So Channel 4 have released the results of the 100 greatest stand-ups of all time survey.  Here’s the top 20:

1 BILLY CONNOLLY
2 RICHARD PRYOR
3 RICKY GERVAIS
4 BILL HICKS
5 EDDIE IZZARD
6 PETER KAY
7 BILL BAILEY
8 CHRIS ROCK
9 MICHAEL MCINTYRE
10 VICTORIA WOOD
11 ROSS NOBLE
12 STEWART LEE
13 JIMMY CARR
14 DYLAN MORAN
15 WOODY ALLEN
16 DARA O’BRIAIN
17 LEE EVANS
18 HARRY HILL
19 SEAN LOCK
20 TOMMY COOPER

I’d much prefer to see a top 100 compiled by actual comedians.  Michael McIntyre?  Victoria Wood?  Ricky Gervais?

According to the Daily Mail and the Telegraph:

The former manager of the Sex Pistols and impresario, died in Switzerland with his son Joe Corre by his side.

According to everyone else:

The British agent for former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren says the music impresario has died in New York.

It seems his agent is saying he died in New York, and his son and his girlfriend are saying he died in Switzerland.

Malcolm McLaren sadly died this afternoon, aged 64.  Here’s his excellent cover of The Zombies’ About Her:

I once overheard two posh people – almost certainly Tories – having sex in a hotel room. It was grim.

The woman kept saying, “Fuck me, Gerald,” in a cut-glass accent, which was funny, but Gerald himself soon wiped the grin off my face with his grunting, which wasn’t really grunting at all, but instead consisted of the words “oh” and “ah” crisply orated aloud, like Sir Laurence Olivier reading dialogue off a card at an early rehearsal.

I didn’t stick around long enough to hear the climax, but I imagine the words “gosh”, “crumbs”, and “crikey” probably put in an appearance.

And here is why that’s relevant: Cameron almost certainly says “crikey” at the vital moment. Go on, picture it. Right now, in your mind’s eye. You know it’s true. If nothing else in this puerile one-sided hatchet job has convinced you, that’s reason enough not to elect him, right there.

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

1. Psychological distance

People often recommend physical separation from creative impasses by taking a break, but psychological distance can be just as useful.

2. Fast forward in time

Like psychological distance, chronological distance can also boost creativity.

3. Absurdist stimulation

The mind is desperate to make meaning from experience. The more absurdity it experiences, the harder it has to work to find meaning.

4. Use bad moods

Positive emotional states increase both problem solving and flexible thinking, and are generally thought to be more conducive to creativity. But negative emotions also have the power to boost creativity.

5. Combining opposites

Interviews with 22 Nobel Laureates in physiology, chemistry, medicine and physics as well as Pulitzer Prize winning writers and other artists has found a surprising similarity in their creative processes (Rothenberg, 1996).

6. Path of most resistance

When people try to be creative they usually take the path of least resistance by building on existing ideas (Ward, 1994). This isn’t a problem, as long as you don’t mind variations on a theme.

7. Re-conceptualisation

People often jump to answers too quickly before they’ve really thought about the question. Research suggests that spending time re-conceptualising the problem is beneficial.

This is a friend of mine.

In a recent startling admission from millionaire writer of the Harry Potter series J. K. Rowling, it has been revealed that the script for the new Harry Potter film has been found in a bookshop.

Apparently, the script has been carelessly left freely available to anyone who is willing to pay top dollar for the story spoilers, which have been secreted deep within hundreds of pages of text, written in what appears to be plain English.