Twelve examples of inspired casting
1) Marlon Brando as Pappy Yokum in L’il Abner
2) Angelo Mosca as Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman
3) Jeannie Becker as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire
4) Martin Short as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire
5) Michael Wilson as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol
6) Joan Rivers as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
7) Benny Hill as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet
8) Conrad Black as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane
9) Richard Pryor as John Singer in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
10) Lily Tomlin as Mark Twain in An Evening With Mark Twain
11) Molly Ringwald as Nora Charles in The Thin Man
12) Jerry Lewis as Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-four
Eleven claims that don’t hold up on closer inspection
1) “A little paint and it’ll be as good as new!”
2) “Things can only get better!”
3) “There will be full disclosure of all the facts!”
4) “I can’t think of a person who deserves it more!”
5) “Don’t panic – everything’s under control!”
6) “This will hurt me more than it hurts you!”
7) “If not completely satisfied, return the product and we will cheerfully refund your money!”
8) “Warmer, with plenty of sunshine!”
9) “If you just give the movie (book, play, whatever) a chance, I guarantee you’ll love it!”
10) “The world is a bowl of chocolate pudding!”
11) “If we only had had more time…”
Ten further potential revelations in the Iran/contras fiasco
1) that the “Canadian connection” was really Mendelson Joe, who agreed to be a go-between for the Americans and Iranians at the personal request of his good friend Benjamin Bradlee of the Washington Post
2) that the contras resold the arms they received to penguins in the Arctic for a tidy profit
3) that funds that are unaccounted for found their way into the Swiss bank account of some guy named Eric Rutabaga
4) that Frank Sinatra approved of the deal as early as 1982
5) that the whole elaborate set-up was the White House’s way of telling Colonel Oliver North he wasn’t living up to their expectations
6) that the New York Association of Hacks and Cabbies intends to hold its own investigation into the affair
7) that included in the arms shipments to Iran were several tapes of assorted thrash metal songs
8) that Mary Hart convinced Adnan Khashoggi to get involved
9) that this is all Attorney General Edwin Meese’s idea of a joke
10) that the Iranian government really wanted the American arms to melt down and make into washing machines
Nine gifts to give people you don’t like this holiday season
1) the recently released five album set Abba Live: 1975 to 1985
2) naval uniforms that haven’t had the blood or smell removed
3) anything from the Dick Beddoes line of matching hats and bow ties
4) Ivan Boesky’s Cookbook (he encourages cheating on the ingredients)
5) a photocopy of their tax records
6) a bottle of bitters (or, if you really don’t like the person, several bottles of bitters)
7) gift certificates to the dentist of your choice
8) Great Tables of Contents of the Twentieth Century, a coffee table book written by Angus Development
9) Ghermezian Brother Dolls (set of three) with scale model Megabuck Mall (tax concessions from appropriate provincial government not included; offer void where prohibited by local zoning by-laws)
Eight kinds of filler
1) humourous articles (“Man saved from embarrassment by mongoose”)
2) human interest stories (“Twins united after 50 years on separate planets”)
3) idle conversation
4) Poly-Filla
5) almost all television programmes
6) off-cuts of beef and cereal
7) this list
8) this column
Seven people whose names will soon appear on their own lines of products now that hemingway has shown the way and put his name on fishing rods, safari outfits and shotguns
1) Mahatma Gandhi (prayer mats and bikini underwear)
2) Nancy Reagan (little pistols, hair dye and puppet strings)
3) Bob White (distributor caps and union card holders)
4) Steve Martin (Egyptian relics, arrows and sombreros)
5) Julius Caesar (Roman dictionaries and toga stain remover)
6) Muhammed Ali (boxing gloves and throat lozenges)
7) Jamie Lee Curtis (cutlery)
Six euphemisms at which mere mortals can only guess the real meaning
1) outplacement (firing?)
2) revenue neutral (we say we won’t change the amount of money we’ll be getting, but we secretly hope it will increase?)
3) high concept (lowbrow?)
4) damage control (press control?)
5) national security (the security of the ruling party?)
6) free trade (increasing American domination of trade?)
Five reasons for holding public trials
1) to ensure the rights of the accused are protected
2) to ensure due process is observed
3) to show the public that justice is done
4) to help make some lawyers’ reputations
5) to give competition to The People’s Court
Four reasons for holding closed disciplinary hearings for lawyers
1) their reputations could be hurt
2) it’s none of the public’s business
3) the reputation of the legal profession would be damaged (yes, such a thing is possible)
4) they make drunken brawls seem civilized by comparison
Three roads you don’t want to travel alone
1) the Trans-Canada Highway between Kingston and Moosejaw
2) the road to adulthood
3) The Road to Rio
Two good to be true
1) Mother Teresa
2) Bob Geldof
One list that is completely redundant
1) one list that is completely redundant
No explanation for reviving a feature we all thought had run its course