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blog musings
just a few middle-age thoughts . . .
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| BEST UK BLOG: Amy Winehouse is looking much better (oh yes she is) |
tits
and tinsel dominate Amy's week
I must
say Amy is looking a lot better in the last few weeks. However, that’s in the context of her consistently looking like
she was going to die of a drug overdose or alcohol poisoning any minute. Putting on a little weight and having a boob job,
has helped her look a lot less like a Saturday night admission to A&E. But even that has gone a bit pear shaped - literally
apparently, as one of her friends helpfully told the Daily Mirror; “she saw something oozing out on to her top. She
was worried, as to see stuff seeping out, was horrible.” I'm sure Katie Price can give her a bit of advice on leaky
implants.
Usually Amy is spotted visiting a corner shop in Camden buying tattoos or roll-ups, but has now caused
a sensation by going to Selfridges. Reports in the very reliable Daily Star, said she was in the up-market store for six hours
buying christmas decorations. The Moaning Cow has tried hard to work out how you could do this. Is there that much christmassy
stuff to look at? How did she refrain from smoking for that long? So many questions.
Her total tinsel (et al) haul was £18,000 and she didn’t even buy a tree.
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| BEST UK BLOG: the team in hard training for the Torquay Allotment Association Show |
front line of the veg wars
Having begun to grow the odd vegetable in the back garden (and I mean very odd), I have been most concerned about
reports from the front line of the veg wars. From the twitching of newspapers I'm clearly not the only commuter in Coach
C who is worried about their prize tubers whilst away working in the smoke. It could happen to anyone.
So, just
as you're nodding off to sleep tonight, spare a thought for the allotment owners of Torquay. They are staying up all night
on vigilante patrol, to try to capture a saboteur amongst the brassicas. It’s veg wars with avengeance after someone
has dismembered their prize veg, squashed their squash, beaten their beets and killed their flowers with weed killer. This
is serious organic abuse and the police have been called, surmising that a 5 inch spike has been used. You’ll
be pleased to know however, that two of the men who were targeted, still won prizes at the Torquay Allotment Association Show.
Phew!
big bear skating baiting
Now I know
this is a very sad sorry, and it involves some poor person dying and his family will be horrendously upset and all that, but
. . . this week an ice-skating bear in Kyrgyzstan killed his circus trainer during
rehearsals in front of an audience of children. Apparently they train bears to ice-skate for the Russian State Circus, but
this one got the ump and tore his trainer’s neck to pieces in the middle of the show. My question is though, how do
you start training a bear to ice-skate including getting the very first pair of skates on him? Do you hold him by the paws
and drag him to start off with? How do you get him to skate in a line and in what direction and and and?
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| BEST UK BLOG: back to turkey twizzlers |
back to turkey
twizzlers
Over the last couple of years much progress has been made in raising awareness of
local food, and getting the public to be more inquisitive about where their food comes from and how it’s produced. All
that campaigning by St Jamie of Oliver and Hugh Whearnley Fittingstall (as I like to call him) really started to have an affect
– the hen was mightier than the sword. Sales of factory-produced, chemically-laden,
crap products masquerading as food were dented and we felt good about our new found ethics. But now we're all skint,
things have changed, so it’s back to the 4p sausage, turkey twizzlers and Korean pork with a vengeance.
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| BEST UK BLOG: all that glitters is not gold |
the face cloth story
Please don't read this account of a working Mum (it's
nobody I know and no, it's not me) if you are easily offended . . .
"I was due for a smear test with the
doctor on a Thursday. Two days before, on the Tuesday, I received a call from the doctor's surgery to tell me that I had
been rescheduled for that very morning at 9.30am. I had only just packed everyone off to school, and was about to go to work,
but didn't have any meetings until lunchtime, so I though I would get it over and done by, so I said that would be OK.
It was already 8.45am though, and the trip to the surgery took about 35 minutes, so I didn't have any time to lose.
As most women do, I like to take a little extra effort over hygiene when making such visits,
but this time I wasn't going to have time for a shower. So I rushed upstairs, threw off my clothes and had a quick wash
in the 'inspection area', with a wet facecloth. I then chucked it in the washing basket, put on some clean clothes,
hopped in the car and raced to my appointment.
