A better running order for the songs on "Overkill" by Motörhead

Being a traditionalist, I have tried listening to the whole album in the original running order with the two B-sides tacked on at the end (available on the CD version), but it gets a bit wearing and I don't think I ever managed it all the way through.

Yesterday, I tried again but had left the iPod on shuffle. The order in which it played them just flowed better and made much more sense - I listened to it twice all the way through as follows:

Overkill
Like A Nightmare
Too Late Too Late
Capricorn
Metropolis
Limb By Limb
(I Won't) Pay Your Price
Tear Ya Down
No Class
Stay Clean
I'll Be Your Sister
Damage Case

If anybody has any better suggestions, please leave a comment.

A series of very unfortunate coincidences...

Huffington Post, August 2012:

New Zealand's Olympics hospitality house during London 2012 has caught on fire - after an outdoor barbecue exploded on Wednesday evening.

The fire broke out as guests were watching a game of hockey and up to 300 were evacuated. No one was hurt but Kiwi House is now closed until further notice.

Daily Mail, November 2012:

A £2.8million mansion in London's most exclusive street nicknamed 'Billionaires' Row' has been destroyed by a fire that ripped through the property in the early hours of this morning.

The wealthy Russian owners of the six-bedroom detached property on The Bishops Avenue, in Hampstead, escaped unharmed but the house, which was still smouldering this afternoon, was almost completely destroyed with much of the roof collapsed.

London Loves Business, January 2013:

Russian oligarch, Omar Murtuzaliev, flew to London today to restore his dream £23m London home after it burnt down.

The Bayswater mansion burnt down just months before Murtuzaliev was due to move into the six-storey property. The fire started in the basement and burnt through the rest of the house, visibly charring the outside of the house.

Evening Standard, July 2013:

A £4 million west London house was destroyed by fire early this morning.

Dozens of firefighters fought the blaze which engulfed the three-storey house in Campden Grove, Kensington, at about 6am. The house was under renovation with work underway to build to basement extension.

Hilarious Juxtaposition Of The Day

Spotted by BobE at The Guardian:

Is this cyber warfare or just funny coincidences?

Witterings from Witney's blog started showing lots of Error 503 Service Unavailable messages at around the same time that solicitors started sending him threatening letters.

The London riots: not so unpredictable

Back in November 2010, I bodged the front cover of the Evening Standard to make it look like this: This was tongue in cheek, but a few months after aforementioned wedding, we had the worst/best*(delete according to taste) riots that this country has seen for decades. I was reminded of this yesterday, when Peter Snow, in his review of 2011 programme on Channel 4, covered the Wills/Kate wedding and then went on to describe the later riots as entirely unpredicted and/or unpredictable, but I don't think they were:

In 1977, we had a Silver Jubilee and in the build up to that we had the Notting Hill riots.

In 1981, we had a Charles/Diana wedding and riots.

In 2002 we had a Golden Jubilee and in the build up to that we had the Bradford Riots and Oldham riots.

In 2005, we had Charles/Camilla wedding and Birmingham riots

This may all be a complete coincidence, of course - I cheerfully admit that there were no riots at the time of Edward/Sophie wedding and that there were riots (notably in 1985) when there was no royal 'occasion' - but it is equally possible that there is a connection. It could be:

a) The politicians sense when the huddled masses are getting a bit uppity, and so they get the Royal Family to put on a bit of a show to take people's minds of things and to make them feel a bit patriotic and hence willing to buckle under,

b) The politicians and Royal Family are so hopelessly out of touch that they put on these extravagant shows anyway, and this just reminds the huddled masses of the huge inequalities (perceived or actual, justified or not) which exist, and they respond by rioting, or

c) Some combination of both.

Short Lists

In the comments, DBC suggested: "Which common British bird,featured in popular song, is known for its addiction to marijuana?" and Bayard suggested "Queens of England that were born commoners?"

Fair enough, you can be getting on with those, but, having spent a lot of time staring at maps and railway timetables while on holiday, my suggestion is "Towns in different countries with similar sounding names". To get the ball rolling, how about:

Friedrichshafen (Germany's most southern port) and Frederikshavn (Denmark's most northern port)

Epping (outer suburb of London) and Eppingen (outer suburb of Heilbronn in Germany)

Kempton (town where they do horse racing) and Kempten (town in Bavaria)

UPDATE: Bayard submits Burgau (Germany), Burgau (Austria) and Burgau (Portugal).

Joseph Takagi submit Bayreuth (pronounced Buy-roit) and Beirut.

