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Study reveals difference between self-absorbed narcissist and slackers
A study carried out by Nottingham University has revealed that people who spend hours and hours in front of a mirror working on their body image look marginally better than those who couldnât give a toss.
A survey of 30-40 year old men who spent over an hour each morning showering, applying oil and charcoal cleanser to their skin, preening their facial hair and working on the perfect fade tended to look slightly better than those who had a quick shower, dragged a comb through their hair, applied some Lynx roll-on deodorant and gargled with a bit of Listerine.
Likewise women who spend hours getting their eye liner and blush just right looked better than those who simply used a wet wipe or a damp cloth to freshen up in the morning.
âFor men body shape is everythingâŠ.but not all men can work on a building site or want to become a farm labourerâŠ.some of them are system analysts or software engineers or work at Subway âŠ.so for them itâs all about working out at the gym and getting the right steroid regime.
Itâs very important that they look like the cool guy off Love Island âŠ.even if they do send their working day plastering mayo and beetroot on a tuna melt âŠ..for them thereâs nothing like having the whitest teeth on the dance floor at Legendâs nightclub or the most buffed guy buying grouting mix in B&Q.
And they might just be up a ladder cleaning the gutters or fishing a dead bird out of the drainpipeâŠ.but which singlet do you wearâŠ..all these things matter to the fashion conscious and self aware.
And letâs be honest, who wouldnât want their dentists assistant to look like she just walked off the set at a Paris fashion shoot or was auditioning to be the love interest in the next Bond movieâ.
Astonishing results.
Our next study will be trying to find out why attractive young men and women always seem to fall for older partners with pots of money.
We think the findings might astonish some people’.
Couple who booked a holiday of a lifetime in Leicester still waiting for refund
Bill and Margaret Evans were really looking forward to their ‘once in a lifetime’ holiday to Leicester, but were gutted when Leicester was locked down again just as they were planning to catch the bus after a roller-coaster few months of worry. Now their holiday is ruined and there’s no sign of a refund in sight.
‘We re-mortgaged the house, cut back on Dominos Pizzas and even renegotiated our Sky package to afford the holiday,’ said Bill, while acknowledging the Sky deal had ‘backfired a little’ as he ended up paying ÂŁ30 a month more. ‘But I did get Sky Sports added,’ he said.
‘We normally make sound decisions – we backed the winning side in the Brexit vote and feel we were instrumental in ensuring the best team possible was in charge for the coronavirus pandemic. This was such an unexpected situation especially as we book this once in a lifetime holiday every year,’ he said.
When asked about insurance, Bill shrugged. ‘Like I say, we make sound decisions and generally leave that one until the night before – no point spending money on something you’ll never need,’ he said.
Woman posting about being too busy not too busy to post about how busy she is
Modern day hero Laura Smith, dubbed ‘Britain’s busiest woman’, has posted a series of social media updates explaining in detail how incredibly busy she is. Her latest post read ‘OMG sorry if I’m slow replying to msgs I’m CRAZY busy – send help & wine LOL!!’ before going on to explain she has to attend a lunch with a friend, a hot yoga class, book her BMW in for an MOT and get her eyebrows waxed. She finished up the post with #sleepisfortheweak #cantstopwontstop.
Many have called her a ‘martyr’ and a ‘role model’. Her oldest friend Cara explains: ‘She’s always been like this. Never too busy to stop and tell us how busy she is. Even at primary school I remember her making this speech about how busy she was with PE, English and Maths that day. Of course, we all were, but coming from Laura it was inspirational. We gave her a round of applause.’
Laura is planning to start a blog detailing how busy she is in even greater depth, with updates to include how many unread emails she has and how many items are on her to-do list.
Laura’s partner Paul is in awe of her resilience and strength: ‘She’s amazing, every day when I get back from a twelve hour shift at the hospital, she finds the time to talk to me about how busy she is. I try to stay awake for those three or four hours but often succumb to sleep which I feel terrible about. Occasionally I do try and tell her how busy I’ve been at work, with the dangerous staff shortages and overwhelming number of critically ill patients, but she’s understandably too busy.
Pop world rocked by revelation that Dawn Butler was 6th Spice Girl
The music industry and pop fans all over the world have been stunned by the sensationalist news that Dawn Butler, the Member of Parliament for Brent, was the sixth Spice Girl.
Dawn B, codename Truthy Spice, was in the original Spice Girls line-up, but band manager Richard E Grant threw her out for being too honest and sincere. “She displayed levels of integrity we had never encountered before and was just too damn dependable. I told her to stop being factually correct all of the time or she was out. No one likes to hear that their middle name doesn’t begin with E. We just couldn’t take her being right and honourable any more, so I made her pack her bags and go and be an MP.”
