“Finnish community artists Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 35, and Tellervo Kalleinen, 32, came up with the idea three years ago... the Finnish word valituskuoro... translates into ‘complaints choir’ and refers to people complaining in packs... ‘And then we got excited about this term and said, “Hey this would be really funny to make a real complaints choir”’ that sings about their gripes, said Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen.... they were able to test out the idea in Birmingham, England, where they were invited for a two-week artists’ residency... ‘Then we heard complaints that Birmingham was a very ugly city ... and we thought if it’s so ugly then it’s the perfect place to start a complaints choir.’ So they did…. People who answered the call for choir members came up with a dizzying variety of complaints – from the personal to the political. Selections were edited down and then a local musician was called in to put the gripes to an original score. The Birmingham choir had two successful performances, one in a local hall and another on the street. The second gig culminated in a celebration at a pub where the choir did an impromptu performance griping about the price of the beer – but to no avail. After the success of the Birmingham choir, groups formed in places such as Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Hamburg and Melbourne.... There is now a website (http://complaintschoir.org) telling people how to set up their own choirs. So what’s the most unusual complaint that Mr. Kochta-Kalleinen has heard? ‘In Finland we had a woman who complained that her dreams are boring,’ he recalled.”

Globe & Mail November 14, 2007

“They sell botch-it-yourself kits”

Another of mine, from April 4, 2006, about a spray insulation system.

“so he goes ‘Do you dislike Scottish people?’ and Florence goes, ‘Don’t think small.’”

Florence King in National Review March 22, 1999 [pretending to be Bill Clinton standing in for her and talking to Vernon Jordan].

He’d “sooner turn you into a lampshade than give you the steam off his shit.”

Tom Kakonis Double Down (the opinion of one Jewish character about the German main villain in this seamy novel - and yes, it breaks my rule about vulgarity but once in a while it’s appropriate)

“Though the phrase ‘easy-to-use’ on a home repair product is always a lie. No matter how easy it is to use, it will never be as easy as not using it.”

P.J. O’Rourke The Bachelor Home Companion

“This place is a hive of inactivity.”

Another of mine, from September 17, 2004, on being disappointed to see nothing happening on the roadwork outside our house… again.

“But we have a saying out here [in the suburbs of Richmond] about people like Al [Gore]; they’ll steal your chaw of tobacco if you so much as yawn.”

David Shiflett in National Review March 22, 1999

Journalist W.R. “Titterton tells of an interview with the Aga Khan, in which His Highness said that if a wall fell and crushed his foot he would exclaim: ‘This is the best thing that could have happened to me.’ To which Chesterton responded, ‘Then I feel inclined to retort that the Persian language must be singularly deficient in expletives.’”

An author whose name I failed to record in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 2 #6 Issue 15 (April-May, 1999)