According to Wikipedia, a petard was a medieval small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. In medieval and Renaissance siege warfare, a common tactic was to dig a shallow trench close to the enemy gate, and then erect a small hoisting engine that would lift the lit petard out of the trench, swing it up, out, and over to the gate, where it would detonate and (hopefully) breach the gate. It was not impossible, however, that this procedure would go awry, and the engineer lighting the bomb could be snagged in the ropes and lifted out with the petard and consequently blown up. Thus to be 'hoist with his own petar' is to be caught up (and destroyed) by his own plot.
The phrase was coined by a Mr W Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, who first used it in his play Hamlet. Two schoolfellows of the titular Dane, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, concoct a plan to see Hamlet executed. However, the Prince is too wily for them, and amends the death warrant to contain their names instead of his. Hence, "for 'tis the sport to have the enginer. Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard"
That's quite handy for us to know, as right now modern day Rosencrantz-in-blog's-clothing BrokenTV finds itself dangling from its very own electronic petard. We go and get ourselves quoted in an online magazine, stating how that Emily off of that Big Brother think she all dead clever and that but she ain't, only to find they've used a section of text where we begin two consecutive sentences with the words "of course". Of course, we're suitably chastened by this, and have to face the fact that Victoria Coren will never want to join us down the Lamb and Thesaurus for a drink now. But then, we did only get a 'B' in GCSE English, so what can you expect, eh?
But anyway, there are new people in the bungalow. Seany seems quite interesting, and sure to raise the overall entertainment level in the house. Gerry hasn’t really done enough yet for us to think that much of him, and hopefully he’ll seem a bit less one-dimensional as time goes on. And Lesley has gone – a bit of a shame, but if you treat everyone else as if you’re some sort of public school headmistress, you can’t be too shocked if some light-hearted St Trinians type behaviour goes on.
As for the others, the number of dislikeable people seems to have been whittled right down. The twins, who’d initially given the impression they’d do little but squeal for the duration of their time in the house, seem to do little more than wander around in an innocent world of their own, electing to keep their mouths closed and just run around on the furniture if something important is going on. And more power to them for that. If there’s ever a British live-action version of Cutie Honey, the twins would be perfect.
As everyone seems to have pointed out, Shabnam looked a lot nicer without make-up, but if she prefers to wear it, then that’s fair enough. We’d guess her willingness to agree with whoever is speaking to her is more to do with an innate desperation to be liked by others (notice her frantic comment about make-up and clothing to Gerry, 0.5 seconds after he walked in the door), rather than any calculated cattishness. We should admit that as the fake PhD certificate in psychology we’ve ordered from eBay is still in the post, it’s not exactly a professional opinion. Meanwhile, Ziggy’s reaction to his ‘competition’ was quite funny. It’s the same reaction we had once we realised that Big Brother’s Black Eye is doing much better coverage of the show than we are.
It did seem a bit suspicious that Charley swiftly moved from not being too bothered about the whole Emilygate situation, to suddenly acting as if it affected her hugely. This could be because it’ll improve her chance of winning (“I’m going to be on the front of all the papers”), but it could well be because she’s had more time to think about it. Although there wasn’t any malice on Emily’s part when she said it, so: hmm. Of course, she won’t win because of this – it wasn’t just coincidence that Shilpa won CBB whilst being the nicest person in the house, you know.
Anyway, new graphs. We’ve added another clause in the calculation process, so that anyone not left in the house automatically takes a 15% hit to their total score. This should translate to a 15% boost for whoever wins at the end of BB’07, and for now it should help the people still in the house (and who don’t get the benefit of some extra Wikipedia text explaining why they’re not there any more). Finally, we’ve taken out the keywords clause, because it was a pain in the bum to calculate.
Emily storms into the lead despite not being in the house any more. Infamy and, erm, famy just being two sides of the same coin, of course. Gerry is helped to a decent score by having a very long full name. Somehow, and maybe we’ve missed something here, Laura has collapsed in the betting race, with Tracey now a somewhat unlikely favourite. Gerry has leaped into second, and Chanelle third.
