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In the future, someone said, we'll be famous for 15megabytes. Well that was a few years ago and you probably need to up the numbers to terabytes, but from to students YouTube is churning out more minor celebrities than a Big Brother block party.

But fame is a fickle mistress, and pancake tossing may prove to be just a flash in the pan. Which is why for lasting celebrity one must look elsewhere such as the pleasant discount bookstore we found on Conduit St. in London. We only ducked into to escape the rain, but left hefting a second hand copy of NIgel Rees' A Word in Your Shell-Like: 6000 curious and everyday phrases explained (a snip at £4)

It's a bit hit and miss (David Jacobs catchphrase Juke Box Jury) on the cliches it lists but does contain the following entry on the phrase "it's a pile of pants":

" It is said that the precise phrase first became popular in the early 1990's particularly through use by the Radio1 DJ Simon Mayo"

Now that's a kind of immortality you can't get on You Tube. Of course the real issue out of all this is when the press will tire of famous for 15mb stories. Answers on a postcard please (and no I don't know the history of that phrase - it's one of the ones missing from the book)

UPDATE: I should, of course, have added that we will never tire of these stories on pods and blogs and will doubtless be talking about pancakes and YouTube for many months to come

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