>…and consequently this country is at war with Germany"

Posted on 3 September, 2009 by jb

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Proclamation of war

11:15 BST 3 September 1939

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>The Laptop Burka

Posted on 3 September, 2009 by jb

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Now here’s a useful piece of kit.

But hasn’t she got knobbly knees?!

And from the fact that she doesn’t shave her legs, I’d say Polish.

All very confusing.

Explanation here

Buy it here

Posted in I'm very sorry about this | Tagged | 1 Comment

>New toy – Sarah Palin Fictional Quote Generator

Posted on 2 September, 2009 by jb

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Here

And if it sounds familiar, here’s the interview with CBS’s Katie Couric:

” . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh — it’s got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.”

Word for word….

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>Stop me if you’ve heard this one

Posted on 2 September, 2009 by jb

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A nun, a Muslim woman and a rabbi walk into a bar the Hastings District Court in New Zealand……

Here’s the story:

A Hastings Muslim woman who was barred from entering a courtroom because she refused to take off her headscarf is going to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
Yasmeen Ali said she had gone to Hastings District Court yesterday morning to support her brother, also a Muslim, who was being sentenced, Hawke’s Bay Today reported.
When she arrived she was allowed to stay in the courtroom for a short time, despite being asked to remove the scarf, or Hajib, by a court officer.
However, after the morning break, when Ms Ali tried to go back into the courtroom, she was told the presiding judge, Judge Geoff Rea, had ordered she was not to be allowed in wearing the scarf.

Not taking sides on this, but would a nun be required to remove her coif and veil or an Orthodox Jew be required to remove his kippah?

I’ll go out on a limb and say “I don’t think so”

Discuss

Image by Jonathon Bloom Portaits

Posted in This is New Zealand | Tagged | Leave a comment

>NOW I understand….

Posted on 2 September, 2009 by jb

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…differential gears.

If someone could now explain calculus as simply, we’d be set…

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>Common sense and Swine Flu

Posted on 1 September, 2009 by jb

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From a letter to the Daily Telegraph:

“When I was a student nurse back in the sensible Seventies, we were taught a simple diagnosis for those with influenza. If there is a $10 note on the floor and the patient can get out of bed to pick it up, then he does not have flu, simply a common cold.

Similarly, anyone collecting his own Tamiflu from the pharmacy should be sent away empty-handed.”

Posted in Too good to miss | Leave a comment

>Just sod off. Please.

Posted on 1 September, 2009 by jb

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Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, has big plans.

It’s going to be 150 in 6 years’ time and they’ve set up the Capital City Initiative to give the city a make-over.

The most important of these projects (I assume it is – it gets first mention in the press release) is to replace the little green MEN on the pedestrian lights near Parliament with little green WOMEN to celebrate the fact that New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote.

Being New Zealand and oh-so-politically-correct, it would surprise me if they hadn’t first considered depicting a Maori woman, but the Gender and Ethnic Equality and Resource Consent and Environmental Impact Study Committee probably came to the conclusion that brown wouldn’t be a positive visual amenity and would result in a negative outcome for the transport disadvantaged (meaning that you can’t see it in the dark}

“We are the city of important conversations” says Mayor Kerry Prendergast.

No. Just a bunch of wankers.

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>All days are equally long

Posted on 1 September, 2009 by jb

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“Some are just wider than others.”

This I like.

Probably even love.

Posted in Too good to miss | Leave a comment

>My fault. As usual.

Posted on 31 August, 2009 by jb

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The opening of the Westerwald Prize for European Ceramics 2009 exhibition in Höhr-Grenzhausen last Friday and being somewhat of a leading light in the ceramics scene over here having been press-ganged into opening a couple of ceramic exhibitions recently, I couldn’t really give it a miss.

The usual suspects there, including my friend Petra Bittl in a moderately foul mood (which is highly unusual for her, being one of the more placid and gentle souls I know)

“They could have spelled my NAME correctly” she said, flipping open the massively heavy (almost 700 applications, 200 artists selected, 500 individual items on display) catalog to “B”.

For “Bittle”

Which is outrageous.

Outrageous to spell ANYONE’S name incorrectly in a catalog for an event of this quality, but it’s not as if Petra’s an absolute unknown.

She’s frequently described as one of the country’s leading young ceramicists, she’s had major solo exhibitions (including one in the Leeds City Gallery in England) and if you’re selected to represent Germany as an Artist in Residence at the Fuping International Ceramic Museum in China…..

You get the idea.

But it’s probably my fault.

When she started working on her flask forms (that’s them in the picture), I piped up with “Hey, you can call them ‘Bittl Bottles’……”

The word must have got around, it’s evidently stuck on someone’s cranium and floated to the surface while they were proof-reading

And while we’re on the subject of “outrageous”:

Is it really too much to ask that Bernd Neumann, Minister of State for Culture does his HOMEWORK (for an event that’s under the patronage of Angela Merkel) and learns the CORRECT PRONUNCIATION of the prizewinner’s names.

When you travel Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines in Business Class, the first thing they do after you get settled in is to welcome you by name and ask you if they’re pronouncing it correctly.

It has everything to do with respect and it has everything to do with professionalism.

Laughing it off with “I have problems with foreign names” just isn’t good enough.

You’re representing the Chancellor. You’re not a stand-up comedian.

And it’s “Bittl”

Not “Bittle”

Write it out 100 times as punishment.

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>No 2 Cardboard Pile, Polythene Sheet Avenue

Posted on 30 August, 2009 by jb

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Just how dim ARE these Americans?

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