: Keith Wilson’s Weblog
Friday - December 16, 2005Philoscoffee (n.)The combined activity of discussing philosophy
with friends or colleagues whilst drinking cups of strong, hot
coffee.
Sunday - September 11, 2005Blogstipation (n.)When you have something you really want to blog
about, but for one reason or another due to lack of time, not knowing where to
start, or the price of fish, no matter what you do, you just can't get it out,
even though you really, really want to, so much so that it's actually starting
to hurt a little.
Wednesday - May 18, 2005Lustjunk (pl. n.)Any highly desirable or luxury consumer item
that, despite having no actual need or use for whatsoever, nevertheless suddenly
becomes something that you must have and can no longer contemplate living
without.
Wednesday - May 18, 2005Fromaging (v.)To search through the contents of the
refrigerator looking for cheese or other foodstuffs high in saturated fat and/or
sugar that one knows perfectly well one shouldn't be eating, what with being on
a diet and all, but that one is resolutely determined to consume
anyway.
Wednesday - May 18, 2005Wednesday - May 18, 2005Telephone rage (n.)Feelings that range from moderate frustration to
intense anger and hatred aroused as a result of using an automated touch-tone
telephone customer support system. Wednesday - May 18, 2005Wrapture (n.)The overwhelming feeling of joy and satisfaction
experienced by some people upon receiving a particularly well wrapped
present.
Wednesday - May 18, 2005Gift vapour (n.)An invisible aura of goodwill and friendship that
surrounds gifts, presents, cards, and—more controversially—the
ideas
of those things, that gives rise to the saying ‘It's the thought that
counts’.
Wednesday - May 18, 2005Absentism (n.)The philosophical attitude of being so wrapped up
in thinking about past or future events that one completely forgets to inhabit
the present moment, and consequently is in serious danger of falling out of
existence altogether.
Wednesday - May 18, 2005Tuesday - May 17, 2005Cult of stupid, the (n.)The cult of stupid is the organisation to which
people who are by nature reasonably intelligent, but have nonetheless
deliberately decide not to be, belong.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Converception (n.)Any discussion during which one or both partners
somehow manage to talk themselves, the other party, or each other, out of having
sex.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Rubberhatting (participle v.)The activity that is being engaged in when eone
is fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out which way round a
just-opened condom is supposed to unroll.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Condoom (n.)The feelings of distress and impending doom that
may be experienced by one or both partners upon realising that the prophylactic
device they were relying upon for protection has ruptured at a particularly
inopportune moment without either of them realising, and that there's nothing
much that either one of them can do about it now.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Discombobula (pl. n.)Collective noun for the various thoughts, ideas,
songs, and other bits of mental flotsam and jetsam that can be found floating
around inside one's head at any given moment for no apparent or obviously
discernible reason.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Oxymorton (n.)Any object or event whose description satisfies
the condition of being inherently self-contradictory; e.g. a ‘timeless
timepiece’, a ‘peaceful revolution’, an ‘honest
politician’, and so on.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Immusical (adj.)The inability to discern the difference between
genuinely creative musical compositions of great artistic worth on the one hand,
and highly derivative, mass produced noisemaking on the
other.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Hard of thinking (n.)If not actually stupid, then somewhat thick,
dim-witted and lacking in commonly held mental faculties.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Mnemonically challenged (n.)Having a poor, dysfunctional, or completely
inoperative short-term memory.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Philosophobia (n.)An irrational fear of philosophy, or indeed any
kind of thinking that might question, undermine or otherwise call into doubt
thoughts and ideas that are held in the mistaken belief that they actually make
sense, when in fact they are—as philosophers would put it—a pile of
old pants.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Metatheology (n.)The body of half-baked hunches, preconceptions
and vigourously defended—and yet ultimately misguided—intuitions
that comprises much of what passes for theoretical metaphysics these
days.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Nomological dangler (pl. n.)Any unexplained or mysterious phenomenon that is
not sufficiently accounted for by the theory at hand, such as the apparent
properties of the mind by the physical behaviour of the
brain.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Probishness (n.)The instinctive desire to want to stick things
into suitably proportioned holes, such as fingers up noses, plugs in sockets,
and penises, well, just about anywhere.
