The Compilation Tape c.1970s-2007

The Compilation Tape, that marvel of magnetic sound recording that allowed a generation of men to woo women with a collection of their favourite tracks – and a generation of women to listen for two minutes before recording Abba's Greatest Hits over the lovingly-crafted tribute – has passed away following electrical retailer Currys decision to stop selling audio cassettes.

Though the audio cassette was born in the early 60s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the male of the species hit upon the romantic potential of ham-fistedly hitting “Play” and “Record” just after Peter Powell stopped his intro and, psychically, hitting “Stop” before he started talking again – a technique which if completed successfully could result in a swoon-inducing 40-second version of 10cc’s “I’m Mandy (Fly Me)”.

For years men plugged on relentlessly at their task, despite the fact that thanks to Peter Powell and every other trans-Adlandically toned DJ, from Tony “Don’t leave me, Tessa” Blackburn, through Dave "The Hairy Arse" Lee Travis, Simon “You Won’t Feel A Thing” Bates and Bruno "Oh Dear God Please Make It Stop" Brookes – the chances of a lovestruck, hormonally-confused male recording anything other than a couple of bars of the latest smash from the Hit Parade were about as slim as the chances of the aforementioned male getting his leg over.

With the advent of separate cassette decks and turntables, the Compilation Tape found its popularity growing ever greater. Now men could spend hours, if not days, locked in the dank fug of their bedrooms, beavering away feverishly in order to demonstrate their encyclopaedic musical knowledge, cultural sophistication, emotional depth and desire to get their end away with prove their undying and noble love for the barmaid who had smiled at them… no really… whilst handing them a bag of pork scratchings with their pint of Double Diamond.

C-90s (sometimes, daringly, even C-120s) were painstakingly filled with lovingly sequenced music from Motown to Morrisey, from that criminally overlooked Bulgarian psychedelic B-side to obscure cover versions of unknown songs by even lesser known bands (only available on rare Japanese imported 45s… in pink vinyl) – and all punctuated by the seductive thump, hiss and crackle of the needle hitting the vinyl too hard.

With the advent of younger, more exciting recording technologies – such as the minidisc, the rewritable CD and mp3 – that could do it longer, more frequently (and oh-so-much-more quickly…) The Compilation Tape suddenly found itself out-performed and, soon thereafter, cruelly spurned. Crushed by the knowledge that the wow and flutter wasn’t the music of the inamorata’s quickening pulse but the mechanical failure of the cassette player as it chewed its way through the definitive live version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart”, it slurred slowly to an end as The Tape became caught in the mechanism, crinkling its last.

The Compilation Tape will be consigned to the dusty cardboard box in the attic or, worse, cruelly dumped. The service will be conducted by the Right Reverend Nick Hornby and the congregation will sing along with Dave’s “I Love You, Cheryl - 1987” C-90, wiping away a tear of joyous reminiscence to Human League’s “Love Action”, sniggering into the hand-written liner notes at Englebert Humperdinck’s “Lesbian Seagull”, guffawing uncontrollably to Salt ‘n Pepa’s “Push It” and thinking “Ooh, that’s a bit creepy” to The Police’s “Every Breath You Take (I’ll Be Watching You).

It is survived by the CD Compilation, the iMix and the continuing failure of men to understand that if they spent some time with their significant others rather than locking themselves up with their mp3's they might stand half a chance of getting somewhere.

As A Dodo Note: The Compilation Tape was predeceased by the Computer Tape, which itself had given millions of socially-alienated 1980s teens one more reason to consider suicide as Manic Miner/Chuckie Egg/Way of the Exploding Fist - their only escape from a cruel and uncomprehending world - failed to load for the thirteenth time.

The French Presidential Elections 2007-2007

The As A Dodo Editorial Staff would like to thank noted man of French letters French man of letters Jacques Derigueur for penning the following obituary for this year's French Presidential Elections, which passed away yesterday. Sadly, having read the piece, we feel unable to do so.

Ah oui. Today la belle Marianne, symbol of our great country, lies back in her bed, exhausted, satiated, as she ponders the deep mystery that has passed between her and the French Presidential elections.

