Section:GDN 12 PaGe:2 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 17:51 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
- The Guardian
Thursday 8 August 2019
A neighbourly dispute in
Manhattan Beach, California
has deteriorated into pulling
faces. Giant faces, on the side
of a pink house. Kathryn Kidd
says her intent in covering her walls with two gurning
yellow emojis was to bring her neighbours joy, and
defi nitely not to get back at them for reporting her
for illegally renting it out on Airbnb. Kidd’s defi nitely
non-targeted paint job is not the fi rst row over emojis ...
A short history
of arguments
over emojis
A home from
home for your
houseplants
Recently, I killed a cactus. It was
not mourned. Presumably, a cactus
that manages to die has a death
wish. Their native environment
is “burning to death in the centre
of an arid desert”. A cactus that
manages to die in a peaceful,
nurturing home somewhere in
Clapton, east London is, frankly, not
trying hard enough. We clang open
the kitchen bin. We tip the cactus in
whole with its soil. We buy another
one from Ikea next time we’re there.
The cycle begins anew. We hope the
next one wants to live.
Plants and millennials go hand
in hand. I have a couple of theories
about why: one, we are all addled
on a combination of antidepressants,
pollutants, sulphates and gig
economy workaholism, and frankly
we need the peaceable energy and
clean O2 that plants provide; two,
the aesthetic allure a background
plant brings to an Instagram selfi e
simply cannot be overstated; and
three, vile landlords won’t allow
us to have pets, and the only way
to really let out those evolutionary
dead-end feelings is to look after a
cheese plant.
All of this is why I struggle to raisePass notes Shortcuts
Earlier this week, former England
rugby union player Ben Foden
announced that he had married
his girlfriend, entrepreneur Jackie
Belanoff -Smith, after just two weeks
of dating. In a heartfelt Instagram
post , Foden gushed about Belanoff -
Smith. “People will say we are mad
or crazy or even fools ... But when
someone like her comes in to your
life, why would I wait?”
Can a relationship in which both
parties have known each other for
less time than I have been meaning
to take the recycling out really go the
distance? “It is very rare that we see
people marrying this quickly,” says
Professor Brienna Perelli-Harris of
the University of Southampton, an
expert on demographic trends in
marriage and cohabitation. Typically
couples that wed after such a briefIs two weeks
enough to
decide to wed?
Age: Around as long as there have been eyes.
Appearance: Literally the scariest thing a
seagull has ever seen.
Why do you want to scare a seagull? Oh man, I
hate seagulls so much. They’re too big, they’re
too noisy, they look like the most evil thing
ever created and they divebomb you for your
chips. One even stole someone’s dog.
So what can be done about them? Poison?
Whoa now, steady on. Let’s not actually kill
them.
What do you suggest? It’s time to deploy the
big guns: the hard stare.
You mean the thing that Paddington Bear
does? Basically, yes.
And that gets rid of seagulls? Apparently so.
Madeleine Goumas from Exeter University
conducted a study where she ate chips on
a beach. If she kept her eyes down, she was
inundated with seagulls. But if she stared at
them as they approached, they would fl ap off.
Who knew that staring would be an eff ective
intimidation tactic? Nobody. Well, apart from
all the worst people you’ve ever seen in pubs.
This is fantastic news! I’m going to go and
stare at a seagull now! Just keep it to under
four minutes.
Why? Because in 1997 , the psychologist Arthur
Aron found that if you stared into somebody’s
eyes for four minutes, you would fall in love
with them. Imagine how annoying it would be
to fall in love with a seagull just because you
didn’t want it to pinch your lunch.
Didn’t Aron’s very scientifi c test also involve
asking 36 questions of each other? You’re
right. Maybe you can stare at seagulls for
four minutes, as long as you don’t ask if they
typically rehearse phone calls before they
make them.
Phew, bullet dodged. But defi nitely do not
stare at a seagull for 10 minutes.
Oh no! What now? In 2015, a researcher
from the University of Urbino, Italy, made
volunteers stare into each others’ eyes for
10 minutes and it actually altered their state
of consciousness. Many reported seeing
monsters, family members and themselves
within the face of their partner.
I defi nitely do not want to see my face
psychically implanted on a seagull’s face. Who
would? Like I said, seagulls are awful.
This whole thing seems a complete minefi eld.
Are there safer ways to keep seagulls at bay?
Have you tried eating indoors?
Do say: “I stared at a seagull and it went away .”
Don’t say: “Then it came back and now we’re
getting married.”No 4,029
The hard stare
Politicians versus
parliamentary rules
On Boris Johnson’s fi rst day as prime
minister, the Conservative MP James
Cleverly got around rules forbidding
photographs within the chamber by
tweeting “an artist’s impression of
the Labour benches” facing him: a
collection of sad, shocked and two
angry faces.
Labour’s Angela Rayner
responded by picturing the Tory
front bench as a row of clowns.Geoff rey Rush’s winking
tongue-out text message
As emojis become established as
digital communication, they are
increasingly making appearances in
court, mostly in sexual harassment
and criminal cases. In Geoff rey
Rush’s defamation trial against
Australia’s Daily Telegraph (in which
he was later awarded AU $2.9m in
damages), it was revealed that hehad sent a woman acting alongside
him in King Lear a winking emoji
with its tongue hanging out.
Under cross-examination, Rush
denied that the emoji was fl irtatious
or “panting” – it was simply “the
looniest” he could fi nd.Tiny food pics – not good enough
to eat
Apple’s paella emoji was updated
in early 2017 to replace shrimp and
peas with chicken, lima beans and
green beans to refl ect the traditional
dish from Valencia. Later that year, it
was pointed out that Google’s burger
emoji placed the cheese underneath
the burger patty, instead of on top of
it. Last year Apple’s bagel design was
made doughier in texture and given
a cream cheese fi lling.Kim blocks Swifties’ snakes
When Taylor Swift released Look
What You Made Me Do in 2017, it was
widely perceived to be a spite-fi lled
shot at Kim Kardashian for their
convoluted run-in the previous year.
Swift’s many fans gleefully swamped
Kardashian’s social media presences
with snake emojis , but Instagram
allowed her to block them in a test
of a new feature allowing users to
“hide inappropriate comments”.Emojis – no soft landing
Last year, Dallas-Fort Worth
international airport complained
that the emoji for an incoming
aeroplane looked like it was
crashing. Memphis international
airport , too, fretted that the emoji
was a “a little too crash-y”.
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