More things that don't go well together

A modest proposal

The Celtic Tiger may be in the process of being stuffed and mounted on an IMF wall but it looks as if at least that humour has not been extinguished.. yet. This is a letter that was published last week in the Irish Independent. The author surely had their tongue firmly planted in their cheek

DEAR Your Majesty,

On behalf of the people of Ireland I beseech you to take our little country back into the bosom of your realm and provide us with succour in our most dire hour of need.

Please ignore our complaining ad nauseam about 800 years of colonialism, your dodgy imperial past, your overrated football, cricket and rugby teams and all our unkind utterances about your wonderful family

Let me just remind you that we remain steadfast in our obsession with all things English: your gift to the world that is the English language, most of the world's major sports, your Premiership football teams, your soap operas, your musical genres, your high-street shopping -- not to mention that system of law for which we remain eternally grateful.

Nobody loves us any more, hardly anybody will lend us money and those that will actually want it back and with interest. Our politicians have been shown to be no more than a bunch of chancers and clowns who are about to bankrupt us all while they merely take a cut in expenses.

Everybody is laughing at us and showering us all with pity, which only used to happen during Eurovision or on 'The Late Late Show'.

If you could just bring yourself to offload a few of those jewels that you hardly ever wear and throw a few billion this way, we would ensure that street parties across the land will be held in the wake of your visit, which we barely deserve.

The country is already in raptures at the announcement of your grandson's engagement to some bird from Berkshire.

Of course, no other country in the civilised world would have saddled its citizenry with decades of hardship by bailing out its wastrel banks with billions of euro that it couldn't afford.
But the difference is. . . we're Irish.

Hmm perhaps Cobh will revert to Queenstown. Dum Laoghaire will go back to being Kingstown,. Laois and Offaly will be Queen’s and King’s County again.

If this happens in time then there is a good chance of an extra bank holiday for the upcoming royal wedding!

An apocryphal tale for Halloween

From the About Urban Legends newsletter. Utter pish of course but still funny!

Police arrested Patrick Lawrence, a 22-year-old white male, resident of Dacula, GA, in a pumpkin patch at 11:38 p.m. Friday. Lawrence will be charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, public indecency, and public intoxication at the Gwinnett County courthouse on Monday.

The suspect allegedly stated that as he was passing a pumpkin patch, he decided to stop. "You know, a pumpkin is soft and squishy inside, and there was no one around here for miles. At least I thought there wasn't," he stated in a phone interview from the jail.

Lawrence went on to state that he pulled over to the side of the road, picked out a pumpkin that he felt was appropriate to his purposes, cut a hole in it, and proceeded to satisfy his alleged "need." "I guess I was just really into it, you know?" he commented with evident embarrassment.

In the process, Lawrence apparently failed to notice the Gwinnett County police car approaching and was unaware of his audience until officer Brenda Taylor approached him. "It was an unusual situation, that's for sure," said officer Taylor. "I walked up to (Lawrence) and he's...just working away at this pumpkin."

Taylor went on to describe what happened when she approached Lawrence. "I just went up and said, 'Excuse me sir, but do you realize that you are screwing a pumpkin?' He got real surprised, as you'd expect, and then looked me straight in the face and said, "A pumpkin? Damn...is it midnight already?"

On a lighter note - the Metric Resistance

From The Big Fat Whale

Well they amused me

Stolen from, err I mean hat tip to the Huffington Post (where there are plenty more funny headlines)via the Fortean Times

Okay so it’s an urban legend but still funny

According to the urban legend English teachers from across USA submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These are then published each year to the amusement of teachers.

Here are some of the purported winners from last year

• Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

• He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

• She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

• McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

• From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

• The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

• Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

• He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

• Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

• The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

• The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

• The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

• It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

Even if they aren’t from where they are said to come from, they are still very amusing!

Women Keep your virtue!

What truly powers the internet

Well according to Joel Veitch anyway

Diddled by a Kakapo

I just could not resist posting this. I wet myself laughing when I saw this on a programme caled "Last Chance To See" on BBC2 a oouple of weeks ago. It's that look of aparent delight on the Kakapo's face which cracks me up while Stephen Fry's mellifluous tones are always a delight to hear.

H1Z1 virus reaches Colchester?

Further to earlier news there are reports that a sign in Colchester is warning motorists to turn back, leading to fears that an outbreak of H1Z1 has now occurred there.

The sign on Brentwod Drive was put up to warn drivers of construction work ahead. The sign now reads "Turn Back!!!!!" "Swine Flu" and "Zombie Invasion!!!!!!!" and on three rotating messages.

Flu virus mutation reported

It would seem that the worst case scenario of the most pessimistic doomsayer has been exceeded following news reports of a dangerous mutation of the H1N1 virus.

The mutated virus, named H1Z1, is able to restart the heart of its victim for up to two hours after the initial demise where the individual behaves in extremely violent ways from what is believe to be a combination of brain damage and a chemical released into blood during “resurrection.”

