Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

A quick personal review of 2007:

At the start of the year I was seeing V. but the relationship fizzled out by May - basically we had run out of things to say to each other; we didn't really have that much in common.

My job as a community worker finished in March - it was a six month, fixed-term contract. I'm still attending the group therapy sessions and am hoping to arrange some sort of placement with the local authority, based in one of their offices in town.

My health has been good, although I've probably gained a few pounds.

I don't think I've travelled more than twelve miles from my home this year.

Q: How do you embarrass an archeologist?
A: Give him a used tampon and ask him which period it came from.

There was a man who entered a local newspaper's pun contest. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win.

Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

There are currently two Welsh poppies flowering in my garden; one orange and one yellow; not bad for the end of December. Compared with a lot of places I would say that the English climate is very benign.

Last week, whilst I was travelling on the bus to visit my parents I noticed how many plants are actually in bloom at this time of year in people's gardens; primroses and roses are the only ones I could identify from the bus though, but there were several more varieties. There are also quite a few impressive yucca plants in the Doncaster area as well.

More proofreading errors.

A quick guide to writhing in the social and physical sciences .

Most men make the mistake of not washing their faces thoroughly with hot soup and water before they begin shaving.

If we would only send young American tenors to stud abroad, they would return immensely improved.

He heard himself assailed as a self-centred financial executive who buttered his own beard.

He is visiting our town with the bitter half.

Mr. and Mrs. Chester Lynes, of Philadelphia, are pictured here in Delphi, Greece, where they exploded antiques.

He received his graduate degree in unclear physics.

During the current fiscal year, Kinney plans to increase the number of uninformed sergeants to a total of 42.

It is said that there are more golf curses per square mile in North Carolina than anywhere else in the world .

The best treatment for shock is to rape the patients in blankets.

The commander had a firm but genital hold on his men.

Would She Climb to Top of Mr. Everest Again? Absolutely!

Alexander Hallilton was George Washington's closet companion.

David Cone's one-hitter was all but overshadowed by his rookie teammate's shitting.

He is a charismatic speaker and a major farce in politics

Texatron is to get $1,500,000 via the Northern lreland Office to keep the textiles and carpet factory open for another seven moths.

US dog lovers are paying £200 for prosthetic testicles for their castrated pets.
The 'Neuticles' are implanted in the dogs' scrotums to make them appear "anatomically intact", reports Sky News.
Louis Schwartz, chief of staff at the Overland Veterinary Clinic in Los Angeles, said: "What I find is the vast majority (of customers) are men.
"I can only think of one woman who has come to me to have the procedure on her pet. She was an animal control officer whose husband, because of his religious beliefs, did not want the dog to be neutered
"One weekend while he was away she came to me with the dog and years later, this man has no idea."
At Mr Schwartz's clinic dog lovers can also buy acupuncture treatment and medicine for separation anxiety and depression for their pets.
Pet care is now the fastest growing retail sector after electronics in the US with dog and cat owners spending about £20bn on their pets in 2007.

Hole in the wall for smokers

A German bar owner has got round a smoking ban by cutting holes in the wall so customers can stick their heads out to have a cigarette.
Michael Windisch, owner of the Maltermeister Turm bar and restaurant in Goslar, Lower Saxony, cut three holes next to tables in his restaurant after local authorities introduced the ban on smoking in all eating places.
Customers who want to smoke can stick their heads through the large holes and their hands through the other two so they can have a cigarette. A curtain has been mounted to keep out the cold.
Windisch said: "Now my customers can legally enjoy a cigarette without having to leave the comfort of the restaurant."
Local media have claimed the idea is likely to catch on in other parts of the country where blanket bans in smoking in restaurants are to be introduced from the New Year.

A guy sits down in a café and asks for the hot chilli.
The waitress says, "The guy next to you got the last bowl."
He looks over and sees that the guy's finished his meal, but the chilli bowl is still full.
He says, "Are you going to eat that?"
The other guy says, "No. Help yourself."
He takes it and starts to eat it. When he gets about half way down, his fork hits something. He looks down sees a dead mouse in it, and he pukes the chilli back into the bowl.
The other guy says, "That's about as far as I got, too."

The other day I was removing my leather belt from one pair of trousers and using it with another pair and noticed that I'd put it on the other way round - with the buckle now at the opposite side. This got me to wondering if there are separate right-handed and left-handed ways of wearing a belt.

(I've just checked on Google and didn't find anything - but I did discover that there's a left-handed way of kissing though…I can't imagine how that works.)

Anger is only one letter away from danger

A one-letter mistake can turn:
Friend into fiend,
Lots of talent into loss of talent,
Hire into fire,
An engaged girl into an enraged girl,
Comely into homely,
Married into marred,
Milestone into millstone.

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was keen to use Russia's planned global positioning system GLONASS to look after his black Labrador Koni.
"When can I buy hardware to equip my dog with so that she won't run away too far?" Putin was quoted as asking First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov during a briefing on progress towards developing a competitor to the U.S. GPS system.

A teacher in Atlanta asked her students to write the words to their favorite Christmas Carols. Here are some of the humorous lines she received:

Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly

We three kings of porridge and tar

On the first day of Christmas my tulip gave to me

He's makin a list, chicken and rice.

With the jelly toast proclaim

Olive, the other reindeer. (all of the other reindeer)

Frosty the Snowman is a ferret elf, I say

Sleep in heavenly peas

You'll go down in listerine

Oh, what fun it is to ride with one horse, soap and hay

O come, froggy faithful

'One thousand' contains the letter 'A', but none of the words from one to nine hundred and ninety-nine has an 'A'.

Pay No Attention To the Condom-Fingered Googler Behind the Curtain

I just had to read further when I came across this headline.

Did you ever wonder how Google is scanning all of those books that are going in their massive Google Book Search project? Well, you can get a pretty good clue by looking at the second and third pages of The Gentleman's Magazine: the scanning is being done by taking ordinary pictures of the pages, and the pages (at least some of them) are arranged by a lady wearing red fingernail polish, a couple of gold rings, and latex covers on her first and second fingers—covers that look notably like condoms.

All these proofreading errors are from US newspapers.

Horace Mann School for the Dead and Hard of Hearing.

The report was signed by five faulty members of the university.(faculty)

The parking meters will permit parking for ten dents per hour.(cents)

The bride collapsed killing five people. (bridge)

The president, who has been sick for several days, is now in bed with a coed. (cold)

Each evening will consist of a four-curse menu.

Advanced Life Painting Studio. This group grows out of a need for professional artists to have an opportunity to paint from the model. Tuition includes model feel. (fee)

They were married and lived happily even after.

The new Miss America will be drowned later before a nationwide television audience. (crowned)

Mr. Ballard, who has been very ill the past week, is still under the car of Dr. Goldman.

A Census Bureau report revealed today that Southern girls do marry at an early urge.