Tuesday - May 17, 2005Normalism (n.)A deep fear and resentment of people who appear
on the surface to be perfectly normal and unremarkable in every way, but that
one suspects of harbouring some dark and unpleasant secret, such as having human
body parts stored in the freezer compartment of their refrigerator at
home.
Saturday - May 07, 2005Normality delusion (n.)The mistaken belief that there is any such thing
as ‘normal’, that there are such entities as ‘normal
people’, and that, all other things being equal, ‘normality’
will be somehow be resumed any day now, to which the answer is invariably:
forget it, it's never going to happen.
Saturday - May 07, 2005Unpastime (n.)Something that everyone does but that nobody
actually admits to doing, or at least not in public anyway.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Wicky woo (n.)The sensation of loss that you feel when, having
decided to have a cup of tea, you inexplicably change your mind and turn the
kettle off.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005[man] (n.)The silent
[man]
is a form of silent punctuation in which the word ‘man’ is clearly
present at the end of a sentence but without any corresponding sound actually
having been uttered.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Wednesday - May 04, 2005Peepil (pl. n.)The alien race to which the creature known as
‘Michael Howard’, the current leader of the UK Conservative Party,
belongs and is seeking to create a permanent base for within the British
Isles.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Bikinic arms race (n.)The intensely competitive process that has led in
many parts of the Mediterranean, South America, Carribean and other sub-tropical
regions of the world to women—and occasionally men—parading up and
down the beach wearing little more than a strand of dental floss and a couple of
sticking plasters. [Not that I'm
complaining. — Ed.]
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Spong (n.)The portion of underwear that is clearly visible
towards the rear of a woman who is wearing a thong and low-cut trousers in an
effort to deliberately draw attention to this part of her
anatomy.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Spand (n.)The waistband of a pair of boxer shorts that is
clearly and intentionally visible above the trouser line.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Biquaddecaphilia (n.)A strange and persistent obsession with the
number 42, often contracted as a result of reading, listening to or watching
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy, written by the now sadly
deceased Douglas
Adams.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Humanophobe (n.)Someone who has a deep seated fear or resentment
of other people in general, or more specifically, of the entire human
race.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Animal fascist (n.)Someone who cares more about what happens to cute
and cuddly little kittens, dogs, bunny rabbits, and so on, than the fate of
their fellow human beings.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Delusions of competence (pl. n.)What one is suffering from when one reaches a
state of apparent mastery and confidence in one's abilities to perform a
particular job or role in life, and is therefore under the mistaken impression
that everything is going swimmingly and will continue to do so for quite some
time. Needless to say, it generally doesn't.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Fallibility glee (n.)The feeling one gets when a person or agency
normally known for their complete trustworthiness, reliability and competence
completely fouls up, preferably in a very public or embarrassing
way.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Jumble pumpkin (n.)Someone who takes great pride in the fact that
they wear only second-hand clothes.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Fannikin (n.)A person who takes great pride in wearing
fashionable designer clothing, and will go to almost any lengths to ensure that
everyone else knows it.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005McCow (n.)A distant relative of the common or domestic cow
that has been genetically engineered to survive in harsh tropical climates, and
is the source of the ‘meat’ content in McDonald's
hamburgers.*
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Desertification (n.)What happens when you cut down a large area of
perfectly healthy tropical rainforest with the intention of growing crops,
building houses, grazing McCows, etc. only to find that once the trees are gone,
the whole place turns to dust and sand and blows away.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Dessertification (n.)The peculiarly British practice of taking a
perfectly respectable dish, such as a nice bit of pork or ham, and completely
ruining it by the addition of some random soft and usually exotic soft fruit,
such as pineapple, papaya or mango.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Forest envy (n.)The feeling that is being expressed when rich
industrialised nations demand that poorer, less economically advanced countries
stop cutting down all their forests on the grounds that those are pretty much
the only ones left on the planet now that all the rich nations have already cut
down theirs (which is, to a large extent, the reason that they became rich in
the first place).