Where did it all begin? Let me, like Proust, savour for a moment a tea-soaked morsel of madeleine and be invaded by the sudden pleasure of memory. I can picture the scene even now: it was but a few weeks ago that Marianne found herself in peril. While perfidious John Bull sunned himself in the light of his economic stability, poor Marianne was left to skulk in the shade, afflicted by high unemployment and sporadic rioting, with only the consolation of her appallingly high living standards, her superb health service, her generous pensions, her thriving intellectual culture, her low divorce rate, her good food, her shorter working hours but higher productivity, her still-extant automotive industry, her extensive support for the arts, her excellent education system not yet wholly devoted to utilitarian ends and her football team capable of reaching World Cup Finals.

Can we be surprised that Marianne was feeling a certain ennui? Oh yes, she had a lover, but Jacques Chirac was not the man he once was. No longer was he the smooth-talking former Mayor of Paris with a devilish look in his eye and an impressively large amount of funds in his pocket. Now he was bent by age (not to mention the prospect of some interesting times ahead in the courts to deal with that impressive trouser bulge) and no longer capable of satisfying Marianne's needs. What could she do but look elsewhere?

Soon she found herself being courted day and night by her would-be lovers. Swiftly she rejected the attentions of Jean Marie Le Pen, having tired of his far-right ways (not to mention his chat-up line "Vous avez des origines françaises? Pourquoi pas une descendance français?"⁽¹⁾) during their last dalliance in 2002. Next she refused the protestations of desire from stolid centrist farmer François Bayrou ... largely due to his being so boring that she continually fell asleep while he stolidly made love to her.

And so the people of France waited with bated breath as Marianne was forced to make her choice between her two remaining suitors: the dashing Nicolas Sarkozy, eager to open Marianne's eyes to the dark and sensual pleasures to be found in fiscal fetters and a firm hand, and the striking Ségolène Royal, keen to spend her way to Marianne's heart. In the end there could be only one choice, with Marianne unable to bear the thought of her new love not being able to get half-way through a treaty-signing without all the assembled French men attempting to pinch her bottom, she had no alternative but to turn away from Ms Royal and settle down to make love, tout fou, tout passionné with M. Sarkozy and his mighty water cannon.

And so, my English friends, the deed is done and L'Élection Presidentielle Françaises 2007 have passed away. Marianne has her new lover and only one question yet to decide: who will be doing the screwing and who is about to get screwed?

The As A Dodo Editors add: The French Presidential Elections 2007 passed away on 6 May. They will be buried, along with Jacques Chirac's political career, just as soon as the funeral cortège can make it through the traffic jam at the Arc de Triomphe and the attendees end their strike calling for increased crematorium regulation and a minimum three bottles of 1982 Chateau Lafite per mourner.

⁽¹⁾ "Do you have any French in you? Would you like some?"

But Not Forgotten: Week Ending 5 May 2007

• Walter Schirra 1923-2007 - space pioneer and one of the first American astronauts to orbit the Earth
• Jack Valenti 1921-2007 - aide to President Johnson, legendary Hollywood lobbyist and censor
• Zola Taylor 1934-2007 - Platters singer known as The Dish
• Tom Cartwright 1935-2007 - brilliant Warwickshire and England cricketer and lifelong socialist
• Sir George Pinker 1925-2007 - Royal gynaecologist
• Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker 1912-2007 - physicist who worked on "Hitler's A-bomb" and subsequently campaigned for disarmament

100,000 Scottish Votes May 3 2007-May 4 2007

100,000 Scottish Votes have been cast into the Great Polling Station in the Sky after massed ranks of Scottish ballot papers were spoiled in a debacle on a scale rivalled only by Jeb Bush’s “Hanging Chads 2000” Tour of Florida.

Scottish Votes were born amidst a fanfare of nationalist triumphalism from SNP leader Alex Salmond who predicted a bold new future for Scottish votes, a future in which Scots would determine their own political future and no longer migrate to Westminster to bugger things up for the English (a phenomenon believed to be the Scots' revenge for the decades when English votes buggered things up for Scotland with things like the Poll Tax, not to mention all those jokes about deep-fried Mars Bars).