James and Phoebe Cummings celebrated their 50th anniversary on May 26. They renewed their rows at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

This morning the second most prominent headline on the BBC teletext news is 'Millions celebrate Christmas.' Well, that's a surprise!

I don't know why the BBC even pretends to be a world class broadcaster any more.

I'm really a bit of a news junkie; I'm always watching the rolling 24 hours news stations, or documentaries, or discussion programmes. I'm able to watch BBC News 24 and Sky News on my Freeview box and CNN, Al Jazeera, ABC, Russia Today and France 24 online.

I don't like this time of year though because the channels are always broadcasting their 'Review of the Year' programmes; in other words, repeats.

On Sky News yesterday they were mentioning all the data that the government has lost this year and I didn't know whether to feel relieved or sad since none of it affects me: I don't have children so I'm not claiming Child Benefit and neither will their medical records have be lost, I'm not claiming a crisis loan from the DSS and I can't drive - so details of my driving test haven't been lost either.

St John's Wood is the only London tube station that doesn't contain one of the letters of the word 'mackerel'.

Cinderella is now nearly 70 years old. After having a fulfilling life with the now dead Prince, she happily sat upon her rocking chair watching the world go by from her front porch with a cat called Gizmo for companionship.
One sunny afternoon, out of nowhere, appeared the Fairy Godmother. Cinderella said “Fairy Godmother, what are you doing here after all these years?” The Fairy Godmother replies “Well Cinderella, since you have lived a good, wholesome life since we last met, I have decided to grant you 3 wishes. Is there anything for which your heart still yearns?”
Cinderella is taken aback, overjoyed and after some thoughtful consideration and almost under her breath she uttered her first wish. “I wish I was wealthy beyond comprehension.” Instantly her rocking chair was turned into solid gold. Cinderella was stunned. Cinderella said “Oh thank you, Fairy Godmother!” The Fairy Godmother replied “It is the least I can do. What is your second wish?” Cinderella looked down at her frail body and said: “I wish I was young and full of the beauty of youth again.” At once, her wish having been desired, became reality, and her beautiful youthful visage had returned. Cinderella felt stirrings inside her that had been dormant for years and long forgotten vigour and vitality began to course through her very soul. Then the Fairy Godmother spoke again “You have one more wish, what shall you have?” Cinderella looked over to Gizmo, who was now quivering in the corner with fear. “I wish for you to transform my old cat, Gizmo, into a beautiful and handsome young man.” Magically, Gizmo suddenly underwent so fundamental a change in his biological make up, that when he stood before her, he was a boy, so beautiful the like of which she nor the world had ever seen, so fair indeed that birds begun to fall from the sky at his feet.
The Fairy Godmother said “Congratulations Cinderella! Enjoy your new life.” With a blazing shock of bright blue electricity, she was gone. For a few moments, Gizmo and Cinderella looked into each other’s eyes. Cinderella sat, breathless, gazing at the most stunningly perfect boy she had ever seen.
Then Gizmo walked over to Cinderella, who sat transfixed in her rocking chair, and held her close in his muscular arms. He leant close to her ear, and into her ear breathed as much as whispered, blowing her golden hair with his warm breath, “I bet you regret having my balls chopped off now, don’t you?”

British doctors have made a tongue-in-cheek complaint to a chocolate manufacturer after the firm changed the shape of two sweets that could be used to measure testicles in pubescent boys.
The problem focuses on wrapped chocolates called Teasers and Truffles, whose 8mm oval shape was a dead ringer for a bead used in an orchidometer -- a gadget that measures testes to ensure they are developing normally.
But Teasers' and Truffles' unusual contribution to public health is now doomed after their manufacturer, Masterfoods UK, changed the shape of the chocs, leaving them bigger and flat-bottomed.
"This is a major setback to paediatric endocrinology," say Gareth Williams of the medical faculty at Bristol University and Poonam Dharmaraj, a paediatrician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle.
"Clearly, the original design should be reinstated.
"With skilful marketing, this could play to the manufacturer's advantage: by including a simple package insert with clear, easy-to-feel instructions, young males could self-evaluate their pubertal status (while pointing out that this should ideally not be done at the point of sale)."
It would provide "a rare opportunity for the chocolate industry to become palpably involved in public-health promotion," suggest the pair.
Their letter appears in the end-of-the-year issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), a traditional moment for publishing humorous items in the medical profession.

When a man attempted to siphon petrol from a motor home
parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he
bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find an
ill man curled up next to a motor home trying to steal
petrol and plugged his hose into the motor home's
sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle
declined to press charges, saying that it was the best
laugh he'd ever had.

Who to marry ...

If you want someone who will eat whatever you put in front of him
and never says its not quite as good as his mother made it ...

Then buy a dog.

If you want someone always willing to go out, at any hour,
for as long and wherever you want ...

Then buy a dog.

If you want someone who will never touch the remote, doesn't
care about football,
and can sit next to you as you watch romantic movies ...

Then buy a dog.

If you want someone who is content to get up on your bed just to warm
your feet and whom you can push off if he snores ...

Then buy a dog.

If you want someone who never criticises what you do, doesn't
care if you
are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, young or old, who acts as if
every word you say is especially worthy of listening to,
and loves you unconditionally, perpetually ...

Then buy a dog.

But, on the other hand, if you want someone who will never come when you call, ignores you totally when you come home, leaves hair all over the place, walks all over you, runs around all night and only comes home to eat and sleep, and acts as if your entire existence is solely to ensure his happiness...

Then buy a cat!

Australian Police have been unable to recommend a prosecution for the following scam:

A company takes out a newspaper advertisement claiming to be able to supply imported hard core pornographic videos. As their prices seem reasonable, people place orders and make payments via cheque

After several weeks, the company writes back explaining that under the present law they are unable to supply the materials and do not wish to be prosecuted. So they return their customers' money in the form of a company cheque.

However, due to the name of the company, few people will present
these cheques to their banks. The name of the company:
"The Anal Sex and Fetish Perversion Company."

MPs have been issued with a 10-point guide on how to change broken light bulbs in the House of Commons.

Tory MP David Davies had asked "what guidance has been issued on procedures for cleaning up and disposing of environmentally-friendly light bulbs which have been broken".

The House of Commons Commission's reply was published in Hansard and came from Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey.

"The instructions are that the cleaning operative, using protective gloves and wearing a mask, should collect the main fragments of the light bulb and carefully place them in a sturdy box," Mr Harvey wrote.

"All splinters should then be collected using stiff card or paper. The area should then be cleaned using a damp cloth. The splinters and the cloth should then be placed in the box.

"Once the area is clear and clean, the box should be sealed and labelled with details of the item.

"The box should then be taken to the waste removal area in the loading bay and passed to the waste disposal contractor in an appropriate manner."

'Tis good for girl to meet boy in park, but better for boy park meat in girl.

Just a brief update following on from Tuesday's post about being overcharged in the supermarket.

