I believe a Wurlitzer is a specialised piece of plumbing equipment manufactured from pig trotters using a proprietary process in certain secretive factories in the former East Germany. Highly sought after by installers of bidets, the common Wurlitzer can only be purchased if the buyer is recommended to the vendor by at least two other customers and after placing a bond of thirteen Austrian schillings in a specific numbered Swiss bank account.

It became fashionable as a jazz instrument in the Berlin salons of the 1920s, because of its resolutely unmelodious nature in all but the most skilled of hands (just like, say, the double bass) but mostly because it could be eaten in extremity (very much unlike, say, the double bass).

We apologies for this sudden outbreak of lying in what is usually a much more truth-inclined space.

Oh well.

Nonsense. Utter tosh! I tell you it's an instrument consisting of a broad, flat cylinder with holes drilled radially into it at regular intervals, affixed to a length of string to its center. It's also cunningly made with vanes set into it so that it will spin when swung round by its cord, with the result that it produces a most harmonious tone. It got its name when its first purchaser, speaking to a somewhat deaf salesman, said "I'll certainly enjoy showing my friends this, er... how do you say it?" To which the salesman, thinking he had been asked "how do you play it?", replied: "Whirl it, sir."

sorry, i'd groan, but...

Can someone please cuff Dan around the ears.

(Dunx) A double bass is probably the most edible of all instruments, being almost entirely wood. Saw it up, pulp it and serve it as a slurry with hot milk and demerara sugar, and you have the perfect high-fibre breakfast cereal. In one end and out the other, unchanged, giving the possibility of recycling after suitable purification.

[Rosie] I think you'll need to figure out how to strip away the strings during the automated production line of your perfect breakfast cereal. Otherwise people halfway across the world may think it's a brilliant idea.

I'm wondering what treats might be on Nigel Ogden's Wurlitzer Christmas. In a Persian Christmas Supermarket? In A Christmas Monastery Garden? Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside The Christmas Seaside?

Is it time to start the 'Bah! Humbug! I hate Christmas!' discussion yet?

it is most certainly time to start the "I hate Christmas" discussion (well apart from the religious meaning, but that's another story). point one - explosion in heart-rending charity adverts. I really don't like them.

[Raak] beautiful Bath still - however it's probably more to do with the fact that I have a rather large amount of work at the moment, and I don't have time for anything other than work, uni or pub. sorry, I think I was in a really crap mood when I posted that one.

[penelope] Move here, you'll miss it entirely, but you'll have to put up with the azaan five times a day :-)

(miss Christmas, that was)

Look at THIS, it's awesome!

Sorry, I'm a little excitable today... hehehe...

Oh, and are we going to play Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract? If s, can we do some sort of colourful variant?

[Tuj] How about Animal/Vegetable/Mineral/Abstract or any combination thereof PLUS the colour[s] of said 'object'. Am I taking you too literally?

Chalky] Pass... I just like the colours a lot and want to reward rab's endeavour by having them used in lots of games. Plus it might spawn some new hybrid game, which is always good!

[Tuj] Have you ever noticed that if you search for pretty much any word in Google image search, there is a Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon which includes it?

so, what did we all think of the new ISIHAC? I didn't hear it last night, I was on the bus (which crashed into another bus, but that's for a later date when I have more time), but I have four hours of research ahead of me later so I'll pull it up on 'listen again'.