Within minutes of the polling stations being opened, however, Scottish voters were thrown into confusion by multiple ballot papers whose complexity was on a par with the Schleswig-Holstein question and whose incomprehensibility was on a par with the popularity of Noel Edmonds. Matters were made yet worse for the Scottish Votes when they found themselves faced by a new method of electronic counting. The new counting machines were to prove disastrous – particularly in the Highlands and Islands where electricity only reaches the communities sporadically, chiefly during lightning strikes.

Meanwhile in the Western Isles the count was delayed by fog, which grounded the helicopter carrying the ballot boxes to Stornoway. Ballots will now have to be transported in the traditional manner, each vote placed in a bottle and thrown in to the sea. All islanders are being urged to empty suitable bottles as quickly as possible and cast their votes into one of the two wobbly Atlantic Oceans in front of them.

With initial returns suggesting Boris McYeltsin's election as the Scottish Socialist MSP for the constituency of Tommy Sheridan (South) and Nessie being returned as First Minister for Bournemouth, it quickly became apparent that the new system made the calculation of how many votes had been cast and for whom - hitherto understood to be the purpose of elections - even more difficult to add up than the cost of the Scottish Parliament Building.

Less than 24 hours after their birth, 100,000 Scottish Votes were found dead, bludgeoned by electoral incompetence. Following a lengthy court process they will be folded (incorrectly) and marked “spoiled” before being buried at a place of worship and in a service which has not yet been determined, thanks to a funeral ballot form modelled on a national lottery scratchcard.

100,000 Scottish Votes are survived by a Labour victory in the Scottish Parliament, an SNP victory, an SNP led-coalition, a Labour-led coalition and none of the above... all at the same time.

Democracy c.508BC-2007AD

As polling stations open across Britain today, it is hard to exaggerate the sadness that will be felt (outside political circles) at the death, confirmed today by a group of senior psephologists, of Democracy in Britain and America.

Democracy, or "force of the people", was born some time around 508BC in the Ancient Greek City State of Athens, where it granted power to all the people - at least insofar as those people weren't unreliable types like slaves, women, children or foreigners - to govern themselves. The Athenians established several important democratic traditions, including the practice of ballots, the separation of the legislature, executive and the courts and, during the Peloponnesian war, the tendency to try and suspend the whole idea of Democracy at the first sign of trouble.

Assailed on all sides by those who felt that letting the people govern themselves was about as wise as leaving your wife alone with Zeus for more than a picosecond, Democracy was to become distinctly unfashionable due to its tendency to fall to whoever could pay their soldiers the most. Throughout the Ancient world it was replaced by the rule of Emperors, who at least tended to dress in chic purple outfits and have the kind of social lives that could keep a whole empire's worth of people gossiping for centuries. Unfortunately for the togated-types, they too fell out of fashion. In Europe they were largely replaced by Kings, who were quite like Emperors apart from having much worse table manners, a tendency to go round in armour all the time and a preference for beheading and burning at the stake as opposed to crucifixion and throwing to the lions.

Despite such attitudes Democracy was content to bide its time, sure in the knowledge that the tide of fashion would turn once more in its favour. Gradually it crept back into the public gaze in such places as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Iceland's Althing. In England it gave rise to the creation of Parliament, for which all people were allowed to vote, at least insofar as they weren't unreliable types like women, children, foreigners, the landless, the poor or anyone the King wasn't keen on. Soon democratic institutions were emerging elsewhere, reaching their finest flowering in the institutions set up under the Constitution of the United States of America, whose aim of preventing the good people of the USA from being ruled over by dubiously-installed, hereditary leaders named George was achieved for the next 200 years.

