The Befouled Weakly News
24 May 2009 Well, good morning to you all on a gloriously glorious morning in beautiful downtown Byfield. The sun is shining, the sky is clear and deep blue, the birds are busily announcing their enjoyment of the day, the temperature is pleasingly pleasant and just about everything seems fine with the world. Hmmm. Clearly that can’t last! We had a pleasant visit on Thursday evening with Dean Wilkening who is in the UK to address a conference on security in London next week. So, he came a few days early with his girlfriend Lisa (who I gather Sandy and Pam have met) and they spent Thursday evening/night with us before heading off to Wales on Friday to visit with some other friends. We barbequed some of Sandy’s salmon with pesto, Penelope made an outstandingly fantastic rhubarb and strawberry crisp and, although it was a bit fresh for dining al fresco, we did enjoy a most magnificent feast. I was amused by several articles in the media this week. Firstly, writing as we were last week about our corrupt (i.e., perfectly normal) politicians, I was both amused and disappointed at the suspended sentence handed down to Graziano Cecchini, an Italian artist and political activist – amused at his “protest” and disappointed that the authorities had bothered to charge him at all although I suppose the suspended sentence was probably a fair punishment for the “crime” with which he was charged – disrupting bus services. In protest at the corruption of Italian politicians, he launched something in the region of 500,000 small plastic balls down the Spanish Steps in Rome. Apparently, the Italian for “ball” can also mean “untruths” and his protest was based on the certainty that politicians of every persuasion are simply incapable of telling the truth. You can read some more about it and catch some photos here. I was also amused by the story of the three year old girl in New Zealand who managed to get on to an online auction site and purchase a full-size excavator while her parents were fast asleep. It seems that the mother had been looking for some toy diggers and had not shut the computer down the evening before. The child got up, found the computer online and, apparently, logged in to an auction site and she managed to enter a winning bid of something in the region of £8000. Again, you can read more here. The following is less flippant or amusing, perhaps, but still caught my attention. Something that we all inherently know and understand and, even though it is illegal in the UK, one constantly sees people doing it, i.e., using their mobile phones while driving:
Enjoyed the Heineken Cup rugby final on Saturday. Amusingly, the television had the match listed as Leicester v Leicester. Now, I know Leicester generally have a pretty good side but were they really going to play themselves for the championship? Somehow, I doubted it. In fact, it is Leicester against Leinster (an Irish team) and it was an excellent match. Finally, this was very probably on the news in the US but not sure how much more widely it will have been available – a great little video clip of a good Samaritan saving some ducklings in Spokane, Washington. You can get it here. Enjoy. Oh, final bit of news. I finally handed in my notice to leave work at the end of August. Hmmm, wonder how we will manage to make ends meet! Love to you all, Greg So I landed my new job as a Wal-Mart greeter (a good way to pass some time and get a few bucks for retirees like me). My job lasted less than a day. You probably want to know the story. Everyone does. Well, about two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance. As I had been instructed, I said pleasantly, "Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart. Nice children you have there. Are they twins? The ugly woman stopped yelling, and stopped in her tracks. "Hell no, they ain't twins," she said in the same loud voice, glaring at me. "The oldest one's 9, and the other one's 7." "Oh," I said. "Why the hell would you think they're twins?" she continued, still using such a loud voice that all the other customers were also stopping and turning to look at us standing there at the entrance. "Are you blind, or just stewpid?" "I'm neither blind nor stupid, Ma'am," I replied -- loud enough for everyone to hear, but calmly and in the politest of tones. "I just couldn't believe someone slept with you twice. Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart." She just stood there dumb-struck, but all the other customers -- every last one of them smiling and giggling, immediately turned and continued on their ways. But my supervisor said I probably wasn't cut out for this line of work. The first jockstrap was introduced in the United States in 1874. It was quickly adopted as a standard testicular guard by hockey players. But it wasn't until 1979 that the National Hockey League made helmets mandatory -- which produced much grumbling by the players. In other words, it took over 100 years for hockey players to decide that their brains are as important as their balls.
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