Has anyone elses’ world ended yet? Mayan hasn’t! BOOM!!!!!
Category Archives: Trivia
Time for bed Zebedee?
Swindon is a town with a reputation for stupidity when it comes to town planning and their roads in general. You need look no further than the unimaginatively named “Magic Roundabout” which was constructed in 1972 and consists of five mini-roundabouts arranged around a sixth central, anti-clockwise roundabout. In one opinion poll in 2005 it was voted the worst roundabout in Britain and then in 2009 in another poll it was voted the fourth scariest junction in Britain. However the up-side is that the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an excellent safety record, since traffic moves too slowly to do serious damage in the event of a collision.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the local council are now under fire because of their latest initiative – a campaign to stop people illegally parking in alleyways. Bungling contractors have painted yellow lines down a narrow alleyway, leaving a gap of just 33cm in between them. The tiny alleyway itself is just 4 feet wide – too narrow for a car!
And the council’s excuse? A spokesperson apparently said: ‘It seems that our contractors forgot just how big cars actually are when they painted this one.”
Oh well, that’s alright then? No doubt the Council Tax payers of Swindon are delighted that their money is so well spent … BOING!!!!!
Make no bones about it
Car Parks are very much in the news at the moment.
Last Thursday workers at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station blocked off an area of the parking compound ready for resurfacing work. When they turned up for work the following morning however, a Mercedes had parked in the middle of the cordoned-off area. Undeterred, the crew dug up the surface all around the dark blue car. Workers did build a tiny ramp in front of the car to allow its owner to drive away on his or her return, but at the time of writing there is no news that the obviously embarrassed driver had reclaimed their vehicle.
And today it has been confirmed that a skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park is that of English King Richard III. The skeleton has revealed that he suffered from severe scoliosis and although around 5ft 8in tall (1.7m), the condition meant he would have stood significantly shorter and his right shoulder may have been higher than the left. Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch’s family. Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley told a press conference to applause: “Beyond reasonable doubt it’s Richard.”
Which brings me to one of my favourite car parking jokes:
Q: What do men and parking spaces have in common?
A: The good ones are always taken and the free ones are either very small or handicapped. BOOM!!!!!
Should have worn a belt!
And so to my picture of the day!
Here is a photograph of a masked protester in Egypt, caught quite literally with his trousers down yesterday as he hurled rocks at riot police in clashes near Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
I do not condone the violence in any way – I just wanted to show how this ridiculous trend of wearing low-slung jeans can have the most embarrassing of consequences, namely his picture splashed across websites and newspapers worldwide – at least it looks as though his blue boxer shorts are clean, his mum will be so proud!!!
Hashtag #hashtag
So it’s official! Hashtag has been voted ‘word of the year’ by the American Dialect Society.
While the word has been around for decades, hashtags initially became popular on Twitter, where users would put them within tweets to make a larger comment or joke. From there, it spread onto Facebook and everyday speech and a tipping point came when the only three words used on the cover of Newsweek magazine’s final print issue were preceded by a hashtag, making the cross over from web to print complete.
Twitter hashtags are a great way to organize tweets for common subjects or events, but people also use them as a way to connect to others over a good laugh. Once the twitterverse starts putting in their two cents, you get crowd-sourced, viral comedy. I’ve put together what I think are five of the funniest hashtag PR disasters that I’m sure will make you laugh:
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#Susanalbumparty: Susan Boyle’s PR people are probably wishing they had re-read their promotional hashtag after missing its alternative message to Twitter users. Causing great mirth on the social network, the unfortunate hashtag spawned a deluge of mock invites to the party until it was hastily renamed #SusanBoylesAlbumParty.
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#McDStories: Back in January, McDonald’s #McDStories hashtag backfired when instead of offering “good news stories” about the fast-food chain, users began flooding the tag with claims of fingernails in burgers and other nasties.
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#WaitroseReasons: When the supermarket asked shoppers to complete the sentence: “I shop at Waitrose because …” using the hashtag #WaitroseReasons in September, it perhaps should have expected the subsequent tirade of jokes about the brand’s posh image – though many have said the way Waitrose responded turned the campaign from disaster to success.
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#MadeMeSmile: Vodafone was left bemused when Twitter users redeployed the PR #mademesmile tag to publish tax avoidance allegations directly to the company’s website.
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#QantasLuxury: Airline Qantas won the accolade of PR disaster of the year at the end of 2011 after opening up their promotional hashtag #QantasLuxury at a time when thousands of passengers were stranded overseas.
Purists will of course say that hashtag isn’t in fact a word but a symbol (like exclamation mark or question mark) and that the real name for this symbol is octothorpe – not quite as catchy though is it?
Celebrity Stalkers?
I always thought that the reason I preferred to buy new-build properties was because I rather liked the idea of no-one having used any of the facilities before me. A blank canvas which I can then make my own with colours and textures and creative thinking. It looks as though I was wrong! I must have decided on this course of action to prevent previous occupants turning up, uninvited and unannounced, wanting to look round my humble abode and then making a cheeky offer to buy the property back from me!
Yes folks, this has actually happened and the culprit, none other than Hollywood actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins! The star arrived at the semi-detached home in Port Talbot (his childhood home) in a chauffeur-driven car with his wife and two bodyguards, and asked if he could look around. The bemused couple invited the actor and his group inside and he stayed for 30 minutes, posing for pictures before asking if the home was for sale.
The owners apparently admitted to being a little starstruck but pleased he’d had the opportunity to revisit the place he was born. I’m not sure I’d have been so amenable had I opened the door to find Hannibal Lecter standing on my doorstep – some fava beans and a nice Chianti anyone?????
Cheap Flights?
So now that the Christmas period is over and we’re all gradually returning to work, the thing we normally look forward to is the next holiday. If you’re thinking of looking for a good online deal, remember – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is! Take a look at this video and you’ll know exactly what I mean if you’ve ever booked to fly with one of the budget airlines!
A word of warning though, some readers may find some of the language offensive!
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys have prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mount Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 14 years to get that many views.
Mine’s a large one!
My favourite news story of the day …
Two elephants have been saved from the deadly Siberian cold by drinking vodka, Russian officials are reported as saying. Apparently the animals (which belonged to a Polish circus that had been touring the region) had to be taken out into the bitter cold after the wooden trailer they were travelling in caught fire in the Novosibirsk region. The elephants, aged 45 and 48, suffered frostbite to the tips of their ears amid temperatures of minus 40C, but they were warmed up by two cases of vodka mixed with warm water. The animals continued their recovery in a heated garage of a local college where they were brought by a truck under police escort.
Like with humans, alcohol can make animals feel warmer but it actually lowers their core body temperature, scientists say. But Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper quoted Novosibirsk zoo director Rostislav Shilo as saying that the elephants were not harmed or intoxicated by the vodka, and that without it they would have died of hypothermia or pneumonia.
So you’ll have to excuse me while I nip across to Tesco to buy myself a bottle of Smirnoff to ward off the freezing temperatures here in Glasgow, though I’ll be taking mine with tonic instead of water – purely medicinal of course!!!
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