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Category Archives: humour
PLAYBOY: ‘No more nudes’
Yes, that’s right… Hefner has said there’ll be no more nudes in Playboy.
His reasoning is that the Internet has given access to all sorts of porn, 24/7, so it’s kind of redundant in his magazine anymore. Now it’ll be clothed models and in depth articles. I guess this does bring it off of the top shelf and allows the plain cover to be removed, giving it a wider audience.
Cam again?
I don’t particularly like people who wear camouflage to look cool or tough. I really don’t like those who wear it to pretend they are military or ex-military. Glory seeking bastards.
Heck, I don’t like to wear mine in public if I don’t have a good reason.
I do wear it because you can pick up ex-military and military surplus camo clothes for a fraction of the price of other work clothes, and the military stuff is much tougher. Great for working on the car, gardening, and in my case, hunting rabbits. Let’s face it, DPM camo is designed to make being seen harder… So why wouldn’t I wear it when hunting bunnies?
Anyway… After a morning of rabbiting to help keep the numbers down, stocking my freezer (and stopping the number of cow leg breaking holes being dug in the farmer’s meadow), I like to get a hearty breakfast from the local posh garden centre. A huge breakfast of stacked eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, toast and a cup of tea is just the thing to end a hunt and start a day, and this place does a fantastic breakfast with local fresh meats and eggs.
Often there are old folk there, pottering around the bedding plants, looking at the fish in the ponds, buying boiled sweets, and having tea and cake with their remaining elderly friends. Most of them are quiet lovely, although there is always one bitter, entitled old hag who’s outlived her friends and as she no longer works, she goes to cafes and garden centres to complain loudly at the staff about mundane crap, but that’s another story.
On this day, post hunt, I was in good spirits and in need of a dustbin lid sized breakfast platter. I found a seat in the cafe and ordered the ‘mega-breakfast’. It’s not just a clever name – it really is huge.
As the food was brought over to me and placed on my table, an smart tweed dressed elderly man who was sat with his equally well dressed wife, looked over at me as I sat contemplating where to start on my mountainous meal. I noticed he was looking at me, so I looked up and smiled the smile of a person who was on the brink of gorging themselves on one of the finest breakfasts around.
“That’s a heroes breakfast!” he said and smiled.
I nodded back. He wasn’t wrong after all as this was one hell of a challenge, but I was up for it!
I ate the whole lot, ending with me mopping the juices up with my toast and downing the last of my cup of tea. A quick wipe of my beard to avoid any egg faced embarrassment and I got up to leave. As I walked past the old chap’s table I nodded a ‘goodbye’… and he returned my nod with his own nod, and then said softly;
“I’m proud of you son…”
I looked sheepishly at him and gave a single smiling nod, said thank you, and walked away.
Quite bizzare that he’d said that, but it was a huge breakfast and he probably wouldn’t have managed half of it. Still seemed odd that he was proud of me for doing so!
As I walked to the exit it dawned on me what I’d been oblivious too.
I was in full camo, right down to army kit boots.
He’d thought I was a serving member of our armed forces.
I felt terrible. I didn’t intend to mislead anyone; I hadn’t even thought about it. He was giving me praise for something I hadn’t done – and whereas some bastards dress in military gear just to get that praise, I am not one of them.
I donated some money to the very next ‘Help For Heroes‘ charity that I saw – if anything, just to pay it forward. I didn’t earn his praise, so I felt I had to make amends somehow.
I won’t stop wearing camo; Like I said at the start, I have reasons to wear it… but I shall donate if I ever get genuinely mistaken for a member of our armed forces again (or happen to be passing someone collecting for them).
Photo comments and bullshittery
I’ve noticed that many ‘social media’ comments are now being made with photos and memes rather than comments.
I’ve also noticed (because I’m not totally blind or stupid) that the number of hoax phishing and total bullshit posts are also on the increase.
From climate change deniers, people seeing Jesus in the wings of a moth or claiming this new diet is the only diet for you, or the stupid ‘YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED WHEN *insert AMAZING claim here*, to contrail conspiracists and people who believe the Daily Mail…
I have the photo comment that you can use to respond to it all. Feel free to use it!
Falling off of the Wagon with Robin Williams
The ‘Band Wagon’ that is.
We are a weird lot.
A man funny man with depression dies: The World and an ape go nuts in mourning.
20,000 children die of malnutrition/starvation each day and we post selfies, Instagrams of our restaurant meals or moan about the fucking weather.
For a second I was suckered in to the Williams/Ape story.
