Barmy Britain (16 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
A firm which supplies
Look-a-Likes has got seven Prince Harrys
and five Queen Elizabeths…
In a learned leader T
he
Times
gave this definition of an office a***hole: ‘Someone who can instantly brighten a room by leaving it.’
The Times
Philip Habib complained to his bank about having to deal with call centres. He was told that the purpose of the call centre is to avoid having customers disturbing the routines of employees ‘who have better things to do than talk to customers’.
Sunday Telegraph
The look-a-like industry goes from strength to strength. A girl who does Victoria Beckham can earn up to
£
4,000 a month, and one agency has got seven Prince Harrys and five Queen Elizabeths.
The Times
Drusilla’s Zoo Park in Alfriston, East Sussex, wanted a Fat Controller for its ‘Thomas and Friends’ railway (based on the children’s books about Thomas the Tank Engine).
But the zoo was ordered not to specify that people applying for the job must be male and fat for fear of breaking anti-discrimination laws.
Said a zoo official: ‘Theoretically, I could end up having to hire a thin woman.’
Daily Telegraph
Flaming June was flaming awful in 2007. The rain seemed to be incessant and went on and on into July, holding up Wimbledon, international cricket matches and other outdoor sports. But it had another unusual effect: the number of people who took ‘sickies’ fell by nearly a fifth.
A firm which analyses work attendance records said: ‘Good weather is definitely the enemy of businesses. When the sun is shining we see a rise in people pulling a sickie’.
Daily Telegraph
Some 2.7million Britons claim to be too ill to work – suffering from disorders ranging from stress to varicose veins. Keith Waterhouse thought that most of us would have pitched the figure higher, the only surprise being that the official doing the counting was not off that day with a bad back.
Daily Mail
A survey reveals that a third of British workers think it is all right to ‘pull a sickie’.
Top reason for taking a day off is a hangover. More than 50 per cent said they would be less likely to skive if their pay got docked.
Guardian
The Confederation of British Industry says bogus absences cost firms £11billion a year.
Sun
Postman Martin Calcutt, 31, of South Shields had to take sick leave after being bitten by his pet piranha.
The Times
Office staff spend more than 90 minutes a day gossiping, e-mailing friends and flirting.
Daily Telegraph
B. Hardy of Chester-le-Street, Durham, received an A4 envelope from a pension provider. It contained two A4 sheets of paper saying that they could not give him the information he required because the company ‘works in a paperless environment’.
Sunday Telegraph
The Biggest Liar in the World Competition is held in Cumbria and dates back to the last century. Politicians and lawyers are banned on the grounds that they are professional liars.
Independent on Sunday
Scientists researching the best way to ventilate office buildings have come up with a radical solution – open the windows.
Financial Times
Don Snyder tells how he tackled the problem of employees abusing their allotted break time. He posted a notice saying: ‘Starting immediately, your 15-minute breaks are being cut from a half hour to 20 minutes.’
Reader’s Digest
23 per cent of photocopier faults are caused by people who sit on them to photocopy their buttocks.
Daily Star
My plumber’s bill for half an hour’s work was £100. I protested: ‘I was a solicitor and couldn’t charge at that rate.’ He replied: ‘I know. I couldn’t either, when I was a solicitor.’
Daily Telegraph
A
Daily Telegraph
feature on the problems of giving references for unsatisfactory employees produced these suggestions from readers:
- My favourite is: ‘I am sure he will join your company as he leaves ours – fired with enthusiasm.’ Graham Hoyle, Shipley, West Yorkshire.
- A reference for a nurse said: ‘She has shown herself capable of anything and we will be glad to see her back.’ Dr Mark Cave, Abergavenny, Wales.
- A surgeon I worked for in North Wales preferred: ‘This man informs me that he has been my house surgeon for six months. He has carried out all his duties to his entire satisfaction.’ Dr John Griffiths, Anglesey.
- A ship’s captain was once told: ‘This man deserves a berth. Make sure you give him a wide one.’ Brian Clifton, Wilmslow, Cheshire.
Daily Telegraph
Keith Sanderson lost the tip of his thumb in a factory guillotine in Newcastle – then cut off half of a finger demonstrating to his manager how it happened.
The Times
My wife was asked to retrieve an important document from the filing system of a fellow secretary who was off sick. After two hours of fruitless search she had to call the unfortunate girl at home to ask its whereabouts. The reply came back: ‘I can’t spell miscellaneous so I filed it under J for General’.
Norman Elwes, Chelmsford.
The Times
To get the job done on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus has to travel 221 million miles at an average speed of 1,279 miles per second, 6,395 times the speed of sound.
Daily Telegraph
Mrs Janice Stone, of Hull, tells of children singing carols at the local old folks’ home. ‘A friend’s four year old grandson was asked if the oldsters had enjoyed the carols.
“Yes”, he replied. “Except for the dead one at the front”’.
Daily Mail
The five-year-old grandson of Mrs Lesley Mills of Wolverhampton was one of the three kings in his school’s nativity play. She asked him what he had given to Jesus - gold, frankincense or myrrh. The boy said he didn’t know, but the box looked like a McDonald’s Happy Meal.
Daily Mail
Instead of baubles, the Tate Britain’s Christmas tree featured models of cherubs complete with explicit depictions of their private parts.
Daily Mail
The
Sunday Times
had some fun with a whole page headlined M
ERRY
C
HRISTMAS
…
FROM
E
LF
AND
S
AFETY
. Among the hilarious pieces of advice were these two:
- If you have a fairy at the top of your tree you should be aware that the word ‘fairy’ can cause offence. A more appropriate term would be ‘wand bearer’.
- Do not stand under mistletoe as it can lead to unexpected pregnancy.
Sunday Times
The 2006 Christmas card from the Commission for Racial Equality features a nativity scene and is presented as a draft upon which politically correct comments have been scribbled. Such as:
- The snow looks hideously white.
- The animals pulling the sleigh should be product of equal opportunities employment policies, not all one species.
- Stable not compliant with housing code – where is disabled access?
- Sheep should look more diverse.
- Three Wise Men can’t be all men.
Daily Mail
The Bishop of Southwark denied being drunk during an incident in which he lost his belongings and suffered head injuries after a 2006 Christmas party at the Irish Embassy in London (
Times Online
).
Earlier a Times leader told its readers that the annual party at the Irish Embassy had a reputation for hospitality so generous that ‘guests have been known to cling to the pavement all the way home for fear of falling off’.
The Times
The
Telegraph
’s cartoonist Matt had a wife telling her husband: ‘They must have been men – they followed a star rather than stop and ask directions.’
Daily Telegraph
The Royal Christmas lunch is a brief, glum affair at Sandringham. From start to finish, the record is 50 minutes. Perhaps the reason why the lunch is so brief is that the Royal Family, just like other families, ‘can only take so much of each other at Christmas’.
Daily Mail
Carmarthenshire banned its taxi drivers from wearing Santa Claus outfits ‘because they must always resemble their identity card pictures’.
Guardian
It’s the ultimate Christmas gift for men – a new Giant Swiss Army knife which has 85 devices, weighs 2lb and costs nearly £500. Its devices include:
- A golf club face cleaner.
- Fish hook disgorger.
- Cigar cutter.
- Flashlight.
- Magnifying glass with screwdriver.
- Can opener.
- Adjustable pliers.
- Flat nose pliers.
- Needle nosed pliers with wire cutter.
- Phillips screwdriver.
- Metal file.
- Round needle file.
- Compass.
- Ruler.
- Scissors.
- Allen wrench.
- Allen key.
- Bottle top lifter.
- Tyre gauge.
- 2.5inch knife blade.
It does not, however, have a device for getting stones out of horses’ hooves. This is, apparently, mythological.
When Chris Bonnington headed a Himalayan expedition in 1970 he used every blade in his Swiss Army knife except the fish scaler. He apologised for this, explaining that there are no fish on the south face of Annapurna.
Guardian
The
Sunday Telegraph
called this ‘the shaggiest, most unbelievable Christmas story of all’:
At Santa’s Magical Animal Kingdom in Westmeath, Ireland, staff were looking forward to their Christmas feast – but someone forgot to secure the pen of their Bactrian camel Gus. This immense, shaggy, intimidating Ship of the Desert escaped and headed for the festive table. Gus is described as ‘about the size of a small elephant with large yellow, prominent front teeth’. By the time staff turned up for their party Gus had scoffed more than 200 mince pies and all the crisps and sandwiches and was on his sixth can of Guinness.
Trapeze artist Amanda Sandow said: ‘The mess was appalling. It was like a bomb had gone off. He’d eaten the lot. We were pretty angry at the time, but we soon forgave him. He’s a lovable rogue and who can blame him for celebrating Christmas.’
How does a camel open a can of Guinness? ‘With no bother at all’, said 14-year-old Clodagh Cleary. ‘He was biting the tops off with his big strong teeth and sucking up the Guinness. It was brilliant.’
Kate Kiernan said: ‘Sandwiches for 20 people and 200 mince pies would be nothing for him. It must all go in his humps, we reckon.’
Sunday Telegraph
Scrooge is alive, if not very well. He was out and about grizzling ‘Bah! Humbug!’ across the nation in the run up to the 2006 festive season:
- A survey of 23,000 employers revealed that 74% banned Xmas decorations because of fears that followers of other faiths might be upset.
Sun - Actors at a Preston pantomime were banned from throwing sweets to children in the audience.
Daily Mail - A Santa was prevented from touring Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, because his sleigh did not have a seat belt. The town’s Round Table have been towing Santa around in a float for 45 years.
Sun - For the first time in 250 years, children will not be allowed to carry candles at Chelmsford Cathedral’s Christingle service in case their hair catches fire. There is no record of this happening since the services began in 1747.
Daily Telegraph - Villagers in Embsay, North Yorkshire, were told that their festive party would be cancelled unless they carried out a ‘risk assessment’ on mince pies made by the Women’s Institute.
