Category Archives: Humour

Everything stops for tea

There are some tunes that are so catchy, they stick with you for ages.

I think I heard ‘Everything stops for tea’ about three or four decades ago, and probably only once. But the wonder of modern search engines is that they allow you to go back and renew your acquaintance with the things that formed those neural pathways all that time ago…

Setting healthy boundaries for your child’s use of fire

Here’s a thoroughly enjoyable piece in the New Yorker, providing guidance for concerned Palaeolithic parents. Extract:

You don’t want to be the bad guy, but you also want to make sure that your child engages in other activities, like mammoth hunting and the gathering of rocks and bones with which to make tools. So, how do you set appropriate boundaries for your child on fire usage without jeopardizing the family unit so crucial to the survival of the species? Here are some tips…

Roses are red

I came across a thread on Twitter with geeky poems on the ‘Roses are red…’ model. So here’s mine:

Roses are #ff0000
Violets are #0000ff?
I think violets should be
More like #ee82ee
Don’t you?

Mmm.

Guaranteed way to cheer up your day

Spend 10 minutes with the brilliant Victor Borge.

The test of time

Seen on Twitter – sorry, I forget the source!

Tree-herd

Tilly and I were walking in the woods yesterday. We passed an Ent, who turned and watched as we went by.

Political Correctness

I’ve always said that I am politically challenged, and that anybody who expects me to be politically correct is therefore guilty of serious discrimination, at which I am likely to take offence. 🙂

The political correctness pendulum has clearly swung too far over the last few years, and is now an appropriate target for ridicule. John Cleese rather nicely explains why.

Speeding up evolution

Motorised goldbish bowl
Technology doesn’t only help humans move around in new ways: This project at CMU allows a goldfish to drive its tank around the room.

Now they’ve done the difficult bit, all they need to do is work out how to explain to the goldfish what exactly is going on. I fear that may still take a few million years…

Accessorize

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This rather pretty sheep was wearing her new Christmas jewellery to breakfast.

Iconoclasm

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This bold new installation at Wimpole Hall asks difficult — some would say provocative — questions about the role of traditional art forms in a modern world.

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Echoing the delayed gratification of the wrapped Christmas gift, the artist seems to imply that the projection of the sculptor’s immediate intent onto the viewer’s consciousness is, in itself, best understood as an ephemeral dualism.

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The exhibition runs throughout the winter, and there is no charge for admission.

In memory of Douglas Adams

For ‘Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy’ fans…

I noticed that we had an old touch-tone phone sitting on a shelf, and since it’s many years since we had a landline, I’ve been sitting here cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol before giving it away to a charity shop. I’m not doing a very good job.

Then a terrible thought suddenly struck me. For a brief moment, I have become a Telephone Sanitiser.

And probably a second-class one, at that.

Take a Pew

Alan Bennett’s wonderful sketch ‘Take a Pew’ may resonate with fewer and fewer people as time goes on, but for those of us brought up on the sermons of the Anglican church, it’s still hilarious.

There are many different recordings of it out there, but none of them, I think, is quite as polished as the one I remember on an old comedy compilation album from the 80s. After extensive searching, it appears that this never made it online, and in fact, never made it beyond LPs and cassettes. I would have been happy to purchase a copy, but was unable to do so.

So, after finding a second-hand copy of the cassette from an online retailer, digging my old cassette desk out of the loft and giving it a good vacuum, and connecting it through a USB audio interface to my Macbook, I offer it here for your enjoyment.

(Download)

© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser