Wednesday, 30 October 2013

The chances of me seeing the same red haired dwarf three times in central London

I think they're too high, it must have been three different red-haired dwarfs, maybe triplets, it's the only explanation.

Wednesday, 23 October 2013

Boiling Vegetables

You take something that's 90% water and fill it with more water? How does that work? 

Sunday, 7 July 2013

Why we can't call Superman Superman

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's Superman!

-No wait, we can't call him Superman, that's sexist, we've got to call him Superperson.
-But we can't call him Superperson because he's an alien, we've got to call him Superalien.
-But then all the aliens are super, so he's just a normal alien.
-We can't call him an alien because that's racist...so he's just a normal...thing.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's a normal...........thing...

Saturday, 6 July 2013

How I got away with this as a GCSE mock English exam answer

My Life Lessons
By Sir Chucky Vandertramp

The sole fact of life is: with money and gumption you'll get far. Indeed my entire life has been testament to this great statement.
Born at the age of 0 into a family stricken with abject riches, I remember my father was so rich he was despairingly driven to unemployment and to drink (only Chateau la Fort 1863, of course). My mother was so rich she died of boredom in the summer of '69, having bought all the copies of "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen in existence. The 112th replay killed her. And so it came to pass that it was my mother's death that year that gave me the self-determination to leave home by myself and venture into the expansive world, in search of a better life. But this better life found me in the form of £200,000 a month allowance from my father. That was it, I'd made it. With nothing but my own willpower and just general gumption I'd made it on my own as a self made man.
But, just as Jesus found, enternal happiness (money) wasn't without a small price to pay... After investing all my hard earned cash in founding my very own chain of stores in the tar and feather business I found, owing to an abundance of supply and little or next to no demand, that no one actually gave a damn about tar and feathers. I filed for bankruptcy in my 30th year and was forced to live on the streets. It was during this depressing point in my life that I took some time to find myself (half an hour). Looking back now I can see that this probably wasn't the best idea as finding myself required rather a lot of crawling around in the sewers. During this failure I asked myself, "Who are you, Chucky Vandertramp? Did your mother die so that you could be up to your armpits in sewage?" I found myself bewildered at what I'd done, but I would change. The new age of Chucky dawned. No more swimming in sewage, no more taking things for granted, now Sir Chucky Vandertramp would fight.
The next morning I desperately staggered out of my poverty and finally stood up for myself. Tired, hungry and confused, I practically crawled back home and asked my father for another million.
Now, on my fleet of luxury cruise liners, I sail the world, diligently searching for those as rich as me to give them the charity and respite they need to escape the horrors of being ridiculously wealthy. Looking back on my life I can see it was these life lessons I've described, (my mother's death, my million, bankruptcy, my first million as a new man) that shaped me into the reformed angel that I am today. And it just goes to show that money and gumption (but mostly money) can get you wherever you want to be.

Signed: ChuckyVandertramp

Sunday, 28 April 2013

Friday, 26 April 2013

Fact #4

The word, 'melon', as in the fruit, originates from the original name 'Milan fruit', named after the city from which the melons originate. As the fruit became more widespread across the globe the name evolved as accents differed from Milan fruit, to just Milan, to millon, to melon. Fact.

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Why iTunes gets the album covers so horribly wrong

Normally I wouldn't mind when the 'automatically-download-artwork' feature in iTunes get's the wrong album cover. I mean  when it gives me the cover for 'Stevie Wonder: Greatest Hits' instead of 'Stevie Wonder: The Definitive Collection', it's not like I'm going to murder someone (much), I don't mind, it's not an issue.
Today however I thought that iTunes had taken it a step too far when I looked at my Jackson 5 album cover. It shows an orange cover, fine, a bunch of black guys dressed in white, yes, ok, they were black, almost, for a bit, most of them, still. But I had to look twice when I counted the number of men on the front to be six. Six men. Ok, that's fine, I've probably made a mistake. I check the artist, no, 'Jackson 5' it says, not 'Jackson 6'. Alright, maybe I typed it in wrong. TO THE INTERNET! Yep, no, definitely only five...
So, either the internet is wrong (hahaha, don't be stupid) or there was a sixth Jackson brother. Yes, that sounds plausible, probably called Jeff, who they kept in the attic and fed him on fish heads. But one night he manages to escape, brush the fish-heads off and dress himself in a white suit to suddenly photo-bomb the 5's next album shoot. And everyone knows the Jackson family can't count, so no one noticed...Until now!
...Or iTunes just got the cover wrong. Meh, I'm sure I can still sell that story to the tabloids.

