The below is currently doing the rounds on email, it made me laugh, so I thought I'd post it for all to see ;)
Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it:
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?
You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:
I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.
I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:
It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.
I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.
Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:
I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:
Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen. My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:
Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.
Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.
So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.
As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.
The humble Bic pen, such an icon in our modern world but never has so much been said of the Bic as here, on the Amazon review page. If you're feeling a bit down and need a lift, or have five minutes spare and fancy a laugh I would recommend clicking that link.
Here's a few of the brilliant reviews left so far:
Left handers beware... Worked fine with my right hand, but when I came to use my left hand my writing came out looking like the work of a complete imbecile. I can only assume Bic have created a right-handed only pen, and would caution left-handers to "try before you buy".
DRM free Note: Amazon are one of the few stockists of these pens in the UK to ship pens that come with the original 1.0 Bic firmware. If you do buy one, be sure not to download the latest edition from the Bic website. Doing so will enable the pens controversial DRM functions. Dont make the same mistake I did. I have been unable to write any sentence that has previously appeared in literature, song lyrics, even the titles of movies. At these prices I can't afford a new pen, so I'm living in hope that news of the underground Russian hacking scene will soon release open firmware allowing the ball to be unjammed when jotting down protected content.
Red model I bought the red model of this product and found that it blends in well with blood when you have been attacked by a zombie.
Quite a nice chew I've found I can chew this pen for at least two working days, rarely do I end up with a mouthful of ink. A+++ highly tasty. It seems you can also write with it too.
An Australian call centre employee has become an overnight net celeb down under after an email exchange between him and his firm's workforce manager regarding a "sickie" escaped into the wild yesterday.
This is truly a classic, read on...
From: Niresh Regmi Sent: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:35 a.m. To: Kyle Doyle Subject: Absence on Thursday 21st 2008 Hi Kyle, Please provide a medical certificate stating a valid reason for your sick leave on Thursday 21st 2008. Thank You
NIRESH REGMI Real Time Manager, Workforce Operations
From: Kyle Doyle Sent: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:38 a.m. To: Niresh Regmi Subject: RE: Absence on Thursday 21st 2008
Niresh, 1 day leave absences do not require a medical certificate as stated in my contract, provided I have stated that I am on leave for medical reasons. Thanks Regards,
Kyle Doyle Resolutions Expert - Technical
From: Niresh Regmi Sent: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:39 a.m. To: Kyle Doyle Subject: RE: Absence on Thursday 21st 2008
Hi Kyle, Usually that is the case, as per your contract. However please note that leave during these occasions is only granted for genuine medical reasons. You line manager has determined that your leave was not due to medical reasons and as such we cannot grant leave on this occasion.
NIRESH REGMI
From: Kyle Doyle Sent: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:43 a.m. To: Niresh Regmi Subject: RE: Absence on Thursday 21st 2008
Hi Niresh, My leave was due to medical reasons, so you cannot deny leave based on a line manager's discretion, with no proof, please process leave as requested. Thanks Regards,
Kyle Doyle
From: Niresh Regmi Sent: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:50 a.m. To: Kyle Doyle Subject: RE: Absence on Thursday 21st 2008
Hi Kyle, I believe the proof that you are after is below
Brilliant. To his credit, the busted Doyle concludes:
From: Kyle Doyle Sent: Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:55 a.m. To: Niresh Regmi Subject: RE: Absence on Thursday 21st 2008 HAHAHA LMAO epic fail No worries man Regards,
I stumbled across this video earlier and actually lolled. Absolutely hilarious. Give it a few minutes to get going, and if you work in technical support, or have ever had to speak to us tech guys, I'm sure you'll find this hilarious.
Please note, there are a few mild swear words in the video. Head on over to The Website is Down for the full story and other fun and games.
UK Televsion channel 'Dave' have compiled a list of the world's oldest recorded jokes. I recommend you hold on to your sides for they may well split as here comes the top ten:
1. Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap (1900 BC – 1600 BC Sumerian Proverb Collection 1.12-1.13)
2. How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish (An abridged version first found in 1600 BC on the Westcar Papryus)
3. Three ox drivers from Adab were thirsty: one owned the ox, the other owned the cow and the other owned the wagon's load. The owner of the ox refused to get water because he feared his ox would be eaten by a lion; the owner of the cow refused because he thought his cow might wander off into the desert; the owner of the wagon refused because he feared his load would be stolen. So they all went. In their absence the ox made love to the cow which gave birth to a calf which ate the wagon's load. Problem: Who owns the calf?! (1200 BC)
4. A woman who was blind in one eye has been married to a man for 20 years. When he found another woman he said to her, "I shall divorce you because you are said to be blind in one eye." And she answered him: "Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage!?" (Egyptian circa 1100 BC)
5. Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his real name is nobody. When Odysseus instructs his men to attack the Cyclops, the Cyclops shouts: "Help, nobody is attacking me!" No one comes to help. (Homer. The Odyssey 800 BC)
6. Question: What animal walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon and three at evening? Answer: Man. He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man and uses a cane in old age (Appears in Oedipus Tyrannus and first performed in 429 BC)
7. Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey - his purse is what restrains him (Egyptian, Ptolemaic Period 304 BC – 30 BC)
8. Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked: "Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?" "No your Highness," he replied, "but my father was." (Credited to the Emporer Augustus 63 BC – 29 AD)
9. Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said "I've had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died." (Dated to the Philogelos 4th /5th Century AD)
10. Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied: "In silence." (Collected in the Philogelos or "Laughter-Lover" the oldest extant jest book and compiled in the 4th/5th Century AD)
What with it currently being exam season over here in the UK, it reminded me of my exam days, and those classic and desperate answers I would write down when faced with an exam question I had no idea of the answer to.
Take a look at some of these answers I found while trawling the web - some real brilliant ones!
Not sure if any of you have ever seen that classic Simpsons episode where Homer leaves his car in the middle of a city plaza. Of course, it gets clamped - so Homer decides to drive the car home with the clamp still firmly attached. Hilarity abounds.
Ian Taylor, from Tredworth in Gloucestershire has gone one better, he has cut his car in half after an argument over wheel clamping.
The car was untaxed and was declared as SORN, but an ever-eager clamper saw one of the rear wheels was poking out onto the pavement by a whopping inch and a half.
Ian then came home from work to find that the NCP had clamped the car, he explained in vain that the car was declared as SORN but they just wouldn't listen. After numerous heated discussions, Ian decided that enough was enough and went and got his disc cutter.
Good on you, that's what I say. Full story over at the Beeb.
