Slow Day For Funny

Dull church, Dull, Perth and Kinross (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I read this on Imagine FM’s Facebook page:

No word of a lie, there’s moves to officially twin the Scottish hamlet of Dull with the US town of Boring.

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This came to my inbox.  What does the Arts council have against tall people?

From the Arts Council: Calling all short film makers…

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Spud told us that as he was coming out of school yesterday, he overheard two sixth form girls giggling about a man’s shoe size being the same size as his youknowwhat (he used the correct term; the girls used an explicit term; I’m middle-aged and reporting a rude conversation my teenaged son told me about; ‘youknowwhat’ is all I can manage without fainting).

He couldn’t resist: as he passed them he smiled, winked and said, ‘I’m a size twelve…’

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A picture of a dictionary viewed with a lens on top of it, at the word "Internet" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Clearing out my draft box the other day, I came across a WordPress prompt and my reply from postaday2011.  Can you believe I missed one?  I know why it was still a draft: it’s not funny.  But I have to flesh out this post somehow, so here you go:

Would you rather have the first word, or the last?

This is a tricky one, because I don’t own an up-to-date dictionary, and it would depend on the dictionary, because they must all be different, or else why would there be so many?  Online dictionaries are useless in this instance because you can’t page through them.

Let me see…thumbsuck…thoughts coming up…in a minute…let me think…thinks…thinks…

‘A’ must be the first word.  ‘Zzz’ must be the last.

A is the start, zzz is sleep.

Start something or sleep?

I would have to say, I’d rather have the last word.

But I’m scouse and we say ‘a’ for ‘hay’ and, despite my Heidi-loving childhood, I’ve never fancied sleeping in ‘ay.

So it’s still the last word.

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Hey – we started with dull and boring; we might as well finish that way.

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Jobs For The Coy

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An interesting job via the Arts Council:

Classical trained Saucy Alto, Sawn-off Opera

It comes with an asterisk:

*Please note – these operas are fairly saucy!

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And another interesting job:

Sewist.  Bring your own ideas.

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A Third

This one had me intrigued until I looked at the ad and realised a punctuation mark had been omitted in the original email subject line.  Unfortunately, you can’t check for yourself because the advert has been taken down.  I’m not the only punctuation pedant in the blogosphere, it seems:

Urgent Pianist Needed

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Jobs I Would Like

Image via Wikipedia

From the Arts Council website:

Volunteer Swishing Coordinator.

Apparently it’s a thing.  Clothes swapping.  Huh.

Stilt Walkers.  No previous experience needed. 

I swear I’m not making this up.

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Tory Boy forwarded this Lancaster Freecycle post:

OFFER: Basic course in manners 

From: ******** 

Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:10:44 -0000

Description: 

A basic course in manners and internet etiquette available to anyone
who has forgotten how to say please or thank you when asking for
items on freecycle

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Told You They Were Watching Me

I rescued this from my spam box. 

I think the government hid it there.

I added your blog to bookmarks. And i’ll read your articles more often! Before this, it would be possible for the government to arrest you just based on whatever you were saying, if they didn’t like it.You got fantastic nice ideas there. I made a research on the topic and got most peoples will agree with your blog.

I know it’s not spam because of the truth of the last line.  This guy must have superpowers, to be able to keep me from jail just by bookmarking my blog.  Wonder if he works for Twitter?*

*A little super-injunction private joke between me and 64,999,999 other UK citizens.

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I’ve started mining Facebook.

FOR SALE OR SWAP IN STOCKPORT

‎****************ELECTRICIAN*****************

 

Wonder if they’ll take a bag of old clothes for him?

 

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I thought I’d share some email subject lines as well.

 

From the Arts Council:

 

Arts Jobs – Escalator Dance Producers

Arts Jobs – Musical Basketball Players Required

 

I’m thinking of changing my blog name to Whistling Housewife.  I can’t whistle but that’s okay, I’m as suited to this job as I am to those two.

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A Housewife’s Work Is Never Done; That Must Be Why We Don’t Get Paid

Image by clotho98 via Flickr

If you could go back in time and have a 5 minute conversation with yourself ten years ago, what would you say?

‘Don’t wait to get a degree before applying for jobs.  Trust me: it will only help if you’re already in work.  And think again before eating every Malteser on the planet: a billion past the lips means inches on the hips…heart disease…diabetes…a crane hoist.’

Why is it only work if it’s paid?  Cooking and cleaning and tidying and child care and child minding and child ferrying about from school to club to friends’ to doctor/dentist/hospital, the decorating, the shopping, the clearing out, the nursing, the ironing, all of it: why is it ‘work’ if I pay someone else to do it; but not if I do it myself?  The twenty years I’ve spent looking after my family and all the volunteer work, is not really ‘work’ because I never thought to ask for payment.  Silly me.

According to a study in 2008, I should be on £30,000 a year for my ‘nine-hour days’ (nine hours – I wish).  Okay, I might not quite make the regulation 71 minutes of cleaning and tidying – or even 7.1 minutes, if I’m honest – and if a chambermaid takes fourteen minutes to make a bed then I should be on a bonus for my 1.4 minutes per bed (mine; the kids make their own); but I should be good for at least £25,000.

I don’t mind that I don’t get paid for it (that’s why God gave me kisses from my children, after all); I mind that it’s not considered work.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because I don’t need a degree for the job I really want: this one, advertised on the Arts Council’s website.  Imagine the look of consternation on the face of everyone who ever asked me what I do for a living, and I could reply: Freelance Didgeridoo Artist.

If I’m going to make that happen I’d better get back to my carpentry; the roof extension won’t build itself.

I So Hope This Was A Deliberate Mistake

But I doubt it.  An email from the Arts Council arrived in my inbox, advertising a

Novel Wrighting Course, Brighton

Sigh. Whigh, oh whigh are these things sent to trigh me?