I got angry that they even made the ape sad by telling it about his death.
‘WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!? THE APE DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW!!! WHAT POSSIBLE GOOD DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?!?!’
Then I wondered if they were worried that the ape might find out anyway via Twitter or a passing chimp or something, so thought it best to tell the ape straight. Avoid the awkward ‘Oook! Ooook! When were you planning on telling me this pivotal news about the loss of this dude?!? Ooook’.
But then I snapped out of it, because an ape being unnecessarily sad over the death of a show biz celebrity just isn’t news, considering everything else going on.
One person stands out in his views of how ridiculous our priorities are. His wit & social comedic commentary in his stand up acts focused on this quite a lot.
He’d be rolling his fucking eyes at all of this right now.
I imagine he’d word it a little like this:
‘… and in a world where in one continent 20,000 kids die each day from starvation, and in another continent they have kids armed with AK47’s fighting wars against each other because one side dislikes dicks in turtleneck sweaters, we find a big monkey being upset by the untimely death of an alcoholic comic is the big news story… And they think I had a problem?’
Rest in peace, funny man. May many more people discover your stand-up and realise how fucked up we really are.
Cold Call Stress Relief
Tips for dealing with sales/insurance/PPI calls etc.
Don’t hate them: ENJOY THEM!
I go for it with them I’ve had them swearing at me and slamming the phone down after 20 minutes of getting no where.
General just playing along with:
Misunderstanding what they’ve said.
THEM: ‘I’m calling regards your recent car crash…‘
ME: ‘Oh dear! I hope you are okay? We’re you hurt?‘
Repeating back what they’ve said in the form of a question:
THEM: ‘No, I’m calling regards your recent car crash…‘
ME: ‘You’re calling regards my recent car crash?‘
Bouncing back their questions:
THEM: ‘First I need some details to prove who you are.‘
ME: ‘Sounds reasonable. I’ll need some details from you for the same reason. What was your mother’s maiden name?‘
This can go on quite a while. Especially when they’ve read out the really long sales script they have to use and you then say ‘I’m sorry, it’s a bad line, can you repeat that?‘
Using the above multiple times in the same call winds them up, but just as they start to lose it, when they start getting really frustrated, you buy in to the sale and give them hope, but then say ‘I think I’ll take you up on this offer, but I do apologise, this line really is terrible, please can you call me straight back?’
They call back & you start all over again.
The last one I had started:
THEM: ‘Is that Mr. Lucas Black?‘
ME: ‘Is it?‘
THEM: ‘Are you Mr. Black?’
ME: ‘Am I?‘
THEM: ‘You are Mr. Black?‘
ME: ‘You seem pretty positive, so you’re probably right.‘
THEM: ‘So, you are Mr. Black?‘
ME: ‘Now I’m unsure. Who do you want to talk to?‘
Tip: Talk slowly and unsurely. It gives them confidence and relaxes them. They think you’ll be an easy mark.
Farage Balloon
Fed up of the same rubbish, lying political parties trying to get to the top of the shit heap?
Not wanting to vote because ‘It won’t change a thing‘ or ‘They’re all rubbish‘…?
Shocked at how UKIP etc. have seemingly done so well?
In times of hardship – not a lot of money about, not many jobs and so on, people start to blame minorities like religions, various sexualities or more likely immigrants. Hell yes, blame everyone not a core player in the country – find someone to blame! It’s human nature.
Politicians in ‘National Parties’ love times like this because they simply act on this, then build on it to win your votes. It is happening all over Europe, not just in the UK. They stir up the hatred that is already there, then they add fuel to the fire, build it up, then promise to do something about it.
Farage Balloon. The great thing is, it supplies its own hot air.
A certain alleged one-bollocked poor Austrian artist with a stunted moustache did this back in the 1930’s.He didn’t like how the old school government was running the country and figured he could do better. The thing is he needed support and votes.
The country he lived in was in a dire position with huge debts and the currency was worthless. The public did what any people would do in times like this – they became angry and started pointing blame at immigrants and minority groups. Luckily there were a lot of Jews about that nicely fitted that category, and the mono-balled Chaplin impersonator saw this.
A few rallies to fire up the nation and this nobody got over 90% of the votes.
The rest is a rather messy and bloody history.
In all fairness, the asymmetric testicled slug balancer was simply a catalyst in the right place at the right time. If it hadn’t been him, then it would have been someone else. The country was in that much trouble that something had to break.
