography is much more popular among men. I counter that, in our culture, a "right of passage" is having your uncle or father or older brother give you your first porn mag at age 12. Do we do that with girls? Heck no. Women are forced to keep things to themselves more than men due to centuries of double standards, social pressures and persecution. Never forget that even now there are places in the world where women are maimed and murdered for committing adultery or losing their virginity. That threat kind of puts a damper on sexual expression.

I also contend that women have better imaginations, and better memories. Men like to have a picture right in front of them. Women can recall perfectly what Matt Damon looks like.

Continuing the ongoing argument, I sent my husband a little tidbit I came across on Wikipedia today:

Malleus Maleficarum

The Malleus Maleficarum (Latin for "The Hammer of Witches", or "Hexenhammer" in German) is a famous treatise on witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, two Inquisitors of the Catholic Church, and was first published in Germany in 1487. The main purpose of the Malleus was to systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft does not exist, refute those who expressed skepticism about its reality, to prove that witches were more often women than men, and to educate magistrates on the procedures that could find them out and convict them.

The bit of the article I found particularly interesting was this: The Devil’s power is greatest where human sexuality is concerned, for it was believed that women were more sexual than men. Loose women had sex with the Devil, thus paving their way to become witches. To quote the Malleus “all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”

"Insatiable," eh?