A football, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play football
A basketball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play basketball
A tennis ball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so can be used to play tennis if you don’t mind the ball not bouncing or travelling far enough because it has the wrong weight and ballistic properties
A baseball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play baseball
Recently we got a new treadmill thing, which allows you to go for a walk inside your house. This is useful for exercise and also for avoiding scenery if the natural world is disgusting to you.
I took a look at the instructions to see if there was any important information there that wasn’t immediately obvious when looking at the four-button control panel (on, off, faster, slower). It told me some vital information about the dimensions and operating parameters of the machine.
And then, at the bottom, it told me something else.
I don’t know what it’s going to do to me. I don’t know what its plan is.
You know I swan up with very little fanfare and whip out a couple of blinders. It’s only a matter of time before we go global and, I don’t know, Margot Robbie is having afternoon tea with Timothy Shallamoose and they’re saying our catchphrases between the sandwich and cake course.
Let’s whip up a storm:
Shat in a pampers! – it feels good saying it out loud. Try it the next time you accidentally hit your thumb with a hammer
You get the lentils, I’ll get the bleach – always use responsibly, to check if someone is actually listening to you
Park it where I can see it – possible sitcom zinger, used by sitcom mum to keep sitcom kids in check
Claw ’em, core ’em, floor ’em – a personal phrase from the one and only Tad Kensington. It’d take too long to explain it (so see below*)
Put your potatoes away, I’m not interested – it depends on the context
Now that we’re almost halfway through the year, next month will be a ‘best of the best’ showcasing all the gold we’ve dug up so far.
I personally can’t wait.
(*When you really want the razzle dazzle for that big presentation, you have to prove to people that you’re really willing to go that extra mile. First up is the clawing, getting your nails into them, showing them who’s boss and that you won’t let go without a fight. Second up is core ’em, strip them bare right down to their very being. Not to humiliate but to unearth what the person really wants. To get right to it and understand what’s going on. Once you’re there, take to the stage to bring it home. Floor them, floor them all so you’ll walk away with a smile and your commission several times over).
You might think you know how to speak the language of Great Blighty, but just because you picked it up as a child doesn’t mean you’ve fully grasped its intricacies. Thankfully the internet is full of helpful advice for those trying to master British English, and in this post I’m going to round up some of the key findings for you.
Food
Every guide seems to begin with food words. In Britain, eggplants are called aubergines and zucchini are called courgettes. Then we have some more useful translations from YMT Vacations:
Word
Translation into British
Chips
Crisps
Beer
Jar
Cheetos
Puff snacks
Doritos
Doritos
Slices of cured ham
Rashers
Vogue add that flapjacks are “not pancakes”, though they have no information about what flapjacks actually are.
Nouns
What do you call that thing? If you want to avoid just pointing at something, you need to know its name. Thankfully Vogue knows a lot more about what things are called.
Word
Translation into British
Toilet
Loo
Elevator
Lift
Uniform
Kit
Pregnancy
Up the Duff
Quintain Living helpfully throw in some more common nouns that you might require. Don’t make the mistake of using the words on the left if you want to avoid being laughed at.
Word
Translation into British
Kiss
Snog
Man
Bloke
Toilet paper
Bog roll
Police officer
Rozzer
On that final point, YMT Vacations also helpfully share their understanding that the common British term for a police car is “jam sandwich”.
Idioms and phrases
If you really want to speak like a native Britisher, you should sprinkle some common Brit-sayings into your conversation to convince the locals that you too are from Fair Albion’s green and pleasant shores. Vogue have soaked up the culture and offer the following extensive list.
Word
Translation into British
Weird
Dodgy
Cray
Bonkers
Gross
Gammy
Ugly
Butters
Dating
Courting
YMT Vacations don’t know many common phrases, but they do know that if the weather is bad you should say it’s “blowing a hooley”.
We will give the last word to Quintain Living, though, who recommend avoiding the heavily Americanised phrase “go away”. Instead you should tell British people to “sod off”.
