A Less Than Rosie View

Well, after mere months of relentlessly annoying Donald Trump and establishing bold new zeniths of crackpottery, Rosie O'Donnell has decided to leave The View. People, and by people I actually mean reporters, say it's because she couldn't get a good enough financial deal from ABC, but my sources say different. According to them, here are the top reasons Rosie bid adieu to The View.

• Decided co-hosts weren't as attractive to look at since Meredith Viera departed for The Today Show
  
• Got really sick of Barbara Walters asking her what kind of tree she would be
  
• Would rather the spend time trying to track down Vice President Cheney's undisclosed location
  
• Repeated leg cramps during grueling 15-minute segments in chair
  
• Planned WWF Cage Smackdown with Bill O'Reilly
  
• Decided to learn real mock Chinese from Sid Ceasar to prevent future embarassment
  
• Always wanted to cut a country and western album*
  
• Signed a deal to make A League of Their Own II: The Hot Flash Years
  
• Madonna promised to finally adopt her
  
• Felt The View was getting too serious and intellectual
  
• Tom Cruise hooked her on Scientology and convinced her that The View was too much like psychotherapy
  
• Time was right for a Dancing with the Stars run
  
• The show got in the way of her plans for global jihad against Trump

* Yes, the thought had crossed my mind that Rosie would be about as welcome at the Grand Ole Opry as Ho Chi Minh. Still, what gumption, eh.

The Queen Is A Gooner!...

...So says the News Blog of Times Online, confirming the message previously delivered by one of the best known Arsenal web sites, ArseWeb. HM joins numerous other celebrity Gooners, including her mum, the dear departed Queen Mum (apparently a huge Dennis Compton fan), her grandson HRH Prince Harry, Dido, Queen drummer (appropriately) Roger Taylor, Ray Davies, Roger Daltrey, Colin Firth, Jane Horrocks, Stephen Rea, Emily Watson, Emily Lloyd, David Soul, Gillian Anderson, Kevin Costner (all right, this more than makes up for the accent in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves), Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jnr., Wil Wheaton, Alan Davies, and Joan Collins (since the founding of the club would be my guess... I kid you Joanie! Glad to count you in!), amongst many others.

Oh, all right, apparently Osama Bin Laden, John Gotti, and Fidel Castro are also on the list of likely supporters. You can't have everything. That does explain Fidel's health this past season. Most Arsenal fans are feeling a bit dicky these days given the season the club has had.

Also, the site says that Gotti regularly received the Arsenal supporters' newsletter. Perhaps he just thought it might be a good source for weapons information.

Fortunately, Bin Laden is banned from the Emirates by the club. Alas, as I live thousands of miles away from Ashburton Grove, I'm about as likely to get to a match myself. At least I won't get beaten to a pulp if I show up.

Codes of Conduct? On the WWW??

Driven by concerns about vulgarity, slander, and harrassment, a group of Internet professionals are calling for the adoption of a Bloggers Code of Conduct. I predict this new initiative will last only slightly longer than the Titanic's code of conduct for shipboard evacuations did after striking the iceberg (17 seconds). I suspect that even now people are anonymously questioning the authors' parentage whilst using a variety of colourful terms more commonly found in public WCs, the Royal Marines, and the comments sections of political websites.

Nonetheless, a clear code of conduct is one way in which people can find out a bit about how a blog is run and just how responsible the writer(s) of said blog are (the other way being to count number of f-bombs or references to the "secret CIA plot to bring down the WTC" in the posts.)

As The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas is at its heart, lungs, and liver a comedy blog (just in case you haven't figured that out yet), our Code of Conduct is likely to substantially differ from other blogs', particularly the bits about not making things up. So, for the public good, and because I've ran out of ideas for satirising Tube Skiing, here is a proposed draft for a Code of Conduct for this blog. My fellow participants are encouraged to offer their feedback regarding this proposal, if they should happen to post sometime in the next decade or so.

A Proposed Code of Conduct for Bloggers Participating on
The Dictionary of Unfortunate Ideas

Version 1.0

1. The participants will be duly recognized by their pen names, however much those may differ from their actual legal names, personal nicknames used by family and friends, the names they have tattooed on their persons, or any aliases recognised by law enforcement agencies.

2. The participants will address each other in a respectful manner, except for the following exceptions:

a. Disagreements - Because no one should be expected to keep their calm during a good row over the kinds of trivial nonsense found on this blog.
b. Whenever cheap insults present the opportunity for a good laugh, or for that matter even a cheap laugh.
c. Whenever referring to participants who have not blogged within the last 72 hours, the lazy, shiftless, deadbeat skivvers.

3. Participants will strive to verify and maintain the accuracy of the material they are publishing, unless any laughs in the material are dependent upon the inaccuracy of said material. In the case of the latter, participants shall freely make up things about the subjects of the posts, including quotes, personal history, and body odour. (Please see our disclaimer for legal details.)

4. Comments are not allowed on DOUI. Frankly this is because there's nothing worse than a blog where the commenters attempt to "out-funny" the regular posters... except perhaps for a blog where the commenters actually regularly "out-funny" the regular posters. We do not intend to broach either of these possible outcomes, unless there is a great deal of money involved.

5. Any e-mail sent to members of the blog may at any time be published on the blog, accompanied by cheap insults, derogatory comments and made-up information regarding the e-mailer's quotes, personal history, and body odour. (See #3 for details).

6. (With apologies to the members of Monty Python)There is no rule #6!

7. Responsibility for any offensive or derogatory comments featured on this blog shall be the responsibility of society, which has presented us with such easy and obvious targets.