Sunday, 9 March 2014
The battery-powered Luxembourg Army Knife
Unsure what to buy your friends, family, co-workers, or psychologist this Easter?
Why not treat them to a JML Battery-powered Luxembourg Army Knife? It’s like a Swiss Army Knife, but smaller, and with a constitutional monarchy. It also doesn’t contain a knife… but it does come with an attachment for getting horses’ hooves out of stones.
Buy the battery-powered Luxembourg Army Knife!
Please buy the battery-powered Luxembourg Army Knife!
Please, please, somebody, buy the battery-powered Luxembourg Army Knife…
Tell you what, buy one get one free.
Actually, buy one get ten free!
My wife is furious that the kitchen is filled with unsold boxes of Luxembourg Army Knives, and she can’t get to the toaster.
Buy one, get a free gift.
I’ll give you my wallet.
There’s nothing in it, as I spent all my money on 10, 000 Luxembourg Army Knives, but it has enormous sentimental value.
Please, buy one. Free postage and packaging. Well, free for you.
Please.
My wife says that if the kitchen isn’t clear by Tuesday, she’s going to stay at Keith’s. Keith has a granite-topped kitchenette with breakfast bar. I can’t compete with a granite-topped kitchenette with breakfast bar. She’ll never move back in.
She told me this was a bad idea. She took me to one side and said “Alan, this is a bad idea”.
But I thought, no, it’ll be fine. I thought it’d be more than fine. I thought ten thousand people would want a Luxembourg Army Knife. Ten thousand people. That’s the entire population of Leeds. If 740, 000 people suddenly died.
And that’s assuming that everyone in Leeds would want one to begin with.
I don’t even know if the knives work. They don’t come with the batteries included, and, as mentioned earlier, I didn’t have any money left to buy batteries.
I asked Sarah (the wife) if I could take the batteries out the remote and she just said no and went back to watching Emmerdale. I don’t know what she sees in Emmerdale.
I know what she sees in Keith, though. They have a laugh together at the office. Reading Buzzfeed articles at lunch. Sharing sandwiches, and lucozade, while reading about “Twelve car journeys with elderly strangers that remind you of the nineties”
I only went into the Luxembourg Army Knife business to impress her.
Well, that and I genuinely thought that people would want to buy them.
Buy one, get 9, 999 free?
Monday, 3 February 2014
Idioms
Rome wasn’t built in a day, it was built in Italy.
The pen is mightier than the sword, and also considerably cheaper.
There's no smoke without fire, unless you own a smoke machine.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a left.
The early bird gets the worm, but the early worm gets killed, so it’s important to establish whether you see yourself as a bird or a worm before deciding how much time to leave for your journey.
The pen is mightier than the sword, and also considerably cheaper.
There's no smoke without fire, unless you own a smoke machine.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a left.
The early bird gets the worm, but the early worm gets killed, so it’s important to establish whether you see yourself as a bird or a worm before deciding how much time to leave for your journey.
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Resolutions for 2014
This year, I resolve:
a) To wait until it’s half-way through January to make any resolutions
2) To be more consistent
c) To stop expressing everything as lists
I also resolve to spread fake conspiracy theories. I resolve to tell people that eating healthily does not make your life longer - it just makes it feel longer. I resolve to tell people that just to the north of York, there’s an enormous, cardboard bank where lottery winners can cash their enormous, cardboard cheques. I resolve to tell people that ‘The Matrix’ was an elaborate double-bluff by the machines that control us, and that ‘Groundhog Day’ is actually just multiple takes of the intended first scenes of a different film (the director was a perfectionist, who insisted on re-taking the scenes until it was perfect, and the production ran out of money. They dubbed all the voices on afterwards to make a coherent plot.)
a) To wait until it’s half-way through January to make any resolutions
2) To be more consistent
c) To stop expressing everything as lists
I also resolve to spread fake conspiracy theories. I resolve to tell people that eating healthily does not make your life longer - it just makes it feel longer. I resolve to tell people that just to the north of York, there’s an enormous, cardboard bank where lottery winners can cash their enormous, cardboard cheques. I resolve to tell people that ‘The Matrix’ was an elaborate double-bluff by the machines that control us, and that ‘Groundhog Day’ is actually just multiple takes of the intended first scenes of a different film (the director was a perfectionist, who insisted on re-taking the scenes until it was perfect, and the production ran out of money. They dubbed all the voices on afterwards to make a coherent plot.)
Monday, 6 January 2014
Unnecessary journeys
Following a decrease in wind speeds, a drop in flood water levels, and a press conference, the government has informed drivers that it’s now okay to make unnecessary journeys. Drivers are welcome to go up the M6 to check if Scotland still exists, or to chauffer crisp packets to the nearest recycling plant because they like the irony, or to drive to Croydon to tell a vague acquaintance about a dream they had the night before, where a man travelled back in time in an attempt to become his own uncle.
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Postman Pat
Postman Pat. Postman Pat.
Postman Pat and his black and white cat.
Early in the morning, just as day is dawning,
He wakes up and remembers that the post-office has been dismantled, and he doesn’t have a job there anymore, and today will be a blur of episodes of Come Dine With Me and trying to work up the courage to leave the house, but then remembering that he only owns the one set of clothes (the postman’s uniform) and he can’t bring himself to put that on again, and he knows that if he wants to wear something different he’ll have to go to the shops, but that’d involve putting on the uniform to get there so he just sits, slumped in a pair of off-white boxers, listening to Dave Lamb mock a bricklayer called Darren from Surrey as he tries to fry an egg.
