As you will all have deduced by now, I tend to graze the internet every day and occasionally run across what I consider to be a moderately diverting piece of information. When I do, I clip it and save it ready to use it in the next edition of the Befouled Weakly News. So, on Monday of this week I ran across an article predicting that severe winter weather would be arriving on Friday. The usual prophecies of arctic temperatures, blizzards of snow with Himalayan drifts, etc.

Naturally, I copied the information intending to use it this weekend to relate how inept and inefficient our weather personnel have become. In the past, whenever they’ve made a prediction about impending cataclysmic weather conditions, we’ve always been able to have a chuckle when the gale force winds/mountains of snow/buckets of torrential rain (please delete as appropriate) fail to materialise.

On Friday, however, the weather did indeed turn woefully wintery so no making fun of the weather people this time. To add insult to injury, however, Friday morning was also the occasion when our central heating boiler decided it would cease functioning. So, we spent much of the day huddled around the meagre warmth provided by a couple of old gas heaters we have wondering when the plumber would come to call. Finally, about 5.00 that evening they turned up in tandem and proceeded to diagnose the fault. Fortunately, the diagnosis did not take very long – the fan which extracts the exhaust fumes was knackered (that’s a technical term for those of you who don’t know it – it roughly translates as F**KED). Without the ability to extract the exhaust the boiler won’t work (not surprisingly). To make matters worse, they don’t have a spare fan, of course, and would have to order one in. Which might be accomplished by Monday, maybe. If the supplier has one in.

They did manage to get us up and running with a temporary fix which has lasted so far so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the temporariness of the temporary fix is sufficiently robust to keep us going until the spare part arrives, potentially sometime in mid-February.

And, to make matters so much more enjoyable, Ms Playchute very kindly passed the cold she had been developing on to me. So I have had the pleasure of a nose running like a world-class sprinter and a dry, tickling cough in the back of the throat which is nothing if not annoying. Since Pen is on the tail end of the same cold, she has exhibited considerable sympathy, care and attention. Of course, as we all know, men suffer such ailments to a considerably greater degree than women and what was once Penny’s cold is very probably about to develop into full blown Man Flu any day now.

Have you ever wondered about the magic of the sock drawer? Seriously, I had never really thought about it until Ms Playchute pointed it out the other day. Every time I open the sock drawer there are always sufficient socks from which I am able to make a more than satisfactory selection. Every morning I open the drawer, extract a pair of socks which I then wear all day. At the end of the day, the dirty socks end up on the floor, eventually finding their way downstairs to be discarded in the vicinity of the washing machine. No matter – “hey presto!” there is another clean pair of socks in the drawer the next morning. It’s a miracle.

My hypothesis is that the socks are breeding each night and that infant socks clearly develop into adults within a remarkably short twenty-four hour period of time. Not only that, but they generally produce twins although sadly, as we know, not all the time.

The same is largely true of the underwear drawer as well although these clearly do not breed quite so well in captivity. They never seem to produce pairs and there are occasions, admittedly few, as I look in the morning, when there are no underpants in the drawer. This doesn’t happen too often and I certainly don’t mind “going native” once in a while to accommodate their recovery – rather like adhering to the fishing quotas in the North Sea. But, miraculously, they never seem to disappear completely and although I can’t quite work out how they reproduce when there seem to be none in the drawer, somehow they manage it. More study clearly required.

Leaving aside the now completely un-discredited weather warning from early in the week, I ran across two intriguing articles this week. The first describes how cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a sentiment with which I suspect most of us would concur in the present economic conditions. I thought it was particularly amusing how the study reckons that bankers reportedly destroy seven pounds UK of value for every one pound they generate. Even better, tax accounts manage to destroy 47 pounds for every pound they generate. Where do you fit in the grand scheme of things?

The second investigates the premise that there is always one particular type of chocolate in any Christmas gift box which no one wants to claim.

Cleaners ‘worth more to society’ than bankers – study By Martin Shankleman – Employment correspondent, BBC News Hospital cleaners play a vital role, the study found. Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests. The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid. It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy. They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress". The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption. Tax accountants are said to destroy £47 in value for every £1 generated And tax accountants damage the country by devising schemes to cut the amount of money available to the government, the research suggests. By contrast, child minders and waste recyclers are also doing jobs which create net wealth to the country. The Foundation has used a new form of job evaluation to calculate the total contribution various jobs makes to society, including for the first time the impact on communities and environment. Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment". Waste workers promote recycling, researchers note. She said the aim of the research is not to target individuals in highly paid jobs, or suggest people in low paid jobs should earn more. "The point we are making is more fundamental - that there should be a relationship between what we are paid and the value our work generates for society. We've found a way to calculate that," she said. A total of six different jobs were analysed to assess their overall value. These are the study's main findings: The elite banker "Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse. Paid between £500,000 and half a million and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate". Childcare workers "Both for families and society as a while looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up £9.50 worth of benefits to society". Hospital cleaners "Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created". Advertising executives The industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate". Tax accountants "Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate". Waste recycling workers "Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society." The research also makes a variety of policy recommendations to align pay more closely with the value of work. These include establishing a high pay commission, building social and environmental value into prices, and introduce more progressive taxation.

And finally, from the Guardian . . . .

Which will be the last chocolate left in the box this Christmas? Seasonal selection boxes are a festive tradition, but there is always one chocolate no one wants to eat. We used science to find out which will be the last sweet standing this year There's always going to be one. The last chocolate left in the box. The one that nobody wants even after all the other ones no one really wanted either have been eaten. These are the chocolates that should never have been made – the modern equivalent of the lime barrel. (For the benefit of those too young to know, the lime barrel was so legendarily disgusting Cadbury's discontinued it from its Milk Tray box in the mid-1970s.) So which, in this post-lime-barrel world, are the last chocolates left standing? The ones that are increasingly misshapen as countless sweaty fingers give them the once-over only to reject them? We conducted our own investigation, distributing a range of selection boxes to different corners of the office. The Prestat Jewel Box was quickly whittled down to just the Lemon Classic Creme. With Black Magic, the evidence was compelling: the last two chocolates were the same – the Orange Sensation. A pattern was emerging. Citrus was the culprit. The fruits got a reprieve in the Milk Tray box. This time it was the Eastern Delight, "an exotic Turkish delight locked in chocolate" that got the thumbs-down. Then came the Quality Street. The Toffee Deluxe. Surely an aberration? What Malcolm Gladwell would call an outlier and turn into a chapter of a book. In the Roses box, it was the Tangy Orange Crème. Last up was the Thornton's Continental, where the misnamed heart-shaped Amour – a distasteful blend of marzipan and orange liqueur – took the honours. Chocolate assortments have a curious history. Once an impossibly exotic addition to a postwar austerity Christmas, they are now a staple household accompaniment to seasonal TV repeats. And yet the format has remained largely unchanged, a mix of truffles, praline, marzipan, toffee, coconut, coffee and fruit. "Tastes have changed," says Alex Benady, who worked in new product development for Terry's and Cadbury's for five years. "Chocolate is no longer the luxury it once was and people are pickier. And while a selection box isn't supposed to be all things to all people, there is a suspicion that assortments haven't quite caught up with changing demographics." He thinks fruit creams would appeal only to the over-75s, brought up when crap chocolate could be passed off as a delicacy. Also largely unchanged are the semiotics of how a box is eaten. Although each family will have its own rituals – in some there is a modicum of greed control and no one can touch the bottom layer until the top one is empty, in others anarchy prevails – the same basic rules apply. The full box is approached with a sense of childish wonder, a joyous rummage for hidden treasures. In this first phase, the truffles and the pralines will be wolfed. Next comes a more anxious time, when you're sifting through for something you can tolerate. Last is full-blown panic; the despair of knowing that the only chocolates left are completely revolting. And yet somehow you're going to eat them anyway. After all, it's not Christmas until you've made yourself feel sick.

It’s Turkish Delight for me – absolutely horrible!

Love to you all,

Greg

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A tour bus driver is driving with a bus load of seniors down a highway when he is tapped on his shoulder by a little old lady. She offers him a handful of peanuts, which he gratefully munches up.

After about 15 minutes, she taps him on his shoulder again and she hands him another handful of peanuts.

She repeats this gesture about five more times.

When she is about to hand him another batch again ...he asks the little old lady, 'Why don't you eat the peanuts yourself?'.

'We can't chew them because we've got no teeth', she replied.

The puzzled driver asks, 'Why do you buy them then?'

The old lady replied, 'We just love the chocolate around them.'

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A man in Scotland calls his son in London the day before Christmas Eve and says, “I hate to ruin your day but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.”

'Dad, what are you talking about?' the son screams.
 
“We can't stand the sight of each other any longer” the father says. “We're sick of each other and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Leeds and tell her.”

Franticly, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. “Like hell  they're getting divorced!” she shouts, “I'll take care of this!”

She calls Scotland immediately, and screams at her father “You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my  brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing,  DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.
 
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. 'Sorted! They're  coming for Christmas - and they're paying their own way.'

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Genderized Nouns

For years, the Washington Post newspaper has featured the "Style Invitational", where readers were asked to submit entries in various clever contests. In this one, it was suggested that like other languages, what if English had Male and Female nouns? Readers were asked to assign a gender to a noun of their choice and explain their reasoning.

The best submissions:

Swiss Army Knife: Male, because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.

Kidneys: Female, because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

Tire: Male, because it goes bald and often is overinflated.

Hot Air Balloon: Male, because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it... and, of course, there's the hot air part.

Sponges: Female, because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.

Web Page: Female, because it is always getting hit on.

Shoe: Male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

Copier: Female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

Ziploc Bags: Male, because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.

Subway: Male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

Hourglass: Female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.

Hammer: Male, because it hasn't evolved much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.

Remote Control: Female...Ha! You thought I'd say male. But consider: it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

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