Avatar Splashing out

I don’t like Black Friday. I don’t like that it’s an American thing that makes no sense here, and I don’t like that it’s a ridiculous incentive to buy stupid crap I don’t need, and I don’t like that it causes stampedes of morons to trash shops in the hope of getting a bargain on a games console. I don’t like Black Friday.

So when Black Friday rolls around I take a principled stand and refuse to take part. My morals are stronger than my desire for bargains. Or so I thought.

This year I happened to be doing some Christmas shopping online when I hit on the Amazon list of Black Friday deals, and something turned my head.

I couldn’t resist. I was weak. I bought it.

I splashed out a totally unplanned £5, and now I have a pack of five adhesive cable clips in a range of sizes to keep all my wires tidy at the back of my desk.

Im not proud of it. But at least, when my standards slipped, it was for a just cause.

Avatar Quoin (what did you call me?)

Take a look at this word:

Quoin

What’s going on there exactly? It’s very odd, as though someone was trying to type ‘coin’ in their phone and came out with a right old mess of nonsense.

The more you look at it the less it makes sense, possibly causing fits of giggles from its nonsensical nature. In a way it’s a bit like that picture of George that got funnier the longer you stared at it; scientists are yet to understand the power of Gorg.

For those not in the know, myself included, a quoin is a masonry block at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic details to a corner.

Imagine that, your corner is looking a little out-dated, not completely on the fashions so you rustle up a sexy quoin and stick it on the outside of your house ot make the neighbours jealous. If I had a collection of quoins mine would all have feather boas and they’d dangle from the side of my block of flats, teasing those that walk past with their dogs.

I wonder how many quoins Kevin has been through in his redevelopment cycle encompassing most of the British Isles.

Avatar Frothies

I recently discovered something I didn’t know, which is that there is a word in the English language that breaks my brain. I can’t process it. Something about it just doesn’t fit inside my head.

The word is “froths”.

This came up the other day when I needed to describe something frothy to someone. I attempted to say that it “froths up”, but every time I tried to say it, my head got stuck and the word that came out was “frothies”. I made four attempts to say “froths”, all of which were “frothies”, and then I gave up and started a new sentence that avoided using the word altogether.

I don’t know why this is. I don’t know how long this has afflicted me. I know the word “froths” exists, of course. I can sit here and type it. But each time I’m approaching the point of typing it, my brain first suggests “frothies”, and even now – even knowing that this is a problem, and that the word is coming up, and being conscious that I might get it wrong, I still can’t say it right on the first attempt.

I have decided that, from now on, I’m just going to stay away from any bubbly, foamy or otherwise aereated liquids as a way of avoiding the problem completely. That’s definitely the answer.

Avatar Bank holidays

There’s a serious problem that we have all been completely failing to address, and it’s been going on for too long now. I have decided to fix it. The arrangement of bank holidays across the year is inconsistent, unfair and stupid.

Just look at this chart showing where all the bank holidays fell in 2020. What a mess.

Just spacing them out evenly wouldn’t bring an end to this madness, because there’s only seven of them. That would mean a wait of 52 days between free days off work, a barely acceptable waiting time.

The solution is obvious. More bank holidays, sprinkled evenly throughout the year, so we get one about every two weeks. That’s a massive win. Here’s my suggested list.

  1. New Year’s Day
  2. Blue Monday
  3. Pancake Day
  4. Box Set Thursday
  5. Spring Cleaning Day
  6. St Patrick’s Heavy Drinking Day
  7. Good Friday
  8. Easter Monday
  9. First T-Shirt Day of the Year
  10. Eurovision Day
  11. The Other May Bank Holiday
  12. Boxing Day (relocated)
  13. Wimbledon Finals Day
  14. Beer Garden Friday
  15. Barbecue Day
  16. Holiday Packing Day
  17. Summer Bank Holiday
  18. DFS Sale Day
  19. Steak Pie and Mash Day
  20. Winter Coat Day
  21. Wellies and Leaf Crunching Day
  22. Bonfire Night
  23. Pyjama Wednesday
  24. Christmas Shopping Day
  25. Christmas Day
  26. New Year’s Eve

This results in a much better spread of bank holidays through the year, as shown below.

Please consider this the start of my campaign to enshrine these new bank holidays in law, and also the start of my campaign to be Prime Minister. Thank you.

Avatar REM Covers Album

What was that? It was a bad idea to begin with and now you’re going to run it into the ground like you always do? You clearly know me so well.

Hi, I’m Ian, I recently turned 37 and I still retain the intelligence of someone a quarter of my age. I used to take song lyrics, change them into something else and then hand them to my friend to upload onto our website because that was “funny” even though most of the time it really wasn’t.

Do you remember ‘Slut Call Girl’, a “hilarious” reinterpretation of Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl’? Probably not. It was one of my better efforts. The others are better best forgotten.

In the spirit of this though I have decided to drag all of my showbiz mates out to record a covers album to end 2020 the way it began; awfully. It’s even worse, it’s a funny covers album. I will be taking some of the moved beloved rock songs from the last 30-40 years by one of the most amazing bands from within our very own lifetime and I will be turning them into a one joke joke about curling one off.

(I can hear you groaning already)

Let’s take a look at the track listing:

Everybody Poos
The One I Shove
Shiny Happy Faeces
Nightshitting
It’s The End of The Roll As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
The Sidewinder Shits Tonight
Strained Currencies
What’s The Excretion, Kenneth?
The Great Pee-Pond
Imitation of Shite

I feel as though I may have crossed a line that I can never recover from; please forgive me Buck, Berry, Mills and Stipe.