“It was such a shame she had to go,” said a tearful Geri Halliwell recalling her close friendship with Truthy Spice. “Dawn B was the only one I ever really trusted. She had so much talent and could actually sing. She even wore that skimpy Union Jack dress better.”
Former Posh Spice Victoria Beckham said, *pout*.
Scary Spice Mel B recalled, “Truthy Spice said that it would have been funnier if we had called that song Beaver Forever. And you know what? She was right. That’s real girl power.”
Husbandâs âAinât No Sunshine When Sheâs Goneâ vow upsets double negative pedant
A seemingly innocuous attempt to participate in the popular â7 day song challengeâ went badly wrong for Telford hand-drier sales rep Steve Vickers yesterday, after his wife, Samantha, stumbled across his musical choices whilst catching up on her Facebook feed.
A stickler for the correct use of grammar, English teacher Samantha was aghast when she saw the Bill Withers classic âAinât No Sunshine When Sheâs Goneâ as Steveâs choice for Monday accompanied by the words âSamantha â this is how I feel every time you walk out the doorâ.
âIf thatâs how happy he feels, Iâm surprised he doesnât do a little dance as I head off for work each dayâ, said Samantha angrily. Tuesdayâs entry served only to make things worse, however, with Steve pledging: âIf me and Sam are ever apart, I couldnât put it better than Diana Ross: âAinât no Mountain High Enough⊠To Keep Me From Youââ. âFan-bloody-tastic,â posted Samantha in a private message to her best mate Nicola. âValleys, rivers, mountains. Seemingly, the little shit would not be arsed to get over ANY of them to reach me.â
Wednesdayâs entry proved no less upsetting however, with Steve posting: âThanks to Sarah, my old college pal for suggesting this one. Every Thursday for 3 years at the Poly BopâŠ. âI Canât Get No Satisfaction!”â. âWell, yes, as if I really needed another reminder that Sarah very clearly kept you happy throughout Uniâ, texted Samantha to Steve. âYour best man Pete ‘accidentally’ drops it into the conversation whenever we see him. But every weekâŠin a disco? Classy.â Thursday and Fridayâs entries provided little solace either, with Vickers opting for McFadden and Whiteheadâs âAinât No Stopping Us Nowâ, and Marvin Gayeâs âAinât Nothing Like the Real Thingâ.
âPictures inside a frame, letters, memories. ALL of them just as much the real thing as our love, apparentlyâ, said Samantha to a group of friends over a large glass of wine. âOut of his 7 songs, it was only his Saturday and Sunday choices that I actually liked â nice tunes, good upbeat tempos and both with the simple comment âFrom me to Samanthaâ. Heâd gone for Queenâs âI Want to Break Freeâ, and âI Hate Everything About Youâ by Ugly Kid Joe. Not sure of their exact significance or meaning though. Maybe they were the soundtrack to our Paxos trip in 2010 or something??â.
New nanoparticle still not small enough for Tommy Robinson violin
Following the news that true Brit, son of Irish Immigrants Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – better known to his puce-faced supporters as Tommy Robinson – has lost a ÂŁ100,000 libel case brought by a Syrian Refugee, Materials Scientists at the Diamond Light Synchrotron in Oxfordshire have admitted defeat in developing a material capable of building a violin small enough to play in sympathy.
“After months of attempt to knit atoms together through manipulation via electrons, we cannot go any further,” said Professor Kiaan Mukerjee, project leader. “We developed a new fibre, which we called PolyEDLer, and made it into a string one-millionth the thickness of a human hair that could vibrate at a perfect A-note. It was so quiet, even when connected to our first prototype instrument, that we had to send it to CERN in Switzerland to even determine it was generating sound. Even that was too loud to express the levels of sorrow we have for the worst thing to come out of Luton since the Vauxhall Cavalier.”
Undaunted by their setback, Professor Muckerjee’s team still hope there is a future for their new material. Work has already begun on forming the fibres into a weave that, it is hoped, could make a new fabric suitable for a variety of uses, least of which could be creating tiny pairs of socks, so that the former head of the EDL could finally buy a pair that fit. Unfortunately, with the likely cost of a pair to be in the range of thousands of pounds, it’s not likely the diminutive bigot will be able to afford a pair any time soon.
Met Office warns it could be hotter than the surface of the sun by Friday
Extreme temperatures are expected to reach the UK later this week forcing forecasters to issue an amber alert for parts of Margate and the remote Irish village of Ballyageddon.
‘5600 degrees is nothing we canât handleâ, said Kevin Fullicks, a resident of Margate. ‘Itâs about time we had a decent summerâ.
‘I was a desert rat so Iâm used to the heat. Admittedly this will be a different kind of heat, the kind that can vaporise your face off if you donât take precautions. Iâve invested in 96 bottles of factor two million sun cream for the kids so they should be alrightâ.