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Kafloop (n.)The noise of somebody completely and unexpectedly
disappearing up their own arsehole.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Wackelpudding (n.)The wobbly flabby substance that is accumulated
around the midriff or other regions of the body as a result of eating too much
saturated fat and/or exercising too little.
Wednesday - May 04, 2005Sunday - May 01, 2005Blaggle (v.)A manner of speech in which one tacitly
acknowledges the irrelevance and lack of import in what one is actually saying
by finishing every other sentence with the words ‘blah blah
blah’.
Sunday - May 01, 2005Wyren (n.)A wyren is a bird that is found mostly in urban
or built up areas that has learned to imitate the sound of a warbling car
alarm.
Sunday - May 01, 2005Wingtone (n.)Any bird that has learned to imitate the sound of
a ringing phone.
Sunday - May 01, 2005Nokia bird (n.)An extremely rare and now practically extinct
South American mina bird whose mating call resembles the ring tone of a Nokia
mobile phone. Sunday - May 01, 2005Wrabby (adj.)Descriptive of the vaguely disappointed or
irritable feeling one gets after prolonged, tedious or otherwise unsuccessful
periods of sexual activity.
Sunday - May 01, 2005Jambling (participle v.)The dubious practice of investing one's entire
winnings from a previous bet on an even more unlikely prospect in the mistaken
belief that one is on a winning streak and therefore can't possibly
lose.
Sunday - May 01, 2005Twag (n.)Any loud and obnoxious person who turns up at a
party that, despite looking oddly familiar, no-one can actually remember having
invited.
Friday - April 29, 2005Kilmarnock (n.)When one farts when nobody is around only to be
surprised by a crowd of strangers who appear as if out of nowhere and as a
consequence think that you always smell like that, one is said to have committed
‘Kilmarnock’.
Friday - April 29, 2005Garp (v.)To burp or fart accidentally and without advance
warning because you had no prior knowledge that you were about to do
so.
Friday - April 29, 2005Gaster (v.)To burp or fart accidentally and without
realising that you have done it.
Friday - April 29, 2005Minification (n.)The sudden and unexpected realisation that you're
actually smaller than you had previously thought.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Boodles (pl. n.)People who walk down the street talking to and
laughing with people they can see, but who you can't.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Wednesday - April 27, 2005Cubiclation (n.)The insane urge to lob pieces of wet paper towel
over the doors of the cubicles in a public lavatory.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Post-Elevator Disorientation Syndrome; ‘PEDS’ (n.)The odd habit of always turning the wrong way
into a corridor when getting out of a lift.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Podling (n.)A person who has entered the digital age without
compromising their carefully thought out design sensibilities or, more
precisely, any member of the cult
of Mac.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Boobishness (n.)A feeling of mild discomfort or embarrassment
that is experienced by some people whilst in the company of a mother who is
breast-feeding, particularly one who is actually rather attractive or unusually
well-endowed.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Wednesday - April 27, 2005Hoon (n.)The person to whom the saying ‘There's
always one’ invariably applies.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Karmaphobia (n.)The essentially well-founded fear that one day
all of your past actions and misdeeds will finally catch up with you, at which
point you are most probably in for a very nasty time indeed.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Kormaphobia (n.)The fear that, despite quite enjoying such dishes
in the privacy of one's own home, one will be teased, excluded from polite
society and generally thought of as being a wuss if one orders any dish that is
classed as ‘mild’ in an Indian or other far-Eastern
restaurant.
