Category Archives: Crazy World

The Death of Common Sense

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A while ago a mock obituary travelled the internet on the death of Common Sense. Below is this Blog’s edited and condensed version –

“Today we mourn the passing of our old friend Common Sense whose true age was never established due to the disappearance of his birth certificate in a tidal wave of bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered for such valuable lessons as, life isn’t always fair and, maybe it was my fault. He lived by simple, sound financial policies such as don’t spend more than you earn and the reliable family strategy that adults, and not children, are in charge.

His health began to deteriorate when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. He declined further as criminals received better treatment than their victims, such decline becoming terminal when citizens could no longer defend themselves against burglars although those same burglars could sue the home owner for assault.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, his brother, Responsibility, and his sister, Reason.

He is survived by his 5 stepbrothers, I Know My Rights (but not my responsibilities), I Want It Now (but I’m not prepared to work for it), Someone Else Is To Blame (certainly not me), I’m A Victim (every time), Pay me for Doing Nothing (let someone else do it).

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.”

As they say, there’s many a truth spoke in jest.

This blog is the last for Common Sense for a while, maybe ever, who knows? (or cares – Ed). Thank you to all who took the trouble to read it over the last 5 years.

Naked Dining

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There’s been a fair bit of publicity recently about London’s first “naked restaurant”, a place called Binyadi, where diners, waited on by naked servers, strip off to eat their food. It’s certainly generated a lot of interest with 40,000 people said to be on the waiting list, so the owners are clearly on to something.

Is this an indication of our further descent into voyeuristic and perverted decadence or just a bit of fun? The owners seem to take it pretty seriously though with talk of opening your mind and liberating yourself. Mind you, I think I’d take it seriously too if I had that many customers.

What of the practicalities however? How do you stop things from falling into your food? What do you do if you’ve been handling hot chillies? What if you spill some hot soup? All these things would bother me, although evidently the food is raw and uncooked and you eat with your fingers so there’s no problem with the soup after all.

On another level, how are you going to concentrate on nibbling your olives if you take a fancy to the waiter/waitress/one of the other diners? How embarrassing could that be? Is that a courgette under your napkin or are just pleased to see me? Perhaps they could have an area annexed to the dining room called the “Rutting Room” where people could slink off at opportune moments.

I, for one, can’t really see what all the fuss is about, doesn’t everybody eat naked in the privacy of their own home anyway? Oh. Well, this could be a good business opportunity for some. Round our way, they would probably have to name the place “Porkers”, due more to the potential clientele than the cuisine! Oh blimey, I think I’ve just lost my appetite.

Dealing with Spam

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I recently received one of those regular internet requests to help some African bloke invest his $20 million inheritance. To enable me to receive one half of this windfall all I needed to do was send some personal information including, obviously, my bank details. Rather than ignore it as usually do, I thought I would try a different approach, so I replied –

“No thank you, but please feel free to contact my business partner, Mr M. Mouse at www.disneyworldflorida.com. Best of luck, Donald (Duck, not Trump)”

Another one to consider would be –

“Oh, how wonderful! Yes please. I love Nigeria and have such wonderful memories of your country – my favourite (former) colony. My details are as follows – Bank of England, A/C Holder Elizabeth Windsor, Sort code 11 11 11 A/C No. 1111111111. Please access the account with my blessing.”

As for unsolicited phone calls, instead of just putting the phone down try something different

“Hello, hello, hello? I can’t hear anybody, I wonder if they can hear me …. Hello, hello…..Hello, hello……..Bloody hell, there’s no bugger there!” Then put the phone down.

Or,“Oh I’m so glad you called, I’ve been hoping to speak to somebody about my traffic accident/mis-sold insurance but I’m a little busy at the moment. Could you please call back tomorrow” (Repeat as necessary).

If you really want to freak them out, “Bless you my child. I’ve been expecting your call. You have been directed to me by the Lord. Have you found Jesus? Let me tell you how to bring Him into your life” – Pause – “Sorry, hello, hello…………..”

Silly, I know, but it helps brighten the day!

Art or Science?

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I was watching a cookery programme the other day and I couldn’t help but think how absurd the world of dining has become and how something relatively straightforward has been raised almost to the level of a science.

How expressions are bandied about like “haute cuisine”, “fine dining” and goodness knows what else. How people will pay a fortune to dine in a place (and then usually brag about it) where your meal is presented with artistic squiggles and collages as though it were an exhibit by Picasso or Salvador Dali. Are you supposed to eat it, photograph it or maybe take it home and put it with your other priceless works of art? Never mind all that, what does it bloody taste like?

Just as it is with wine, music or art, the degustation and delectation is entirely subjective and personal. If the meal, wine, music or artistic piece pleases you nothing else matters. The chances are that somebody else will disagree with you anyway, preferring their own favoured alternative.

And that’s the point, that’s fine, never mind anybody else, how do you feel about it? Don’t rabbit on about it like you’ve discovered a long lost city of the Aztecs, just enjoy it and let the rest of us enjoy what we want without fear of criticism or contradiction. I may not like it but you do and that should be an end to the matter.

Triple Tragedy

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Over the weekend a 22 year old man stripped his clothes off and then, fully naked, threw himself into the lions’ enclosure at a zoo in Santiago, Chile. The lions responded in a predictable manner and as a result two of them, a male and a female, were shot dead. The man, who had left a suicide note with his clothes, is being treated in hospital for “serious injuries”.

This is so sad on a number of levels. Firstly, that a human being (particularly a young human being) felt so desperate that he attempted to take his own life.

