Recently in Humour Category

This is brilliant: enter anything and it will sing it to you.

Never one to miss a trick, IKEA have designed kitchens to suit our potential leader's personalities.

Link: IKEA's Political Kitchens

St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly has just nine miles of road, no roundabouts or traffic lights. However, the island noew has it's first-ever speed gun in a bid to crack down on hasty drivers - even though most of its 823 vehicles would be hard-pressed to truly exceed even half of the island's speed limit.

Introduced on Wednesday in a bid to bring the island up to date with UK driving laws, the speed gun has been greeted with a mixture of scepticism and shoulder-shrugging acceptance.

"We don't even own a car and usually travel around the island on bicycle," said Bryony Lishman, co-proprietor of the island's Mincarlo Guest House. "It's quite hard to break the 60mph speed limit here. In fact on most of the islands here you'd be hard pressed to move beyond second gear."

Official figures showed that fastest vehicle clocked since its introduction was a lonely moped whizzing by at a paltry 34mph. Even the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary appeared somewhat perplexed when The Independent broke the news to its residing press officer yesterday. "Speed gun in St Mary's? Really? Where did you hear that?" the spokesman enquired. "It's usually such a sedate island where everyone behaves themselves and there's hardly ever any traffic. Apart from during the summer, there's rarely ever the need for more than two police officers on the island at all."

Yet police remain adamant of the speed gun's necessity. Sergeant Charlie Craig said it would be used to enforce the laws of the land which, he said, still applied to an outpost 28 miles off Land's End. "There is an element that thinks Scilly isn't in the UK and the laws of the UK don't apply on Scilly," he argued. "Sometimes people need reminding that the laws of the land do apply here."

The gun, he added, was imported on to the island in the wake of concerns over the increasing numbers of speeding cars as well as feedback from the island's visitors. "We have a very friendly, very relaxed way of dealing with things, but there are still things that are unacceptable and we will enforce them," he said. "Driving too fast in certain areas, such as around the school, will be dealt with."

Conceding that it was unlikely that motorists could build a head of steam to break the speed limit, Sgt Craig added that the gun would be used for gathering evidence of anti-social driving in certain areas, particularly the island's main centre in Hugh Town.

"It is very unlikely that the radar gun would be used to prosecute. It is an evidence-gathering thing. If someone was driving at 40mph through Hugh Town we would clock it and say it might not be illegal but it is not a considerate way to drive."

Police Community Support Officer Shirley Graham added that the speed gun will be used for monitoring drivers, collecting data and educating motorists. "There is a perception of speeding on Scilly but we have got the national speed limit here and to go 60mph or over is impossible.

"We do get a lot of complaints - it is one of our priorities. We try to educate the drivers to the conditions of the roads - 25mph would be ideal."

But the reception among islanders remained mild. "I suppose you do get the odd person driving like a muppet," said Rhiannon Manning, 34, who works at the island's local taxi office. "Most of the lanes here are built for horse and carriages. There's no traffic and the only things that really blocks roads are the bin men. There's a road in the centre of the island, but it winds so heavily if you did try to creep beyond 60mph you'd probably crash.

"That said, it's probably a good deterrent for dangerous driving in the long-run, wouldn't you agree?" she said, seeking the thoughts of her 56-year-old mother. The response? "Don't ask me, dear. I never go beyond 20."

Link: The Independent (No roundabouts, just nine miles of road - and now one speed gun)

Nick Abbot, 24th October 2009:

The Prime Minister was confident, his party was certain, the City seemed sure and economists and the press were agreed. Britain had come out of recession and green shoots pushed up through dead brush of the down turn and covered the landscape for as far as the eye could see... And then The Centre For Inconvenient Truths, or The Office Of National Statistics as it's known, let slip that our economy had shrunk again in the last quarter and we were still waist deep in the clag of recession. Which means that the financial wisdom of the PM, his party, the experts in the City, the nation's economists and the press could be written on the back of a wine gum! That is if you could buy one... which, without a photo ID, you cannot.

A 15 year old boy attempted to acquire a packet of the multi-coloured sweets from his friendly local 99p store. This resulted in failure as he was patently too young to consume alcohol and it clearly hints at its presence on the packet. "They contain wine!" said the alert shop keeper. "Look. WINE Gums. It says it right there, on the label." The lad was forced to hand back the forbidden confection and received a full refund of ninety-nine pence, which amounted to three kilograms of loose change, causing a hole in his pocket, and an unrefreshed palette. A full investigation by the store's management put the over-zealousness down to an 'unfortunate glitch'. Which is no way to describe a member of their staff...

The same phrase could be appended to an incident in the skies of Minneapolis this week, when a passenger jet overshot the airport by a little bit. Or 150 miles to be exact. Ground staff frantically tried to raise the alarm, Air Force jets were on standby to intercept, hijack procedures were commenced and then stood down, and then, after an hour of silence, the pilots got back in touch. "We weren't sleeping," they said. "We were just arguing." Must have been a fascinating discussion to make them forget to land an air liner with 144 passengers in the back. Perhaps they were disagreeing over the return to economic prosperity? Or maybe they were drunk on Wine Gums, or smashed on Beer Nuts, or tripping on Acid Drops.

