Category: Business

Avatar Newsboost – the Happy Salad Boys return

We have exclusive news down here at the Newsboost HQ that sexy boy band the Happy Salad Boys are due to release a new album by the end of the month.

You’ve all heard of them by now. They seemed to appear out of nowhere around 18 months ago, four jolly lads with an eye for a tune and expert marketing and choreography to match. Their debut album ‘Mushrooms, yeah?’ went straight in at number one, featuring twelve of the grooviest, hippest and most vegetable-est songs you’ve ever heard. Since then, Chester Kneesup, Drake Fondles, Tyler ‘whoops’ Aplenty and (no capital letter, please) tim have been on every magazine cover, website and advertising billboard this side of Chelmsford.

A sold out tour followed, taking in all the major cities and stadiums the UK could manage. They were so popular they sold out Wembley five times, and forced Ed Sheeran to a smaller venue to coo his acoustic love songs to five people instead of six (sorry, Ed).

Whats the new album called? That hasn t been leaked yet, although the fervent fans are casting their votes as to which vegetable they might choose next.

“All our albums will be named after vegetables,” said Drake Fondles, the self proclaimed leader of the four. “Because vegetables matter.”

Will it be artichokes? Will it be spring onions? Will it be something completely different such as an autumnal swede? We only have a few weeks to wait.

Stay tuned for more Happy Salad Boys exclusives coming very soon.

Avatar Butter insurance

Take a moment to think about it. Do you have enough cover for your spread?

You may think that butter is something to take for granted because you can buy it from every corner shop and supermarket. It’s readily available. It’s on the tips of your fingers every single day.

But what if it wasn’t? What if it was gone without any explanation whatsoever? What would you do then? Opt for margarine? Would that really do? Are you going to sit your children down and explain to them that margarine is the best you can do?

Here are Butters McButters Inc, we offer the finest butter insurance money can buy. Our lavish offices may suggest we’re all about the profits and satisfying the shareholders with champagne every Friday, but let me reassure you that your butter needs are what’s on my mind 24/7.

What you get with one of our policies is more than your average butter insurance policy; you get peace of mind. If your butter gets stolen, we will replace that butter with a full packet within 24 hours. If we manage to catch the thieves, we’ll give you your butter back… with a smile and a thumbs up. We also cover for many different butter scenarios such as:

  • Not wrapping the butter back properly so that a bit of it goes hard and weird
  • Accidentally wasting some of it because someone didn’t put it securely on the fridge shelf so it fell down and wiped a bit on the shelf below
  • Clowns
  • Bees
  • Preparing some fresh toast and going to pick up the butter only to realise your wife used the last of it earlier on this morning and you’ve got nothing left to smother on that piping hot breakfast

Can your insurance company guarantee you for all of this? I sincerely doubt it.

Don’t put yourself in an uncomfortable position; get butter cover now before the worst happens. You butter believe we’re the best in the biz!

Avatar Cheese sponsorship

I think I’ve found the weirdest food marketing ploy since special edition Elton John Marmite.

The other week we decided to get some nice burgers from the butcher and have a home made burger night. (It was absolutely banging, thanks for asking.) We needed cheese for that, obviously, so we got ourselves a pack of sliced Jarlsberg.

The cheese was, as you would expect, perfectly aged for maximum flavour, a source of calcium, high in protein, and somehow lactose free. (I don’t understand the last bit, it’s cheese, but OK, that must be something to do with the secret recipe.) But this Jarlsberg has another, much more unexpected, property.

Yes, this is the official cheese sponsor of The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical. Not the film, you understand, no – presumably another cheese sponsors that. But Jarlsberg is the cheese providing the financial backing for the stage musical, and presumably reaping the benefits of the show’s fans when they come pouring out of the theatre, hungry for cheese, and all rush to the dairy aisle of the nearest supermarket to get themselves a pack of ten slices of medium strength Dutch cheese.

Avatar London says no

Usually, on my way home from a day at work, I call in to a well known retailer at Waterloo station who sell Simply Food to get myself something to eat on the way home – usually a sandwich and a bag of crisps or something like that. By the time I’m there, around 8.45 in the evening, there are reduced stickers all over everything so my aim is to get an all-discount meal.

A week or two ago I went to the sarnie department and was faced with an unusual sight. Normally most of the food is gone and there are stickers on some of the remaining items, but that day there was an absolute wall of unbought stock.

It appears that Mr Mark and Mr Spencer had decided not to stock up on the usual classics – there were no BLTs, cheese and pickles or chicken caesar wraps. Instead, on the flimsy pretext that some tennis was being played, they had filled the shelves with strawberry sandwiches with pistachio cream on chocolate bread. The commuters of London had then looked at these and, collectively, said no.

I don’t blame them. For one thing these are not a meal. I don’t want fruit on novelty bread for my lunch or my dinner, I want an actual filling sandwich with grown up things inside it. And while I might have been tempted to have some novelty fruit nonsense as a little pudding afterwards, there was not a chance in hell I was going to pay £4.20 for it. Neither, it seems, was anyone else. The yellow stickers were out and the weird butties were now reduced to £3.75 but still nobody was buying.

The next day the exact same sight greeted me – a wall of the finest strawberries the UK produces, hand selected by the pickiest supermarket to meet the highest standards, turned into something nobody wanted to eat. The day after that it was full of normal sandwiches again. Hopefully these abominations won’t be back.

Avatar Lil’ Beavers

Are you a lil’ beaver?

Are you looking to learn how to drive but you’re too small to drive a regular car?

Would you like to learn how to drive a car in a safe and beaver-friendly environment?

We would love to see you at Lil’ Beavers Driving School. Call the number and speak to one of our dedicated staff to set your up lessons straight away.

You’ll have a dam good time!

Avatar How do I get my parcel?

We came home the other day to find a parcel had turned up. The driver had left it on the doorstep right in front of the front door.

Inside the door, we found a little card that the driver had pushed through the letterbox.

It said they had left the parcel in the safe location “front step”. Then, further down, it asked how do I get my parcel?

In answer, it said they would return to deliver it tomorrow. So we left it on the step until the next day. But the next day the driver didn’t come back and they didn’t deliver our parcel.

The next suggestion was that we go to www.yodel.co.uk to choose a new delivery date or arrange to collect it from a depot. When we visited the website it asked for the parcel number, but the parcel number was not on the card.

In desperation, we called the Yodel hotline and explained that the card didn’t tell us the parcel number. The operator asked for our postcode instead. We gave them our postcode. They said the parcel had been delivered. We explained what had been written on the card and that we were following their instructions to get it.

At this point the penny dropped. We didn’t need to arrange a delivery, said the operator. We just needed to collect it. So we went back out to the doorstep to collect our parcel, bringing the Yodel card, one item of photographic ID and a utility bill to prove our name and address. Now we have our parcel.

We opened it. Everything inside was wet from the rain overnight. We’re sending it back.

Avatar Old tat? Yes please!

How are you for gravel? Got enough?

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.