I've just received a telephone call from the customer services department at the company's head office telling me that when I go into town tomorrow I'll be able to claim a full refund; they've phoned up the Doncaster branch and made all the arrangements.

The sooner the compulsory BBC licence fee is abolished, the better.

Team bonding at the BBC lends a fresh perspective to the term "dumbing down". This month 200 staff from all over the country spent the day wandering round the BBC's White City offices cradling robotic plastic babies and sidling up to strangers whispering: "I've got something for you." The babies, loaned from BBC3's teen show the Baby Borrowers , were programmed to scream and wet themselves.
According to Ariel, the BBC's house magazine, those present included Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, and Adrian Chiles, presenter of The One Show on BBC1. Unwisely, perhaps, both allowed themselves to be photographed holding a baby. In between cuddling the damp, howling little robots, they had to undertake a sensory assault course. This involved "wading through pools of raspberry jelly and autumn leaves blindfolded". Everyone who took part was asked to wash their colleague's feet afterwards.
A Buddhist monk with a key round his neck was part of the "fun". Staff had twenty seconds to get the key off him - without using menaces. Apparently the trick was to remain silent. Oh, and everyone was also issued with masks showing the faces of such luminaries as Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Margaret Beckett. When not dripping with jelly or synthetic baby pee, staff had a chance to pitch programme ideas at a panel of BBC bosses including Glenwyn Benson, a bigwig in policy and strategy, and George Entwistle, controller of knowledge commissioning.

A few minutes ago I was standing behind a woman in the checkout queue who was buying a 'handkerchief in a tin.' This must be the most extreme example of over-packaging and waste of resources I've ever witnessed.

Maybe she is playing a cruel trick on someone, whose Christmas present will not be quite what they were expecting.

Sent to me by my sister in Adelaide - it just about sums up Australians.

Handle every situation like a dog.

If you can't eat it or hump it,
Piss on it and walk away.

Britons have been voting in a new survey to find the nation's worst Christmas cracker joke.
And the winner was: What is Santa's favourite pizza? One that's deep pan, crisp and even!

These are some trends I've noticed about my blog:

The posts that attract most comments are the personal ones, followed by the jokes. However, my most popular entries are the unusual lists which I was posting quite a lot of last year. Several of these archived posts are visited several times every day.

A Dutch veterinarian was fined 600 guilders (about $240)
for causing a fire that destroyed a farm in Lichten Vourde,
the Netherlands. The vet had been trying to convince a farmer
that his cow was passing flatulent gas; to demonstrate, the
vet ignited the gas, but the cow became a "four-legged
flame-thrower" and ran wild, setting fire to bales of hay.
Damage to the farm was assessed at $80,000. The cow was
unharmed.

The World's Easiest Quiz (with the answers below)

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?
2) Which country makes Panama hats?
3) From which animal do we get catgut?
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October evolution?
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7) What was King George VI's first name?
8) What colour is a purple finch?
9) What country do Chinese gooseberries come from?
10) How long did the Thirty Years War last?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ

1) 116 years, from 1337 to 1453.
2) Ecuador.
3) From sheep and horses.
4) November. The Russian calendar was 13 days behind ours.
5) Squirrel fur.
6) The Latin name was Insularia Canaria - Islands of the Dogs.
7) Albert. When he came to the throne in 1936 he respected the wish of Queen Victoria that no future king should ever be called Albert.
8) Distinctively crimson.
9) New Zealand.
10) Thirty years, of course. From 1618 to 1648.

I've just popped out to the postbox to mail a letter to the head office of a supermarket that overcharged me £1.50 this morning.

I haven't specifically told them what I want; I've just included a photocopy of the till receipt with all the errors marked and finished the letter with the words 'I eagerly await your response' - this usually works.

"Doctor, I have an ear ache."

2000 B.C. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 B.C. - "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstition, drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic."
2007 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!"

A man came home from work sporting two black eyes. "What happened to you?" asked his wife. "I'll never understand women," he replied. "I was riding up in an escalator behind this pretty young girl, and I noticed that her skirt was stuck in the crack of her ass. So I pulled it out, and she turned around and punched me in the eye!" "I can certainly appreciate that," said the wife, "But how did you get the second black eye?" "Well, I figured she liked it that way," said the husband, "So I pushed it back in."

This poem was written by John Saxon (an author of maths textbooks).

((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0

Or for those of us who have trouble with reading the poem:

A Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven, plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.

There's currently an advertising campaign running on TV and I'm not really sure what's being advertised. It looks like they're trying to sell cars; but I've never heard of the company - Garmin; maybe it's a car insurance company, or offers some sort of special financing...I don't know. However, the advert could also be trying to sell mail order products, make-up, electrical goods or even satnav systems...I'll not be purchasing anything from the above list though.

Q: What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
A: Frostbite.

Q: Why was Santa's little helper depressed?
A: Because he had low elf esteem.

Q: What nationality is Santa Claus?
A: North Polish.

Q: What do you get if you deep fry Santa Claus?
A: Crisp Cringle.

Q: If Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus had a child, what would he be called?
A: A subordinate claus.

Q: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office?
A: You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit.

1. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.

2. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

3. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.

4. It's always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.

5. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

6. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

7. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No-one has ever collided with the sky.

8. A good landing is one from which you can walk away. A great landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

9. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

10. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

11. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of survival and vice versa.

12. Good judgement comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgement.

14. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are, however, no old, bold pilots.

15. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminium going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

One day, God went to find Adam and Eve in the garden, but found that Adam was sitting by himself.

"Where's Eve?" He asked.

"Well," said Adam, "She started to bleed.

This happens every month or so." "So where is she?" asked God.

"Well, she went down to the river to wash up." replied Adam.

"Damn," said God. "Now I'll never get the smell out of the fish."

Mother Superior: "Sister Maria, if you walk through town at night, and you're accosted by a man with bad intentions, what would you do?"

Sister Maria: "I would lift my habit, mother Superior."

Mother Superior (shocked): "And what would you do next?"

Sister Maria: "I would tell him to drop his pants."

Mother Superior: (even more shocked) "And what then?"

Sister Maria: "I would run away. I can run much faster with my habit up than he can with his pants down!"

I've just spent a couple of hours reading a couple of timelines on an alternative history website; in one timeline Genghis Khan dies young and so the Mongol Empire is never created, and in the other one there has just been a localised war between Spain and Morocco. Since I'm interested in both history and science fiction, these 'what if' scenarios nicely combine the two.

A slight variation known as 'future history' consists of future timelines...these can get a bit silly at times though when people's imaginations run away with them.

I don't like this weather at all. It was freezing fog earlier this morning and I was coughing all the time as I was shopping. Looks like it will be sunny a bit later though; but still cold.

A doctor who had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life
finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring
a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her. As the
young doctor looked through the list, his eyes grew wide as he realized
she had a prescription for birth control pills. “Mrs. Smith, do you
realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?!?”
“Yes, they help me sleep at night.”
“Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that
could possibly help you sleep!”
She reached out and patted the young Doctor’s knee. “Yes, dear, I know
that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of
orange juice that my 16-year-old granddaughter drinks… And believe
me, it helps me sleep at night!”

