Keep Calm and...
Labels: British, Humour, Keep Calm and..., Life
8.6.12
24.12.11
Holiday Laughter
Do take a moment and have a look at this phlog post and have a good laugh with the links back here to arcana imperii.Cheers!
25.12.10
holiday laughter
do take a moment and have a look at this phlog post and have a good laugh with the links back here to arcana imperii.cheers!
14.1.10
a joke
A husband and wife were sitting watching a TV programme about psychology and the phenomenon of mixed emotions. The husband turned to his wife and said: «Honey, that’s a bunch of crap. I bet you can’t tell me anything that will make me happy and sad at the same time».She said: «Out of all your friends, you have the biggest penis».
Labels: Humour
25.12.09
holiday laughter
do take a moment and have a look at this phlog post and have a good laugh with the links back here to arcana imperii.cheers!
15.12.09
Estaba Pepito escribiendo su carta al Niño Jesús
Querido Niño Jesús:Me he portado muy bien este año y quiero que, por favor, me traigas una bicicleta.
Al poner la carta debajo del árbol en el pesebre, observa que la figura de María lo mira fijamente.
Arrepentido rompe la carta y escribe de nuevo:
Querido Niño Jesús:
No me he portado muy bien este año, pero si me traes una bicicleta, prometo portarme bien el que viene.
Va con la carta de nuevo y otra vez observa la mirada de María sobre él.
Rompe otra vez la carta y desesperado coge a María y la encierra en el armario más cercano.
Vuelve a escribir.
Niño Jesús, tengo a tu madre, si quieres volver a verla, deja una bicicleta debajo del maldito árbol.
20.10.09
7.5.09
CDC medical alert
The Centre for Disease Control has issued a medical alert about a highly contagious, potentially dangerous virus that is transmitted orally, by hand, and even electronically. This virus is called Weekly Overload Recreational Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from your boss,any of your colleagues or anyone else via any means whatsoever - DO NOT TOUCH IT !!!This virus will wipe out your private life entirely. If you should come into contact with WORK you should immediately leave the premises.
Take two good friends to the nearest grocery store and purchase one or both of the antidotes - Work Isolating Neutralizer Extract (WINE) and Bothersome Employer Elimination Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.
You should immediately forward this medical alert to five friends. If you do not have five friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.
22.9.07
5.5.07
1.2.07
5.12.05
Divine press release
αι further interrupts regular blogging for the following urgent and slightly edited satiche news bulletin (just pretend it's already a week after xmas, yeah?):Turmoil rocked heaven this morning as allegations arose that god had had an affair with a former worshipper. The scandal began when a 21-year-old woman, known only as Mary, claimed that she had given birth to god's "only son" last week in a barn in the hamlet of Bethlehem.
Sources close to Mary claim that she "had loved god for a long time", that she was constantly talking about her relationship with god, and that she was "thrilled to have had his child". in a press conference this morning, god issued a vehement denial, saying that "no sexual relationship existed", and that "the facts of this story will come out in time, verily".
Independent counsel Kenneth Beelzebub immediately filed a brief with the Ministry of Justice to expand his investigation to cover questions of whether any commandments may have been broken, and whether god had illegally funnelled laundered money to his illegitimate child through three foreign operatives know only as the "Wise Men". Beelzebub has issued subpœnas to several angels who are rumoured to have acted as go-betweens in the affair.
Critics have pointed out that these allegations have little to do with the charges that Beelzebub was originally appointed to investigate, that god had created large-scale flooding in order to cover up evidence of a failed land deal.
In recent months, Beelzebub's investigation has already been expanded to cover questions surrounding the large number of locusts that plagued god's political opponents in the last election, as well as to claims that the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was to divert attention away from a scandal involving whether the give-away of a parcel of public land in promised county to a Jewish special interest group was quid pro quo for political contributions.
If these allegations prove to be true, then this could be a huge blow to god's career, much of which has been spent crusading for stricter moral standards and harsher punishments for wrongdoers. Indeed, god recently outlined a "tough-on-crime" plan consisting of a series of 10 "Commandments", which has been introduced in Parliament in a bill by Moses, MP. Critics of the bill in the USA, where it is being considered by Congress, have pointed out that it lacks any provisions for the rehabilitation of criminals, and solicitors for the ACLU are planning to fight the "name in vain" commandment as being an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.
Go figure...
1.10.05
carmen - a translated synopsis
here's a synopsis in «english» of the opera carmen, as it appeared in the programme for a recent performance in genoa, italy:"act 1. carmen is a cigarmakeress from a tobago factory who loves with don jose (duet: "talk me of my mother"). there is a noise inside the tobago factory and the revolting cigar-makeresses burst into the stage. carmen is arrested and don jose is ordered to mounting guard her but carmen subduces him and lets her escape.
"act 2. the tavern. carmen, frasquito, mercedes, zuiniga, morales. carmen's aria ("the sistrums are tinkling"). enter escamillio, a balls-fighter. enter two smuglers (duet: "we have in mind a business") but carmen refuses to penetrate because don jose has liberated her from prison. he just now arrives (aria: "slop, here who comes") but here are the bugles singing his retreat. don jose will leave and draws his sword. called by carmen's shrieks the two smuglers interfere with her but don jose is bound to dessert, he will follow into them (final chorus: "opening sky wandering life").