Wednesday - April 27, 2005Survivalism (n.)The conviction that what with the world being
such a terrible place, the future of humankind and indeed the entire planet
uncertain, and the fact that we are all basically doomed, it is still better to
have children than to not have children on the grounds that this will help to
ensure that when the world finally does come to an end, there will be more of
‘us’ than there are of ‘them’.
Monday - April 25, 2005Blogtionary (n.)A humorous dictionary provided on the Internet in
the form of a weblog—or ‘blog’ as it is commonly
known—to give voice to the author's personal observations, obsessions, and
general downright silliness. The aim of a blogtionary is to help narrow the gap
between the large number of widely shared and understood experiences on the one
hand, and the lack of any definitive or well documented terminology for those
experiences on the other.
Monday - April 25, 2005Monday - April 25, 2005Moreauphobia (n.)A strong and irrational fear of animals (cartoon
or otherwise) dressed up to look like as humans, particularly the ones that walk
around on their hind legs in total defiance of terrestrial biology. (Ugh!
Someone get me a hammer!)
Monday - April 25, 2005Morosophobia (n.)The irrational fear of coming into close contact
with someone who is depressed or otherwise unhappy on the slight off-chance that
their feelings will turn out to be infectious.
Monday - April 25, 2005Misery cloud (n.)The oppressive atmosphere of fear and negativity
that surrounds an ultrapessimist.
Monday - April 25, 2005Bumclimping (v.)The unpleasant sensation of having pieces of
toilet paper stuck to one's bottom as a result of the widely followed practice
of ‘seat-skinning’.
Monday - April 25, 2005Seat-skinning (v.)The widely observed practice of covering a toilet
seat in tissue paper before sitting on it as a means of avoiding any sexually
transmitted diseases that might potentially be lingering there. Typically
undertaken as a matter of course in public lavatories throughout the world
except (curiously enough) in Belgium, where they don't care so much about these
kind of things.
Monday - April 25, 2005Trimbleing (v.)The practice of priming the toilet bowl with
paper before beginning a bowel movement, particularly where one is required to
do so in a public lavatory, for fear of splashback.
Monday - April 25, 2005Ultrapessimist (n.)A particularly virulent and persistent type of
pessimist who repeatedly insists that they are not actually a pessimist at all
and are instead a ‘realist’, despite the fact that all their
espoused beliefs pertain to the worst possible outcomes of every situation known
to humankind.
Monday - April 25, 2005Abdomen envy (v.)The feelings of jealousy and irritation that are
experienced by men or women when observing the flatter, more washboard-like
stomachs of other members of the same sex. Often simultaneously accompanied by
the sudden unpleasant realisation that you yourself used to look like that, and
indeed could still look like that if only you didn't eat so much, drink so much
and/or exercise so little.
Monday - April 25, 2005Stripfulness (n.)The feelings of awkwardness and embarrassment
that are experienced when one is found to be wearing dangle hammocks during
unforeseen episodes of sexual activity.
Monday - April 25, 2005Dangle hammocks (n.)Any baggy, ill fitting and/or unattractive
undergarments, typically grey in colour, that one wears in the unshakeable
belief that one is almost certainly unlikely to have sex that particular night,
or when all other sources of clean underwear have been
exhausted.
Monday - April 25, 2005Wackleing (v.)The practice of sticking one's finger in one's
ear and rapidly moving it up and down to dislodge any fluff, wax, or to service
a peculiarly inaccessible itch.
Monday - April 25, 2005Monday - April 25, 2005Abject rejectionism (n.)The unshakeable belief that nothing that anyone
says does will ever make a blind bit of difference.
Monday - April 25, 2005Persistophilia (n.)The deeply held opinion, which ultimately turns
out to be correct (although this can only ever be known in retrospect), that one
will be successful by virtue of strenuously repeating the same mistakes or
actions over and over again. Characterised in common folklore by the popular
saying, ‘If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try
again’.