Either way, he used the oldest trick in the book. Use a topic that the masses all support and then build it up with lies and promises until they vote you in. Once in you can just forget them and do what you wanted in the first place. Sure, you do enough of what they want, but mostly you do what you want. Pathetic voters – They’ll do anything to get rid of the immigrants, free ice cream! Guns for everyone! A new car outside of every house! Jobs for all! Just vote for me… go on… (some of these have actually been used…).
There are a few things you should know.
- All politicians will tell you what you want to get a vote.
- If you like what they are telling you, then it’s probably a lie.
- If you and the majority of the rest of the population like what they are telling you, then it’s most certainly lies.
- If the daily papers have an opinion about a party, then it is to sell papers and not necessarily the truth. Ever.
- If you vote for a certain party regardless of what they stand, simply because your friends vote that way, then you are an imbecile.
- If you vote for a certain party regardless of what they stand for, simply because your family has always voted that way, then you are an imbecile.
- If you don’t vote because you don’t understand. FIND OUT. It is important.
- If you don’t vote because you are lazy, then sort it out you waste of space.
- If you don’t vote because you don’t like any of the parties, then you are actually helping other parties to win.
- If you don’t vote, don’t expect anyone to listen to you moan about who gets elected. You lost that option the moment you didn’t vote.
If a shitty party win an election by one vote, and you didn’t vote, then you are as much to blame as someone who voted for them. Your vote could’ve stopped them getting in. Your lack of voting surely helped them get in.
Yeah, but they are really all crap. I hate them all. I’d rather shove live wasps up my arse and stir them with a stick to make them really angry than vote for any of the parties…
Right… Here’s pretty much how I see things at the moment. They are all crap. Some are way more crap than others.
Imagine UKIP or the BNP as a form of cancer. No one wants cancer.
Now imagine the other parties as chemotherapy. No one wants chemotherapy if they can help it. It wastes you away, it weakens you, it drains the life out of you, you look half dead and you can hardly cope with the treatment.
So… It’s cancer and death, or you take the chemotherapy and stand a good chance of coming out the other end of the ordeal with a life. Sure, you’re screwed up and may never be the same, but YOU ARE ALIVE!!!
So… when it comes to the vote, you can either do nothing, get cancer and die, OR you can have the therapy and do your damnedest to keep cancer from ruining your life, your friends life and your families life. Yes, your choice affects them too.
The Fry Effect
Thanks to Kate Smurthwaite and Stephen Fry, my new blog (God and Son) has had a very good first couple of weeks.
Today was spectacular, thanks to ‘The Fry Effect‘… AÂ single retweet by Stephen Fry and God & Son went ballistic… Within a couple of minutes over 2,500 people had visited the blog…. This quieted down to about 1 hit a second for the next 3 hours….
I don’t expect to keep up such incredible numbers, but the initial publicity is fantastic!
This is the link he re-tweeted: http://wp.me/p2mtvw-2N (Pop Goes Your Head)
And this is the effect after 3 hours….
During typing this blog entry, another 1000 hits have taken place….
Crazy….
I figure (and this works quite well on ‘celebs’…)
- 25% of a Twitterers followers are active (the rest just add them as a friend and don’t really interact).
- 1% of them would click a link the Tweeter posts.
- 1% of them will be repeat site visitors.
- This worked out pretty accurate when Wossy re-tweeted my Twitter Guide.
So.. for Mr Fry:
Over 4,200,000 followers… my theory says 1,050,000 active…. so 10,500 people will click the link and 105 will be repeat visitors.
So far, 14,000 people have hit my site today, so I’m a little out, but that is down to how many ‘ripple effect‘ re-tweets.
The ‘ripple effect‘ re-tweets work out just the same as the initial re-tweeting. Someone re-tweets the initial re-tweet…. Fry re-tweets me, someone re-tweets Fry…. someone re-tweets the person who re-tweeted Fry… etc
The percentage breakdown of those ripple tweeters followers now add to the hits my site gets… which explains the additional 4,000 hits above the theorised 10,000 initial hits from Stephen Fry.
At 10,000 hits I did notice a drop in hits per minute…. from 75 per minute to 50 per minute… which would suggest the initial Fry effect was now being passed over to the effect that HIS re-tweeters were giving me.
It all works out somehow….
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, it’s not too bad…
After seeing Kate Smurthwaite shut down one of her counterparts in a religious debate (she was representing the National Secular Society), I came up with this new image.
Before posting it, I sent it to her to see if she was okay with it.
She replied saying that she loved it – and that she had also sent it to Nicky Campbell (the show host). I highly recommend looking her up.
Arctic Viking
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