Seany, who’d we’d say has a decent chance of winning, sits at a surprising 39/1. Expect him to get hounded out of the house very soon, as we’ve just buggered all that up, by putting a fiver on him to win.
The phrase was coined by a Mr W Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, who first used it in his play Hamlet. Two schoolfellows of the titular Dane, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, concoct a plan to see Hamlet executed. However, the Prince is too wily for them, and amends the death warrant to contain their names instead of his. Hence, "for 'tis the sport to have the enginer. Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard"
That's quite handy for us to know, as right now modern day Rosencrantz-in-blog's-clothing BrokenTV finds itself dangling from its very own electronic petard. We go and get ourselves quoted in an online magazine, stating how that Emily off of that Big Brother think she all dead clever and that but she ain't, only to find they've used a section of text where we begin two consecutive sentences with the words "of course". Of course, we're suitably chastened by this, and have to face the fact that Victoria Coren will never want to join us down the Lamb and Thesaurus for a drink now. But then, we did only get a 'B' in GCSE English, so what can you expect, eh?
But anyway, there are new people in the bungalow. Seany seems quite interesting, and sure to raise the overall entertainment level in the house. Gerry hasn’t really done enough yet for us to think that much of him, and hopefully he’ll seem a bit less one-dimensional as time goes on. And Lesley has gone – a bit of a shame, but if you treat everyone else as if you’re some sort of public school headmistress, you can’t be too shocked if some light-hearted St Trinians type behaviour goes on.
As for the others, the number of dislikeable people seems to have been whittled right down. The twins, who’d initially given the impression they’d do little but squeal for the duration of their time in the house, seem to do little more than wander around in an innocent world of their own, electing to keep their mouths closed and just run around on the furniture if something important is going on. And more power to them for that. If there’s ever a British live-action version of Cutie Honey, the twins would be perfect.
As everyone seems to have pointed out, Shabnam looked a lot nicer without make-up, but if she prefers to wear it, then that’s fair enough. We’d guess her willingness to agree with whoever is speaking to her is more to do with an innate desperation to be liked by others (notice her frantic comment about make-up and clothing to Gerry, 0.5 seconds after he walked in the door), rather than any calculated cattishness. We should admit that as the fake PhD certificate in psychology we’ve ordered from eBay is still in the post, it’s not exactly a professional opinion. Meanwhile, Ziggy’s reaction to his ‘competition’ was quite funny. It’s the same reaction we had once we realised that Big Brother’s Black Eye is doing much better coverage of the show than we are.
It did seem a bit suspicious that Charley swiftly moved from not being too bothered about the whole Emilygate situation, to suddenly acting as if it affected her hugely. This could be because it’ll improve her chance of winning (“I’m going to be on the front of all the papers”), but it could well be because she’s had more time to think about it. Although there wasn’t any malice on Emily’s part when she said it, so: hmm. Of course, she won’t win because of this – it wasn’t just coincidence that Shilpa won CBB whilst being the nicest person in the house, you know.
Anyway, new graphs. We’ve added another clause in the calculation process, so that anyone not left in the house automatically takes a 15% hit to their total score. This should translate to a 15% boost for whoever wins at the end of BB’07, and for now it should help the people still in the house (and who don’t get the benefit of some extra Wikipedia text explaining why they’re not there any more). Finally, we’ve taken out the keywords clause, because it was a pain in the bum to calculate.
Emily storms into the lead despite not being in the house any more. Infamy and, erm, famy just being two sides of the same coin, of course. Gerry is helped to a decent score by having a very long full name. Somehow, and maybe we’ve missed something here, Laura has collapsed in the betting race, with Tracey now a somewhat unlikely favourite. Gerry has leaped into second, and Chanelle third.
Seany, who’d we’d say has a decent chance of winning, sits at a surprising 39/1. Expect him to get hounded out of the house very soon, as we’ve just buggered all that up, by putting a fiver on him to win.
1 .:
I thought a petard was wind as in les petomain. KUTGW otherwise.
Cheers
Steven Stones
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