Newsboost – Old Codger Couple Cooks up Controversy

Shock news today as it was revealed that the two old people in the UK road sign are not actually two people, it is one person and her ventriloquist puppet.

The sign, which warns the general public of the impending danger of the elderly, has been in use for over 70 years and only now has it been revealed by the UK government that the second person is a puppet. At the time it was intended that two people be present in the picture only when it came to paint it one of them took a longer nap than intended and didn’t show up. Luckily the original model, Constance Felling, was an avid marionette aficionado and had her puppet, Swallow Thard, fill in the gap.

Constance has since passed on but we did manage to speak to a surviving relative, her daughter Rosemary. “David never arrived. They waited over an hour for him and he never emerged. His house phone rang and rang with no luck so the team divided into two; one set went to check that he hadn’t died and the other carried on with the sign. Mum was ever so resourceful and whipped out Swallow so the work could progress. They had to make the legs look less lifeless so they drew mum’s legs twice and put a set under Swallow. David was fine, a little drowsy from his sleep and nothing more. He was too late though as it was all finished by the time he arrived.”

She took a sip of her Special Brew and carried on, “That’s why it looks the way it does, as though the woman at the back is squeezing the bum of the guy in front. Everyone has been laughing at it for all these years and it’s nothing to do with sexual harassment; mum actually had her arm up his arse.”

The ‘Elderly People’ sign was voted the fifth most popular in England and Wales after a poll in 2011.

This follows on from February’s news when it was revealed that the person in the ‘Caution: Pedestrian Crossing’ the road sign wasn’t crossing at all, he was punching an Irishman in the stomach for sleeping with his wife.

When soup explodes

Here’s something I didn’t know was possible until it happened.

Apparently, if you have a can of soup, and some part of the soup had gone off or was rotten when it was canned, it can ferment inside the can and expand. Eventually the pressure will cause the can to open.

When the can opens it will be spectacular, in a horrible sort of way, looking and smelling like someone has projectile-vomited across your kitchen cupboards. It will literally explode.

We emptied the cupboard and cleaned it three times to get rid of the smell, and then found the lid of the can several days later. It had blown off the right side of the can, bounced off the wall of the cupboard, and landed between some other items in the far left corner at the back.

Smug it up

It is terrible, absolutely terrible when you cannot find the thing you are looking for. I must have looked for, ooo, less than five minutes and they just aren’t there.

Where are all the photos of smug fuckers who live on canals? Hidden away in people’s photo albums no doubt. The internet refused to give up the goods so I had to make my own.

God damn useless internet.

Old news

It’s hard to know what to say, these days, when you talk to people, because nobody has any news. What do you talk about when nobody has anything to talk about? How do you fill a blog post when you haven’t done anything worth remembering?

Luckily for me, I am now quite old, so what I’ve decided to do is go back and see what past Chris was doing on this day years ago.

Episode 17: Crisps

Cracking on through series 2 we go, and this ones a nice example of the casual ramblings that appear with an unscripted/unprepared/unorganised podcast about… stuff.

This episode we discuss:

Sweet Crisps
50/50 Flavours
A Meal of Crisps
An endless lists of flavours

The 5 worst things Morrissey’s arms have ever said

*Clickbait*

We all know that Stephen Patrick Morrissey is an outspoken English faded popstar, to quote a certain Mr Manly. The internet is scattered with the daft, racist and downright bizarre things that he has said after almost 40 years in the music business. Does he say them for fun, to gain publicity to keep his fame up or does he actually mean it?