Two drunks were walking home along the railway tracks.
The first drunk says, "There's a hell of a lot of steps here."
The second drunk says, "I'll tell you what's worse, this hand rail is bloody low down."

Two women were talking about the new hunk in the neighbourhood. "But he acts so stupid," said one to the other. "I think he must have his brains between his legs." "Yeah," her friend sighed, "but I'd sure love to blow his mind."

Motorist filled car with petrol through window.

Hungarian police are hunting an early morning driver who poured 150 litres of petrol through the back window of his car.
He then staggered back into the driver's seat and drove off with petrol dripping on the floor at the petrol station at Nyiregyhaza.
Police suspect the confused motorist was either very tired or very drunk.
A police spokesman said: "When staff spotted what he was doing he was almost finished - and then he drove off before they could stop him.

A list of unusual themed restaurants from around the world:

Diners decide how much to pay.

Meals are auctioned off to highest bidder.

All the staff are children.

All the staff are dwarves.

Dining in the dark, often the staff are blind.

All the staff are twins.

Diners may catch fish from the aquarium to eat.

Singing waiters.

Voyage of RMS Titanic recreated.

Diners may observe other patrons on video screens.

Large beds are used instead of chairs.

'Waitresses' are men in drag.

Naked waitresses.

Toilets used as chairs.

A restaurant for anorexic people.

If you don't eat everything on your plate, you're fined.

Restaurant made out of ice.

Restaurant decorated with genuine Dollar bills, worth about $750,000.

Meals cooked using heat from a volcano.

Restaurant in a real prison; food served by inmates.

Said to a railway engineer:
"What's the use of having a train schedule if the trains are always late?"
The reply from the railway engineer:
"How would we know they were late, if we didn't have a schedule?"

I enjoy watching C.S.I. and C.S.I. Miami with their bizarre murders; but some of these are stranger than any fiction.

20. Alex Mijtus, 36 years old, was killed by his wife, armed with a 20 inch long vibrator. Mrs Mijtus had had enough of her husband's strange sex practices and one night during a prolonged period of "fun" she snapped, pushing all 20 inches of the vibrator into Alex's anus until it ruptured several internal organs and caused severe bleeding.

19. Debby Mills-Newbroughton, 99 years old, was killed as she crossed the road. She was to turn 100 the next day but, crossing the road with her daughter to go to her own birthday party, her wheel chair was hit by the truck delivering her birthday cake.

18. Peter Stone, 42 years old, was murdered by his eight year old daughter, who he had just sent to her room with no dinner. Young Samantha Stone felt that if she couldn't have dinner no one should, and she promptly inserted 72 rat poison tablets into her father's coffee as he prepared dinner. The victim took one sip pnd promptly collapsed (Samantha Stone was given a suspended sentence as the judge felt she didn't realise what she was doing, until she tried to poison her mother using the same method one month later).

17. David Danil, 17 years old, was killed by his girlfriend Charla after he attempted to "have his way with her". His unwelcome advances were met with a prompt kick in the chest and then four shots from a doubled barrelled shot gun Charla's father had given to her an hour before the date started, just in case.

16. Javier Halos, 27 years old, was killed by his landlord for failing to pay his rent for eight years (yes, eight years). Landlord Kirk Weston clubbed the victim to death with a toilet seat after he realised just how long it had been since Mr Halos paid his rent.

15. Mary-Lee Cooper, 11 years old, was killed by her one year old sister who climbed on top of her while she was sleeping, suffocating her.

14. Megan Fri, 44 years old, was killed by 14 state troopers after she wandered onto a live firing, fake town simulation. Seeing the troopers all walking slow down the street, Megan jumped out in front of them and yelled, "Boo!" The troopers, thinking she was a pop up target, fired 67 shots between them, over 40 of them hitting their target. "She just looked like a very real looking target," one of the troopers stated in his report.

13. Fiona Given, 17 years old, was killed by a hitman hired by her ex-boyfriend after she broke off their relationship. The hitman was promised to be paid $500,000 for the task. The hitman killed the boyfriend after he found out that a 16 year old high school student, whose father was in jail for rape and whose mother worked as an ironing lady, didn't have access to $500,000.

12. Louis Zaragoza, 68 years old, was killed as he prepared to drive to work. His wife, Lee Zaragoza, had been plotting to kill him for over a year, and had cut the brakes on his car four times previously. On this attempt, Lee was just about to cut the brakes again when Louis snuck up behind her. He grabbed her and spun her around. As he did, she lost her footing and stumbled into him, stabbing him in the lower ventricle of the heart, killing him instantly.

11. Mahmood Foli, 22 years old, was killed by an unknown member of the Russian Mafia after he accidentally took away the gangster's drink too soon at the nightclub he worked in. The gangster was so upset that he forced the waiter to drink over 27 litres of Coca Cola (the drink he had taken away) until Mahmood drowned.

10. Julia Smeeth, 20 years old, was killed by her brother Michael because she talked on the phone too long. Michael clubbed his sister to death with a cordless phone, then stabbed her several times with the broken aerial.

9. Helena Simms, wife of the famous American Nuclear Scientist Harold Simms, was killed by her husband after she had an affair with the neighbour. Over a period of three months, Harold substituted Helena's eye shadow with a uranium composite that was highly radioactive, until she died of radiation poisoning. Although she suffered many symptoms, including total hair loss, skin welts, blindness, extreme nausea and even had an ear lobe drop off, the victim never attended a doctor's surgery or hospital for a check up.

8. Military Sargent John Joe Winter killed his "two timing wife" by loading her car with Trintynitrate explosive (similar to C4). The Ford Taurus she was driving was filled with 750 kilograms of explosive, forming a force twice as powerful as the Oklahoma Bombing. The explosion was witnessed by several persons, some up to 14 kilometres away. No trace of the car or the victim were ever found, only a 55 metre deep crater and 500 metres of missing road.

7. Patty Winter, 35 years old, was killed by her neighbour in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Her neighbour, Falt Hame, for years had a mounted F6 phantom jet engine in his rear yard. He would fire the jet engine, aimed at a empty block at the back of his property. Patty Winter would constantly complain to the local sheriff's officers about the noise and the potential risk of fire. Mr Hame was served with a notice to remove the engine immediately. Not liking this, he invited Miss Winter over "for a cup of coffee and a chat" about the whole situation. What Winter didn't know was that he had changed the position of the engine. As she walked into the yard, he activated it, hitting her with a blast of 5000 degrees, killing her instantly, and forever burning her outline into the driveway.

6. Michael Lewis, angry at his gay boyfriend, used the movie 'Die Hard With a Vengeance' as his inspiration. He drugged his boyfriend, Tony Berry, into an almost catatonic state, then dressed him only in a double sided white board that read "Death to all niggers!" on one side and "God loves the K.K.K." on the other. Lewis then drove the victim to downtown Harlem and dropped him off. Two minutes later Berry was deceased.

