Missing Missy ….. comedy genius

Although I follow quite a few blogs, there is also a comedy website that I like to visit on a regular basis, purely because it makes me laugh my bloody head off. Ha ha bonk.

The website was created by graphic designer David Thorne and is called 27bslash6 . On this website, David publishes the details of email conversations that he has with random people. I know it sounds a bit vague, so I thought I would give you a taster of one particularly fine email conversation that David had with a secretary at his workplace. Enjoy!

Hi David

I opened the screen door yesterday and my cat got out and has been missing since then so I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me. It has to be A4 and I will photocopy it and put it around my suburb this afternoon.

 

Sometimes I actually *like* winding people up

Dear Aurora Berg,

I feel eminently qualified to assist your company in a diverse range of operational solutions, but I feel that I could add most significant value in the area of helping you to read, write and speak English to a higher, more professional level.

For example, we never commence a business email with the salutation ‘Greetings’. Not unless one’s name is Joey Boswell and one is a member of the fictional television series ‘Bread’, as written by Carla Lane, in the mid-1980s.

‘Dear Sir’ or ‘Dear Madam’ are normally considered acceptable but, as you have taken the time and trouble to mine my email address from some portion of the website, ‘Dear Brennig’ would also be satisfactory – as would Dear Mr Jones.

Please allow me to congratulate you on becoming a manager of the HR department of a large multinational company. I can only hope, given the unfortunate circumstances in the United States, that the ‘large multinational company’ is not BP. Perhaps you would be kind enough to let me know the name of the large multinational company, so I may make some appropriate entries in my records?

Your next sentence puzzles me. ‘Our company is met in many departments, such as:
- property– bank account operations – transportation and logistics – private enterprise service– etc.’

Could you tell me what, precisely ‘is met in many departments’ means? I would also appreciate some supplemental information as to the precise nature of the core business of the multinational company. Let’s face it Aurora, all multinational companies have HR, property, banking operations, transport, logistics and service divisions. You should also note how I rephrased and improved the syntax of your sentence, whilst managing to make it more economical. I feel this further underlines your need for my services.

Unfortunately, I have to tell you that I am completely baffled by your next phrase:
‘Currently, we are looking for managers in Europe:
- salary 2.600 euro + bonus
- 1-2 working hours per day
- free timetable’

Are you telling me that my working day would be 1-2 hours for which you would pay me a salary of €2,600? That seems ludicrous. 1-2 hours (let’s call it 1.5 hours for the purposes of a mathematical equation) multiplied by an average of 220 working days a year is 330 working hours – for which you are proposing a salary of €2,600? That’s less than €8/hour, and that equates to £4.93/hour – which is substantially lower than the national minimum wage of £5.80/hour. Still, perhaps this illegally low wage might be offset through the deployment of what you call a ‘free timetable’. Perhaps you could explain what this means?

Your next sentence has, I fear, somehow become corrupted during the transmission of your email. ‘If you are ready to work as a regional manager in Europe send us the below information on…’
Once again, you have underlined just how much your large multinational company needs me to proof-read everything! ‘Send us the information requested below’ is grammatically correct. Your own effort fails the quality test. And, just a passing thought here Aurora, but wouldn’t all multinational companies be, by definition, large? Is there such a thing as a small multinational? I’m now wondering if multinationals are sizeist? Do they hang around behind the multinational equivalent of the school bike sheds comparing the width and girth of their corporateness in a ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ kind of way? Perhaps you could advise me on this?

I do love your bold use of post-modern irony in the next paragraph. The use of hyper-spacing in the first line and the total absence of spaces in the second, comprise an innovative blending of the rules of business writing and a subtle use of humour in the workplace:
‘email:h r m @ h i r i n g – w e s t u n i o n . c o m [please delete spaces before sending]
Name:Surname:Country:City:E-mail:TelephoneNumber:Mobile phone-number:’

I am so impressed with your humour that I am providing you with the information you have requested – in exactly the same format that you have requested it:

Brennig:Jones:Wales/UK(Ihaveputmycountryoforiginandmycountryofresidence):Witney(technicallyWitney
isatownnotacity):03001231212:+447765969952

I do feel that your next line has no place in a business letter. It looks contextually out of place and, frankly, it isn’t even written in good English:
‘Attention! We need just the people residing in Europe.’