"act 3. a rocky landscape, the smugler's shelter. carmen sees her death in cards and don jose makes a date with carmen for the next balls fight.
"act 4. a place in seville. procession of balls-fighters, the roaring of the balls is heared in the arena. escamillio enters (aria and chorus: "toreador, toreador, all hail the balls of a toreador"). enter don jose (aria: "i do not threaten, i besooch you") but carmen repels him wants to join with escamillio now chaired by the crowd. don jose stabbs her (aria: "oh rupture, rupture, you may arrest me. i did kill her") he sings "oh my beautiful carmen, my subductive carmen."
funny? rather! well, until one realises that somewhere there's a homeless and destitute professional interpreter and translator that could have done the job properly...
26.12.04
a dutch xmas - david sedaris
«six to eight black men: a heartwarming tale of christmas in a foreign land where, if you've been naughty, saint nick and his friends give you an ass-whuppin'», by david sedaris.«i've never been much for guidebooks so when travelling abroad, my first question usually relates to barnyard animals. "what do your roosters say?" is a good icebreaker, as every country has its own unique interpretation.
grecian roosters crow "kiri-a-kee," and in france they scream "coco-rico," which sounds like an order for one of those horrible premixed cocktails with a pirate on the label. when told that an american rooster says "cock-a-doodle-doo," my hosts look at me with disbelief and pity. "when do you open your christmas presents?" is another good question, 'cause i think it explains a lot about national character.
in france and germany, gifts are exchanged on christmas eve, while in holland the children open their presents on december 6th, which is nationally celebrated as saint nicholas day. it sounded sort of quaint until i spoke to a man named oscar, who filled me in on a few of the details as we walked from my hotel to the amsterdam train station. unlike the jolly, obese american santa, saint nicholas is painfully thin and dresses not unlike the pope, topping his robes with a tall hat resembling an embroidered tea cosy. the outfit, i was told, is a carryover from his former career, when he served as the bishop of turkey.
"i'm sorry," i said, "but could you repeat that?" one doesn't want to be too much of a cultural chauvinist, but this seemed completely wrong to me.
for starters, santa didn't use to do anything! he's not retired and more importantly he has nothing to do with turkey. it's too dangerous there and the people wouldn't appreciate him. when asked how he got from turkey to the north pole, oscar told me with complete conviction that saint nicholas currently resides in spain, which, again, is simply... not... true.
while our santa flies in on a sled, the dutch version arrives by boat and then transfers to a white horse. the event is televised and great crowds gather at the waterfront to greet him. i'm not sure if there's a set date, but he generally docks in late november and spends a few weeks hanging out and asking people what they want. "is it just him alone?" i asked. "or does he come with some backup?"
oscar's english was close to perfect, but he seemed thrown by a term normally reserved for police reinforcement. "helpers," i said. "does he have any elves?" maybe, i'm just overly sensitive, but i couldn't help but feel personally insulted when oscar denounced the very idea as quote, "grotesque and unrealistic." "elves," he said, "they're just so silly." the words silly and unrealistic were redefined when i learned that saint nicholas travels with what was consistently described as "six to eight black men." i asked several dutch people to narrow it down, but none of them could give me an exact number. it was always "six to eight," which seems strange, considering they've had hundreds of years to get a decent head count. the six-to-eight black men were characterised as personal slaves until the mid nineteen-fifties, when the political climate changed and it was decided that instead of being slaves they were just good friends. i think history has proven that something usually comes between slavery and friendship, a period of time marked not by cookies and quiet hours beside the fire but by bloodshed and mutual hostility. they have such violence in holland, but rather than duking it out amongst one another, santa and his former slaves decided to take it out on the public.
in the early years, if a child was naughty, saint nicholas and the six-to-eight black men would beat him with what oscar described as "the small branch of a tree." then, if the youngster was really bad, they'd put him in a sack and take him back to spain. "wait a minute! " "saint nicholas would kick you?" "well, not anymore," oscar said. "now he just pretends to kick you." he considered this to be progressive but in a way i think it's almost more perverse than the original punishment. "i'm going to hurt you but not really."
while eight flying reindeer are a hard pill to swallow, our christmas story remains relatively dull. santa lives with his wife in a remote polar village and spends one night a year travelling around the world. if you're bad he leaves you coal... if you're good, and live in america, he'll give just about anything you want. we tell our children to be good and send them off to bed where they lie awake, anticipating their great bounty. a dutch parent has a decidedly tastier story to relate, telling his children: "listen... you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed." "the former bishop of turkey will be coming tonight, along with six-to-eight black men. they may put candy in your shoes, they might stuff you into a sack and take you to spain or they might just pretend to kick you. we don't know for sure, but we want you to be prepared".
this is the reward for living in holland. as a child you get to hear this story and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it. as an added bonus the government has thrown in legalised drugs and prostitution. so what's not to love about being dutch?!»
Labels: Humour
