How not to do small-talk

HOUSE: Dr Gregory House. I don't think we've met.
CONWAY: Dr Jamie Conway. I've heard your name.
HOUSE: Most people have. It's also a noun.

- House

Race relations (humour (is tricky to transcribe))

D'you spell 'homy' with a Y? I wanna be respectful...

- House

Cover charges

1) In the flap copy of Philip Roth's not-particularly-highly-acclaimed The Humbling (2009), his optimistic editors/publicists have used the adjectives 'shattering', 'terrifying', 'unusual', 'erotic', 'haunting' ... and 'startling'. They note, also, that this is 'Roth's thirtieth book'. Even indifferent readers of Roth will see where I am going with this.

2) The back-cover blurb of Jay McInerney's Model Behaviour begins

'I'm sick of all this pointless glamour,' his glamorous girlfriend said. 'I want a simple life.' If only Connor McNab had listened.

Which is all well and good - except that the hero's name is Connor McKnight. Who's the McNumbnuts in Jay Mc's publicity camp?!

3) Dr Gregory House is well-known for owning lots of sneakers (it's an irony, see: cripple with running-shoe collection?*). More to the point, the rules of product-placement make it pretty hard to miss the fact that they are always Nike sneakers. Only on the cover of series 6 - my copy, anyway - House is quite evidently wearing New Balance. Oops.

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* Also a running gag, come to that.