‘Please, write your name and Telephone Number so that our manager could contact you, ask the necessary questions and answer yours.’
This, too is not written in English. My name is Brennig Jones and my telephone number is +44 7765 969 952. I would be thrilled to speak to your manager. While I am conversing with him/her I would be able to set out my proposals for a significant role in your organisation and give you my views on an acceptable remuneration package.

Yours sincerely,

Brennig Jones

____________________________

Original Message:
—————–
From: Aurora Berg Aurora.Berg@we-help-u.biz
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:15:01 -0300
To: brennig.jones@xxxxxxx.co.uk
Subject: Position Opening

Greetings

I am a manager of the HR department of a large multinational company. Our company is met in many departments, such as:
- property– bank account operations – transportation and logistics – private enterprise service– etc.

Currently, we are looking for managers in Europe:
- salary 2.600 euro + bonus
- 1-2 working hours per day
- free timetable

If you are ready to work as a regional manager in Europe send us the below information on email:h r m @ h i r i n g – w e s t u n i o n . c o m [please delete spaces before sending]
Name:Surname:Country:City:E-mail:Telephone Number:Mobile phone-number:

Attention! We need just the people residing in Europe.

Please, write your name and Telephone Number so that our manager could contact you, ask the necessary questions and answer yours.

Stream of unconsciousness…

This is a test piece of writing…

It’s been said many times before, that the most intimidating thing, for a writer, is a blank page.

That’s cobblers.

The most intimidating thing in the world, for a writer, is the audience as it leaves the theatre, having just watched a comedy show that includes pieces you’ve written.

‘Keep your friends close, but keep your underwear closer’.

The audience laughed at that, it’s one of mine. The laughter made me feel good.

‘You want me to give financial support to a campaign to promote teenaged abstinence? Can I say that as someone who experienced being a teenager ten years ago, I’ve already given teenaged abstinence seven years of practical support? They don’t need my fucking money as well.’

That’s another of mine. The amusement rippled around the room. I felt intimidated by the amused rippling, but I loved the clever double entendre. Even if I wrote it.

‘Am I the only person here who feels that ‘Judge Judy’ feels like a command that should be followed with the shout: ‘Guilty!’?’

You could have heard a pin drop after that one. Too sophisticated for Leeds, I thought.

The difficult thing with being a comedy writer is rotating the comedy from inside my imagination, out on to a piece of paper. Several dozen pieces of paper.

My life is a riot of funnies. I am actually the funniest guy I know – and I know some really funny guys.

But getting my native funniness from inside me head to out there, and doing it in a form that’s still funny, is the most intimidating, the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced.

Just this morning my wife, in fits of giggles, pleaded with me, ‘Don’t make me laugh!’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t push if I’m laughing’.

She was on the toilet. Having a poo.

You have to agree it takes a special kind of person to make a woman have fits of giggles. Whilst she’s on the toilet.

Having a poo.

All change…

Just a few short weeks ago (what a stupid phrase that is. How can weeks be short?) I was constantly looking upwards, begging the rain to stop.

Now I’m gazing skywards, silently pleading for the dry weather to break.

The ground, in case you haven’t noticed, is as hard as concrete.

There is, as farmers and landowners will also admit, no pleasing some folk. The ground is too hard/the ground is too soft.

I can count the number of days, this year, that the ground has been ‘just right’, and I can count them on the fingers of one hand.

Tom is due to run in a BE100 (formerly ‘Pre-Novice’ – or Pre-Nervous to be more accurate), at Broadway on Saturday.

Yep, that’s why I’m moaning about the weather; I would like the ground to be ‘just right’, for the weekend.

The weather apart, the seasonal changes are making a big impact in other ways.

The hedges in the lanes are overflowing with colour and blossom, and a large number of gardens are broadcasting pleasant odours, scents that have been hidden from us, all winter.

I’m not just seeing changes in the flaura and fauna.

Wood-pigeons.

They’re everywhere.

Accompanied by their almost ever-present ‘Prr-proooo, prr-proooo’ cooing, they flutter down from the highpoints of trees, or glide in from neighbouring hedges, and perch on the post-and-rail fencing around the outdoor arena…

And scare the living daylights out of Tom.

The poor horse, he’s almost had several heart-attacks in the last few days.

We have been working – very hard – on improving our dressage score in the outdoor.

