Not to Miss

Guardianistas have already seen this, but in case you don't check the site daily, the Guardian have a blog post with their picks for the Top 5 TV opens.

There's one American pick: Hawaii 5-0 (which is hard to beat).

But it's very interesting for someone standing on the sidelines (someone like me) to learn about Dee Time, etc.

Bend It Like Pasta

Becks just started a two-month loan from the Galaxy to AC Milan.

Of course, that team is kind of like the Yankees of Europe, and I can see why the world's most famous footballer wants a crack at it, but it does seem weird. First Real Madrid and then this? Plus, I'm sure he's going to play for England in the FA Cup.

I mean what team is Posh's husband on?

Yo' -- It's Hannukka Time -- Booyashaka

Erran Baron Cohen (who's the brother of the super-famous-actor Baron Cohen and the cousin of the fairly-famous-professor Baron Cohen) is a pretty fantastic musician in his own right. His band, Zohar, is amazing.

This season, he presents Songs in the Key of Hannukka. And you have to hear it to believe how hip it is. Also, listen to his interview of Fresh Air from today.

I Think I'm in Love

It's not tough to guess, but yes, I'm a Zadie Smith fan.

Now in the New Yorker, I learn that she loves all the same comedy that I do? She understands the Kabbalah, can write in almost any dialect ... and now I'm meant to believe that she's got a proper sense of humour?

Maybe there are three of her churning out work under the same name.

Here she is on the New Yorker's podcast, talking about why the Parrot Sketch and the scene where Basil Fawlty beats up his car are so funny.

The Subjects to the North

You, know when you look at the money in Canada and see the Queen, it seems like a quaint vestige ... but it turns out QEII of the UK is really is the head of the governments up there!

In fact, she just (through her governor general) closed down parliament to give the PM time to get his ducks in a row. Seems the Quebec bloc, Liberals and some other parties had enough votes to oust the Conservatives, who have been running the place for quite a while now.

Isn't that how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work?

Ah well, even though I've written in this space about my jealousy of not being included in the Commonwealth so we can play cricket, non-membership has some privileges. But to put it more bluntly even England has an advantage that Canada does not:

The Queen never interferes with the government there!!

It Had to Happen

He was the only one of us who could pull off the 80s look during the 1980s ... He had a Jam striped shirt, bought on a trip to London circa 1983 ... He has been a fixture of New York and L.A. nightlife for years.

Now my best friend is into golf.

At least he has a penchant for *real* links, in the Scottish style. No cushy Florida country clubs for him. I believe he's even going to make a pilgrimage to the so-called "home of golf," St. Andrews. But if he wants to see the British Open there, he'll have to wait until 2010 -- just a year and a half. They only there on the 5's and 0's (1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, etc.) Other times, it could be anywhere in the United Kingdom.

I never got golf (Tiger Woods always seems to win at St. Andrews), but I may just join him on that trip. July in Scotland? I may just get to take the train up from London, which I've been wanting to do since I did a piece for National Geographic on those amazing brick viaducts they have on that line.

Thank you to Paul Birrell for the snap of the 18th hole at S.A.

The Vicar of Hymie Town

Apparently buses and cabs are festooned with big-nosed Jews this season. It's the ethnically sensitive logo of the revival of Oliver!

Oliver! is opening on the West End -- starring one of my favs, Rowan Atkinson. Well done with the casting.

But ... as pointed out in the Sounds Jewish podcast, quite odd that a man who made his name playing vicars (famously, this hilarious turn on Four Weddings and Funeral) is playing Dickenson's most-remembered Yid.

There's a What?!!

Okay, this is too good to be true. Phonybrit readers already know I'm obsessed by that crazy island nation and super-obsessed by the point where British culture and Jewish culture meet (look at the archives ... you'll see).

I've just learned that there's a podcast run by the Jewish Community Centre for London and the Guardian called Sounds Jewish. This is dangerous.

This month, one of the guests was a school chum of one of my dearest friends when they both were at Oxford. This is the guy who first taught me Cockney rhyming slang. I can still remember it, we were walking from the National, after seeing a show, with the Thames so close you could smell it (this was the late 80s). To tell you the truth, at first I thought he was winding me up -- and then my eyes glazed over as if he were explaining quantum physics.

Monty Python's Flying Time Machine

You gotta see this. (This link will lead you to an iTunes clip that you can download for free. It's perfectly safe, if not entirely intuitive.)

One of the podcasts I subscribe to somehow unearthed (with the help of a PBS engineer in Dallas) a 1975 pledge-drive interview with four of those merry band of idiots, the Pythons: Michael Palin (he's the one above with the armadillo on his lap, if you must know), Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Graham Chapman. In the interview they're talking about how they just finished a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Of course, this is exactly when that show was blowing my own mind in the suburbs of Jersey. The fashion in the clip is almost as wonderful as seeing Pythons be Pythons among Dallas's best and brightest.

Kudos to Jesse Thorne, America's Radio Sweetheart, for finding this and getting it out there. Subscribe to his show, The Sound of Young America.

Man City vs. Man U

It was the Mets vs the Yankees of the UK ...

The underdogs lost again. Manchester United prevailed 1 nil. Even with lots of yellow cards handed out.