Secondly, that he did it in such a way that two magnificent beasts were killed because of the method he chose.

Thirdly, why do we continue to keep animals in captivity, depriving them of a natural life, just so that we can look at them from behind bars?

Un Pervert

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The French Finance Minister, Michel Sapin, is at the centre of a storm for allegedly twanging a female journalist’s knicker elastic in public – a bit like an over-excited 11 year old schoolboy might do to a female classmate at junior school.

Apparently, the late-middle aged Monsieur Sapin has a bit of a reputation as “un pervert” and the received wisdom among lady journalists is “Don’t dare pick up a pen in front of him”. In this particular instance a female journalist did just that, prompting Old Sappy to say (and this is probably best imagined as spoken in a Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau voice) “Ah, but what have we here?” before he leaned forward and pulled on the exposed under garment.

He initially denied it all, as he would, threatening claims for libel against anybody who dared print the allegations, but then mysteriously changed his tune stating “I made a comment to a female journalist about her clothing while placing my hand on her back”. Ah, right.

He went on to add, “There was no sexist or aggressive intent in my action”, and he was sorry. Really? So if it wasn’t sexist does that mean that he would behave in a similar fashion if a male journalist bent down in front of him exposing the top of his boxer shorts?

What a jerk and what a coward to boot. Like any politician, whether he’s caught with his hand in the till or in somebody’s underwear he is only sorry for the fact that he’s been caught out and nothing else.

If you’re going to behave like a crook or a pervert and you are caught out bang to rights at least have the guts to hold your hands up and admit to it rather than dig yourself an even deeper hole by coming out with an explanation so ridiculous that even the aforementioned 11 year old schoolboy would find laughable.

Unfair Stereotype?

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Greater Manchester Police were forced to make a formal apology earlier this week after carrying out a realistic training exercise designed to protect its citizens against the threat of terrorist attack. Now before you read any further just pause and ask yourself where the threat of terrorist attack is likely to come from. Yes, I know, silly question, the answer is more than obvious. Though not to some, evidently.

During the exercise the role-playing terrorist shouted out “Allahu Akbar”, as those real-life deranged fanatics tend to do before they open fire indiscriminately and blow themselves up, killing all around them.

According to Dr Erinma Bell, described as a “Peace Activist” the police were guilty of unfair stereotyping since, as she said, a terrorist could come from any group. True, a terrorist could come from any group but from where does the average person in the street think a terrorist attack is most likely to come?

As this blog has said before, not all Muslims are terrorists; of course they’re not. That would be a ludicrous and grossly unfair thing to say but nobody can deny that, at the present time, the majority of terrorists are Muslims.

If we cannot, or refuse to, identify our potential enemies we make it a lot harder to eventually defeat them. Our hard-pressed (and no-doubt demoralised) police and security forces need all the help they can get in keeping us all safe. Making their training exercises as realistic as possible with no detail spared is an obvious priority and no more than common sense. Political correctness and liberal sensibilities should have nothing to do with it.

Europe’s Official Language

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To encourage a positive vote in the forthcoming referendum the European Commission recently announced that English will be the official language of the European Union. The UK Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year plan to gradually convert to “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will please the sivil servants. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the awkward “ph” will be replaced with “f”. Fotograf is far more logikal than photograph.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. The EU will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.  Also, the silent “e” in the languag is troublesom and will also be removed. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords   kontaining “ou” and after zis ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu unterstand ech uzer.

Ze drem of a united europ vil finaly be relized und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vanted us to do in ze furst plas. Zank ze Lord und Angela Merkel!

(NB. Furst sen on ze internet about 5 yers ago. Amended und adapted fur zis blog)

Small World

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I’ve been working in New York the last few days (lucky me, I know) and was eager, on my Sunday morning time off, to find a bar showing the football game between Manchester United and Leicester City.

And so it was, that at 9.15am, I walked into the inevitable (as in every couple of hundred yards and no less impressive or hospitable for that!) Irish bar showing an English football game broadcast from Manchester between two teams composed of players from Britain, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. I was served a cold beer by a Russian bartender (it’s never too early for a Budweiser!) and sat at the bar flanked by two Norwegians, who like me were rooting for little old Leicester City, the ultimate in underdogs!

Eventually, a party of young Englishmen arrived for a late, or was it an early, breakfast? It was difficult to tell but a couple of them looked like they’d been drinking all night, as you can when you’re in your twenties. I wondered if they knew how lucky they are.

Some locals breezed in too but they were not interested in the “Saccer” and chatted amongst themselves, possibly enquiring into the health of their respective parents or maybe concluding a drug deal, I don’t know. I wasn’t paying any attention to them or anybody else for that matter, wrapped up as I was in the game, which ended in an entertainingly hard fought and fair draw.

We all went our separate ways at about 11am and, as I wandered down the street dodging the yellow taxis (most of which are driven, incidentally by Eastern Europeans and Asians boasting a smattering of English), I couldn’t help but think what a small – and wonderfully diverse – world we live in!

Dead Right

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It was reported this week that Thailand,  facing one of the world’s worst records of drink-driving,  has passed new legislation compelling convicted drivers to work in mortuaries and to physically handle dead bodies to try and drive home (no pun intended) the seriousness of the offence.

Talk about the punishment fitting the crime!  Perhaps the Thai government will now compel car thieves to clean and valet cars unpaid for months at a time or require those convicted of assault to go ten rounds with a professional boxer.

Maybe persons convicted of indecent exposure will be forced to expose themselves, fully naked, in a commercial fridge-freezer until they turn blue or something drops off! The list is almost endless.