We would be heads down, deep in concentration, when suddenly a small squadron of the little darlings would zoom in, execute a barrel-roll, a triple-toe loop, a double Salko, a half-forward roll with double-twist and pike, and finish their aerobatic display with a perfectly formed Immelman, before landing in a high-speed scrabbling clutter of feathers – on top of the fencepost that Tom and I are about to pass.

Tom, being a sensitive soul, doesn’t take too kindly to this aerial activity.

His first inclination, on being startled by these feathered rats, is to leave the county – and, frankly, he’s not terribly fussy if I go with him or stay behind.

Bearing in mind that horses, by evolution, are not brave animals – in fact, their primary instinct (after eating, sleeping, drinking, pooing reproducing and weeing – and not always in that order, obv) is to get away as fast as a very fast thing driving a Ferrari on an empty motorway. Without speed cameras.

Where was I?

Oh yes, so bearing in mind that it is in their nature to run liked greased weasel-shit at the first sign of something scary, how do I persuade Tom that the feathered Douglas Bader-wannabees can be safely ignored?

I can try and work him through it, as any half-decent equestrian would helpfully suggest.

Helpfully suggest without actually offering to sit on the 17-hand, snorting, straining, sinew-popping, eye-bulging, panic-induced monster.

Believe me, I have tried working him through it.

The sheer proximity and lack of consideration of the Sopwith Pigeons makes ‘working through it’ impossible.

This morning I had an idea.

Ting!

I have a cunning plan.

Well yes, it does involve me buying a shotgun, sitting underneath the trees in the evening (feeding time!) and waiting for the flying rats to get close enough for me to introduce them to an early demise.

But at least my cunning plan has a definite strategy behind it.

What do you think?

Is Woodpigeonocide a legitimate *moral* act? Yes, I do know that it is a legal one, but is it an ethical behaviour?

Or are the ethics police going to come and get me?

That’s ‘ethics’, not ‘Essex’ which is, of course, a county between London and Thuffolk.

insert imaginative title here

So we’ve been doing really random things today and laughing a lot and giggling like kids and singing and Sophie’s cleaned the house and is it only me that feels as if it’s been a weekend day?

I know Soph’s been home because it’s her Thursday off and that makes it seem like the weekend but the sun’s been shining and I had my hair cut this morning and rode Tom this afternoon and gave him a bubble bath and came home and wrote two PowerPoint presentations that I have to give tomorrow morning in Wiltshire and…

Oh dear.

I seem to have run out of punctuation.

Bugger.

I’ll just nip upstairs and see if there’s any spare punctuation in the filing cabinet.

Back soon.

Where did it go?

The bank holiday weekend has vaporised quicker than an outgoing clutch of MPs can take their obscene payoffs and disappear, like thieves in the night…

Horse stuff first:
We seem to be on-course! Sunday’s show-jumping at Allenshill was very interesting. Tom had a fence down in the 90cm, but put in a storming double-clear in the 1m (1.10cm in the jump-off), to finish second against some stiff competition that included three speedster jumping ponies.

Yay! Go Tom!

He was less than angelic though, and showed an inclination to muck about if he wasn’t firmly guided around the track.

Our next British Eventing one-day event is the BE 90 (formerly BE Intro) on Sunday 11th April, down on Salisbury Plain, not far from Stonehenge.

The remainder of the week that falls between now and Sunday is mapped out with flatwork schooling almost every day, some cross-country schooling on Thursday, a show-jump training session with Owen on Friday afternoon and a run up the gallops on Saturday morning.

On Saturday afternoon Tom will be bathed, groomed, plaited-up and prettied to within an inch of his life, and his tack will be cleaned. While that’s going on I’ll drive down to Salisbury Plain to walk the cross-country course a couple of times – and drink hot chocolate and eat a chocolate fudge brownie, as a reward for all of that exercise!

The following day I’ll make the trip down to Salisbury Plain in the lorry with a freshly-scented Tom in the back. I’ll settle for getting around all three phases nicely!

The following weekend – Saturday 17th April – Tom will do an unaffiliated one-day event at Aston-le-Walls in Northamptonshire, with Sammi sitting in the hot seat.

Yesterday we fired off an entry for Broadway (1) in the BE 100 class – which used to be called Pre-Novice (or Pre-Nervous) – which is a step up the difficulty ladder. We think that giving Tom more complex things to think about will hopefully stop him mucking about.