H1Z1 was first identified in Mexico, the epicentre of the Swine Flu outbreak, but now it has spread to the UK leading to a small outbreak of “zombism”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the alert to phase six, its highest level, and advised governments to activate pandemic contingency plans. In Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, President Felipe Calderon urged people to stay at home over the next five days. There are many cases elsewhere - including the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Israel, and New Zealand.

BBC health correspondent Mark McGrith says the raising of the WHO alert on Wednesday suggests a global epidemic, or pandemic, is imminent.

In the latest developments:

• The Netherlands confirms its first case of zombie swine flu, in a three-year-old boy recently returned from Mexico. After passing away early this morning, he rose from the dead and lunged at his mother.
• China's health minister says that the country's scientists have developed a "sensitive and fast" test for spotting swine flu in conjunction with US scientists and the WHO. The country has recorded no incidence of the flu yet. There methods, however, have been ineffective in spotting the H1Z1 strain.

At the meeting of health ministers in Luxembourg, a French proposal for a continent-wide travel advisory for Mexico will be discussed. It is unclear whether the EU executive has the power to impose a travel ban. Other members are resisting calls to implement travel bans or close borders, on the grounds - backed by the WHO - that there is little evidence of their efficacy.
The EU ministers will also try to agree on how to refer to the new virus. The European Commission has been calling it "novel flu", replacing the word "swine" to avoid prompting a fall in demand for pork and bacon.



Stop Press: Our local radio station has just announced that the first case of H1Z1 has been reported in Havering, Last night a young man with a vacant stare (photo above) was found to be acting violently outside the Fool and Firkin in the market place. He was taken to Oldchurch hospital where the virus was found. The is now in isolation. A spokesman for the hospital that identification of H1Z1 sufferers in Romford may be difficult as many people normally act in a violent and uncoordinated manner.

Humour test

Your result for The 3 Variable Funny Test...

the Shock Jock

(67% dark, 42% spontaneous, 42% vulgar)

your humor style:
VULGAR | SPONTANEOUS | DARK



Your sense of humor is off-the-cuff and kind of gross. Is it is also
sinister, cynical, and vaguely threatening to the purer folks of this
world. You probably get off on that. You would cut a greasy fart, then blame it on your mom, and then just shrug when someone pointed out that she's dead.



Yours is hands-down the most outrageous sense of humor; you like things
trangressive and hardcore. It's highly likely (a) you have no limits (b) you have no scruples and (c) you have no job. Ironically, it's your type of humor that can make the biggest bucks in show business.



PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Howard Stern - Adam Sandler - Roseanne Barr




The 3-Variable Funny Test!
- it rules -

Take The 3 Variable Funny Test at HelloQuizzy

Hmm the not wife would call my sense of humour puerile and vulgar... Not sure I like the comparison to Stern, Sandler and Barr though!but there you go... certainly not clean!

H/t to Colin Campbell for this one

Sili but not Silly: some Iranian humour!

Sili means Slap. The link was sent to me by the talented expatriate Iranian photographer (and doctor) Azadeh Tahaei. I thought it was funny. I hope others agree!

A Nasreddin Hoca story

While on a trip to another village, Nasrudin lost his favorite copy of the Qur'an.

Several weeks later, a goat walked up to Nasrudin, carrying the Qur'an in its mouth.

Nasrudin couldn't believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the goat's mouth, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, "It's a miracle!"

"Not really," said the goat. "Your name is written inside the cover."

British triumph at the Ig Nobels

It is with great pleasure to report that two Britons have joined the august list of Ig Nobel Prize winners.

David Sims of the Cass Business School in London, whose paper You Bastard: A narrative exploration of the experience of indignation within organisations, won the literature prize, said: "I'm delighted. The whole ethos of the Ig Nobels is a wonderful way to make people think." The paper examines how people construct roles as clever bastards, devious bastards or bastard ex machina, and goes on to examine the mixture of joy and guilt of labelling someone as such.

Sims wrote the paper after puzzling how right-thinking people who often stressed the importance of appreciating others' arguments would give up and brand someone a bastard. "We are all novelists writing the next chapter of our life story and with bastards, we need to understand what kind of character they are trying to create," Sims said.

Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, was awarded the Ig for nutrition for his investigation into the gastronomical role of sound. In the study, volunteers ate crisps of varying freshness while wearing headphones. As they ate, the sound of the crisp breaking was modified by a computer and played back to see if it changed their perception of the crisp's freshness. By making the crunch sounds louder, or by boosting the high frequencies, Spence made people rate the crisps 15% fresher.

The work led to collaboration with Heston Blumenthal at the Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, who played diners the sound of crashing waves to improve the flavour of oysters, and sizzling bacon to enhance his egg and bacon ice cream. "I'm very happy to be receiving the award," said Spence, who is now testing why crisps come in such noisy packets.

The Igs have become an irreverent highlight of the academic calendar, an annual exercise to celebrate research that makes people laugh first and think later. They are timed to coincide with the rather more lucrative and legitimate Nobels, which are awarded in Stockholm next week. The ceremony is hosted by the tongue-in-cheek journal, Annals of Improbable Research, and is attended by real Nobel prize-winners and a 1,000-strong audience. This year's recipients were given 60 seconds to deliver their acceptance speech, a time limit enforced by an eight-year-old girl.

