Sunday, July 29, 2007

Not So Liberal Sweden?

Despite their countrymens reputation for open-mindedness and healthy outdoor living, the not-so-subtle subtext to the signpost at the beach showed the moral majority still held sway on the parish council of this particular Swedish coastal village.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

The US Army's latest toys

The US Army is developing a truck-mounted laser to destroy rockets, artillery shells and mortars.

But lasers are now toys

What's next ?

Maybe a tank-borne lava lamp to make enemy soldiers think the world is too groovy a place to waste time fighting?

Or a ship carring a van der graph generator to make enemy sailors hair stand on end?

Slim Vegetarians

Vegetarians are apparently slimmer than non-vegetarians.

My theory is this is not down to nutritional differences between meat and non-meat diets, but instead is due solely to the way we interact with take-away food.

After all, if you only order vegetarian options from a take-away, you will have none of those "eat me, eat me, you know you want me...." lumps of meat left in the plastic carton that you simply HAVE to pick at and eat them all rather than actually start to clear away after you have already over-stuffed yourself with the contents of a "that was probably one dish too many for the (insert number here) of us" delivery from your local Chinese/Indian/Thai restaurant.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Smoking Ban

The new smoking ban in the UK prevents smokers lighting up inside any permanent structure.



In the office where I work this means smokers now have to go downstairs, walk round the back of the building and stand in the open air to have a crafty fag.



This encouraging combination of exercise and fresh air means they may well end up more healthy than us non-smokers.



Thats just somehow wrong, isn't it?

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Severe Weather & Flooding in England & Wales

Flooding & severe weather has been lashing the UK this week.

All the news channels and papers have been giving it blanket coverage.

There are no shortage of images of people staying in sports centers and local schools.

You can access more pictures and more video of people returning to their sodden houses and pointing at their soaked posessions than you could need in a lifetime.



But one thing is missing.

These floods only seem to affect people who aren't famous.

There are no minor TV celebrities, Page 3 Stunnas, 2nd division footballers, mildly famous chefs or reality TV contestants wading through dead fish in their hallways.

There aren't even any not-particularly-close relatives of reality show contestants talking to The Sun about how their new Ps3 & 32 inch widescreen Plasma was ruined as "a torrent of water swept through their terraced house with a noise like thunder"

Is being flooded so embarassing that Max Clifford has some sort of bulk-deal going on with all the famous people in the UK to keep their sodden carpets off the front page of the Daily Star?

Or do all famous people live at the top of mountains?

Monday, July 16, 2007

Undercover Research

I just received an email that told me:

"Research has shown that your penis has the potential to grow to beyond its current size when fully erect"

Frankly I would have hoped that being the subject of this sort of research was the kind of thing I should have noticed...

Either they haven't actually carried out this research, or maybe instead I need to investigate some of the other products I am offered via email as well...?

Earthquake in Japan

Sky News reported today an earthquake in Japan measuring "5.6"

Presumably this was on the Richter scale, but even so, does anyone really know what "the Richter Scale" really means ?

My initial thought was that "5.6"sounds rather like the sort of scores given out by judges at international ice skating or diving competitions, or in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Based on this compelling evidence and insightful analysis, my guess is that the Richter scale is done in a similar manner, with a panel of leading international experts who review TV footage, assess damage reports and award marks for loss of life, damage to both landmark and general residential structures, and also a component of th emark being awarded for artisitic effect (how many bridges are swaying alarmingly, number of houses left teetering alarmingly on the edge of precipices etc etc).

These judges must be spread around the region - doing it globally would cause insurmountable problems with time differences - and so to end up with a "5.6", its highly probable the Japanese judge would have handed down a "6.3", but this would have been offset with the Korean's raditional low marking of Japanses quakes - perhaps a "4.7" ?

Unconfirmed reports say that some more competitive countries now hold earthquake training - where the population are taught to sway alarmingly en-mass and in synchronised fashion in order to score higher marks.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

East European Women - the Myth Explained

There is a widelyheld belief that women from any given East European country are all stunningly beautiful slavic-cheekboned houri.

A trip to Eastern Europe quickly confirms that this is not a description that is universally true

Maybe this discongruence arises from the fact that the vast majority of male visitors to eastern Europe are either:

1. 21-30 year old blokes on stag nights involving drinking large amounts
2. 40+ year old blokes on three week trips on behalf of midlands-based engineering companies, travelling on expenses and flogging widgets to run down ex soviet factories

During their visits to Eastern Europe, neither of these two groups are exactly psychologically (or phisiologically) in a position to evaluate female beauty from an objective perspective.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

NASCAR Hotel



In what conceivable alternative universe is being the official hotel of NASCAR a thing your average Marketing Director would want to sign up to be, never mind want to advertise .... ?