Although Tom continues to show that he has the potential to be naughty – and therefore I’ve got to be very sharp and switched on to potential naughtiness every step of the way – he’s terrific fun to ride and a lovely person to be around.

Also, Tom does seem to have settled down in the two-weeks since our first one-day event (after which we changed his feeds!). Whether he stays settled down when we get to the one-day events remains to be seen.

In music news…
Yesterday I shuffled off in to Headington (correctly identified by roseski by the photograph of the shark in the roof in yesterday’s post) to interview the very talented singer, songwriter and all-round troubadour, Ben Walker.

Ben’s a lovely guy; he gave me coffee, an entertaining and informative interview and anecdotage.

It’s also worth visiting Ben’s website to read a very thoughtful response to the unacceptably-worded Digital Economy Bill that your MP is willing to see rushed in to law.

I need to edit the audio from the interview with Ben a little, but I’m hoping to use the audio content in either this weekend’s podcast or, failing that, next weekend’s.

And on a music/fashion-related topic…
Is it only me who is able to see the whole ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ aspect to the ridiculous news that Cheryl Cole has been voted The World’s Best Dressed Female Celebrity?

Really?

Has everyone out there who voted (or who even put her on the short-list) for this award, forgotten the stupidly-stiletto-booted, ridiculously-torn-trousers, weirdly-waisted, tits-barely-tied back, doorman-from-a-Cairo-brothel-circa-1951 look, that she adopted for the ‘Fight For This Love’ single?

Just in case you have forgotten how stupid this particular Emperor of New Clothes looked, here’s a reminder:

Seriously folks, best dressed? Someone, somewhere is really taking the piss out of you right now!

Travel news:
According to this article, the Lib Dems have set out plans to reopen thousands of miles of railway tracks and stations.

Congratulations. That’s half a step in the right direction.

That a major town like Witney, Oxfordshire (sitting MP, David Cameron – leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition) with a population of 23,000, has no rail link to anywhere in the UK at all, and is only connected to the national transport infrastructure via the almost-perpetually snarled up and choking-to-death *single carriageway* A40 (hereafter named ‘The Road Of Doom’) is a complete and utter fucking disgrace.

I did say that the Lib Dem idea is half a step in the right direction because – obviously – the whole step would be to include affordable train fares, not a penalty fare.

I would love to be able to catch the train in to London!

Meanwhile, in the North of England…
I had a surprise phone call from Conor and Mark yesterday. Was it really four-and-a-half years ago that I moved in to the house in Stretford, Manchester, with those two herberts?

The lads have invited me up to Manc for a boozy night out. The thought is both interesting and a little scary. But it was good to have a big catch-up on what’s going on in their lives, and what’s changed since we last saw each other.

They make me laugh, and that’s a good thing.

And in the ‘And Finally’ comedy round-up…
The statement from Conservative MP Chris Grayling that people who operate as Bed & Breakfast accommodation providers should be allowed to pick and choose who they allow to use their services is hilarious.

Needless to say, though, the majority of Daily Mail readers love Chris Grayling’s view.

If, as Mr Grayling has suggested, B&B owners would be allowed to put up signs like ‘No gays’, or ‘No blacks’, or ‘No Irish’, or ‘No Christians’ (you haven’t thought of that one, have you Mr Grayling?), I find myself looking forward to the prospect of a future Daily Mail campaign that castigates the owner of a B&B for putting up a ‘Muslims only’ sign (because you just know it will happen, don’t you?).

I also expect the future Daily Mail article will go on ask which total twunt of a bureaucrat allowed people to make such qualifying statements in the first place.

Step forward Chris Grayling MP, Shadow Home Secretary in Her Majesty’s Opposition and utter twat – and significantly backed by The Daily Mail’s readership.

You will note that I’ve avoided the logical point that if people choose to operate a business they must be bound by the legislative framework of the country, and that people choosing to operate a business in their home not mitigating against that legislative framework. Clearly this point of logic does not trouble Chris Grayling.

Twat.

So…
All in all it has been a fun bank holiday weekend. I’ve loved my time with the horses. I’ve loved my time with Sophie and I’ve loved the many laughs we’ve had together over the last four days.

There has been much mirth, copious cuddles and gallons of giggles.