5. Jay Newton was killed after a co-worker at Sea World in Florida dropped a 20 tonne killer whale on him. The whale had been hoisted out of his tank by a Master Tonne Crane, when the victim swam underneath to inspect the harness. His colleague, Brian Hartley, released the whale, crushing the victim instantly (and emptying a quarter of the water from the pool).

4. Carl Densinter, 34 years old, was killed by a fellow worker trying to prove a point. The worker, San Amote Pet, disconnected the internal landing gear settings on a Boeing 747 test plane (the plane's gear automatically retracts after take off). But come landing time, the landing gear wouldn't re-engage. The helpless Densinter couldn't do a thing as the plane eventually ran out of fuel. In an attempt at an emergency landing, the 747 exploded and Densinter was killed instantly.

3. Mary Dridely, Joseph Coles and Haven Gillies were killed as they walked past a New York apartment building. David Smee, aged 7, and his 6 year old sister were left alone in their 27th floor hotel room by their parents as they went to the hotel's gaming room. Bored, the kids though it would be fun to try to squish the "ant looking things on the foot path below" (people). They started by throwing fruit, then quickly graduated to chairs, televisions, even the drawers from the bedroom dresser.

2. Conrad Middleton, 26 years old, was killed by his twin brother Brian after a disagreement over who should take the family home after their parents passed away. Conrad had a nasal problem and had no sense of smell. After the argument, Brian stormed out of the house, then snuck back later, and turned on the three gas taps in the house, filling it with gas. He then left out a box of cigars, a lighter and a note saying, "Sorry for the spree, have a puff on me. Brian." Conrad promptly lit a cigar, destroying the house and himself in the process.

1. Gail Queens, 23 years old, was killed by her zookeeper boyfriend Matthew Kellaway after she refused sex. He 'invited her' to the zoo to see the lions feeding, and at feeding time led her into a room that had a large slide away panel. He explained to her that it was a large glass viewing window to watch the lions devour their prey. He 'ducked out for a quick smoke' and locked her in the room. Suddenly the slide away panel opened to reveal many people staring at her. She was just about to yell and tell them that they were on the wrong side of the glass when she realised that it was her on the wrong side. Another panel opened and three hungry lions were let into the pen. Gail survived for two days in hospital before dying of massive internal injuries.

1. Did you hear about the blind carpenter who picked up his hammer and saw?
2. Did you hear about the deaf shepherd who gathered his flock and heard?

Q. What does a dwarf get if he runs through a naked woman's legs ?
A. A clit around the ear and a flap across the face.

In an earlier posting a few days ago I mentioned my superstition where I will put any coins I find in my back pocket and then not spend them until I find another coin.

Although I don't consider myself to be conventionally superstitious, I think I'm just as superstitious as anyone else, but just do things a little differently. Living in Doncaster, it's only twenty minutes on the train to York with its Roman ruins; which I touch at every opportunity when visiting the city and mutter the words "CIVIS ROMANVS SVM" - 'I am a Roman citizen (i.e. I am a free man, not a slave).

I also have two simple ceremonies which I perform when I'm hiking on the moors (not very often these days I'm afraid). One is the simple, and common, practice of adding a stone to every cairn that I pass; and the other is the Stonekeeper's Ceremony (as I call it - I don't know its proper name) which I perform at every stone circle I come across…I always enter the stone circle from the south and touch each of the stones with my right hand as I circle in an anti-clockwise direction the number of times as there are factors of the number of stones present. I then exit from the northern quadrant and continue with my hike.

Army bomb disposal experts have been called in to defuse Christmas crackers.
Boxes of crackers sent to soldiers serving abroad have to be "disabled" because regulations class them as explosives, reports the Daily Mail.
The bizarre rule was uncovered by Major Iain Dalzel-Job, of the Scots Guards Association as he organised to send 650 festive parcels to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His plan was for the troops to receive a cracker to pull with their turkey dinner on December 25. He arranged for the packages to be flown out of RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
However, when he was looking in to the list of banned goods he discovered crackers up there on the list.
The novelty's snap is classified as an explosive and cannot be transported on RAF planes, so Major Job's team had to defuse each cracker.
He said: "It's quite tricky to get them out. It took us two hours to go through them all. The soldiers will just have to go 'bang' themselves when they pull them."
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, which operates BFPO, said the safety of aircraft and personnel was paramount.
He added: "Large numbers of Christmas crackers are classified as dangerous air cargo and therefore require special handling."

Teaching Math in 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1970: A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C," the cost of production contains 20 fewer points than set "M." Represent the set "C" as a subset of set "M" and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set "P" of profits?

Teaching Math in 1980: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math in 1990: By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are no wrong answers.

Teaching Math in 2000: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $120. How does Arthur Andersen determine that his profit margin is $60

Teaching Math in 2010: El hachero vende un camion carga por $100. La cuesta de production es...

About a year ago I was having a lot of pain in my right knee; in fact I was lame and limping all the time. I was scheduled for an operation in January but had to cancel because of illness, and as I'd already booked time off work to recuperate from the surgery, I decided to remain off work and do some stretching exercises that I'd found online.

This exercises worked wonders, the pain soon went away and my knee is still fine now; I think, as much as anything though, I just needed a break from sitting in a confined space for eight hours every weekday.

My employment contract finished in March and I'm now unemployed again but able to freely stretch and exercise my knee. At times it feels a bit weak; but this might just be psychosomatic.

I don't entirely trust my knee though; I've noticed that when climbing down stairs or steps, or just stepping off the pavement, I always lead with my good (left) leg. This of course requires conscious thought and delays me for a few seconds; thus slightly restricting my mobility.

I'm alright when walking up steps though; I suppose the consequences of a fall aren't likely to be as severe.

A Scottish lad and lass were sitting together on a heathery hill
in the Highlands. They had been silent for a while; then the lass
said, "A penny for your thoughts." The lad was a bit abashed, but
he finally said, "Well, I was thinkin' how nice it would be if
ye'd give me a wee bit of a kiss." So she did so. But he again
lapsed into a pensive mood which lasted long enough for the lass
to ask him, "What are ye thinkin' now?" To which the lad replied:

"Well, I was hopin' ye hadn't forgot the penny!"

This story could equally apply to Yorkshiremen I suppose, since we're also known for being careful with our money.