Postman Pat and his black and white cat.
Early in the morning, just as day is dawning,
He wakes up and remembers that the post-office has been dismantled, and he doesn’t have a job there anymore, and today will be a blur of episodes of Come Dine With Me and trying to work up the courage to leave the house, but then remembering that he only owns the one set of clothes (the postman’s uniform) and he can’t bring himself to put that on again, and he knows that if he wants to wear something different he’ll have to go to the shops, but that’d involve putting on the uniform to get there so he just sits, slumped in a pair of off-white boxers, listening to Dave Lamb mock a bricklayer called Darren from Surrey as he tries to fry an egg.
Friday, 6 December 2013
How many lightbulbs does it take to change a man?
A: Knock Knock
B: Who’s there?
A: An Englishman, and Irishman, and a Scotsman
B: An Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman who?
A: An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman who walk into a bar
B: What did they call the man with the spade on his head?
A: To get to the other side.
B: Well, pull yourself together, then
B: Who’s there?
A: An Englishman, and Irishman, and a Scotsman
B: An Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman who?
A: An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman who walk into a bar
B: What did they call the man with the spade on his head?
A: To get to the other side.
B: Well, pull yourself together, then
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
One Nation
It was 2014, the year when Tesco’s started offering the elderly and terminally ill discounts on ‘bags for life’.
It was also the year when Ed Miliband ceased to say anything but the phrase ‘One nation’. He woke up one morning, as usual, and descended the stairs in red pyjamas, slippers, and no particular hurry. When he walked into the kitchen, his wife, Justine, was balancing a slice of toast against her ear, and spreading a thin layer of marmite over her iPhone (it was early morning, and she hadn’t yet found her glasses)*. “We’ve run out of jam”, she said in exasperation, and his general direction. “One nation,” Ed replied.
“Very funny,” she said. “Can you pass the paper?”
“One nation,” Ed replied.
After about two minutes, and fifty nations, Justine started to think something might be wrong.
Justine phoned the Labour Whip, who came round immediately, and in a car. Together, they worked out a crude method of communicating with the leader of the opposition; ‘one for yes, two for no’.
“Can you understand us, Ed?”
“One nation,” Ed replied.
They drove him to a doctor, but there was nothing physiologically wrong. It was psychological. (Or possibly ‘divine retribution’, as one nurse had so helpfully suggested). Back in the car, the Whip sighed and scanned her diary. There were three speeches to cancel. She got out her Blackberry**, and began to scroll through the contacts, when Miliband placed a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a deep, meaningful look across the leather seats of the chauffeured department car, like a Labrador, giving her a deep, meaningful look across the leather seats of the chauffeured department. “You want to do the speech?” she asked, eyebrows making a bid to join her hairline.
“One nation,” Ed replied.
The speech went well. Frighteningly well. Not only had the minister not been bottled off the stage - as was customary - but there had been applause. Actual applause! Back in the chauffeured car, the Chief Whip turned to Ed. “How would you feel about another speech?”
“One nation,” Ed replied.
---
* Texturally, this is not an easy mistake to make; Ed, however, had bought her a toast-textured novelty iPhone case. Unfortunately, this made the mistake far more likely to occur. Fortunately, the makers of the novelty iPhone case had had the foresight to predict this eventuality, so the case was marmite-proof.
**In a novelty crumpet-case. A cheap one, bought off a market stall in Camden, so not actually butter-proof, as the Whip would cruelly discover in three days’ time.
It was also the year when Ed Miliband ceased to say anything but the phrase ‘One nation’. He woke up one morning, as usual, and descended the stairs in red pyjamas, slippers, and no particular hurry. When he walked into the kitchen, his wife, Justine, was balancing a slice of toast against her ear, and spreading a thin layer of marmite over her iPhone (it was early morning, and she hadn’t yet found her glasses)*. “We’ve run out of jam”, she said in exasperation, and his general direction. “One nation,” Ed replied.
“Very funny,” she said. “Can you pass the paper?”
“One nation,” Ed replied.
After about two minutes, and fifty nations, Justine started to think something might be wrong.
Justine phoned the Labour Whip, who came round immediately, and in a car. Together, they worked out a crude method of communicating with the leader of the opposition; ‘one for yes, two for no’.
“Can you understand us, Ed?”
“One nation,” Ed replied.
They drove him to a doctor, but there was nothing physiologically wrong. It was psychological. (Or possibly ‘divine retribution’, as one nurse had so helpfully suggested). Back in the car, the Whip sighed and scanned her diary. There were three speeches to cancel. She got out her Blackberry**, and began to scroll through the contacts, when Miliband placed a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a deep, meaningful look across the leather seats of the chauffeured department car, like a Labrador, giving her a deep, meaningful look across the leather seats of the chauffeured department. “You want to do the speech?” she asked, eyebrows making a bid to join her hairline.
“One nation,” Ed replied.
The speech went well. Frighteningly well. Not only had the minister not been bottled off the stage - as was customary - but there had been applause. Actual applause! Back in the chauffeured car, the Chief Whip turned to Ed. “How would you feel about another speech?”
“One nation,” Ed replied.
---
* Texturally, this is not an easy mistake to make; Ed, however, had bought her a toast-textured novelty iPhone case. Unfortunately, this made the mistake far more likely to occur. Fortunately, the makers of the novelty iPhone case had had the foresight to predict this eventuality, so the case was marmite-proof.
**In a novelty crumpet-case. A cheap one, bought off a market stall in Camden, so not actually butter-proof, as the Whip would cruelly discover in three days’ time.
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