Index Fingered

Dear Readers

With the sun finally out (thanks, doubtless, to our insistence that Daniel Corbett and Siân Lloyd be sacrificed to the weather gods) and the Bank Holiday here, As A Dodo is taking the day off. Happily, our normal obituary service will be resumed tomorrow. Until then, we should advise readers that over on our Facebook group, we are this week seeking your nominations for music to be played at the funeral of Tim Henman's Tennis Career - feel free to add any suggestions in the comments section below or over on Facebook.

We should also remind our readers that the As A Dodo tome has already leapt onto the shelves at Amazon and can be ordered by clicking on the link at the side of the page, and from September 3rd will be available at all good booksellers and doubtless many bad ones - so why not venture into your local bookshop and loudly demand a copy? As a taster of what is in store, here are a few choice cuts from the index to whet your appetites.


Aldrin, Buzz
and the immortal words: ‘In your face Neil Armstrong!’ 158

Athens
and discovery of democracy 64
and rubbish collection 121

Beckham, Victoria
and Queen Cleopatra 63
and violation of laws of physics 157

Blair, Tony
and cheekily self-satisfied grin 36
and dark arts of spin 61

British Broadcasting Corporation
and infliction of Jeremy Clarkson on nation 45
and irritating weatherman 160

Burrell, Paul
and kangaroo testicles 49

Bush, George W.
and cunning plan to defeat global warming 117
and destruction of Donald Rumsfeld 130
and last possible reason for war with Iraq 144
and The Outsider 86
and plan to put man on Moon 170
and juggling balls withTony Blair 40
(Fictional) 136

Cameron, David
and environmentally friendly trident missiles 129
and radical assemblage of thrusting old Etonians 11

Chinatown
remake starring Justin Lee Collins 98

chocolatier
undesirability of pronunciation to rhyme with ‘musketeer’ 141

Coldplay
and beating Chris Martin about head 156

Cruise, Tom
hope of crashing on the moon 169
role as Tom Thumb 56

Curtis, Richard
heart-warming drivel 97

democracy
lack of interest in 64

Eighth Amendment to US Constitution
and unfortunate incident involving Dick Cheney 132

Eurovision Song Contest, The
and lyrics lifted from Esperanto greetings cards 94

Flintoff, Andrew ‘Freddie’
favourable comparison to Jeffrey Bernard, George Best and Oliver Reed 200

freedom
armed and paranoid nature of friends 68

free will
punching in face of Socrates 69

gravity
and Isaac Newton’s apple-related lawsuit 157

Harry Potter books
mistaken belief in literary value of 179

Hitler, Adolf
and Celebrity Big Brother 39
and Jeremy Clarkson 44
and White Cliffs of Dover 123

humanity’s sense of superiority
and damned dirty apes 160

internal combustion engine
and frightening the people of Norfolk 163

Iran
and embarrassment of British Navy 141

Limbo
similarity to watching Countdown 71

London’s glittering West End
and fatty deposits of musical theatre 46

Mourinho, José
and dead balls 207

NHS dentistry
and murder of Tooth Fairy 192

Outsider, The
and fatal explosion of irony 86

Paisley, Ian
inability to win Belfast Apprentice Boys’ Musical Chairs Contest 20

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
and embarrassing incident with the barbie 117

Phillips, Melanie
and scary columns 66

Pluto
discovery by Walt Disney 165

Reid, John
and noxious emissions 31
addiction to ‘chasing the Murdoch’19
gangland murder of Home Office 18

Reith, Lord John
and Alsatians 101
and Graham Norton scouring the Internet for transsexuals 101

slow train, the
backbone of Britain’s transport system 167

Spears’, Britney; Hair
and Middle East peace process 36

twenty-first century
and distressing lack of witch-burnings 84

Uranus
giggling at name of 166

VHS Tape, The
ending half-way through recording of Bullseye 171

William, Prince
dullness of relationship with Kate Middleton 153

YouTube
and 72-year-old Japanese gentleman lip-syncing to Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ whilst wearing a Darth Maul costume 174

Facebook to Face

As A Dodo is proud to announce that it has been dragged (kicking and screaming) into the 21st century and now has its very own Facebook group, where members can express their deep and abiding love for extinct-avian-related satirical obituaries and take part in weekly untimely-shuffling-off-this-mortal-coil-related polls. If you're on Facebook and would like to join in, just type in "As A Dodo" in the search area to look us up. If, on the other hand, you're still clinging to the wreck of The Medusa that is MySpace, why not come on over to Facebook anyway, free yourself from irritating emails from unsuccessful indie bands and young ladies who "can't show you full pictures on MySpace" and want you to "click on this link" and "hand over credit card details to Russian mafia", and sign up to a load of irritating pokes instead?

As a sample of what we've been getting up to, among the topics discussed this week was, "Which weather forecaster should be sacrificed to appease the gods of summer?" With the votes now in and duly adjusted for seasonal factors (the seasonal factors this summer being wind chill and torrential rain), the results are ...

1st= Daniel Corbett
Siân Lloyd
3rd Carol Kirkwood
4th= Rob McElwee
Francis Wilson
6th= Tomasz Schafernaker
Fred Talbot

Accordingly we must now call on Mr Corbett and Ms Lloyd to present themselves to Stonehenge so that their hearts may be torn from their living bodies and offered to the weather gods Frey, Zeus and Jack Scott in order that some of us can get to see more than half an hour of sunshine before winter sets in. Thanks to all who voted. This week's virtual round of applause goes to Siân Lloyd's first nominator, Mark Daydy. *APPLAUSE*