Category: Invaluable Public Service

Avatar Clickbait roundup

The internet is full of junk these days, articles promoted into your social media feeds and “related content” links in your news articles. And you want to read it all, of course you do, it looks fascinating. But you’re a busy Executive Gentleman with a busy executive lifestyle, and you don’t have time for all that.

So how are you going to keep up with your colleagues around the watercooler when they’re all discussing the latest clickbait articles they’ve been reading? Well, never fear. My new subscription service Clickbaitr is now up and running, and for a monthly fee I’ll summarise all the hottest clickbait on the internet so you can keep up with this rapidly changing world.

Interested? Of course you are. See below for your free trial of conveniently summarised clickbait junk.

Read More: Clickbait roundup »

Avatar Happening soon

Guys, everyone, I know this is upsetting to some but I needed to get the word out now before it’s too late.

Gary Barlow is happening soon!

Now I’m not expecting people to start jumping into their nuclear bunkers immediately. It looks as though we have a window, how long is anyone’s guess. As long as you’re busy looking through Barlow Handbook when you have the chance to do so then that’s all we can ask.

Double check that you have plenty of water and tinned food. Carry out plenty of practise exercises with your ear defenders and earplugs.

Don’t take any risks. If you see a Gary Barlow coming towards you, whether or not he is singing, turn around calmly and walk in the other direction with your hands over your ears.

And whatever you do, don’t click that button; you do *not* want any more information.

Avatar It has begun

At what point are you officially old?

I think we’ve all been content to think of ourselves as young all these years, even as our years advance and our hairlines recede. But I think today I crossed the boundary.

This week I’ve been laid low by some kind of winter virus that I can only describe as an absolute bastard. Today, finally well enough to leave the house, I tottered unsteadily to the chemist a few minutes’ walk down the road to get another box of uplifting medicine.

The pharmacist asked me the usual things – are these for you? Have you taken them before? And then she looked at me and asked a new one. Are you over 40?

I am 40, I said, wondering what bearing this could have on some over the counter tablets containing paracetamol and caffeine.

Ah, she said, in that case you’re eligible for a free blood pressure check. These tablets can raise your blood pressure so they can do a check now, or indeed at any time I happen to be passing and wonder what my blood pressure is, since I’m now 40.

I’m used to the idea that old people get extra free services on the NHS. Flu jabs and that sort of thing. It was an interesting experience to find that I am now eligible for the first of them.

I thought about it and I’m OK with it. Bring on the freebies. When I’ve been back for my free test I’ll let you know what my blood pressure is.

Avatar Do not remove

This sign at work has not been successful in its aims.

Presumably, at some point, another bin will be provided by whoever considers it vitally important that this little-used basement corridor always has a bin available at this precise location. When that happens I suggest they adopt one, some or all of the following suggestions for improved security:

  • Add “on pain of death” to the end of the sign
  • Add a nice positive thumbs up symbol to the sign
  • Have a speaker playing the sign’s message out loud on a loop in case the bin was taken by a blind person
  • Keep the existing wording and layout of the sign, but enlarge it so that it covers the entire wall
  • Use plainer language that low-life thieves will understand, like “get your stinking hands off my bin, you pilfering shitbags”
  • Make multiple versions of the sign and use them to plaster the bin to the wall like papier-mâché
  • Apply camouflage netting to the bin, thus rendering it invisible
  • Put another more desirable bin next to the bin as bait

Avatar More lists

I’ve started using lists again. I keep forgetting things that need doing, such as uploading a bunch of photos to this here website that Chris asked for months ago, so I write them down and there’s less chance I’ll forget. Nothing is 100% foolproof though.

I should use them more often. I should have lists for everything but then there’s the risk of having so many lists that I won’t have time to do anything because I’m too busy writing lists. I need to tread that fine line carefully.

Walking through the “mean streets” of Morpeth, we came across this list scrawled on the glass door of an abandoned derelict shop. I clocked it, made a mental note of its location and then came back to it again on the walk back to the car.

I’m not sure if they were trying to be funny or not. It is a strange list for sure. Who is Soo-fee? Are they as well-known as Taylor Swift, Coca Cola and God? I would have thought that ‘bees?’ would have made the list and the fact that they’re missing is a crime.

I’m not inclined to write any of my lists on something that isn’t a piece of paper or a notepad. I can’t scribble something on a pub and then drag that around with me, it’s not practical. Perhaps the person with the pen lives nearby and needed a visual clue on the way to work or school. Whatever the reason, keep yo lists outta ma face. I’ve got enough of my own

Avatar Good deed o’clock

What’s a modern day hero to you? Is it someone who saves your life after getting your tie caught in a printing press or is it the person who hands you your sandwich and wishes you a good day? What even classes as a good deed anymore when the tiniest thing can be misconstrued or misunderstood?

It’s a good job that I’m such a good egg, ready to put all of you to shame with the sheer wealth the SHEER PLETHORA of good deeds that I’ve knocked up this month. My days have been brimming with altruism that I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I’ll have to cut them down to, I don’t know, a list of three, the three main ones, so that you don’t all die of embarrassment.

Don’t tell me that I never do anything for you.

  1. Package save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon-o I chanced upon a package in the street-o. The delivery truck-o must have dropped it-o when they were doing something else. I took it back home and checked where the address-o was and, thankfully, it wasn’t too far away-o. Later on that day-o, I posted it through the person’s letterbox so that they safely received their goods.
  2. Pigeon save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon (again?), we turned the corner and I went to put the doggo’s poo bag in the bin. What I wasn’t expecting was a pigeon to be staring back at me from inside the bin. It looked a big manky and had green stuff smeared on its wing, as if someone had thrown a drink and showered the poor thing. I ran back to the flat, picked up a few items and then carefully (hands wrapped in empty poo bags) scooped it up and placed it on the floor. After a drink of water, it looked a lot better. I was reluctant to give it food in case this was some kind of pigeon grift and a thousand pigeons all flocked towards me as soon as I brought out a bag of breadcrumbs.
  3. Spoon save – I gave a friend at work a plastic spoon so they could eat their breakfast.

Personally, I think the last one is the most important because if you don’t have the right implement, how are you going to eat your oats? Think about it.

Avatar Dangle a dongle

A dongle is a gay wooden jigsaw puzzle designed to hang on the wall.

It comes with your own initials carved out of it.

And you can choose whether you have a bird, cat, dog, Christmas tree, train or flower motif at the bottom.

Directions: use paper and an envelope. Enclose 80p for each letter of your initial or name.

Ask for: a dongle. State the initials and motif that you want.

Write to: Dept FSFK, Puzzleplex, Stubbs Walden, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN6 9BY

Avatar Puffins?

Ian and Chris have both had multiple shots at this… so this year its my turn. Its a huge honour, I know, but I’m ready. I can do this. I’ve got it. Leave it to me.

Recently we did a trip ‘ooop norrrth’ to Amble, which confusingly isn’t Ambleside where I’m heading in another few weeks time. Anyway, this Amble is on the Northumberland coast, and just a bit further up is Seahouses. In Seahouses you can get on a boat. The boat will take you to an island. The island is called Inner Farne. Inner Farne is full of… PUFFINS!

Here are some actual pictures of actual puffins I took with my own camera-phone…