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June 2009 Blog Archive
29 June 2009
What a Difference a Year Makes…
This week marks the blog's 1st birthday so to celebrate the occasion I thought I would take a nostalgic look back at how it has enriched the lives of its loyal readers; the countless pearls of wisdom, the breaking news stories as they happen, the facts and statistics which have provided you with weekly Friday night pub talk material...
So in 52 weeks these are the things we have learnt:
- It is acceptable it wear manscara and guyliner when in or around Superdrug
- A bowl of red wine will alleviate a fruit fly infestation
- Apparently there is no longer any point living in Liverpool
- England’s summer coincides with its rainy season
- Not all Christians celebrate Easter at the same time
- Only people form Yorkshire know what Parkin is
- You shouldn’t sit with your back to the door
- The American Presidents car contains tear gas cannons
- A man’s body temperature is higher that a womans
- Darwin invented the desk chair
- Manchester is not capable of holding a silent rave
- Michael Jackson always booked two seats on Concorde
- Students are as lazy as we all thought
- The average employee will work 92% of Mondays over the summer
- Rapport is a scary place to be on Halloween
- You’re now allowed to touch the Queen
- New years day used to be on April Fools Day
22 June 2009 It's the thought that counts...
Since theres only 27 weeks until Christmas and, maybe slightly more relevantly, Fathers Day has just been, there has been much talk of gifts around the office. It is a fact that men are harder to buy for than women so what do you buy the man who has everything? Last Friday in 1885 The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York as a gift from the French, this may be a tad excessive so there may be another craze which would suite the gadget-loving male down to the ground. Getting sick of buying the latest technological craze, it then breaking and throwing it away; well a new group known as 'hackers' or 'tinkerers' have started a world-wide underground network where they meet up in 'hack spaces' and create/build what ever they can think of. The main Hack Space in the UK is the ‘London Hack Space’ and has 200 members! Birthday presents will never end up as a trip to Oddbins or the sock section of Next again.
I will be pushing my body to the limits of its physical ability on Wednesday when I will be battling my way around the track in Harrogate to take part in the 5k 'Race for Life' in order to raise money for Cancer Research. Obviously I am in it to win it so I will let you know how things pan out, but if anyone if is feeling particularly noble (and rich this far on in the month!) feel free to sponsor me at www.justgiving.com.
I couldn't go without saying congratulations to Chris who, after months of pondering, discussing, researching and generally obsessing finally got his hands on an iphone last week, he is syncing as we speak!
The English language reached its 1 millionth word on Wednesday; 'web 2.0' but with the majority of fluent English speakers only using 20,000-40,000 words and the word itself not being the most catchy I'm not sure if it'll creep into general vocab. What counts as a new word is decided by an American company who monitors word usage on the web, as soon as a word has been used 25,000 times in Social Networking and other similar websites it becomes a word in the English language. Other contenders were Zombie bank (a bank that would be dead if hadn't been saved by government) and quendy wendy - someone (presumably a girl) who is trendy.
Another string to Manchester's bow; it was voted by the Economic Intelligence Unit's Livability Study as the 46th best place to live in the world and the top place in England (5 places above London!). We must be doing something right as back in 2007 Manchester was voted '17th worst place to live in Britain' by Channel 4's Location, Location, Location, suddenly Kirsty and Phil have lost all their credibility for me.
I have always been a great advocator of the power nap and believe its healing properties cannot be beaten (especially when attempting to cure a hangover while preparing for another night out!). However it seems that a power nap has other uses too; scientists believe that some of the world's best and most innovative ideas have come to their founders during a quick midday snooze! Paul McCartney claims that the melody for Yesterday (the world's most covered song according to the Guinness Book of Records) came to him during a nap and Mary Shelley describes how she saw a vision of her famous book 'Frankenstein' during a 'waking dream'. Maybe whoever said 'sleeping's cheating' is actually right!
Although the nail-bitting final of the Apprentice had us in suspense as to who would come out triumphant until the very last minute, a much more exciting potential role came to light - Margaret Mountford's position as confidant, sidekick and general tattle-tale for Sir Alan. Job description includes:
- Maintaining a constant look of distaste
- Ability to over emphasise eye rolling
- No moralistic concerns over snitching any wrong-doing or general mishaps to the boss
- Would not be described by friends as a 'quendy wendy'.
8 June 2009 A Country Divided…
It's been a busy week in the world of politics with the European elections taking place and the recent events which have raised a number of critical questions; will Barack Obama's attempts to reconcile America's relations with Middle eastern Muslims be fruitful or are things beyond repair? Should Gordon Brown step down as PM now half his cabinet have resigned and the other half are not being too vocal in their support? But it seems the country has only one main topic of concern; should Hollie Steel have got another chance in Britain's Got Talent?! Ofcom received 331 complaints after last week's final, 281 expressing their opposition to Hollie being allowed to try again after breaking down in the middle of her first performance. It is something you would never see Mr Cowell usually allowing, and not really fair to the other contestants, but you would think that people would have more pressing matters to have opinions on.
In these difficult economic times job security is number one priority and disgruntled employees are coming up with increasingly elaborate plans to get their own back after getting the chop. One guy in America is currently on $5million bail after blocking almost all of San Francisco's council workers out of the computer system. Here are some suggestions courtesy of MSN money of what not to do at work…
- Everyone may laugh at the office joker, the one who wears the wacky shirt on dress-down Friday, but office pranks can go too far, you need to ensure you don't step over the fine line between lighthearted entertainment and annoying and childish.
- I think after recent events everyone is watching their expenses very closely. But before anyone had even heard of Peter Viggers' duckhouse, a lady in America had gone through $4m by swindling money from bosses bank accounts and expenses - its all stealing!
- Instead of doing any work, just make it up! This was the bright idea New York Times journalist Jayson Blair had, before it was exposed that he had fabricated interviews, made up facts and even pretended to witness key events.