Law enforcement authorities have discovered that people are willing to go to great lengths to get high, including a troubling new method that features a frightened toad.
"Toad smoking," which is a substitute for "toad licking," is done by extracting venom from the Sonoran Desert toad of the Colorado River. The toad's venom - which is secreted when the toad gets angry or scared - contains a hallucinogen called bufotenine that can be dried and smoked to produce a buzz.
In October, a Kansas City man was charged with possessing a controlled substance after Clay County authorities determined he possessed a toad with the intent to use its venom to get high.
Clay County Prosecutor Daniel White said possessing the toad is not illegal, but using it to get high off its venom is.
"It is easier to get it, and law enforcement might not immediately know you use it to get high," White said. "It's sort of a New Age way to get high. You convince yourself it is OK because it is something you get naturally from our environment.
"There are a lot of things that are created naturally but they are still not legal," he said.
White said that for years people experimented with "toad licking," and now toad smoking is considered a substitute. To do so, a person heats up the frog's venom to break down its toxins and preserve the hallucinogen, which is dried.
He said some Internet sites feature an instructional video on how to extract the toad's venom.
Police found the toad when they went to a northern Kansas City home to investigate a suspected meth lab. They later arrested David S. Theiss, 21, and charged him with three counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possessing drug paraphernalia - the toad.
Theiss also is accused of possessing mescaline, a controlled substance extracted from a cactus.
While smoking toad venom might sound extreme, an even more disturbing method to get high possibly includes sniffing fermented human waste. Vicky Ward, manager of prevention services at Tri-County Mental Health Services in Kansas City, said she has read e-mail warnings about a drug called jenkem.
The drug is made from fermented feces and urine.
"We work with a lot of youths and we ask them whether anyone has tried it and they said no," Ward said. "They (the youths) have heard about it because of the Internet."
But whether people actually use of jenkem has not been determined, Ward said, noting that a Web site that investigates urban legends isn't clear on the matter.
"Kids get ideas that later turn out to be unfounded, but you will get some idiots who will try anything," she said.

Compiled by Jennifer Obee of Jefferson County, Colorado Public Library (Standley Lake Branch)

Hot Wireless Sets, Aspirin Tablets, the Sandpaper Sides of Used Matchboxes, and Something that might have been Castor Oil by Compton, D. G.

Nature's Law and its Application to the Understanding of the Universe and the Mastering of the Stock Market by Elliott, R. N.

The Fraud of Materialism, Positivism, Empiricism, Mechanicism, Naturalism, Sensationalism, & Sensualism: The Fraud of all Evolutionary Theories and the Anti-Culture of the Intellectual by Prokachieff, Austin

Abortion, Divorce, Vasectomy, Extra-Marital Affairs, Concubinage, Promiscuity, Sexuality, and their Impact upon the Management of the Firm by Robillard, James Homer

When My Love Returns From the Ladies' Restroom, Will I be Too Old to Care? by Lewis Grizzard

Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Good-Bye! By Cynthia Heimel

Never Sleep With A Fat Man In July by Modine Gunch

Armadillos and Old Lace, Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola by Kinky Friedman

You're so Fine I'd Drink your Bathwater by Stephan Dweck

Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones by Lana Witt

Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (and the subsequent assault of the equally evil lunchroom zombie nerds) by Dav Pilkey

A UFO Appears in Pennsylvania, 1930; Many Tragedies Occur...the Same UFO Appears in Michigan, 1996 by Gismondi, Helen

Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray by Randy Powell

I Hope You're Living As High on the Hog as the Pig You Turned Out to Be by Bill Anderson

Elvis is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself, If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About a Quart Low, They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat by Lewis Grizzard

They Used to Call Me Snow White, but I Drifted by Regina Barreca

Night Of The Avenging Blowfish: A Novel Of Covert Perations, Love, and Luncheon Meat by John Welter

I've just been sweeping up leaves in my garden and found 20p. I wonder how long it's been there?

A cat has survived for 19 days with a peanut butter jar stuck on its head.
The Cain family of Bartlett, Tennessee, have fed the feral cat, which they call Wild Oats, for several years.
They saw the cat several times with the jar on its head and tried in vain to catch it. But after not seeing it for a week, they feared the worst.
"I thought she was going to die with that jar on her head," said Tabitha Cain, 25.
They finally found the once chubby cat, too thin and weak to flee, and used some oil to get the jar off her head. They gave her water and treated her wounds and she is eating again.
The family are know thinking of changing the cat's name to Survivor.

You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today.
They left a little note on the windscreen.
It said "Parking Fine."
So that was nice.

A Huddersfield man says he's had to change his ringtone five times - because his parrot keeps copying them.
Stuart McNae says Billy waits until he leaves the room, then mimics the sound of a call - and laughs when he dashes back to answer.
Every time Stuart, 54, changes his ringtone the cheeky blue-fronted Amazon picks up the new one, reports The Sun.
He's gone through the Nokia theme, Lou Bega's Mambo Number 5, the BBC Match of the Day tune, Soul Limbo by Booker T and the MGs and Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry.
He said: "I now have the theme from A Fistful of Dollars. Won't be long before he's got that, too.
"He waits for me to leave the room before he does it. I'll rush downstairs to find it's Billy."

Firefighters helped operate on a man who was rushed to hospital after getting a metal ring stuck on the end of his penis.

Doctors at Royal Wigan Infirmary in Greater Manchester put out the alert after fearing the man faced amputation as the ring cut off his blood supply.

Two firefighters used a mini hand grinder to cut through the ring during a 20-minute procedure.
It is understood the man, aged in his 40s, was given an anaesthetic.

The firefighters placed a thin sheet of metal around his penis to protect the skin while removing the ring, which appeared to have been cut off from the end of a pipe.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service confirmed fire crews were called to the hospital at around 12.10 GMT on Thursday to "deal with a situation".
A spokeswoman for Royal Wigan Infirmary said they were unable to comment about the incident.

I was at my friend's house last night and he noticed me limping a bit and asked if my knee was starting hurting again.

I informed him that my knee was alright, but I'd got a hole in my sock and my big toe was rubbing against the indide of my shoe.

I'm always reluctant to throw away old pairs of socks, but this one has gone in the bin this morning.

A Russian woman gave birth by the light of dozens of mobile phones after a power cut plunged a town into darkness.
Emergency generators kicked in to keep incubators going at the local maternity ward at Shelehov in northern Russia.
But the room where Rima Pivovarova, 22, was giving birth was plunged into darkness just as doctors started to try and sort out complications with the delivery.
Quick-thinking nurses borrowed mobile phones from colleagues and other patients and used their light as they delivered the baby.
Nurse Nadezhda Stempkovskaya, who helped deliver the baby, said both mother and

A Russian mugger stole a woman's cake as she walked by, then asked the victim to call police so he could go back to prison, Russian media reported Tuesday.
A police spokeswoman in Krasnoyarsk, 4400 km (2700 miles) east of Moscow, said the motives for the crime were unclear, but that when police arrived on the scene the attacker told them he just wanted to return to jail, Russian agency RIA reported.
After checking the arrested man's documents, police learned the mugger had recently served out a 12-year sentence, the spokeswoman said. Charges carrying a potential jail sentence of three years were brought against the cake thief.