Sun - For 40 years the Torbay Gospelaires sang carols in the wards of their local hospital. In 2006 they were banned from the wards for fear of infection.
Daily Telegraph
Trust the Irish to cock a snoot at Scrooges. Children there often put out sacks instead of socks for Santa to fill. It is traditional to leave out mince pies and a bottle of Guinness for the old fellow.
The Times
Stuart Prebble, creator of TV’s Grumpy Old Men series, has a grumpy old look at Christmas and says of pantomimes that in the good old days they were aimed at kids and were full of silly jokes and slapstick.
‘Now they’re all sex, smut and double entendres. Even the phrase “He’s behind you” carries a whole different meaning.’
From a
Daily Mail
selection of Prebble’s seasonal
bleatings in his book
Grumpy Old Christmas
(Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £9.99).
A
Daily Telegraph
reader remembered receiving a Christmas gift from the Mayor of Stalybridge during World War II. It contained a jar of Brylcreem and a packet of razor blades.
‘I was in the Women’s Auxiliary Service,’ writes Joan Brown of Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria.
Daily Telegraph
Have a merry festive season and don’t read this. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents reports that:
- More than 6,000 people will end up in hospital on Christmas day.
- During the 12 days of Christmas more than 80,000 will visit A&E wards.
There will be:
- Drunken dads severing fingers while trying to carve the turkey.
- Chefs not following the correct lifting procedure when moving 24lb turkeys.
- Christmas trees causing more than 1,000 injuries (branches in eyes and falling off chairs reaching to put the fairy on top).
- Fires caused by lighting candles on Christmas trees and positioning candles underneath strings of cards.
- Heavy gifts hidden on top of wardrobes falling off and causing head injuries.
- Screwdrivers driven through the palm while trying to penetrate packaging.
- Knives slashing through flesh while cutting through thick layers of sticky tape.
Guardian G2
The Santa Claus working in Paisley’s shopping centre near Glasgow was forced to swap his red hat for a hard hat after being bombarded with mince pies by youths.
Guardian
In the run-up to the festive season newspapers and magazines vie with each other to provide alleged hangover cures, old and new.
The Daily Telegraph magazine filled a page under the headline: ‘Are there hangover cures that actually work?’ It listed five ‘hangover helpers’ ranging in price from £4.99 (RU 21 tablets) to £15.39 (Planetary Herbal Kudzu Complex capsules), and ended up with a last paragraph quoting an expert whose research concluded that ‘there was not a lot of evidence for cures… In the end, nothing can prevent or treat hangovers – the only thing is not to drink.’
Daily Telegraph magazine.
(Sorry. Merry Christmas and
a Happy New Year anyway.)
For Andy Park, 45, of Wiltshire, it is Christmas every day – starting with mince pies and turkey sandwiches for breakfast, crackers at lunch and a video of the Queen’s Speech at 3pm and a roast turkey dinner. He has been doing this for 12 years and has consumed an estimated 4,380 turkeys.
Independent on Sunday
The average Christmas tree is home to 30,000 bugs, including spiders, fleas and lice.
Reader’s Digest
Simon Hoggart’s Saturday column in the
Guardian
has been delving into Christmas catalogues and finding such essentials as:
- An easy-clean fibreglass Petstep (
£
67.50) – a gangplank to allow dogs to stroll into the car boot without having to be lifted onto the protective blanket. - Battery powered insole heaters (
£
72.95). - A Self-Stirring Mug (
£
10.95).
But Simon hadn’t realised how long Christmas catalogues have been around until Robin Dow wrote from Sheffield about a Victorian version which offered a walking cane that converted into a small step-ladder in case the owner met a mad dog.
Guardian
Kelvin MacKenzie reports on The Four Stages of Father Christmas:
1. You believe in Father Christmas
2. You don’t believe in Father Christmas
3. You are Father Christmas
4. You look like Father Christmas
Sun
A survey revealed that one of the reasons why pubs are so popular at Christmas is that people go there to escape the in-laws.
Sun
The gags in Christmas crackers are normally so bad that everyone laughs at the stupidity of them. Here are some of the worst of the 2007 vintage:
- What is Santa’s favourite pizza? One that’s deep pan, crisp and even.
- On which side do chickens have most feathers? The outside.
- What’s furry and minty. A polo bear.
- Who hides in the bakery at Christmas? A mince spy.
- What do you call a penguin in the Sahara desert? Lost.
Daily Telegraph
In order to get airborne, Father Christmas’s reindeer would need wings ten metres (33ft) long according to the calculations of Paolo Viscardi, a flight physiologist at the University of Leeds. He worked out that Rudolph & Co would need a total wing area of at least nine square metres.
Guardian
Receiving a Christmas card with a robin on it is a sign of something nasty to come according to the
Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland
. But wearing a spider in a bag around your neck until it dies will bring good luck.
Daily Mail
Asda supermarket held a contest to find new jokes for Christmas crackers saying: ‘Groaning at awful cracker jokes is part of the Christmas fun. The aim was to not to introduce good jokes, but to bring in new bad ones’. These are some of the winners: