The Befouled Weakly News

3 February 2008


Once again, the weather forecasts of severe winter weather failed to materialise, at least in our neck of the woods. To be fair, we did have some snow which (a) failed to cover the lawn so that what we could see as we looked out our windows on Saturday morning was a mottled green and white back garden and (b) was gone by about 9.30. So much for the mountainous drifts and threat of starvation.

Haven’t heard from Adam this weekend as he is off on the Chinese New Year holiday down to Yangshou so don’t know to what extent his travels have been disrupted by the wintry weather they’ve had. The pictures of the crowds and crowds of people waiting for trains seem pretty grim until you appreciate that essentially the whole of China travels on the same couple of days at Chinese New Year and the numbers of people waiting for trains are always extraordinary. Hopefully, we will have a report at some point in the future which we will share with you.

One aspect of the cold weather which did get a mention in the newspaper this weekend was a warning to avoid a crime known as "frosting". According to the Guardian web site, "frosting is a crime whereby opportunistic thieves steal cars left unattended while a driver warms up their engine". An astonishing 66,000 unsuspecting motorists fall victim to frosting every year, says Joanne Mallon, car insurance manager at Sainsbury's bank. "When it's freezing outside it can be tempting to leave the engine running to speed up the defrosting process while you nip back inside to get ready. But this can have terrible consequences if your car gets stolen." Fortunately, in spite of indulging in frosting from time to time, it hasn’t happened to us so far! To be fair, we don’t have a tremendous number of opportunistic car thieves hanging around at the end of our driveway on a frosty morning.

Not enough time this weekend to do justice to all the sports which require viewing. Yesterday we had the first two Six Nations rugby matches of this year’s competition: Ireland against Italy in Dublin followed by England against Wales at Twickenham in London. Later on this afternoon we have Scotland against the French in Edinburgh and while I won’t spoil Sandy’s (or anyone else’s) enjoyment by divulging the results, it certainly is a pleasure to have some good international rugby on the television again. Club rugby in the UK and Europe is good but there’s nothing quite like an international match.

And then, of course, this evening I have to face up to the annually difficult decision of whether or not to stay up until about 3.00 in the morning to watch the Superbowl. I am torn, I have to confess. I can always tape it and then try to keep my head beneath the parapets hoping not to hear the result until I get a chance to watch it but that is a considerable risk. I do think one of my colleagues takes some sort of perverse pleasure in greeting me on the morning after the Superbowl by announcing, as he did last year, "Well, how about those Colts then? Did you think they would do it?" Of course, he hasn’t watched the match; he’s heard it on the news, this being just about the only occasion when the BBC will actually give the results of an American football match. On the other hand, I find the extraordinary number of advertising breaks during the game intolerably frustrating not to mention the tediously dull and over-extended half time “show”. And, of course, we don’t even get the so-called "cute" or "clever" ads that you get during the game; we get some local pundits struggling to try and fill five minutes out of every ten. This year, for the first time as far as I can remember, the match is actually being broadcast on the BBC so how they are going to fill all the advertising breaks I cannot imagine. I guess we’ll see.

Love to you all,

Greg


As the Six Nations Rugby started this weekend, I thought the following was relatively topical.

A man came home from watching a rugby match between Ireland and France.  

His young son welcomed him home saying, "How was it, Dad?"  

"It was terribly violent, son. In the break, the Irish skipper came off the field with a bruised testicle!"  

"Oh, he must have been in such pain!"  

"No, no, laddie. It belonged to one of the Frenchmen."


A husband and wife came for counselling after 15 years of marriage. When asked what the problem was, the wife went into a passionate, painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 15 years they had been married.

She went on and on and on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the therapist got up, walked around the desk and, after asking the wife to stand, embraced and kissed her passionately as her husband watched with a raised eyebrow. The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze.

The therapist turned to the husband and said, "This is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?"

The husband thought for a moment and replied, "Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I fish."


Recently the New Orleans Times Picayune newspaper reported that a Cajun amateur archaeologist, having dug to a depth of 10 meters, found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years, and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Cajuns, in the weeks that followed Texas scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters. Shortly after, headlines in the Dallas Morning News read: "Texas archaeologists have found traces of 200-year old copper wire, and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network 100 years earlier than the Cajuns."

One week later, the Daily Oklahoman reported: "After digging as deep as 30 meters in wheat fields near Watonga, Bubba Williams, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Okies were already using wireless technology."


You heard about the new hair salon which opened up right across the street from the old established hair cutters' place, didn't you? They put up a big old sign, "WE GIVE SEVEN DOLLAR HAIR CUTS!"

Not to be outdone, the old shop put out their own sign:

"WE FIX SEVEN DOLLAR HAIR CUTS"


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