The Ig Nobel prize for medicine was awarded to Dan Ariely at Duke University in North Carolina for a landmark study proving that costly placebos are more effective than cheap ones. Ariely's team told volunteers they were being given a new kind of painkiller, with some receiving an expensive one and others a much cheaper version.

Even though all of them received the same sugar pills, those who thought their pills were more expensive reported less pain when they were given small electric shocks. Arierly said his work has serious implications for the medical industry, because many patients are told they can only have cheaper drugs, or have inexpensive-looking medication, which could undermine how effective the drugs are. While the active ingredients of the drug will help treat symptoms, often they work in tandem with the placebo effect, which triggers the body's own healing mechanisms.

Among other winners were the people of Switzerland who claimed the Ig Peace prize for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity; Geoffrey Miller at the University of New Mexico who won the economics prize for showing lap dancers received more in tips when they were ovulating; and scientists in San Diego who showed that hair, string and almost anything else will become tangled given the chance, earning them the Ig award for physics. Spare a thought also for the Chemistry prize winners: to Sharee Umpierre at the University of Puerto Rico discovered that Coke is a spermicide, while Chuang-Ye Hong at Taipei Medical University showed that it is not. Meanwhile Astolfo Mello Araujo at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil wone the Archaeology prize for measuring how the contents of an archaeological dig can be disrupted by the actions of an armadillo.

Not all of the winners understood why their work had made people laugh. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, who won the prize for biology by proving the fleas on dogs jump higher than those on cats, said: "Despite appearing funny and maybe crazy and useless to some people, this was part of a larger work on the biology of fleas ... A better knowledge of flea biology can provide a better control and therefore help vets, pet owners and overall our favourite pets."

Toshiyuki Nakagaki at Hokkaido University in Japan was similarly nonplussed about receiving the Ig award for cognitive neuroscience, after showing that slime mould could navigate a simple maze. "I was wondering which aspect of our research attracted the Ig Nobel prize. How does the prize evaluate our research? We are always serious and don't know why they laugh once before thinking," Nakagaki said.

A pearl of wisdom from Nasreddin

"Nasreddin, is your religion orthodox?" "It all depends," said Nasreddin, "on which bunch of heretics is in power."

Well it amused me!

Nasreddin

British humour is in the genes? Shurely shome joke?

It would appear that the British have a talent for caustic satire and painful put-downs may in fact have a hereditary basis: A survey of more than 4,000 twins suggests that humour regarded as typically British – sarcasm and self-deprecation – is linked to genes found in British men and women, but not shared, for instance, by Americans (surely they jest?).

While telling jokes and looking on the bright side of life – which researchers dubbed positive humour – is common to both sides of the Atlantic, only in the UK did they discover genetic links with negative humour – biting sarcasm and teasing. Experts admit that the results have left them baffled. "It is possible that differences exist between these nations in their sense of humour and that these may be the result of different genetic and environmental influences," said Dr Rod Martin, one of the researchers.

He highlighted the difference between Ricky Gervais's dreadful character David Brent and his much less embarrassing US counterpart played by Steve Carell. "The British may have a greater tolerance for a wide range of expressions of humour, including what many Americans might consider aggressively sarcastic or denigrating: like Fawlty Towers and Blackadder. In the North American version of The Office the lead character is much less insensitive and intolerant than in the original UK version," he added.

The study looked at genetic and environmental contributions to humour in nearly 2,000 pairs of UK twins. A second US study examined the humour of 500 sets of North American twins. The results revealed that positive humour – saying funny things, telling jokes, a humorous outlook on life – was linked to genes and was shared by twins in the UK and US. However, negative humour – teasing and ridicule – appeared to be genetically linked only in Britain.

Dr Martin, from the University of Western Ontario, said the aim was to find out whether humour has a genetic basis. "In North American families, there was a genetic basis to positive humour, but negative humour seems to be entirely learned. Growing up in a family where negative humour was practised was important in the development of that sense of humour. "In the UK, both positive and negative styles had a genetic basis in the sample. The genetic basis to negative humour in the UK was close to 50 per cent. Certainly in the UK, TV humour is more biting, whereas in North America it tends to be blander. One theory is that these styles of humour are associated with other personality traits that probably have a genetic basis. Self-defeating humour tends to be highly correlated with neuroticism. People who tend to be more negative, depressed and anxious tend to use that kind of humour."

A genetic link to humour? Is the scientist having a laugh? Is the “My dog has no nose” joke hard wired into our DNA? Do we have a primal urge when two or more are gathered to recite the Parrot sketch? Or should he have stuck to the Biochemists’ song book? (I can assure everyone that I never purchased a copy of this book when a Physiology and Biochemistry undergraduate way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth)

Can you tell the difference between a computer programmer and a serial killer?

I know it's an oldie but it's still fun. Try it here. On the whole they look the same to me. I only got 5/10!

I think the h/t is due to Snoopy

Children's books you'll never see

Lots more wonderful covers here at Somethingawful.com

Look, Listen and Take Heed - Women Know Your Limits!

Harry Enfield could always be hit and miss. This was one of his sketches that the not-wife and particularly enjoyed.