I was in the waiting room for only a few minutes when I was called
in. Knowing the procedure, I hopped up on the table, looked over at the other side of the room and pretended I was some place
else. I was a little surprised when the doctor said, "my, we have made an extra effort this morning, haven't we?"
I didn't respond as generally speaking, I don't like conversations when my legs are in the
air.
After the appointment, I heaved a sigh of relief and went
into the office as normal. Don't have to do that for another three years. When I got home after picking up my seven year
old daughter, she went off to make some pictures and later called out from the bathroom, "Mummy, where's my face
cloth?" I told her to get another one from the airing cupboard. She replied "no, I need the one that was on the
sink, it had all my glitter saved inside it".
Never going back to that doctor again. EVER!"
wookey witch It was widely reported in all
the daily newspapers that Wookey Hole in Somerset advertised a job for a Witch at £50,000 a year. The applicant was
successfully appointed this month. She (were they allowed to discriminate against men?) had to be able to cackle and not be
allergic to cats. Do you think that the recruitment drive was a witch hunt? Ha ha!
And I wondered what sort of questions they asked at the job interview?
the curious
case of the canoeist in the wardrobe
The back-from-the-dead canoeist, is a curious case. As
far as I can see, John Darwin was the man who pretty much hatched the plot and then carried it through, but all the press
were interested in, was Anne Darwin. They covered her deception in minute detail - how she told her sons, what she did with
the money and so on. The police labeled her a “compulsive liar”, but no one said anything about the obviously
dishonest John Darwin or his defence case. I can’t imagine it was her idea and yet it is her photo and her words that
have been reported, not his. The same happened over Madeleine McCann, it was Kate not Gerry, who was
vilified, and think of the press coverage for Rosemary West rather than Fred, or Myra Hindley rather than
Ian Brady. Whatever the reason for the media’s biased coverage towards women, if I was going to cash in on insurance
policies, it would need to be a lot more than £250,000.
straight up
This is my favourite
logo of all time. It’s the new-ish logo of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). Apparently it’s an offshoot
of the Treasury, but I don’t know what they do. They asked for a re-brand and it cost them £14,000 for this innocuous-looking
three word image. Why do I like it so much? Because it’s sooooo incredibly rude. We suspect that nobody
thought about how it might look when you turn your head 90 degrees to the left. Except that actually quite a few people have
realised it, and it even appeared on Have I Got News For You. The point of
a new government logo is to reinforce that feeling of solid reliability. Something I think you’ll agree, they’ve
managed to achieve!
Visit our
famous You Tube site which has already clocked up over 1 million downloads click here
the Rolls Royce story
Some time ago, scientists at Rolls Royce built a gun specifically
to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners and military jets all travelling at maximum velocity. The idea was
to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. American engineers
heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made, and
a gun was sent to the American engineers. When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of
the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped
the engineer's back-rest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin like an arrow shot from a bow. The horrified
American team sent Rolls Royce the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged
the British scientists for suggestions. Rolls Royce responded with the following one-line memo: "Defrost the chicken."
last will and testament
Some people use their last will and testament to achieve their final five minutes
of fame by getting back at those they’ve left behind. Three particular favourites include: The New York hotel
magnate Leona Helmsley, better known as the "Queen of Mean", left $12 million of her $8 billion estate to her Maltese
terrier Trouble. Meanwhile, two of her four grandchildren got nothing. American housewife Mary Kuhery left her husband
$2 as long as he promised to spend at least half of it on a rope with which to hang himself.
In 1960, Samuel Bratt’s wife never allowed him to partake of a cigarette in his own home or garden, he was determined
to get even with her when he died. He left her £330,000 (the equivalent of millions today), provided that she smoke
five cigars every day. Ah! Bless.Wonder what Jordan, Max Mosley, David Beckham and Amy Winehouse have in theirs?
why don’t famous people live in Liverpool?