It was at the turn of the twentieth Century that it became apparent that Democracy was beginning to suffer signs of ill health. The first of these was the fact that, despite its frequently proclaimed popularity, many countries continued to show no interest in it whatsoever, even when that interest was invited at gunpoint. The second was the realisation that, thanks to a combination of first-past-the-post elections, the ever-greater sophistication of pollsters and political machines and ever-greater emphasis on attracting so-called "swing voters" politicians had increasingly concentrated on ever smaller parts of the electorate. Indeed, by the early Twenty-First Century, throughout Britain and America Democracy found itself dependent on just two people. In Great Britain the one person upon whom it depended was a man called Dave who had 1.2 kids, had recently upgraded his Vauxhall Vectra to a BMW 3 series and bought the Daily Mail each day - despite being scared witless by Melanie Phillips's columns - because his wife liked the human interest pieces and faddy diet tips; in America, it was a guy called Bud from the Mid-West who drove an SUV, believed the best way to stop people killing each other was to buy more semi-automatic weapons and who watched anything with Ann Coulter on because his wife thought she talked a lot of sense and he had a bit of a thing about dominant blondes. Having realised the enormous power Dave and Bruce wielded, the pair were instantly crowned rulers of the Anglo-Saxon world, after which they dropped bombs on Canada, Australia and New Zealand just to prove they meant business.

Democracy will be buried at the Church of St Tony the Straight Kinda Guy. Bud and Dave have requested that no flowers be delivered, only oil (Bud) and Marmite (Dave). Democracy is survived by US Plutocracy, Russian Oligarchy, British Cronyism, Chinese Corporatism, Iranian Theocracy, Iraqi Anarchy and assorted Despotisms, Tyrannies and Kleptocracies.

Congress's Timetable for Withdrawal from Iraq 26 April 2007 - 1 May 2007

Four years to the day after he, somewhat prematurely, donned his best GI Joe fighter-pilot outfit to report the death of the War with Iraq (we must confess that at the time of his announcement the President was As A Dodo's Washington correspondent. Having thus contributed to our already dubious reputation for accuracy (for an example of which see eg here) and having developed a habit of leaving copies of the Gideon bible in our bedside tables and improving homilies about the dangers of alcohol all over As A Dodo Towers on every visit, we regret that we had no alternative but to fire him), President George W Bush has now confirmed the death of Congress's Timetable for Withdrawal from Iraq.

The Timetable was born in the final days of April 2007, when a Congress eager to be seen to be doing something about the war with Iraq (and even more eager to have a multi-billion dollar bargaining chip to back up its negotiations with the President) insisted on attaching a timetable for withdrawal to a bill providing funding for the continued US presence in that benighted part of the globe.

From its first moments it was plain that the Timetable could not hope to survive beyond a few days. The merest glance at its delicate frame revealed it to be not merely a transparent attempt to gain political capital but also a bid to humiliate the President, the Timetable containing as it did not merely detailed plans for withdrawal from Iraq but also a requirement that Mr Bush attend double English lessons in the morning and Geography lessons in the afternoon (the latter presumably aimed at persuading him that - contrary to the assertions of Vice-President Cheney - Iraq could not be confused either with Al Qaeda's former base of operations in Afghanistan or the home of the 9/11 suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia).

Indeed, so lacking in strength was the Timetable that it took it some five days to struggle the mile from Congress to the White House. By the time it arrived, the President made it plain that he had no alternative but to put it out of its misery, consigning it to oblivion with a stab of a pen which he let be known (in an in-no-way utterly distasteful manner) had been given to him by the father of a marine killed in Iraq two years ago.

Seeking - like Brutus on the steps of the forum - to justify his actions, the President announced that the bill had sought to "substitute the opinions of politicians for the judgements of military commanders" - an action which he wholly condemned (unless the politicians in question were Paul "I could be so good for you, baby" Wolfowitz or Donald "I see no torture" Rumsfeld) - as well as "setting a timetable for chaos and confusion" that would "demoralise the Iraqi people and encourage killers across the Middle East", which tasks the President's administration already had well in hand.

Thus it was that the Timetable passed away. It will be buried quietly this weekend at the Church of St Mike Dukakis the Politically Hopeless. The Reverend Hillary Clinton will read from the Book of "What Me? Vote for the War? 'Fraid You've Got the Wrong Person, Squire. I was Tying my Shoelaces at the Time" and the hymn will be Number 582 "There is a Baghdad Far Away Without a City Wall, Reliable Electricity or Working Plumbing".