With all this advice you should have no trouble fitting in to British society and you’ll be the King of Downton Abbey in no time. Pip pip!
Are you looking for a beautiful hand-made gift for a loved one?
Are you craving some more bits to fill up your cupboards, drawers and/or shed?
Free and affordable items are few and far between these days. Luckily there are mega chads still out there willing to part with their prized possessions for next to nothing, and sometimes nothing.
My local Facebook group has never let me down. Let me show you some of the treasures that have come up over the last month:
My favourite, by a mile and a half, has the be the one below because it makes me smile so much. I burst out laughing the first time I saw it:
The words, “whatever you see them as” will forever send me into tiny giggles. I’m considering writing them on the wall in the living room; it’s the new ‘live laugh love’.
Take a look at YOUR local Facebook group. Perhaps YOU’LL find something too.
Hey guys, Face Uncle back to rock-k-k-k-k your world.
Yeah, let that hit you like a brick.
You know me, guys, I’m a pretty silly person when you get down to it. I’m known for my wacky sense of humour and I’m pretty much up for anything. Sometimes though you have to get serious. Sometimes you think of something and you can’t let it go because it means something.
Sometimes science needs a helping hand.
You don’t need me to tell you whether or not birds need lips but I’m hoping you’ll watch my video where we finally decide whether or not birds need lips.
When we bought our house five years ago, we moved in to a former military town where all the army things were being steadily demolished and replaced with new housing estates. As part of this new utopian vision, we kept being told that there would be a new town centre, which would one day materialise on the big patch of derelict space in the middle of town five minutes’ walk from our new place.
Over the years we’ve kept hearing stories about all the brilliant things that will be there once they build it, putting a range of wonderful conveniences on our doorstep. But the big derelict space continued to be big, derelict and empty. Would we even live to see this fabled wonderland, this Eden of small town commerce?
Well, finally, things are changing. A couple of months ago work started to build the steel frames of the first building, which will be a big Sainsbury’s, soon to be surrounded by other things as part of a phased construction project. And in the last couple of weeks, with people and cranes and diggers on site, new signs have gone up to advertise the company building it. I couldn’t be more delighted. Look who it is!
As yet, though, no sign of their cufflinks or their children. I’ll keep looking.
There we are, having a good ole friendly chat at the Winston when this Chris guy starts talking about some formal occasion he’s organising. Nice one, right?
Wrong. He’s got it all wrong. What should be an easy win with an open goal turns into an own goal which smells of bad eggs and then renames all the roads in England and Wales without telling him, and they’re super silly names too that you’ll never remember.
I get the impression he’s never been to a village fête, let alone sorted one out. Here’s all the information we have so far:
What he does have:
A carousel
A big event (possibly involving cars)
Everyone turning up in formal dress
What he doesn’t have:
A craft tent full of bickering old ladies
A white elephant stall selling all the piddling crap people got for Christmas that were too embarrassed to drop off at a charity shop
A man with a laser who loves lasering names into pieces of wood, metal and any other material that’s safe for his laser
Whack-a-rat (sometimes known as ‘Splat the rat’)
A cake stall where someone has mislabelled the prices so a full fruitcake is 99p but a single scone is £4.99
An announcer who is so muffled by feedback nobody can tell what he or she is saying
Terrible weather halfway through that clears up after 8 minutes, giving all the old people something to talk about for the rest of the afternoon
As you can see, there’s a lot of work that needs doing in a very short period of time. I’m also sure I’ve missed a few obvious ones there.
I would recommend the services of Kevin “been doing this 30 years, bruh” Hill because he’s been, well, you probably get the jist. The experience and expertise he can bring will be invaluable and will ensure that Chris and his village fête are quintessentially perfect in the eyes of everyone who attends. The eyes are all that matter.
I’ll bring a bag of pennies and the overwhelming optimism of a man who hasn’t watched the news for two decades.
