Category Archives: Humour

Spontaneous Love?

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Well, it’s that day again, the day when lovers all over the world pack into their local restaurants, hold hands, look into one another’s eyes, and pretend not to notice the other twenty five cloned couples sat in the same room in identical positions. The spontaneity of love eh?

Yes, they’ll all be out tonight, sat at their candlelit tables, red roses placed alluringly between them, the sparkling wine nicely chilled, as they self-consciously coo quietly to one another, poring over the special “Valentine’s Day Lovers’ Banquet” menu. She thinking,

“This is so lovely and romantic. I wish he was like this all the time”

He, with a strained smile, thinking,

“What a load of c++p! And it’s costing me a fortune! I wish we’d stayed in and ordered a takeaway!”

Both views are understandable. If you truly love somebody you’re unlikely to limit a show of your feelings to just one day of the year dictated more by the corporate greed of florists and restaurateurs than by Cupid or St Valentine.

A spontaneous flower given when she least expects it is far more effective than 12 red roses sent anonymously through Interflora; and a surprise dinner for two in your favourite restaurant is much more romantic than being sat in a room full of couples all trying to out romance the other!

 

Adopt an Animal

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On Tuesday the BBC published an article on its website about the disappearance of the West African Lion. Evidently there are now estimated to be as few as 250 West African lions of breeding age and they compete for a mere 1.1% of the areas they used to call home, the rest of their former territory having been taken, inevitably,  by man. Instead of just repeating the comments I made in my last blog I wish, instead, to make a suggestion.

As a member of the World Wildlife Fund I am familiar with their adoption programme where people pay to adopt an animal of their choice whether it be a panda, a lion, a leopard or whatever for as little as £3 per month (check it out on https://support.wwf.org.uk). I have always thought that this is both a clever way of raising revenue and also an excellent means of making people aware of the plight of the world’s wildlife. Parents often make a gift of animal adoption to their small children so that they too can learn about what is happening in the natural world.

At the moment, following the excesses of Christmas, the shops are bombarding us with ideas for the next commercial rip-off namely Valentine’s Day. Typical advertisements urge us to treat the woman/man in our lives (in some cases maybe both, who knows?) to something special this Valentine’s Day. We are urged to do the predictable stuff, like treat her to a romantic five course meal in an exclusive restaurant, whisk her off for a night of passion in a luxury spa, buy her three dozen beautiful red roses plus all the other yawn-inducing, cliché-ridden unimaginative tosh.

My suggestion is this, instead of making some fat capitalist fatter still why not give your true love a year’s adoption of her favourite animal, courtesy of the WWF? You could adopt something personal to her such as a tiger cub, a cuddly panda, or a cute little polar bear.  Indeed any creature that takes your fancy and reminds you of your her although, be careful , adopting an elephant or hippo on her behalf might not be such a smart idea!

If Not Now

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Yesterday I noticed a boy aged about 5 or 6 wearing a T shirt emblazoned with the logo “If not now, when?” I’m sure many of us are familiar with that question, valid and pertinent as it can often be in this oh-too-short life. It is a question that virtually all of us will have to answer at least once and if answered correctly can change and enrich our lives.

It got me thinking about a silver haired gentleman I encountered outside the splendid Church of St George in Madaba, Jordan a few years back. He was a cheerful fellow, stood proudly next to his majestic but tired looking BMW motorcycle and we struck up a conversation. He turned out to be a 69 year old Australian who, a few years back, on the day after he retired, was told by his wife of 30 years that she no longer loved him and wanted a new life for herself.

Fair enough, he thought, and two weeks later was on his way on a solo motor cycle journey around the world. When I met him, he’d already ridden through China, India, Russia and the Middle East. He was now contemplating the next stage of his journey through Africa, thence to Europe, the Americas and home. I think about him every now and again and the lesson that he demonstrates to all of us. I hope that his courage met with its true reward.

If opportunity presents itself, seize it with both hands. The little boy was right, if not now, when?

Saying Nothing

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I was listening to the innate ramblings of a DJ the other day, chattering like a monkey on his local radio show. No surprise there of course, innate rambling and DJs go together like cheese and onion or fish and chips.

Anyway, it got me thinking about our use of language and how sometimes people seem to talk a lot without actually saying anything. Politicians for example; I’m sure you’ll agree that they rank pretty high on the list of purveyors of verbal diarrhoea!

My thoughts took me back to my early days as a trainee lawyer when my boss, a fine advocate attempting to teach me the basics of court work, said “Always remember, if you’ve got nowt to say, say nowt”!

A lesson well worth remembering and not just by lawyers!

It’s in Their Nature

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Sir David Attenborough recently warned cat owners that, along with the frozen ground of winter, their pets represent the biggest danger to garden birds struggling to find food and survive the cold.  He went on to say that the solution, insofar as cats are concerned, is for their owners to fit them with bell collars so that birds will literally be able to fly for their lives as danger approaches.

In my experience, many cat owners need some convincing and indeed take the attitude that, as their fat spoiled moggies slaughter and rip apart yet another half-starved robin or blue tit, they can’t do anything about it. They shrug their shoulders and offer the explanation that “It’s only nature” and that their cats are only doing what comes naturally to them.

I’m sure they are right, it certainly is in a cat’s nature to stalk, capture, torture, torment and wipe out every creature smaller than they are. However, it can clearly be prevented by human intervention and the fitting of bell collars seems to me to be an eminently sensible idea.

If all else fails perhaps those of us concerned by the plight of our birds could purchase and install in our gardens a larger, more threatening bird to even things up a bit. Something like, oh I don’t know, how about a condor or a golden eagle? A bird whose primal urge is to hunt, kill and devour small mammals – mammals the size of your average cat.

As the distraught owners watch their beloved little moggies being carried away no doubt they will be comforted by the reply “Never mind, it’s only nature”!

A New Tattoo

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Veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby announced earlier this week that, at the age of 75, he has finally succumbed to temptation and has had a tattoo of a scorpion etched on his shoulder. It may well be that it was simply a publicity stunt to promote his new BBC series called “Britain and the Sea” but, when interviewed, he did say that he’d always wanted one.

Predictably, the story has attracted a lot of attention and quite a few negative comments about foolish old men losing the plot, vain celebrities and such like. Well, everybody is entitled to their own opinion and, equally, Dimbleby is entitled to do whatever he wants with his body. Good luck to him.

Anyway, tattoos are pretty ubiquitous now. Men and women, sports stars, rock stars, actors and actresses, they all sport them these days and Britain is said to be among the most tattooed nations in the world. Wasn’t it ever thus? The great Roman general, Julius Caesar himself, remarked upon the fierce painted natives when he first crossed the Channel way back in 55BC – and that was just the women!

 Personally, I couldn’t care less whether Dimbleby or anybody else for that matter covers their whole body with tattoos – just so long as, in the majority of cases, they do the decent thing and keep their clothes on!

Who would have thought it?

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A recent study in the USA, using state of the art eye-tracking technology, has revealed that men look at women’s bodies more than at their faces. Gosh, what a revelation that is!

The study, of over 70 men and women, revealed that women also look at other women’s bodies more than at their faces. It didn’t mention clothing but I’m pretty sure that that features pretty high up the list too!

Researchers concluded that “those bodies with larger breasts, narrower waists and bigger hips often prompted longer looks”. Quite incredible, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I have no idea how much money this study cost but couldn’t they have saved an awful lot of time and money by interviewing just about any normal man (or woman) virtually anywhere on the planet? I don’t think that their conclusions would have been any different, do you?

Only One Winner

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I overheard a conversation the other day, although diatribe would probably be a better description! A man was telling his friend, in a loud boastful voice (you know the type) that he was going to take so and so to the cleaners, he was going to sue him up and down the land and would make him regret that he ever crossed him in the first place.

I had no idea what the conversation was about and, of course, had no interest either. Why should I? I gave up listening to the problems of strangers when I ceased practicing the law a couple of years back. It did strike a chord however and I remember thinking that I hoped the guy had got plenty of money because he would certainly need it if he was going to carry out his threats successfully.

It reminded me of a print of a famous 17th century painting that used to hang on my office wall. It is a cartoon-type picture of a cow with a thin man at one end pulling on its nose with the word “Plaintiff” written next to him. At the tail end of the cow was another thin man pulling at the tail and the word “Defendant” was written next to him. Sat on a stool by the middle section of the cow was a very large man milking the beast for all he was worth. The word next to that man was “Lawyer”.

That sums it  up nicely and, as I used to say to my clients, don’t take anybody to law unless you have first exhausted all other options and, even then, only if you have a large bank balance. Going to litigation is like going to a casino. At the end of the day there is only one winner and it sure aint the punter!

The Astronaut and the Monkey

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Last  week, England’s football manager, Roy Hodgson, did extremely well in ensuring that a slightly above average football team booked a place at next year’s  World Cup Finals. Unfortunately, the celebrations were tarnished because one of the players  leaked details of the manager’s half time team talk to the national press. Evidently, the talk (a private affair obviously meant only for the players present) featured a joke involving two astronauts and a monkey and the player took offence at what he perceived was a racist joke.

I am familiar with the joke, having first heard it about 20 years ago. It’s reasonably funny and the joke is not at the expense of the monkey but at the two astronauts whose only job is to feed the monkey, thus inferring that the monkey is more intelligent than they are. The astronauts, for the purposes of the joke, could be any nationality you wanted, whether English, Scots, Irish, French, American or whatever. It was just a playful laugh at the nation of your choice and, as I said, compliments the monkey at the expense of the chosen nation.

Clearly, the footballer who reported the joke to the press wasn’t bright enough to realise that and, as with everything else these days, the assumption by the Thought Police (see the novel, “1984”) was that the joke was an example of racial discrimination based on colour. What complete nonsense. With hindsight perhaps it would have been more politically correct and acceptable if the monkey had been described as albino!

All that aside, the story doesn’t reflect well upon the team’s spirit and morale ahead of what will be an extremely difficult tournament involving at least a dozen teams better equipped to win the trophy than England. If I were Hodgson (an undoubtedly decent man) I would leave no stone unturned in my efforts to find the Judas who betrayed his manager and thus his team-mates in such a scurrilous and cowardly manner. I would then make it clear to him that he will never again be selected to play for England whilst I remained manager. Go on Mr Hodgson, seek him out. The huge chip on his shoulder should make him readily identifiable.

 

Crossing the Border

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Last week I crossed the border from Canada to the USA via the Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge, so-called because, when the sun shines, you can see rainbows in the spray from the Falls. We were about fifth in a line of coaches, the passengers of which were naturally subjected to the usual routine border/passport control inspections. No problem there, we all want to travel safely in these high risk terrorist-threatened days and a little inconvenience is a small price to pay for that safety.

Every now and again, a coach is singled out for the full treatment whereby the driver’s papers and log are minutely examined and his coach subjected to various inspections by fully fledged mechanics. Occasionally, if the mood takes them, the border guards can insist upon all the luggage being taken out – actually they can insist on whatever the hell they want, nobody in their right mind is going to argue with 16 stone of armed muscle! – and in some cases the bags opened for further inspection.

Of course, the nature of such random checks means that we mere mortals have no idea what is required of us nor whether we will be the unlucky ones selected for the full works. Well, the coach in front of ours was one such coach and I, along with my increasingly nervous tour group, watched as the border guard and mechanic went about their business whilst fifty odd Japanese passengers sat for over an hour in their hot, stuffy and by now non-air-conditioned bus. I don’t know why they were selected, maybe the border guard’s grandfather had been bombed at Pearl Harbour! Who knows?

Eventually, the by-now sweaty passengers were  led off their coach and into the customs area and, after another thirty minutes or so of having their individual papers examined they were allowed to go. We were next to face the stern-faced inspection although in our case it was of the more routine variety. As tour group leader, I collected the $6 per person entry fees (I wonder if the Japanese paid more!) and handed them over to the supervising guard who actually cracked a smile at my limp attempts at witty conversation. Perhaps he was just humouring me.

Anyway, other than sharing this fascinating aspect of touring life, I wanted to point out what a good idea I think it is to extort (sorry, require!) payment of a fee from foreigners for the privilege of visiting your country. This is on top of the usual visa fee and only applies, for some reason, where you enter the USA by land.

We must get millions and millions of visitors to the UK each year by air, sea and tunnel. Why don’t we charge them all, say £5 each? What a great boost to the economy. Perhaps the extra revenue might even encourage our Government to go easier on its own citizens. Now I’m being silly!