Monday - April 25, 2005Repetitionism (n.)The mistaken belief that if one just keeps doing
what one is already doing (despite the total lack of evidence that this will be
in any way effective or successful) then things will eventually work
out.
Monday - April 25, 2005Intellectual masturbation (v.)Any engaging mental activity that is pursued
solely for the self-gratification and pleasure of its active participants that
has no other socially redeeming features whatsoever.
Monday - April 25, 2005Uglify (v.)To take something that could otherwise have been
beautiful, pleasant or generally pleasing to the eye and render it hideously
unattractive.
Monday - April 25, 2005Spangle pants (n.)A treasured pair of underpants worn on nights
out, dates, wedding anniversaries, etc. in the mistaken belief that they will
increase one's chances of having sex.
Monday - April 25, 2005Browse anxiety (n.)The vague feeling of uneasiness one gets with
knowing that somebody else has access to one's Internet bookmarks ant/or browse
history, regardless of whether one has actually been looking at inappropriate
content or not.
Monday - April 25, 2005Beer flap (n.)The unsightly mound of flab that overhangs the
waistband of a man's trousers, often as a result of previous excessive
consumption of beer, takeaway food and/or large quantities of crisps and snacks.
Beer flaps are a congenital condition that typically sets in at around the age
of 30, by which time the man has either forgone any concerted attempt at healthy
living or rationalised that if he isn't thin already, it's too late to start
trying now.
Monday - April 25, 2005Belly flaps, waist wings or flab handles (pl. n.)Unsightly mounds of flesh that are visible just
above the waistband as a result of a slightly portly woman who is wearing
over-tight jeans that cause her excess flesh to be displaced to somewhere around
the midriff. Immortalised in that oft-repeated maxim: ‘Check out the flab
handles on that!’
Sunday - April 24, 2005Open source living (v.)The practice of living life in a manner that is
entirely public and open to scrutiny by one's peers. An open source lifestyle
requires that one should maintain a certain clarify of purpose and not become
overly contaminated by petty concerns such as money, job, possessions, etc. in
order that one's inner purity may be maintained, thus heightening the enjoyment
of the simple things in life: food, water, flowers, and so
on.
Sunday - April 24, 2005Blogorrhoea (n.)The practice of recording and publishing minute
details and observations about one's life—often, but not exclusively,
online and at excruciating length—for other people to read and comment on
when there is no indication (and indeed, possibly every indication to the
contrary) that they are even the slightest bit interested.
Sunday - April 24, 2005Googilation (n.)The rush of joy and excitement that is
experienced upon realising that one's own web site (blog, newsgroup entry, etc.)
appears as the number one result of a simple Google web search.
Sunday - April 24, 2005Cyberspatial vertigo (n.)The unpleasant lurch that one experiences in the
pit of one's stomach upon realising that information made freely available
through the Internet (web site, blog, etc.) may have unintended and potentially
disastrous consequences (emotional distress, estrangement or, in extreme cases,
losing one's job or indeed life) should it be read by a member of one's
immediate family, boss, teacher, spouse, work colleagues,
etc.
Sunday - April 24, 2005Reality denial (n.)The practice of steeping oneself in an
artificial, virtual or otherwise protected environment in an attempt to escape
the harshness, rigours and general unpleasantness of the real
world.
Sunday - April 24, 2005Shoulder nipples (pl. n.)Comical protuberances in the shoulders or other
areas of an item of clothing that has been left to dry for too long on a
coathanger or other non-flat surface.
Wednesday - February 02, 2005Constructive procrastination (v.)I am eternally indebted to Leigh Dodds for
introducing me to the concept of constructive procrastination. Put simply, this
makes use of the well known principal that everything except what you're
currently supposed to be doing seems to be infinitely more interesting,
attractive or otherwise enthralling to enable you to carry out tasks that would
be otherwise boring, mundane or just plain annoying.
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