The government has urged people to behave responsibly, not to venture outside under any circumstances and try to spend as much time as they can sitting in a bath of ice water.
Prince Harry publishing memoirs, in case weâve forgotten about his stuff
After releasing a string of interviews, documentaries and filmed psychotherapy sessions about himself over the past year, Prince Harry has announced he will shortly be publishing his memoirs, entitled “Flogging A Dead Horse”.
“The book will tell the public, for the tenth time over, how I went from being a confused, mixed-up kid to finding true purpose and happiness in my life, thanks to Meghan,” said Harry at a press conference in Montecito as he cast terrified glances at his wife.
“I realise this takes quite a bit of explaining,” he continued, “because up until a few years ago I was a happy, outgoing young guy and many people’s favourite royal whereas now I am a miserable, self-obsessed shadow of my former self who is seemingly eaten up by anger and resentment. That all goes to show you the benefits of top-dollar psychotherapy, and having the love of a woman like Meghan.”
Prince Harry is not the only man in the news to be writing his memoirs. Dominic Cummings will shortly be releasing an autobiography called “Flogging A Dead Boris” in which he tells us, for the tenth time over, that the prime minister is a vacuous, dead-brained puppet and that Carrie had no right to stop him pulling the strings.
âU N whose army?â More soon.
London zoo pangolins panged
Islington becomes first London Borough to be powered entirely by social media smugness
Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} The London Borough of Islington has announced plans to generate its entire power requirements entirely through its inhabitants’ use of social media and the self satisfaction that the use of it, and more importantly telling other people about your use of it, produces.
Residents will be fitted with special beanie hats, developed in partnership with Apple, which absorb the wearers sense of self satisfaction at all the tweeting and Facebook posting they have been doing, saving the power in a small organic battery which is USB compatible.
However there have been voices of dissent from many local sceptics such as retired teacher Harry Volks who has been writing to the local council for weeks now claiming that social media ‘canât actually power a fucking thing’. ‘Itâs just insane’ complained Volks, ‘you may as well try and power a local hospital through the power of prayer.’
The council has however reminded citizens that any letters they received are not read, and that any concerns should be address via postings of disappointed looking cats on the councils MySpace board.
Government creates essential new role of Witchfinder General
Downing Street has announced that a new senior government role has been created with the innovative and catchy title of Witchfinder General. Within minutes this was aggressively denied by the same senior ministers who had just announced it. There then followed the now expected period of clarification, suspiciously in the shape of a u-turn, reiterating that there had been no u-turns and that any footage of the same ministers saying precisely the opposite of what they were now saying was all in the minds of fools and incompetents.
A renowned and highly respected leaker with a penchant for snitching explained, “Our top government minds got together to assess the greatest threats to the UK in 2021. Eventually, a cleaner happened by and pointed out that the Cabinet room double doors were pullers and not pushers, so they were finally able to take their places around the table and begin their Mega-Brains-Trust meeting.”
“Once all of the gurgling and sheep noises died down, consensus was reached that a new, progressive, forward-looking, radical overhaul of political structure was required. Vigorous nodding and high-pitched squeals confirmed that the greatest threats to the UK were goblins, witches and naughty looking goats lurking under bridges. No one could see any ongoing need for Health, Education or the Environment, so those departments have been axed with immediate effect. In their place, a colossal uber-department will be formed called the Department for the Eradication of Really Scary Stuff. Jacob Rees-Mogg couldn’t stop screaming and Michael Gove wet his pants, so it was agreed that they were both ideal candidates for the new role of Witchfinder General.”
“Gove and Rees-Mogg will undergo a series of paddle-based tests. Whichever of them maims the highest number of baby ducklings will be awarded the most highly-prized position in British politics. The victor’s most pressing priority will be to categorise all non-Conservative-Party-donors in the land as ‘a bit witchy-looking’. Following that will come the somewhat hostile environment we are calling the mass drownings phase. Whoever survives that will be automatically reclassified as proven witches and deported to Yorkshire.”
M&S to cut Christmas goods to Northern Ireland, but not their mawkish adverts
Under the terms of Brexit retailers have promised the worst of all worlds to Northern Ireland, no shopping but all the annoying paraphernalia, we associate with it. This means plenty of family rows, but this time over presents not given, as opposed to presents that are just unwanted.
A M&S spokeswoman explained: âCustomers in Belfast will still need to wrap empty boxes. This means spending hours hunting for the sticky tape, constant paper cuts and the obligatory last-minute dash to a service stationâ.
They will also watch the sentimental M&S advert, which this year features a reindeer on a dialysis machine, Santa struggling with Parkinsonâs and a slow acoustic rendition of Iron Maidenâs âThe Number of the Beastâ â sung by Dido.