Oh here's another one: so I have a song from the soundtrack to 'The Hills', nice MTV reality show and iTunes gives me the album cover to 'The Hills Run Red', nice ultra-violent spaghetti western...

Saturday, 13 April 2013

The Penny

I gave a penny to a boy
Who spent it on a wooden toy.

The boy that he had bought it from
Had been saving for a plastic gun.

The toy seller kept a penny from this profit
Which rolled down a drain when I dropped it.

The penny was chipped but still intact
Until eaten by a hungry rat.

The rat it ran out onto the street
To be flattened by a passing jeep.

The rat rotted and was washed away
But the penny remained until one day

A passer by picked it up
Crying, "Ooh, now I have good luck!"

Forgetting he was in the street
And was flattened by another jeep.

The penny it rolled through the town
Into a river to drown.

Where it was eaten by a fish.

The fish was caught
And the fisherman thought

"What a lovely meal
This will be for us all."

His family of five
Ate the fish to find

The daughter with a sore tooth
And a penny in her mouth.

She said it was lucky
And put it on a shelf for all to see.

Years later she left
And her parents thought it best

To sell the house,
Move somewhere else
And sit out the rest.

Today I am excited
To move into the house I've always wanted.

As I peer round the door
There, on the floor,

A copper coin staring back at me,
A flash in my memory,

But oh no, I forgot it
And slip the penny into my pocket.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Why tipping up crisp packets always goes horribly wrong

You know the situation; you’re happily enjoying a packet of crisps, peacefully munching away. Then towards the end of the packet, HELL ITSELF UNFOLDS. You straighten out one edge of the packet and gradually raise one corner to your mouth to allow those final unreachable crumbs to slide onto your waiting tongue. BUT! You failed to flatten the edge of the packet causing the crumbs to get stuck. Unable to see  what calamities are occurring right under your nose  you foolishly shake the packet, to get those last crumbs and spray salt and vinegar in your eyes.
Ok, perhaps you're not quite that malcoordinated, but perhaps you are the person who still has quite a few large crisps at the bottom but becomes impatient and greedily begins this idiotic process early, causing the large crisps to fall and cut your lip. Maybe I’m just incredibly clumsy, maybe I’m the only one stupid enough to partially blind myself during a simple act of consuming crisps. Besides all this, be damned those people who, upon finishing their packets, tear it open into one flat sheet which they then lick up any remaining content until clean.
Ow! I just bit my lip, I suppose that will teach me to chew gum...but the pain has subsided and I’m still chewing.
Does that make me a liar or a hypocrite?
Where am I?
Ah, yes crisps, I like crisps, so why do they taunt me so?

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Fact #3:

Ok, get this:

Cheer-leaders...right, ok, 'cheer-leaders', got that, right....Are there...ok...to lead the cheer.

I know right! Who would have thought it!

Monday, 8 April 2013

Versatile, like a fish.

Fact #2:

Paintings of people from 't'olden days' look really ugly because the painters deliberately made them look bad so that the paintings wouldn't outshine the real version. Take for example this hag:



Who actually looked like this:












The latter painting, a later portrait of the same woman, is an example of the 'Attractivist' movement established in an attempt to increase gallery admittance.

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Friday, 15 March 2013

Fear, Love and Understanding

My life changed in an instant
One bleak winter’s morning
A man rose onto a wooden box
To tell his story.
Many just walked by him
And why should they care?
The old man smiled at me,
The only one to stop and stare

He spread his arms out,
To a world that wasn’t listening
Ready to embrace them,
Forgiven for all that they were missing.
He spoke of all the world’s problems
In one simple phrase:
“Fear, love and understanding,
Are the words that you should praise
For fear keeps us orderly
And understanding keeps us sane
Love drives us onward
To do the things we do
And a slight imbalance of the three
Could split the world in two.
Fear love and understanding.
Understand love and fear.
Love fear and understanding.
Hold these three words dear
For these are the workings of all life
Without them the world is unclear”

I just gaped in awe, dumbstruck
That this man knew so much.
I gawped and blinked,
He smiled and winked.
I began skipping down the street,
Crying to people I did meet,
“Love one another,
Understand your neighbour,
Don’t fear what you don’t understand
But try to understand it better”
Most people turned and walked away,
Others shrieked and ran,
Because did not know these three words
They didn’t understand.
I told everybody that I knew
Of the world’s simple rule,
Though they just laughed
And told me I was a fool.

