Idly looking up February, I find that it is named after the
strips of skin (februa) taken from
the animals that were sacrificed during Lupercalia by the Romans. I suppose
that not a lot of people know that! (acknowledgments to Peter Sellers).
January, which is really what I was going to write about,
was really a non-event – partly because I decided to have a dry month. It’s not
much bother to do that, but I did not lose the adipose tissue that I hoped –
partly because there was all the Christmas left-overs to finish. In particular
there was a whole Christmas cake, because none of the grandchildren like fruit
cake – even with marzipan and icing on top – and in one case, because of it!
Three of four days of the month were spent with the physio,
who is trying to straighten my back out. Only party successful, and if I don’t
watch it I over-exercise and pull muscles in places that I did not know I had.
However, I am fully back in the water and swimming three days a week for the
full 1000m. Which is nice.
We continue to decorate the house and are about to move to
the main living room. Which means taking all the furniture out and putting it
into storage, so that the place can be given a lick of paint and some new
carpet.
Now, if you want to see a really good film – which will not,
I think, get a mention in the various film and acting awards - try to get to The Big Short. All about a few
geeks and weirdoes who recognise, sometimes by accident, that the 2007/8 stock
market and financial crash is coming, and see short on various derivatives,
mainly bundled up sub-prime mortgages. It makes what actually happened
shockingly clear. It also set me thinking about some of the legislation that I
wrote for the Cayman Islands, which may have enabled the formation of some
entities that facilitated the various derivatives on which the whole ship
foundered. Ho hum.
Now -
In ancient
Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com (probably
originally Cohn or Cohen) did take unto himself a healthy young wife by the
name of Dorothy. And Dot Com was a comely woman, large of breast, broad of
shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.
And she said
unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town
with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent? And
Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel
load, but simply said, "How, dear?"
And Dot
replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send
messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who
hath the best price. The sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by
Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."
Abraham
thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the
drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods
he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.
To prevent
neighbouring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised
a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was known as Must Send Drum
Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and
pictures - Hebrew to the People (HTTP).
And the young
men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel
dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or
NERDS. And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the
deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to
that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every
drum maker in the land. Indeed he did insist on drums to be made that would
work only with Brother Gates' drum heads and drumsticks.
And Dot did
say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by
others." And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it
came to be known. He said, "We need a name that reflects what we
are."
And Dot
replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators”.
"YAHOO,"
said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.
Abraham's
cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that
he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside.
It soon
became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE).
This is how
it all began. And that's the truth.
+++
GREEK LEGAL SYSTEM - DIVORCE CASE HEARING!
A man and his wife were getting a divorce at
a local court in Greece,
but the custody of their children posed a
problem.
The mother jumped to her feet and protested
to the judge that since she had brought the children into this world, she
should retain custody of them.
The man also wanted custody of his children,
so the judge asked for his side of the story.
After a long moment of silence, the man rose
from his chair and replied:
"Your Honour, when I put a coin into a
vending machine, and a Coke comes out, does the Coke belong to me or to the
machine?"
DON'T LAUGH...... HE WON!!!
+++
A businessman was
preparing to go on a long business trip, so he thought he'd buy his wife
something to keep her occupied.
He went to a sex
shop and explained his situation.
The man there
said, 'Well, I don't know that I have anything that will keep her occupied
for so many weeks, except...The Magic Penis!'
The husband said,
'The what'?
The man repeated,
'The Magic Penis,' and pulled out what seemed to be an ordinary
dildo.
The husband
laughed, and said, 'It looks like a dildo!'
The man then
pointed to the door and said, 'Magic Penis, door!'
The penis rose out
of its box, darted over to the door and started pounding away at the
keyhole.
The whole door
shook wildly with vibrations, so much so, that a crack began to form down
the middle.
Then the man said,
'Magic Penis, return to box!' and the penis stopped and
returned to the
box.
The husband bought
it and took it home to his wife. After the husband had been gone a few
days, the wife remembered the Magic Penis.
She undressed,
opened the box and said 'Magic Penis, my vagina.'
The penis shot to
her crotch. It was absolutely incredible.
After
three mind shattering orgasms, she became very exhausted and decided she'd
had enough.
She tried to pull
it out, but it was stuck and her husband had neglected to tell her how to
turn it off.
So she put her
clothes on, got in her car and started for the closest hospital.
On the way,
another incredibly intense orgasm made her swerve all over the road.
A Police Officer
saw this and immediately pulled her over.
He asked for
her license, and then asked how much she'd had to drink.
Gasping and
twitching, the woman said, 'I haven't had anything to drink
officer. You see,
I've got this Magic Penis thing stuck in my crotch and it
won't stop screwing
me.
The officer looked
at her for a second, shook his head and replied, 'Yeah right ... Magic
Penis, my ass!'
The rest, as they
say, is history.
++
It's a Jonny again
The teacher
was asking the children what they had for breakfast, and
then to spell
it."Mary, what did you have?" "I had cornflakes, Miss.
C-O-R-N-F-L-A-K-E-S."
"Very
good. Alan, what did you have?" "I had toast, Miss.
T-O-A-S-T."
"Very
good. Now Johnny, what did you have?"
"Bugger all,
Miss. B-U-G-G-E-R......"
"Yes,
thank you Johnny, that's enough of that.
Let's go on
to some geography. Tracey,
where is the
Panama Canal?"
"Between
North and South America, Miss."
"Very
good. George, where is the Mexican border?"
"Between
the USA and Mexico, Miss."
"Very
good. Now Johnny, where is the Polish border?"
"In bed
with my mum. That's why I had bugger all for breakfast,
Miss."
+++
An Alabama pastor
said to his congregation, "Someone in this congregation has spread a
rumour that I belong to the Ku Klux Klan. This is a horrible lie and one which
a Christian community cannot tolerate. I am embarrassed and do not intend to
accept this. Now, I want the party who said this to stand and ask forgiveness
from God and this Christian family."
No one moved.
The preacher
continued, "Do you have the nerve to face me and admit this is a
falsehood? Remember, you will be forgiven and in your heart you will feel
glory. Now stand and confess your transgression."
Again, all was quiet.
Then, slowly, a
drop-dead gorgeous blonde, with a figure that would stop a runaway train,
rose from the third pew. Her head was bowed and her voice quivered as she
spoke, "Reverend, there has been a terrible misunderstanding. I never said
you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I simply told a couple of my friends
that you were a wizard under the sheets."
The preacher fell to
his knees, his wife fainted, and the congregation roared.
Life is short. Smile
while you still have teeth.
Give me an Amen,
Brother!!
+++
And if you
want to see aerobatics performed by the Airbus A 350, see this!
+++
Also
RIDING
THE SPACE-SHUTTLE BOOSTER (BOTH UP AND DOWN!) - or
Riding a HUGE fire-cracker - and staying with it
through recovery…
This is about as close as we are going to get to the
real thing (the cameras are mounted on the sides of the Space Shuttle booster
tanks).
Notice when it breaks the sound barrier!
+++
And finally….
The 2015 Darwin Awards
These are the annual honours given to
the persons who did the human gene pool the biggest service by killing
themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.
This year's winner was a rocket
scientist!
Remember, every one of these
accounts is TRUE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And the nominees were:
Semi-finalist #1
A young Canadian man, searching for a
way of getting drunk cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy
alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him
ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting explosion
and fire burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.
Semi-finalist #2
Three Brazilian men were flying in a
light aircraft at low altitude when another plane approached. It a appears that
they decided to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of
their own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with
their pants around their ankles.
Semi-finalist #3
A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was
found dead after he tried to use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot
railroad trestle. Fairfax county police said Eric Barcia, a fast food worker,
taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot,
anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped and hit the
pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think
Barcia was alone because his car was found nearby. "The length of
the cord that he had assembled was greater than the distance between the
trestle and the ground," Carmichael said. Police say the apparent cause
of death was major trauma.
Semi-finalist
#4
A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake
bites. It seems that he and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the
rattlesnake as a ball. The friend - no doubt that he is a future Darwin Awards
candidate - was hospitalized.
Semi-finalist #5
Employees in a medium-sized warehouse
in west Texas noticed the smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated
the building extinguishing all potential sources of ignition, lights,
power, etc.
After the building had been evacuated,
two technicians from the gas company were dispatched. Upon entering the
building, they found they had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their
frustration, none of the lights worked. Witnesses later described the sight of
one of the technicians reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that
resembled a cigarette lighter!
Upon operation of the lighter-like
object, the gas in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three
miles away. Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually
untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the blast had
never been thought of as ''bright'' by his peers.
Now - the winner of this year's Darwin
Award (awarded, as always, posthumously):
The Arizona Highway Patrol came upon a
pile of smouldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road
at the apex of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash,
but it was a car. The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. Police
investigators finally pieced together the mystery. An amateur rocket
scientist.... had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off,
actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military transport
planes an extra 'push' for taking off from short airfields.
He had driven his Chevy Impala out
into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the
JATO unit to the car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO!
The facts as best as could be
determined are that the operator of the 1967 Impala hit the JATO ignition at a
distance of approximately 3.0 miles from the crash site. This was established
by the scorched and melted asphalt at that location.
The JATO, if operating properly, would
have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds
well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20 -25
seconds. The driver, and soon to be pilot, would have experienced G-forces
usually reserved for dog fighting F -14 jocks under full afterburners, causing
him to become irrelevant for the remainder of the event.
However, the automobile remained on
the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver
applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick
rubber marks on the road surface, then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4
miles and impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened
crater 3 feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver's remains were not
recoverable. However, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted
from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of
debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Epilogue :
It has been calculated that this moron
attained a ground speed of approximately 420-mph – although much of his voyage
was not actually on the ground…
Have a good
one!
