Fearman's definitions

Drowns Syndrome

Urban myth that blames drowning incidents on swimmers entering the water too soon after a meal; supposedly you get cramps and go kerplunk to the bottom. Used by lazy parents who want to get some decent shut-eye after a picnic. Some adults go on actually believing it too. In fact, cramps can affect you at any time and not particularly after a meal; if they hit you in the water they will not adversely affect your buoyancy nor even do too much damage to your swimming skills. If you are in water where, perhaps due to currents, this affliction would likely make the difference between life and death, you shouldn't be there, cramps or no cramps.

Just ask yourself; what do you think the odds would be if you went up to a coroner or pathologist and asked them if they had ever filed a cause of someone's death as "swimming on a full stomach?" No, I didn't think so.

Jimmy was screaming and running along the water's edge and his mum was too fat and lazy to watch out for her kids like she ought to, so she invoked Drowns Syndrome.

by Fearman December 15, 2008

now a minor motion picture

Now a minor motion picture: a blurb I have yet to see on a book cover. Have you?

How to Rationalise Telling Sam She was Akin to a Dead Mouse in a Latrine in Swahili, by R.A.K. Martin-Smythe. Now a minor motion picture from the Confrere Brothers.

by Fearman May 30, 2008

Venetian blinds

Venetian blinds; window covering consisting of an array of narrow rigid slats that can be rendered effectively translucent or opaque by using threads slotted through them to tilt them. One of the most essential inventions ever.

If it wasn't for Venetian blinds, it would be curtains for all of us.

by Fearman May 30, 2008

boarding school

Same essential mistake, only taking up four times as much of the day. Also a place that tries four times as hard to take the credit when a former student takes over his daddy's job.

He used to attend a day school, but that wasn't disastrous enough so he went to boarding school instead.

by Fearman May 28, 2008

Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

JOKER:
Tell me, my friend, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Line habitually used by the Joker (Jack Nicholson) in Tim Burton's Batman. Best movie in the franchise, pre-Christian Bale.

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? I ask that of all my prey. I just like the sound of it.

by Fearman May 28, 2008

all-singing, all-dancing

All-singing, all-dancing: state of the art, perhaps a little conceited, best new thing. Popularised by the movie Fight Club (1999), starring Brad Pitt, David Norton, Meatloaf and Helena Bonham-Carter, directed by David Fincher and based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

by Fearman May 28, 2008

this is your life and it is ending one minute at a time

Catch-phrase from Chuck Palahniuk's breakthrough novel Fight Club, and the David Fincher movie based on it. This is your life and it is ending one minute at a time. Reminder of mortality, prod in the back to go out and do something with yourself.

This is your life and it is ending one minute at a time, boy.

by Fearman May 28, 2008