I travelled all around the world
Searching for someone who understood.
Eventually I settled down
And wrote my tale into a book.
My book made a fortune
And finally the world knew:
Fear, love and understanding
Would help this world pull through.
Governments changed their policies
To love and understand,
People helped strangers in the street
And held out a welcoming hand.

Years later I went back to the street
Where I first heard the old man preach.
The street had not changed one bit,
Except it was empty and bleak.
The wooden box had not moved,
Yet bore no speaker,
Only a copy of my book,
“Love, understand and fear”
I looked straight up towards the heavens,
Thankful I’d just stopped
And
Listened
To discover something that the others had not.

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Nerds

I pose a new definition: 'a person committed to the perfection of unreality'.... Let me know if that's wrong. That's probably a more romantic version what is a derogatory term, but I guess a nerd is someone who spends there time in another world. That drive to perfect what is not real is another aspect as it is seemingly pointless to an outsider. Perhaps my definition is what nerds do, but is it what nerds are? I mean, everyone strives to perfect something that isn't really real, from athletes to architects, is that not the basic human drive within us all? Thus perhaps we are all nerds for our particular hobbies, or maybe just those strongly persistent... I don't know, my head hurts.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Words which aren’t themselves

Some words simply aren’t the things that they are describing, for example:
An adjective is a noun.
letter is a word
Palindrome backwards is emordnilap
An oxymoron does not contradict itself (unless it actually means bull-like idiot)
Unusual is a very common word
A well know word to most English speakers is unfamiliar
A pillow is a rather sharp word, why each letter could easily take your eye out, except maybe the “o” I would happily sleep on that
Native is an immigrant to this language from Latin
A door is occasionally a jar
Breakeven will not divide equally
One word is not one word (then maybe it shouldn’t be on this list of one words)
Smelly doesn’t smell
Abbreviation is a long word
If random was random it would be spelt rd42yfghj

However turn of phrase is a turn of phrase.

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

Oh no! I think I'm blind!

I should see a doctor.

Your Mum

No, no, no. I’m not insulting you, I don’t get your mum jokes. Well I do, they’re just not funny. Some say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, it’s not, sarcasm is the highest form of wit...compared to adding the words your mum to the end of everything you say. I was first introduced to the wonderful world of your mum at about the age of 11, when I told an Aussie, “You’re stupid.” To which he instantly snapped back, “Your mum’s stupid.” “What? No she’s not.” “Nah, mate. It’s an Australian joke. When someone says something, you say “your mum.” And when someone says your mum to you, you say “your face.” and someone says your face, you say “your dog.” And when someone says your dog you say “your dog’s face.” And when someone says your dog’s face you say “your mum’s dog’s face” and then when someone says...” then he sort of trailed off as all his wit had dried up. Within a week the entire school was replying to every insult with “your aunt’s dog’s mum’s cat’s face” or the like. The phrase is no longer a weak come back but now a universal joke, to which everything is unhelpfully replied to with a “your mum” and a snigger. But now thankfully the joke is going out of fashion as people are quite rightly getting tired of it and people have discovered the best come back to a “your mum” joke is a short, sharp fist to the face.

Update: I wrote the above quite a while ago it now seems your mum has been thankfully eradicated from the earth, or perhaps I've just grown up so my ears have learnt to block out your mum and let in classical music.

Thursday, 7 March 2013

Friday, 1 March 2013

Moody

So my Skype just asked me what my mood was. Ok, it didn't but it gave me the option to write my mood and always being bad at describing my mood,  my first thought was to write 'mood', but that didn't make sense... So then I wanted to right 'moody' because that would be funny, 'mood: moody', but then I realised that it wasn't funny. So then I thought, 'Why does moody mean to be in a bad mood?'. Surely to be 'moody' would simply to be in a mood, or 'mood-like' (mood-like? that makes no sense... how can you be like a mood?). Therefore if you are in any mood, which is all the time, unless you are emotionless, as even nonchalance (love that word, just about know what it means) is a state of emotion, then you are 'moody'. Why then is moody presuming that you are in a negative mood? Does that say something about the human condition that the extreme is presumed to be towards the negative? Either way, I don't understand.