the truth is between the lines

This morning's Sun headline was lovely:
CAPE VROU SPOTS UFO!
This works better if you know (as most of you do) that "vrou" rhymes with "throw", and thus with "UFO". The headline is a tiny, catchy piece of doggerel poetry in its own right: you could put a beat to it and rap it. It also perfectly mirrors the classic UFO-spotting scenario, with the Cape vrou an economical encapsulation which gracefully substitutes for the traditional red-neck trucker, without in any way disrupting the cliché's assumptions about class and education. (Consider the different implications of "Cape wife". "Cape" in this particular conjunction with "vrou" clearly connotes "Cape Flats".)

I am happy to see that The Sun is keeping alive the best traditions of tabloid journalism, thus carrying the torch for the defunct Weekly World News.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was at a rave. In fairy wings. And, for some reason, no underwear. And the less said about any of it, the better. Sigh.

aargh! help! knitting!

As a result of a random concatenation of circumstances¹, I just spent an hour reading through The Panopticon. It's a knitting blog². It's very well written and very funny, and features Delores Dolores the cabaret sheep. It has also, in a response straight out of left field, and a horror hitherto unknown in my personal life, left me with a serious desire to overthrow the prejudice of a lifetime and take up actual knitting.

I feel an intervention is required here. I would be grateful if the relevant people would perform the following tasks:
(a) Non-knitting friends, please forcibly restrain me from this madness, pointing out its roots in psychological insecurity, life-avoidance and the frivolous desire for pretty clothes, and the unavoidable fact that, whatever I might fondly imagine, it's likely to teach me exactly the opposite of patience.
(b) Knitting friends, of whom I seem to have incredible stonkloads, please advise me as to the most user-friendly, low-grade projects likely to ease me gently into the long, hard process of converting some of my many thumbs to actual fingers while entangling myself in miles of yarn. The ultimate production of genuine articles of clothing would be a bonus.

God, I must be mad.

¹ Following links from science fiction sites. Strange but true.
² Yes, I should be marking. What's your point?