Smoking in Public c.16th Century-2007

Smokers from the Castlerock to Crossmaglen and from Bangor to Belleek are today shouting short-temperedly at their partners and downing their Guinness with extra haste in memory of Smoking in Public, which has gasped its last, wheezy breath following the introduction of a ban on public smoking in Northern Ireland. The province's ban affects workplaces, pubs and restaurants but not sectarian bonfires or smouldering rubble. With public smoking already banned in Scotland and about to be outlawed by CCTV, Asbo and threat of extraordinary rendition to Guantanamo Bay in England and Wales, Smoking in Public is on its way to the Great Ashtray in the Sky.

Smoking in Public took its first puffs in the 16th century after Sir Walter Raleigh finally gave up his attempt to convince Elizabethans to adopt the practice of smoking potatoes and putting lashings of salt and vinegar on their deep-fried tobacco, and instead filled his pipe with some rough shag he’d brought back from the New World.

Thanks to its addictive qualities (as well as the fact that it makes you look dead sexy ... usually about 30-40 years before it just makes you look dead) Smoking in Public became hugely popular. It was not without its critics, however: in 1604's A Counterblaste to Tobacco King James I himself was moved to warn that smoking was “A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse”, much to the amazement of courtiers who were unaware that he had ever been to Birmingham.

It was in 1605 that Smoking in Public really caught the public’s attention, when Guido Fawkes⁽¹⁾ attempt to "poppe into the cellares for an crafty one" nearly blew up King James and the whole of Parliament. Luckily for him and everyone else in the building, guards prevented Guido's carelessly-discarded cheroot from accidentally igniting the pile of old barrels stored in the cellar. As a warning they took the foolish Guido aside and had a quiet word with him about the dangers of smoking, while hanging, drawing and quartering him just to make sure the message got home. And that is why, to this day, Britons burn bonfires on November 5th to remind themselves of the dangers of smoking.

Despite the early knowledge of the harmful effects of inhaling the smoke of cured tobacco leaves, 17th century man, woman, child and, in some circuses, chimpanzee took up the habit with gusto – puffing away on their pipes and roll-ups without a care in the world – assuming that the blood they were coughing up was just the harmless first sign of tuberculosis or plague.

Smoking in Public caught on like wildfire, as - during hot, dry summers - did much of the surrounding countryside. By the 20th century, stoked by popular images of Hollywood stars moodily inhaling a Lucky Strike or Chesterfield whilst eyeing up the femme fatale, looking at the dead body or relaxing after the train had entered the tunnel, everyone – from new born babes in their mothers’ arms to grandfathers (quite literally) breathing their last – was sucking on a fag, meerschaum or hookah.

In the post-war years, however, people began to realise they were alone with a Strand and that the smell of a busy day at the crematorium that hung about them might have something to do with it. With the arrival of new scientific evidence that nicotine was more addictive than Deal or No Deal (but not quite as harmful), Smoking in Public came under heavy pressure to pack it in, knock it on the head, go cold turkey and try patches, hypnotism, and that silly ceramic pipe that everyone’s too embarrassed to use.

Eventually, even the appearance of increased intellectual activity and emotional intensity derived from inhaling a Gauloises with the filter broken off began to pall. With the increased awareness of the fatal consequences of smoking – that unique kipper-factory odour, Judith Chalmers-style leathery skin and a voice deeper than Mariella Frostrup’s – Smoking in Public began to cough, hack, wheeze and expectorate colourfully. Complaining of a lack of breath, Smoking in Public exhaled a final plume of blue-grey smoke and was extinguished.

Smoking In Public will be cremated behind closed doors in a private ceremony with a special licence to smoke. There will be regular five-minute intervals – every five minutes – for smokers to step outside and bang another nail in their coffin. The congregation will sing “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes… And Your Throat, Lungs, Heart, And May Harm Your Unborn Baby”.

⁽¹⁾ No, not this one. ^(2)
(2) Or even this one.