Quite an impression

Being a unique snowflake I had the startlingly unique idea to go to the Monet exhibition on Monday, its last day. So I lined up with the other half million unique snowflakes who had had the same idea, then bustled, jostled and fairly pushed my way in through the doors when they opened at 9am.

There was so much to love about the exhibition: the paintings of Monet's predecessors, the influence of Japanese art, the sheer beauty of Monet's own works. But what I enjoyed the most was my fellow exhibition viewers. Allow me to share some of their insights:

1. Chappy to his friend: "It's funny how the effect changes when you move back." Yes, dear chappy, you're quite right and are thus granted the award for the Most Insightful Comment on Impressionist Painting Ever. Your prize is the Impressionist picture above, provided you can step far enough back to tell me what it is.

2. Earnest husband to earnest wife: "Hm, that one, the Priory at Vauville, where's Vauville?"
Earnest wife to earnest husband: "I don't know. Maybe you could look it up when you get home. It could be your project for the afternoon. You could get your map out."

Two things: 'project' for the afternoon? Was she a) pulling the piss, or b) um, pulling the piss?

Secondly, 'get' his map out? While he's 'getting his map out' and looking for random French towns we'll all be doing quick searches on the interwebs. While he's still looking ("Is it in the Loire Valley? Somewhere near Reims?") we will have made cups of tea, had naps, woken up, made hearty casseroles, eaten them, watched tv, finished a few sudoku, brushed our teeth and gone to bed. Then around the time we wake up the next morning he'll be saying "ah-ha! Normandy! It's in Normandy!" Yes yes, jolly good.

3. And finally, someone who possibly hadn't had enough sleep (or been to sleep at all?) to a guard: "Is this the last day of the exhibition? Right, so it's closing today?"

Yes, it's both of those things.

Monet: marvellous entertainment.

All I want for Christmas

Sometimes reading the headlines looking for something that is just crying out to be teased is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Ordinarily I hate boganesque, cliched similes, and 'shooting fish in a barrel' would have to be up there with such pearlers as 'like sands through the hour-glass' and 'like a bat out of hell' (which, frankly, has always baffled and slightly frightened me?), but here we are with front pages heavily populated with headline-fish gazing up at me blankly just waiting to be pinioned with my fish-pinioning stick. Oh happy days!

We've got stuff about Baz's Australia and how the tax-payers are footing the bill, we've got the Queen cutting back what with the whole economic crisis thingy (don't you know she insists that the Buckingham Palace lights are turned off when rooms are vacated and left-overs from banquets are reused; how about donating your palace to a women's refuge and your catering budget to, I don't know, a developing country, you crazy lady), and we've got something about twat-heads with trillion-watt Santas on their roofs (my least fave Christmas light is a stop sign that says 'Santa, Stop Here!' Amazing! So clever! Otherwise Santa would have flown right by!).

Anyhoo, so we've got a plethora of nob-heads to poke fun at, but I'm going to leave them all where they are and instead take the happy-happy-joy-joy path straight to Obama. That's right! It's been too long, hasn't it, since we last visited Obama. And now we find him in a computer game.

For all those back-seat presidents out there, now we can all have a crack at being the big cheese. The game is called 'Commander in Chief' and is set to be released in the States on January 20, Obama's inauguration day.

Says Louis-Marie Rocques, the lead designer on the game: "You can put your own political theories into action and see the domestic and international domino effect."

Now I can stop rabbiting on about benevolent dictatorships and philosopher kings and finally take over the world!

My only disappointment is that the game's not out until January 20th; wouldn't it make for a fun New Years Eve?