Tomorrow is my mum's sixty fifth birthday. She phoned me up yesterday to say that her and my dad and brother are going to meet me in town tomorrow and we'll have a meal at one of the restaurants; nothing too fancy or expensive, we all like simple food - the restaurant will need to offer a range of options to cope with my mum's coeliac disease though.

- A camera was dropped out of a plane to test out a parachute. It didn’t open and the camera was shattered. Miraculously, its memory stick was patched up and repaired
- Ants took up home in a hard drive. It was actually attempts to kill them off with repellent that did for the data
- Data got washed away after a USB stick was put through a washing machine
- USB stick dropped into a pot of apple puree baby food
- One man found out that taking a laptop on a rowing boat trip is ill advised. He and laptop ended up overboard
- A wedding photographer desperately needed to recover some pictures after saving one lot of snaps over ones from another couple’s happy day
- Acid spilt on a hard drive during a scientific experiment
- Another overeager scientist was so keen to stop his hard drive squeaking that he drilled a hole in it and poured in oil.

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S.,English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies.

At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, "Whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English."
He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?"

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied "Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."
You could have heard a pin drop!!

Doctors in China admit they are baffled after a man began to perspire green sweat.

Cheng Shunguo, 52, of Wuhan city, says his sweat turned green in the middle of November.
"I noticed that my underwear and bed sheets were all green, and even the water in the shower," he told the Chutian Metropolis News.
Cheng says he feels no discomfort, but went to hospital because he was worried about his condition.
Doctors thoroughly cleaned his armpits but it took only 10 minutes for his sweat to turn a piece of white gauze green again.
They have carried out blood tests on Cheng, but found everything to be normal.
"We can't find the cause," admitted a spokesman for the hospital which reported the case to the media in the hope of finding a solution.

I've just pulled a muscle in my left shoulder as I was struggling to remove a large rucksack filled with groceries from my back. I don't understand why they aren't made with quick-release straps that fasten at the front where you can easily reach them.

Weill and Mahoney had started with only five hundred dollars between them, but they had built up a computer business with sales in the millions. Their company employed over two hundred people, and the two executives lived like princes. Almost overnight, things changed. Sales dropped sharply, former customers disappeared, and the business failed. Weill and Mahoney blamed each other for the troubles, and they parted on unfriendly terms.

Five years later, Weill drove up to a decrepit diner and stopped for a cup of coffee. As he was wiping some crumbs from the table, a waiter approached. Weill looked up and gasped. "Mahoney!" he said, shaking his head. "It's a terrible thing, seeing you working as a waiter in a place like this." "Yeah," Mahoney said, curling his lip. "But I don't eat here."

An atheist was spending a quiet day fishing when suddenly his boat was attacked by the Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the beast tossed him and his boat high into the air. Then it opened its mouth to swallow both.

As the man sailed head over heels, he cried out, "Oh, my God! Help me!"

At once, the ferocious attack scene froze in place, and as the atheist hung in mid-air, a booming voice came down from the clouds, "I thought you didn't believe in Me!"

"Come on God, give me a break!!" the man pleaded. "Two minutes ago I didn't believe in the Loch Ness monster either!"

I've just been and put the bin out and noticed how mild it is outside this morning. In fact, so far the winter has been very mild; I don't recall there being any frost at all yet.

This unusually warm period is having an effect in my garden. In the spring and early summer I sowed a couple of packets of seeds, but not one seed germinated due to the large amounts of rain - however, quite a few seeds are germinating now...and they look as though they could be large enough already to survive the winter and flower quite early in the spring.

A young man who was also an avid golfer found himself with a few hours to spare one afternoon. He figured if he hurried and played very fast, he could get in nine holes before he had to head home. Just as he was about to tee off an old gentleman shuffled onto the tee and asked if he could accompany the young man as he was golfing alone. Not being able to say no, he allowed the old gent to join him.

To his surprise the old man played fairly quickly. He didn't hit the ball far, but plodded along consistently and didn't waste much time. Finally, they reached the 9th fairway and the young man found himself with a tough shot. There was a large pine tree right in front of his ball - and directly between his ball and the green.

After several minutes of debating how to hit the shot the old man finally said, "You know, when I was your age I'd hit the ball right over that tree."

With that challenge placed before him, the youngster swung hard, hit the ball up, right smack into the top of the tree trunk and it thudded back on the ground not a foot from where it had originally lay.

The old man offered one more comment, "Of course, when I was your age that pine tree was only three feet tall."

From Time Magazine, 'Numbers' section:

$5 million:
Estimated annual cost for a 10-year programme that would identify large asteroids most threatening to Earth.

$75 million:
Budget for 'Deep Impact', a film about the devastation caused when a comet hits Earth.

A woman strode angrily into the large drug-store-cum-general-store, slapped a package on the counter, and loudly expressed her dissatisfaction. The clerk asked, "What's the problem? Wouldn't your cat eat them?" The woman's eyes got very large, and she whispered, "Do you mean to tell me that Pussy Treats are meant for 'cats'?"

The makers of the famous Haynes car manuals have brought out a new book - on the mechanics of good fatherhood.

The Dad Manual shows men how to turn their children away from computer games and embrace traditional hobbies and pastimes.

The £14.99 book is flying off the shelves and is tipped to be a Christmas bestseller, reports the Daily Mail.
The manual tells fathers how to build traditional play equipment such as go-karts and Wendy houses.

It also shows how they can help their children construct camouflage periscopes, create planes from pizza boxes and make bows and arrows.

There are also instructions on building see-saws, model railways, playhouses and rope ladders. Fathers are also told how to teach their children to ride bicycles, make skateboard ramps and tie knots.

There are sections on cookery, gardening, bird-watching and traditional games including chess, battleships and marbles.
Editor Mark Hughes said: "Good parents spend time with their children doing things - and this is what the book encourages them to do.

"Haynes is famous for making car repairs easy to understand and carry out, and the same principle applies here."

I was in the jobcentre earlier today and there was a young lad explaining very loudly to his mate, with frequent use of expletives, how his most recent court appearance had turned out.

With my age (45) and total lack of experience he'll probably be more likely to end up getting a permanent job than me though.

John Kallam graduated with a BA in criminology and entered the U.S. Army. He served for 20 years beginning in the late 1930's. He was an investigator during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, and stayed in Germany for many years organsing civilian police forces in the post-war era. He also wrote numerous books on criminal justice. He retired from military service in the late 1950's at the rank of full colonel.
Returning to Fresno, California, he began teaching criminology at what was then Fresno State College. (Later to become the California State University, Fresno.) His work was well respected, but after about ten years of service, he was called to see the president of the college.
He was informed that he could no longer teach with just a bachelor's degree. Times were changing, he was told, and the school demanded that faculty members hold a graduate degree. Merely having 20 years of distinguished experience was no longer considered sufficient qualification to teach. All new faculty were being required to hold a doctorate, it was explained, and the school was actually doing him a favour by letting him keep his job by getting "only" a master's degree.
So John enrolled in a summer program at an out of state college. Three months of intensive seminars and then nine months of home study would get him his MA.
On the first day of class, the instructor was taking roll. He stopped when he read John's name. "Are you related to the John Kallam who wrote the textbook we'll be using?" he asked.
"I am the John Kallam who wrote the textbook you're using," came the dry response.