Something that has been kept under wraps though has been the second layer of bad, the custard skin under Morrissey’s comments, another level of absurdity below the absurdity. Morrissey’s arms are just as bad as the person they’re attached to. Here are, in no particular order, are the top five worst things that they have uttered:

Whilst out on the town in 2004 celebrating the release of his seventh studio album ‘You Are the Quarry’, and after way too many Sunset Margaritas, Morrissey’s arms were overheard bragging that, “Poor people are only good for two things: shooting and lighting my cigars off!”
“I once glued three 9 year old children together to make a 27 year old man and it didn’t work.” This was taken from an interview with Monta Mino, a hugely popular Japanese television presenter in 2004. Morrissey’s arms claim that the comment was mistranslated at the time but later he stood by it and added, “We called him Winston and he lived in my garage for three months. I spat on him every time I saw him.”
His taste in food and drink are more well-known than anything else as Morrissey’s arms edited the food column in the Guardian for the best part of five years between 2008 and 2013. That said, during his tour in 2015 he let slip to a journalist prior to his gig in Birmingham, “I eat pangolins three times a week. I can’t eat them all so I leave them alive until halfway through and then throw away the rest. Raw pangolin tastes like liquid gold.”
“Alfred Bonar Law was a waste of space. I have artists paint his likeness into mangoes and then I shove my thumb in his eyes for fun.” Referring to Law, the shortest serving prime minister of Great Britain in the 20th century, Morrissey’s arms also went on to question his sexuality and his ability to use a bow and arrow in an interview with Time Magazine in 2005.
A lot of the time the views between left and right arms match. Sometimes though their opinions conflict leading to some dramatic confrontations. When asked by Jonathan Ross to elaborate on his opinions of France, Morrissey’s left arm begin with, “I visit it several times a year. They bring so much to Europe that one cannot underestimate the cultural impact of France, even if most of them smell like dead turds floating in a pool of piss.” The right then barged in, “I want to put all of them in a box and shut the lid using a sharp flamethrower. One time me and Bono got so drunk we steamrolled a village in Cumberland and blamed it on the French.”

The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree and those armpits stink for a reason.

Thanks for watching, feel free to like and subscribe and for all things Morrissey’s arms keep it PB Beans 2020.

Now, more than ever

These are strange times, I know, and presumably the creative people who come up with ideas for adverts are a bit stuck for inspiration. (Not that they were brilliant at it before.) That might be why they’ve all come up with the same four words to use in their adverts.

Now, more than ever, companies are telling us that now, more than ever, is the time to buy their stuff, whatever it is. Once you notice it you can’t ignore it any more. It’s everywhere.

Here are just some of the now-more-than-everers:

Tesco, who tell us that now, more than ever, every little helps.
Nespresso, because now, more than ever, their coffee machine pods are technically recyclable (but not in your council recycling).
Barclays, where now, more than ever, their “digital eagles” will show you how to use the Internet.
Every single charity with a fundraising campaign right now.
Country Walking Magazine, who are running very strange adverts to tell us that now, more than ever, is the time to buy a magazine about something that has literally been illegal for the last two months.

There is no solution to this ongoing crisis. The only coping mechanism I’ve found so far is to repeat the words “now, more than ever” back at the TV whenever one of these adverts comes on.

That doesn’t help, obviously. It’s just something to do. But maybe that’s enough – because now, more than ever, we need a way to cope with this unimaginative catchphrase.

Letter to the RSPB

Way back, many moons ago, there was a suggestion from myself that Chis and I had written to the RSPB to complain about the lack of dinosaurs. The conversation can be found in the comments below the post An Admission of Sorts, a summary is included here:

“It is a letter that needs to be sent. I imagine that much like the one me and Chris wrote to the RSPB about the lack of dinosaurs at Fairburn Inngs, it will be ignored, but it must be sent nonetheless….”
Kev

“Two things are needed here… The second is more information about the letter to Fairburn Ings, which I have no memory of.”
Chris

“Is the letter mentioned on here, Kev?”
Ian

“I’ll have a chumble[sic], it feels like it should be.”
Kev

It wasnt. There was no mention of it which led to comments such as…

“Maybe the right thing to do now is ask whether it happened at all, or whether it’s some sort of weird dream.”
Chris

Well today, I have BIG NEWS. I found it. Just the letter mind, sadly the enclosed drawing must have been a one off and is lost to the mists of time. It’s a doozy let me tell you.

Sadly Mr. Steven James never received a reply to the RSPB, it’s almost as if they didn’t take us seriously.

RSPB.doc Download

In a side note, the little bit in the comments below the throw away bit about a letter that might not exist, is an excellent little ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ riff from Chris and Ian. Well done chaps, it made me lols all over again.