It’s
great to see that Liverpool has kicked off as European Capital of Culture (which it rather bizarrely shares with Stavanger
in Norway), especially as the launch seems to have gone rather well. Liverpool’s public sector penchant for budget overspends
and political in-fighting, almost torpedoed the whole project until Phil Redmond arrived to bang a
few heads together. The city’s brand has been built on the strength and unity of its people in times
of adversity. It’s therefore a legitimate marketing tactic to focus on the wit and strength of its residents. There
is no doubt that Liverpool has stunning architecture and an incredible history, but so have lots of cities in the UK. The
Liverpool experience is about who you meet, not what you see. There lies the differentiator and it should be more evident
in the media relations strategy. Unfortunately the Capital of Culture’s marketing has focussed on famous scousers rather
than ‘real’ people, and the problem with parading Ringo, Paul, Cilla and even Cherie Blair,
is that they all live in Surrey, Sussex or London. Their comments on the wonders of Merseyside just don’t
ring true when all viewers want to say is “well, why don’t you live there then?” |
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bums on seats
Please, please,
please let us work on the marketing account for OssiUrlaub. It’s the company that’s offering nudist
flights for the naturist enthusiast. Basically you go through the airport clothed, and undress before embarking,
but apparently the cabin crew remain clothed "for safety reasons". The flight costs €499
per person and they’re taking bookings now, so don’t delay. The first trip is on July 5th, flying from
Erfurt in eastern Germany to the Baltic Sea coastal resort of Usedom. It‘s claimed that the service has been launched
because of the demand from followers of Germany's Freikorperkultur movement, or FKK, which advocates nudism. It’s
the acronym that you see on signs to denote naturist beaches and holiday resorts in Germany, (not that we’ve seen them
ourselves of course). These flights would be great fun to promote because you couldn’t do it without resorting to humour,
and the photography would be a real hoot. The difficulty however might be overcoming buying barriers – the hygiene factor
on those faux leather airline seats, damage done when fastening seatbelts, bending over in the aisle
to put your socks on when you land? On the other hand perhaps we’ll let someone else do the promotion
work.
Olympics shame footballers
Weren’t
the Olympics absolutely brilliant. Can’t tell you how many times I thought I was seriously going to cry. It was so emotional
and I was so proud of the British athletes. Perhaps it’s my time of life. They tried so hard. The effort, training and
preparation was unbelievable. To a man, they were also modest, polite and self deprecating, and it was a pleasure to watch.
OK, we
only seem to be good at stuff where you sit down, but beating Australia, France, Germany etc was a real achievement. Then
last weekend I watched Manchester United where six overpaid, pampered, pouting, spotty footballers got booked for consistently
swearing, bullying and harassing the referee, because they didn’t agree with his decisions. Each one needed
a bloody good clip round the ear.
The
contrast couldn’t have been greater.
the
shepherd story
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new
BMW pulled up. The young driver in a Prada suit, Gucci shoes, Dior sunglasses and D+G tie, leans out the window and asks the
shepherd: "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you let me choose one and keep it for free?" "Alright. Why not?" said the shepherd calmly. The yuppie whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his mobile, surfs to a NASA page
on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system that scans the area producing an ultra-high-resolution
photo. The young man exports the photo to an image processing facility in Hamburg. Within seconds, he receives an email on
his Blackberry containing an Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulae. The data produces a full-colour
50-page report which he prints out on a mini LaserJet printer. He
turns to the shepherd and says: "You have exactly 1,586 sheep". "That's right”, says the shepherd,
“so I suppose you can take one of my sheep". He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused
as he stuffs it into the boot of his car. Before he drives off the shepherd says "if I can tell you exactly what you
do for a living, will you give me back my sheep?" The young man thinks about it for a second and then says: "Okay,
why not?" "You're a management
consultant," says the shepherd. "Wow! How did you guess that," came the reply. "No
guessing required," answers the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody asked you to. You want to get paid
for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you know bugger-all about my business .
. . Now give me back my dog."
if you want to make a nice comment about my blog please e-mail me at cow@themoaningcow.com. Alternatively, if you violently disagree with what I have written or generally don't like the bovine thing, e-mail bull@themoaningcow.com.
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