From the Omniglot Forum: Translation mistakes and language faux pas.

'My German exchange student said that we were having a "welfare party tonight" instead of a "farewell party tonight", which I found amusing.'

'During the winter it snowed quite a bit in Jerusalem, and at the time I had an American friend over who was trying to master Hebrew. Of course, the perception Americans have of Israel is that it is not a snowy country, so he was very amazed at all of it, and tried to say in Hebrew "Look at all the "f*cking snow" but instead said "Observe, the snow fornicates"... I almost died laughing.'

Listed below are the main landscape features of an area to the west of Doncaster, where I lived until ten years ago and used to spend a lot of time walking in the area…and still do quite regularly.

Southern Magnesian Limestone Ridge

The key characteristics of the Southern Magnesian Limestone are:

• Elevated ridge with smoothly rolling landform, dissected by dry valleys.

• Predominantly Magnesian Limestone geology which influences soils and ecological character.

• Long views over surrounding lowland.

• Fertile intensively farmed arable land.

• Large fields bounded by low cut thorn hedges creating a generally large scale, open landscape.

• Large number of country houses and estates with parkland, estate woodlands, plantations and game coverts.

• Woodlands combining with open arable land to create a wooded farmland landscape in some parts.

• Unifying influence of creamy white Magnesian Limestone as a building material often combined with red clay pantile roofing.

• River valleys and gorges cutting through the ridge exposing the underlying rock.

• Industrial influences, especially in the Aire and Don Valleys and other central valleys and along the coal measures fringe, with mines, shale tips, transport routes, power lines and industrial settlements.

• Main transport corridor of the A1 which is often apparent in areas of otherwise undisturbed rural landscape.

• Archaeological remains reflecting the long standing importance of the area for the settlement and transport.

From the Honolulu Advertiser more than 20 years ago as printed in Ann Landers, Sunday, April 7, 1996, (slightly rephrased):
Senators William B. Spong of Virginia and Hiram Fong of Hawaii sponsored a bill recommending the mass ringing of church bells to welcome the arrival in Hong Kong of the U.S. Table Tennis Team after its tour of Communist China.
The bill failed to pass, cheating the Senate out of passing the Spong-Fong Hong Kong Ping Pong Ding Dong Bell Bill.

Firms asks women to work in their undies
A Taiwanese lingerie company encouraged all its female office staff to go to work in their undies for the day.

The Audrey Underwear company in Taizhong city named November 21 Camisole Day to celebrate record sales.
All 500 women working in the firm's headquarters were encouraged to wear only camisoles and knickers - much to the excitement of their male colleagues.

"We have been waiting for this day all month. Today, we are super high, and don't know where to put our eyes," salesman Cai Mingda told Straits News.

More than 90% of female workers reportedly went along with the spirit of the day and worked in their underwear.

Zhang Yufeng, 32, a mother of two, admitted: "I have been on a strict diet to get ready for the day. When I was trying on my outfit at home, my husband told me I should dress like this every day."

And Liao Wenshen, 30, added: "The men were red-faced all day, and were becoming so polite to us. It's so funny!"

Huang Bihui, PR manager of the company, explained: "We introduced eight new camisoles into market and sold more than 20,000 in less than two months so we named the 21st as Camisole Day."

Employment lawyers said there was nothing illegal in the move so long as it was voluntary but it had its critics.

Wu Juanyu complained: "Some women may feel forced to join in because of peer pressure and job competition. I don't know if the company is selling underwear or women's bodies."

A teddy bear has been implicated in 2,500 deaths — trout deaths, that is.
State officials say a teddy bear that fell into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery earlier this month clogged a drain. The clog blocked the flow of oxygen to the pool and suffocated the fish.
Hatcheries supervisor Robert Fawcett said the bear, dressed in yellow raincoat and hat, is believed to be the first stuffed toy to cause fatalities at the facility.
"We've had pipes get clogged, but it's usually with more naturally occurring things like a frog or even a dead muskrat," he said. "This one turned out to be a teddy bear and we don't know how it got there."
The deaths prompted Fawcett to release a written warning: "RELEASE OF ANY TEDDY BEARS into the fish hatchery water IS NOT PERMITTED."
He said it's not known who dropped the bear, but urged anyone whose bear ends up in a hatchery pool to find a worker to remove it. "They might save your teddy bear, and keep it from becoming a killer," he said.

According to my stats on StatCounter, in November I had a record number of visitors to my blog - the figures for Sitemeter are a bit lower because two days of data were lost. Approximately four thousand people now click onto this blog every month, which is about a tenfold increase since I first installed the stats packages nearly two years ago.

Just who are the people who visit me then? Well, it seems that about fifty percent are UK based with another thirty percent in the rest of the Anglosphere, with the remaining twenty percent from the other parts of the world. Not quite truly international - but not too parochial either.

Until October, unlike the publicly-accessible stats for the majority of blogs that I regularly view, I never seemed to experience any spikes in readership; but then that changed, when I suppose someone put a link to the blog. Unfortunately, because I can't access the full features provided by either StatCounter or Sitemeter I can't track down this link, but I do know that for about a day and a half I was getting a lot of visitors from Canada looking at my archives for October 2006, and it seems that these same archives have recently been accessed from quite a few people in California.

Another spike occurred in the middle of November, when the same person, based in the UK, visited about two hundred of my pages over the period of two days.

This is supposedly a translation of a clipping from a German newspaper:

"In retrospect, I admit it was unwise to try to gain access to my house via the cat flap," Gregor Knopf admitted to reporters in Bremen, Germany. "I suppose that's the reason they're called cat flaps, rather than human flaps, is because they're too small for people, and perhaps I should have realised that."
Knopf (41), a gardener from Bremen, was relating how he had become trapped in his own front door for 2 days, after losing his house keys. "I got my head and shoulders through the flap but became trapped fast around the waist. At first, it all seemed rather amusing, I sang songs and told myself jokes. But then I wanted to go to the lavatory. I began shouting for help, but my head was in the hallway so my screams were muffled."
"After a few hours, a group of students approached me but, instead of helping, they removed my trousers and pants, painted my buttocks bright blue, and stuck a daffodil between my cheeks. Then they placed a sign next to me which said: 'Germany resurgent, an essay in street art. Please give generously' and left me there. People were passing by and, when I asked for help, they just said 'Very good! Very clever!' and threw coins into my trousers." "No one tried to free me. In fact, I only got free after two days because a dog started licking my private parts and an old woman complained to the police. The rescue services came and cut me out, but the police arrested me as soon as I was free. Luckily, they've now dropped the charges, and I collected over DM3,000 in my underpants, so the time wasn't entirely wasted."