âWith all our shelves empty, we expect demand to exceed supply. So, we advise queue early, to avoid disappointmentâ.
Major supermarkets now selling fruit âfor display purposes onlyâ
The grocery sections in UK supermarkets must now show clear signage saying that ‘all of the fruit for sale here is for home display purposes only’, and ‘under no circumstances should anyone ever attempt to eat it’.
A retail industry spokeswoman explained, “What we realised in 1988 was that the vast majority of the UK public had a strong desire to display bowls of lush-looking fruit at home, but no member of the family was actually allowed to eat it. 93.7% of all fruit purchased was to impress friends and neighbours, projecting the image of a household with a healthy-living lifestyle. Ironically, the fruit was ‘off limits’ to the household for as long as it still presented well in the bowl. The problem with the consumer behaviour cycle was that by the time it didn’t look good any more, no one wanted to eat it. So the lead household fruit purchaser would have bin the rotten fruit and go out and buy new fruit which would then again be strictly eyes only for as long as could be stretched.”
“This led supermarket purchasing departments to buy and stock ever-increasingly unripe fruit. ‘Aesthetically pleasing’ became the mantra in all outlets. Green bananas and rock hard nectarines became the retail industry standard. We have now reached the edibility horizon where no fruit is sold which ever reaches a ripeness window. So it is now a legal obligation for supermarkets to warn their customers that they should never actually attempt to eat any of the fruit they purchase.”
Government admits losing PMâs bucket and spade
At the end of a week which many observers believed couldn’t get worse for Gordon Brown, it seems that even his plans for a seaside holiday in the genteel Suffolk resort of Southwold are now in jeopardy following the loss of the Prime Ministerial bucket and spade. ‘I’m sure I left it in the back of this cupboard, but I’ve had everything out three times now and looked everywhere. It’s sort of red with shells on, and a blue handle. You haven’t seen it have you?’ said the Prime Minister.
Regarded as one of the perks of office, the sandcastle-making apparatus is part of a beach leisure set used by many former Prime Ministers and their families and is rumoured to go back as far as Churchill. ‘It’s not a case of just buying a new one,’ said Mr Brown, ‘it’s a part of British history and I can’t go on this holiday without it, although it’s not all doom and gloom – I’ve just found the li-lo.’
It is the latest in a series of disastrous losses for the government including discs of benefit records, MoD laptops and voters, but the Prime Minister’s spokesman revealed that this was the thing at the moment causing Mr Brown most concern, and that his wife was asking him to get a move on. ‘To be going on a traditional British seaside holiday that he didn’t want to go on anyway, and to not be able to make sandcastles when you’re there, well, Gordon’s really having second thoughts about it all and making excuses so he can just stay here in Downing Street and ‘work on through…’
The search for the missing bucket and spade, and also Clement Attlee’s old brightly-coloured beach ‘boule’ set, will have to be put on hold for the rest of the day while Barack Obama is in town meeting important leaders as part of his ‘getting to know you’ world tour. But it will resume later tonight with the focus on a cupboard on the fourth floor of Number Ten, which Mr Brown is known to have a ‘lucky feeling’ about. ‘So it’s probably somewhere in the basement’ said an exasperated Alistair Darling.
Mr Darling, who is due to take control of the government while the Prime Minister is away, is carrying out his own search with the help of several cabinet colleagues who are equally insistent that the PM should, ‘in the name of God!,’ go on holiday. However, a Minister called Milliband, who wished to remain anonymous was far more ambivalent about the missing items saying; ‘Well, he’s got his head so far in the sand, to be honest he’d be better off with Neville Chamberlain’s digger.’
Liverpool stripped of World Heritage status, forced to hand back The Beatles
Unbeknownst to the majority of Liverpudlians, The Beatles were only on loan to the city, on the understanding that they never let Ringo sing. The UN committee said they needed to return the entire Beatlesâ back catalogue, but they could keep âThe Frog Chorusâ.
Rather embarrassingly, the city had to explain that they had lost two of the original band and offered a tribute version of Gerry and the Pacemakers in part exchange. In a handover ceremony, the two remaining Beatles will be put back into cryogenic suspension, until the Justin Bieber retires.
A UNESCO spokeswoman clarified: âSadly, Liverpool has abandoned its colourful history â like the slave trade and tobacco warehouses. All the beautiful architectural landmarks â celebrating slave owners â are being removed. Itâs a disgrace. They even tore down a priceless statue of a large pile of dead slaves, sponsored by Marlboro Lightsâ.
Liverpool will no longer have bragging rights to having the best band from the UK, that honour now passes to a skiffle band from Crawley. Said one despondent fan: âWithout The Beatles how am I going to know that modern music sounds sh$t?â