Wise words.

[Via Nick Abbot's LBC Podcast. Links via BBC News, The Daily Mail and The Guardian]

I apologise for the pun, but there has been a lack of joined up thinking from the teams in Formula One of late... This made me smile.

Do you remember that clever Skoda advert? You know - the one where they make a giant cake version of the Skoda Fabia, which actually turns out looking better than any real Skoda we've ever seen? Well, some crazy chefs working for a Singapore restaurant seem to have embraced that crazy (and slightly wasteful) idea by coming up with an F1 car made entirely out of bread.

In our sad little minds, we like to think of Lewis Hamilton driving this in the Singapore night race; pushing the roll-shaped accelerator pedal to the floor, flicking up through the gears using his bagel paddle shifters - taking this bread-made bad boy up to speeds of 200mph and more. But then, can you imagine how soggy the doughy seats would get after a couple of hours out on the track? Yuk!

But there is a positive story behind this, with the chefs creating the car (made from 22 different types of bread) to raise money for a local school - clearly demonstrating that the Singapore F1 race is having a positive social impact on the island city-state, which is always good to hear seeing as the sport has been through some tough times of late.

Via: Orange Cars

I discovered Tom Scott's web site recently and, after writing this entry yesterday, thought one of his videos would fit in perfectly. His other work in the Things I've Made section are also worthy of your time.

Enjoy!

Edit: I've now realised that I haven't just discovered him - I knew I knew the name from somewhere. Tom is behind the UK arm of Talk Like A Pirate Day, which I've mentioned before here, here and here (with a broken image). Also, International Talk Like A Pirate Day is on the 19th September and is a Saturday this year.

Via: Tom Scott

Iron Maiden's guitarist Adrian Smith has caught a massive fish.

He currently holds the honour for bagging the biggest catch this season - the fish clocked in at an impressive 7 pounds and 14 ounces.

Smith made this revelation in the latest issue of Angler's Mail, where he also talked his habit for taking worms on tour.

"I get to fish a lot of wild and wonderful places on tour," he explained. "We used to keep worms in containers under the tourbus and in summer they would get a bit savoury. I also remember a maggot scare in a very plush hotel in Amsterdam when I was fishing in the canal there. They're certainly not on the room service menu."

Via: Planet Rock's website (via NME.com, via Angler's Mail - I think this is the first time I've referenced a reference's source's source. Or something.)

Possibly the best way to learn about circuits and circuit diagrams... through sweets!

Genius.

I adore comedian, musician and wizard-a-like Bill Bailey and so found this brief interview with him a lovely insight into what makes him tick.

With the challenge of guaranteeing a laugh a minute, comedian Bill Bailey tells the BBC's Matthew Stadlen about music, the joys of foamed milk, his mastery of languages and a love of wildlife.

I found the audio to be a little quiet though so be ready to strain your ears.

Link (will open in a new window): Five Minutes With Bill Bailey

Via: BBC News.

This is so incredibly fabulous.

A letter has been handed out to pensioners at the Odeon, in Leicester, accusing them of "unacceptable" and "juvenile behaviour" at a Senior Screen event. The three-page, unsigned, document was passed out to customers at one of the weekly showings at the cinema, in Freemans Park, earlier this month. It said the behaviour was having a "negative, Draconian impact on what was once a happy occasion".

There are either some wonderfully youthful senior citizens in Leicester, or the economic downturn has had a large effect on their pockets...

Customers were accused of threatening, pushing, poking, bullying, harassing and intimidating staff, saving seats for friends and queue-jumping. Concerns were also raised about guests abusing the free tea and biscuits handed out, with the letter stating "...guests have been known to line multiple pockets of clothing and Tupperware boxes with biscuits..."

What is wrong with that? The biscuits are free, take advantage!

One woman, who asked not to be named, said: "I think it is unnecessary. I'm sure it is just a few people and only on the odd occasion when these things happen.
"There is no need to make us all feel guilty."

However, Christine Hewkin, from Aylestone, said she felt the cinema was right to highlight the behaviour. She said: "I think the Odeon has made a fair comment. This type of behaviour has been going on for a long time and it will continue to go on if the cinema doesn't make a stand. It is annoying when you have queued and waited to find all the good seats have been saved for people who haven't even arrived yet."

A spokesperson for Odeon Cinemas said: "Odeon Leicester would like to apologise for any upset caused to its Senior Screen customers. "In response to a significant number of specific requests, a letter was issued by the cinema to its Senior Screen customers based on the feedback the cinema had received in relation to customer behaviour. Odeon Leicester would like to reassure guests the letter was only issued in an attempt to ensure everybody could continue to enjoy the same positive experience at Senior Screen performances. Odeon is committed to entertaining film fanatics of all ages and is extremely proud of the Senior Screen season. Odeon's Senior Screen sessions will continue to operate as normal."

How amazingly petty.

Via: BBC Radio Five Live and This Is Leicestershire.