Category Archives: Humour

Hot dog!

A sign of significant progress in North American culture …

CHICAGO — It is a source of frustration at cookouts everywhere: There are never enough hot dogs, and there always seem to be way too many buns.

Hot dogs and hot-dog buns are sold in different quantities, but that is going to change beginning today.

Vienna Beef and Alpha Baking Co., which manufactures S. Rosen’s buns, promise to sell the buns and hot dogs in the same numbers.

Source: Companies sync dogs-to-buns ratio

Priceless

From the Financial Times:

Carly Fiorina will be paid a $21.4m severance package after being fired as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard last week. She will also be able to keep her computer and receive free tech support for three months.

Only three months? It’s a good thing she got the cash.

Auction house motto

Call Centre Confidential is a popular, often humourous weblog devoted to the the trials and tribulations of life in a UK call centre.

Today’s post contains a management slogan that will appeal to any auction house employee or art dealer:

Any idiot can paint a picture, it takes a genius to sell it.

Burberry buddies

What does Tony Blair have in common with Britain’s football hooligans? Well, a taste for the luxury clothing brand Burberry, apparently.

tonyblair.jpg

The pri’minster, init?

The Prime Minister has once again been spotted wearing Burberry; this time while on holiday in Italy. But as today’s Guardian reports in I don’t care if you are Tony Blair… he may have to rethink his wardrobe when he next visits the Midlands:

Drinkers wearing Burberry have been banned from two pubs in the city centre [of Leicester] because it is one of the favourite designers of a group of thugs.

Observers of popular culture noticed the hooligan penchant for Burberry some time ago, but if Britain’s police and publicans are acting on this trend it must now really be official.

Seven years ago Tony Blair said “The new Britain is a meritocracy where we break down the barriers of class, religion, race and culture” (see 1997 Commonwealth Address), and it’s good to see the Prime Minister making such an effective personal contribution to this social transformation.

Parish council ‘snubs’ modern loo

The small village of Brockenhurst in Hampshire is in the news. According to the BBC (Parish council ‘snubs’ modern loo) it seems the parish council finds the new public toilet offensive. Despite the fact that the modern toilet has been nominated for an architectural award, the parish council doesn’t believe it’s “in sympathy with the surrounds”. Oh dear.

I’ve been to Brockenhurst several times throughout the last 30 years. I have relatives living there. Until this new toilet came along the village’s claim to fame was the discovery in the train station waiting room of a set of original photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron. This toilet news represents serious competition!

It’s a conspiracy

Sometimes business and the media appear to conspire against us, putting all kinds of temptations in our way with perfect timing.

Cover shote of Making Babies by Anne Enright
Radio 4’s Book of the Week is Making Babies by Irish author Anne Enright.

It’s a humourous account of modern motherhood, and is to be published in the UK on Thursday. The Guardian published selected extracts from the book last month (see I have a buggy, I’m hard).

Would I have noticed this if there wasn’t a newborn in our home? Maybe, but I certainly wouldn’t be writing about it!

Heat sensing soft-tipped weaning spoons

I’m learning so much now that I’m a responsible parent. Who’d have thought anyone needed these?

Tommee Tippee Heat Sensing Weaning Spoons

They’re heat sensing, soft-tipped weaning spoons.

Apparently, the red bowl of the spoon turns bright yellow if the food is too hot for young mouths (wouldn’t yellow turning red be a more intuitive signal?), and being “soft-tipped” you can accidentally stab your bundle of joy with one and it won’t hurt.

I wonder who thinks these things up?

Anyway, thanks to the wonder of the Internet you can read at least three reviews of these spoons on the Ciao! Shopping Intelligence web site. If after that you’re still interested, Boots has them on sale for £1.24. That’s 50% off! Better get them while they’re hot.

Help a friend …

or relative become Canadian … before it’s too late!

That was the typically Canadian headline on a small insert provided with the application form for my daughter’s Canadian citizenship application this week.

It seems that anyone born between 1 January 1947 and 14 February 1977 to a Canadian parent may have a claim to Canadian citizenship; but only for another eight days. You must apply before 14 August 2004 or you’ll lose the opportunity to become Canadian.

More information can be found on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada web site, although the tone is not nearly as inviting.