I spotted another corker this afternoon while explaining to my sisters where we'd been on holiday: Hereford, England and Herford, Germany.
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I'm not aware that there are any other towns named in honour of women's breasts, but if you know of one, please leave a comment!

UPDATE: Wolfers submits Brest (excellent) and Bristol, but that doesn't count because Bristol City is rhyming slang and the town is not called after its own football team.

Anon submits Nork.

Expat submits Titiwangsa.

We can harvest these from Google Maps, actually. There's Boobery, United Kingdom and Bubry, France, which would thus qualify for the first short list as well. See also Titisee, Germany, Tytsjerk, Netherlands, Mammari, Cyprus.

Short Lists

Anon, winner of this morning's round, has another bright suggestion:

"UK soap operas sharing names with National Trust properties."

I don't have a clue what the answer(s) is (are), so let's hope that he or she pops back to award the prizes. Else I shall look rather silly.

Short Lists

It's a very short one, I suspect there is only one item on it: "US soap operas called after a hill in south east Essex"

Absolutely bizarre

From The Metro, earlier today:

Rome officials are preparing for thousands of residents to leave the city today amid widespread fears of an earthquake - which was apparently predicted by seismologist Raffaele Bendandi more than 30 years ago. [He] made a series of predictions that the Italian capital would be destroyed by a huge quake on May 11th 2011, which would be followed by two more events next year.

Bendandi's reputation for accuracy was cemented by his correct prediction of a similar earthquake in 1923 that killed more than 1,000 people. The meteorologist, who died in 1979, was honoured by former Italian leader Benito Mussolini in 1927 and he is so respected in Italy that his prediction of today's events has led to mass panic in Rome...

From the BBC, later this evening:

At least 10 people were killed after a magnitude 5.3 earthquake toppled several buildings in southern Spain, near the town of Lorca, officials say.

The quake struck at a depth of just 1km (0.6 miles), some 120km south-west of Alicante, at 1850 (1650 GMT), the US Geological Survey reported. Lines of cars lay crushed under tonnes of rubble and a hospital was evacuated as a precaution...

Apart from the fact the earthquake was a thousand miles to the west (not a huge distance in tectonic terms), was Bendandi really on to something or is this just a blind coincidence?

Real life musicians* killed in bizarre gardening accidents (Part 2)

From The Metro:

A founder member of the 1970s band ELO was killed instantly when a giant bale of hay rolled out of a field and crushed his van. Mike Edwards, 62, was driving beside a steeply sloping field when the 320kg (50st) bale careered down and burst through a hedge... Steve Walker, of Devon and Cornwall police, said: ‘This was a tragic accident. We have used photographs and YouTube footage to identify him but we now need help contacting his family for formal identification."

See also the drummer out of ABBA.

* No doubt the purists will argue that it only counts if a drummer dies in a bizarre gardening accident.

Mildly interesting historical coincidence

Krushchev was on holiday at a Black Sea resort while Breshnev mounted his coup d'état in 1964.

Gorbachev was on holiday at a Black Sea resort when the hardliners mounted their coup d'état in 1991.

Another right-wing politician dies in aeroplane crash

Continuing my occasional series on right-wing politicians involved in fatal or near-fatal accidents and/or who meet violent deaths etc, from the BBC:

Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, 86 [the longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate], has died in a plane crash in Alaska while en route to a fishing trip. Former Nasa chief Sean O'Keefe was also aboard the small plane with his teenage son but both survived. Officials said five people had been killed and four had survived - with two badly hurt... Mr Stevens was one of two survivors of a 1978 plane crash* at Anchorage International Airport in Alaska that killed his wife, Ann, and several others.

* You win some, you lose some.

Fun Online Poll results & Conspiracy Theory Of The Week

I'm pleased to see that 71% of us would allow Laura Dekker to try and sail round the world single-handed, or as Lola said, 71% of us wouldn't try to stop her. A couple of commenters said they wouldn't let their own children do this, but that wasn't the question, was it? I certainly wouldn't encourage my children to do this either (not least because I'd be no good at the fund-raising bit), but maybe other parents think I should be fined for exposing my children to the occasional bit of second-hand smoke. How about we all just leave each other in peace?
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Anyways. The debate rages as to whether al-Megrahi was released in exchange for favourable oil deals with Libya. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't - and I'm not actually bothered either way. Now, I ask myself, is it a coincidence that he was released a few days before Gadaffi's 40th anniversary celebrations, at which they showed "a video clip of al-Megrahi stepping off the plane from Scotland to roaring cheers", allegedly.

So, coincidence or conspiracy: what do you think? Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.