We already have a ‘Samizdata quote of the day’ for today, but, yes, here are seven more. I wrote them down over last Christmas, and then forgot about them. Ant then today, I encountered them again. They still make me smile, so here they all are for you good people.
First, a couple of things said by Patsy Stone, the amazing fashion monstress played by Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous. Over Christmas there were two new episodes. So much for my “complete” box set that I found in a charity shop last year.
On the terribleness of the recent riots in London:
Oh I don’t know. Nothing wrong with a bit of extreme shopping.
On the drugs issue:
Have you seen the price of methadone? It’s cheaper to buy crack.
Also on a fashion theme, from one of those Father Christmas in a New York Shopping Store movies, said by the Lady Boss:
I don’t know if large women care what they look like, but if they do, let’s exploit them.
That’s the spirit. And depending on how the project turns out:
This is either the smartest decision I’ve ever made or the stupidest decision you’ve ever made.
Which has to be a very old joke, but like I say, it made me smile.
Next, this from the Headmistress of St Trinian’s (played by Rupert Everett), about her (I think) brother (also Rupert Everett), to her brother’s daughter:
Your father has a short memory masquerading as a clear conscience.
Finally a couple of overhearings from BBC Radio 3. Here’s something from the recently deceased Gustav Leonhardt, about and with whom they did a commemorative Music Matters show, featuring a recorded interview with him. Leonhardt is explaining why the biographical details of the lives of the great composers don’t interest him that much, only their music.
When you meet a genius, you don’t know he is one. He is only a genius when he is at work.
Finally, here is Professor Robert Winston, ruminating on science, in between introducing some of his classical favourites with Rob Cowan:
Uncertainty is a good place to be. It worries me when governments take a very assertive position on the basis of very weak evidence and then stick to it.
The phrase “climate science” was never uttered, but you got the distinct feeling that this particular Public Voice is thinking that CAGW is a band-waggon that it now makes more sense to get off rather than to shout from. I must remember to email the Bishop about that.
Something tells me that the CAGW-ists will, any year now, start having short memories masquerading as clear consciences.
I noticed Tom Chivers the other day was claiming that it was Climate Science that should take the credit for exposing all the recent “insert prefix – gates”.
So those climate scientists that will be out of a job are to be hailed for spotting that they were actually talking complete…..
All the warmists can now claim the high ground when it gets a bit colder now that they can show that their faith in climate science has proven to be justified because they came up with the right answer eventually.
Adding to your “quotes”, yesterday the Jones person was on the Cowan show and at one point said something along the lines of “if 99.9% think it is so, it is”, and he was referring to man made GW.
I think you may be over interpreting Prof Lord Winston there. He may not have the same beliefs about particular evidence and policy that you have.
He has been broadly critical of political handling of science based on pre-existing agendas. One suspects that at the top of his mind may be the political and politico-religious positions that have been taken in his own specialities of embryology, fertility research and genetics.
He’s written quite a lot, from which you might discover, rather than guess, what he thinks.