It’s also been a time of catching up with old friends, a time of being outdoors and being active, a time of gossiping with the girls in the tack room over mugs of tea and a time of looking at my fellow man and wondering just how many branches of the stupid tree s/he managed to hit as s/he fell out.

See above.

How was yours? Did you – as Masher said he would – do bugger all? Or were you out and about too?

Batman Characters Remade

This picture on the BBC website had me wondering what the hell Batman was doing fraternising with the enemy! For those not in the know thats Ribery and Demichelis of Bayern Munich.

The real Batman:

The real Two Face:

That got me thinking about other footballers in this game who relate to Batman characters, mainly villains.

Poison Ivy + Scholes – look at his hair, need I say more?

Scarecrow + Alex Ferguson – my dream that his mouth would be shut like this…

Penguin + Rooney – Fat fecker with a stupid face.

Bane + Vidic – Angry chap, only there to cause damage.

Robin + Gary Neville – Boss’s lapdog.

Can you tell I don’t like Man U?

Cricket Montage

It is important to remember that I love Cricket, which is one of the reasons I started CricHatter and why I will be doing something cricket related most days during the summer.

Therefore on a dull, rainy afternoon I thought I’d put together a montage…

The other great thing about Cricket is playing Smacky Chest (yes Carl has a potty mouth so apologies for the language):

Smithy’s Rant

This is funny, partly because I know how much certain people hate James Corden, and partly because it is always good to see celebs taken down a peg.

Part of the Sports Relief show on Saturday night was a sketch done by James Corden, where he is pretending to be “Smithy”, who receives the Coach of the Year Award at Sports Personality. This then turns into a rant at the nations best athletes, well mainly rant, except for the flirting with Victoria Pendleton.

Some of them took it a lot better than others, Dame Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe looked like they were going to cry / kill him. Freddie (I mean Andrew, but who cares?) Flintoff had a similar reaction, but from the work they have been doing together recently on Sky One he is either in on the gag and knew it was coming, or can’t have minded that much.

Nice timing on the Pendleton piece, she currently has a spot on our living room wall, she is the FHM calendar girl for March.

Thoughts?

Time to try out this ’sleep’ thing

OK, so last night we watched ‘Glee’, then tidied up and went to bed. I read for maybe 10 minutes before sleep hit and that was that.

For about half an hour.

WTF?

For 30 minutes I was out of it and then suddenly I was wide awake and nothing was going to get me back off again.

So I got up, grabbed my book and bathrobe and came downstairs where I read, internetted and generally annoyed the hell out of fellow insomniac and all-round nice person, Ali Booker.

But while all this was going on I was also working on a cunning plan.

And I was smirking a great big smirk as I worked.

At 3am the fruits of my labouring (and smirking) were harvested, right up until the point where Sophie came, blinking, downstairs and asked ‘Are you singing?’

I may have looked sheepish.

I had indeed been singing.

Now you may sit there and ask yourself why I had been singing at 3am. Because that’s a good question. And a fair one to ask.

I am sitting here smirking some more because I have the answer.

And so shall you, if you listen to future episodes of This Reality Podcast. Because that’s where my cunning plan, the source of my smirkage and the reason for my 3am singing will be…

Revealed!

Oh yes.

It is good.

And funny.

Well, he hedged slightly, it is funny to me. And I have just unveiled my cunning plan to Soph and she’s gone upstairs to bed laughing loudly as she went.

So I’m going to say, in an authoritative tone that yes, this is a good *and* a funny idea!

Umm…

Can you make sure that the podcast has your skype address/phone number? Because if we call you up you can:

a) take part

b) win free prizes (T-Shirts, mostly!)

c) join in with the new feature that is the source of such 3am mirth and singing.

Just email your skype address or phone number to ‘thisrealitypodcast@gmail.com’ or, if you’ve got skype, just add ‘thisrealitypodcast’ to your address book.

Thank you.

You won’t regret it.

Umm…

Actually you may regret it, but just a little, and at least you’ll be smirking as you regret it! 

p.s. You really should listen to the most recent podcast (#105), the musical content is possibly the richest we’ve ever produced – and that’s not an idle boast!

To stream just that one episode of the podcast to your desktop just click here or you can right-click on that link and save it to your computer and listen to it later. Or why not add it to your iTunes and listen to it on your iPhone or iPod or mp3 player wherever you go? Better than radio!