An extract from the Christmas letter sent out by Peter, the guardian of my sanity:

“Now I want to pause here to tell you something about HBOS. Several months after Sam left he received a letter from them saying they had overpaid him and asked for a repayment. I started to write back to them on his behalf to obtain more information in this when I noticed the letter was from a young lady who worked in their Overpaid Salaries Team. And this made me think. This organisation has a whole section whose task it is to sort out all the cock ups made by their Payroll Department. How sad is that? Needless to say we never received a reply. This made me think about other possible departments in large banking organisations. What about the “I know you are objecting to our bank charges but bollocks” department? Or the “your call is important to us but no one is going to speak with you for the next half hour” department? I think I’ve stumbled onto something here. The list is endless. This could be a whole chapter in my eventual book. If this was Radio Five they would now be inviting listeners to text in their own suggestions.”

On a group of beautiful deserted tropical islands in the middle of nowhere, the following people are suddenly stranded by a shipwreck:

2 Italian men and 1 Italian woman

2 French men and 1 French woman

2 German men and 1 German woman

2 Greek men and 1 Greek woman

2 English men and 1 English woman

2 Bulgarian men and 1 Bulgarian woman

2 Japanese men and 1 Japanese woman

2 Chinese men and 1 Chinese woman

2 American men and 1 American woman

2 Irish men and 1 Irish woman

One month later on these same absolutely, stunningly beautiful desert (and deserted)Islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things  have occurred: 

One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

The 2 French men and the French woman are living happily together in a menage-a-trois.

The 2 German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.

The 2 Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cleaning and cooking for them. 

The 2 English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman.

The 2 Bulgarian men took one look at the endless ocean, another long look at the Bulgarian woman, and started swimming…

The 2 Japanese men have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.

The 2 Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, a liquor store, a restaurant, and a laundromat. And have got the woman pregnant in order to supply employees for the store.

 The 2 American men are contemplating the virtues of suicide because the American woman keeps endlessly complaining about her body, the true nature of feminism, how she can do everything they can do, the necessity of fulfillment, the equal division of household chores, how sand and palmtrees make her look fat, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do, how her relationship with her mother is improving, and at least the taxes are low, and it isn’t raining….

The 2 Irish men have divided the Island into North and South and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture, because it gets sort of foggy after the first few liters of coconut whiskey. But they are satisfied because at least the English aren’t having any fun.

… but where is the photographer?

I’m currently reading an excellent book about the history of Hollywood (’The Whole Equation’ by David Thomson) and I know he would be impressed by this clever re-cut of Mary Poppins which relies on a spooky soundtrack and editing to completely change the emphasis of the story

This is a quiz to determine which philosopher you are:

You scored as Friedrich Nietzsche. You are a sweet philosopher who belived that humans are caught up in “herds” and need to break free and be individuals. Also, there are no standards to judge against, because “God is dead.” You also probably suffer from a mental illness, probably due to some form of an untreated STD, and will most likely suffer a mental collapse. Friedrich Nietzsche 75% Martin Heidegger 71% Soren Kierkegaard 68% Jean-Paul Sartre 50% Albert Camus 50% Not An Existentialist 25% Which Existentialist Philosopher Are You?

…thanks to Julie who stole these before me….

1. DON’T SWEAT THE PETTY THINGS AND DON’T PET THE SWEATY THINGS

2. ONE TEQUILA, TWO TEQUILA, THREE TEQUILA, FLOOR…..

3. ATHEISM IS A NON-PROPHET ORGANIZATION.

4. IF MAN EVOLVED FROM MONKEYS AND APES, WHY DO WE STILL HAVE MONKEYS AND APES?

5. THE MAIN REASON SANTA IS SO JOLLY IS BECAUSE HE KNOWS WHERE ALL THE BAD GIRLS LIVE…

6. I WENT TO A BOOKSTORE AND ASKED THE SALESWOMAN, “WHERE’S THE SELF-HELP SECTION?” SHE SAID IF SHE TOLD ME, IT WOULD DEFEAT THE PURPOSE.

..and other useful facts..

The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

There are two credit cards for every person in the United States.
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Read the following carefully…

A devout Baptist couple who bought a Doris Day DVD from a supermarket were shocked to find a sex film instead. Alan and Anne Leigh-Browne, from Wellington, Somerset, had been expecting to enjoy The Pajama Game.

Instead they were confronted by Italian sex film - Tettone che Passione, which translates Breasts, What a Passion. “Some topless young women appeared and started talking in Italian… it’s not what you expect from a Doris Day film,” Mr Leigh-Browne said.

Retired doctor Mr Leigh-Brown, 67, said he picked up the film, which was sealed in plastic wrapping, for £2.99 from the bargain bin of a Safeway supermarket in Taunton.

No ‘plot’

The couple, regular attendees at their local Baptist church, settled down with a cup of tea to watch the 1957 musical which has a U (universal) certificate.

“It was a pretty raunchy, explicit film, it certainly pulled no punches,” Mr Leigh-Browne said. “My wife and I were very shocked but we watched it until the end because we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. “The film became progressively more graphic, there was no plot to it, it was just sex.”

Alan and his wife Anne, 60, a retired teacher, complained to Safeway the next day and all copies of The Pajama Game were removed from the store.

We watched it to the end because we couldn’t believe what we were seeing - Yeh right - I remember making those kind of lame excuses when I was 12….but what really amazes me is that they obviously think that people will believe them, and then they tell the newspapers about it. I’d love to discuss this further but I’ve just got to pop down to Safeways….

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

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 troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

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 ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understnd ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.