Channel 4 news presenter uses the F-word at lunchtime

Earlier today, on one of the many fifty-twelve–inch plasma TVs we have knocking about at The Twaddle HQ, I was watching Channel 4 News at Noon, presented by Krishnan “1990s Newsround Legend” Guru-Murthy.

The final item was about “many” employers having employed (lolpunlol) software filters to restrict their workers' access to Facebook and other such “social networking” sites. Their “reason” (read “excuse”) is that these sites “distract” workers.

Now, any way you look at it, employers who filter access to Facebook are admitting to being really, really shit.

• Maybe their recruitment and firing method is so far from the mark that they end up with the vast majority of their workforce being inherently lazy.
• Perhaps the work their employees are being told to do is soul-sapping, life-draining and tedious beyond redemption.

Hmmm.

• It could be that their discipline procedures are so shite that the employees can't be trusted to forgo using a website when they're told to, even on penalty of sacking.

(Though, to be fair, that last point probably boils down to one of the other two.)

Clearly, the employees aren't using Facebook because they're bored by their work, unmotivated and uninspired, and have an unfulfilling job—that they hate—at which their bosses treat them like children. That couldn't be it. Nope. Definitely not the case there. Boy, would I look foolish if I suggested that!

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At the end of the programme, as usual, Krishnan looked down to his laptop. I detected a glimmer of a wry smile.

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Oh, yeah—the “F-word” is F******k.

Music videos are harder than you think

Here at El Twad HQ, and after much larking about with the Hounds of Love near the A19, we decided to make a music video. Setting a target of 10 days to make a spectacular, it took us 9 of them to pick a topic - Twad Brew. After much assessment of the product at hand, including around 10-15 glasses of "testers", we found we were too rendered to make a song, never mind music video, and promptly collapsed.

However, we found an unsigned band who could: The Schema, with their new song "Those Rules". After ten days, their music video was created - and it's a belter.

On the Lavatorial Etiquette Differences Between the Traditional Genders, or: Leaving the Toilet Seat Up—the Logic Behind the Laziness

Let's divide the populace into two roughly-even groups based on their gender and make sweeping generalisations about each group and its relation to the other, shall we?

So, Men leave the toilet seat up after urinating, because they do so while standing. Women, however, who urinate while seated, become infuriated by this, because they need the seat down, and so have to lower the seat prior to urinating.

Note the symmetry of this arrangement: Men raise the seat before urinating if Women have used the toilet immediately before them; Women lower the seat before urinating if Men have used the toilet immediately before them.

But Women are unhappy with this arrangement, symmetrical and fair though it is, and seek to change it. They want Men to raise the toilet seat before using the toilet, and lower the seat afterwards, even if Men use the toilet immediately before or after them. Women, then, will neither raise nor lower the seat at any time.

Men, however, do not wish to deal with the toilet seat after urination. Before, Men will quite happily deal with it, as necessary preparation for the impending urination. Afterwards, though, Men are satiated and have no further use for the toilet. Men will ignore it and its seat, whatever position the latter finds itself in.

If the seat is down upon their arrival, and must be down when they leave, but may be in any position during urination (which it may, as who's watching?), Men will usually choose not to raise the seat prior to urination, because that would necessitate lowering the seat afterwards. Men do not wish to deal with the seat after urination.

Thus the position in which Men leave the toilet seat is overwhelmingly likely to be the same position the seat was in during urination. Men are not famed for accuracy during urination. Men who leave the toilet seat up are therefore doing a favour to anyone who may want to sit on the toilet seat at a later time.

Tried drugs? If not, work for the Maltesers Creative Department.

I received an Easter egg last April/March/month which Paganism defines as Christ's death/rebirth, which was very nice. Tasty and such. Looking for the token 3-question crossword or dot-to-dot puzzle on the back, I was sad to find a lot of text and a series of surreal drawings of miscellaneous animals enjoying a messy picnic. The words explained the eerie goings on:

George [dragonfly] is flying to Richard's [rabbit] house because today is the day of the Maltesers Meadow Round Picnic. Everyone has been busy for days making round things to eat and drink.

At the Round Picnic everything has to be shaped like a ball.

Richard thinks that Round Picnics are the best because all the food rolls all over the plates and the picnic rug and everywhere.

George is really excited because it's quite windy today so the Round Picnic is going to be even more fun when the wind makes all the food roll even faster and further!

Only now, do I realise as I type this word right here, that this is shameless self-promotion for Maltesers themselves. I'd failed to negotiate the link earlier as I'd devoured the innards of the cardboard cocoa plant sarcophagus in a matter of seconds.

Regardless, what the hell is Mars playing at? What round food is there, and why would you actively encourage children to eat it - on PLATES - on a FIELD - with ANIMALS?

You know what comes in round form? Horse sedatives. And Persil tablets. What would you do if your child was chasing ketamine across a windy field having had the hors d'oeuvres of biological washing liquid already? Easter egg manufacturers: stick to shit quizzes. Please.

Scenes from advertisements that everybody should hate with a passion #2

"You've got a frieeeeennnnd!" muses a friendly-looking bearded chap at the end of the AA's advertisement showing their legion of yellow-coated engineers around the country engaging in Krypton Factor-esque treks to solve car problems. The main bloke's got a good voice too. The advert's a little weird, but largely bearable. What's the problem with it, then?

I have no problem with the AA's adverts - no problem, that is, if they had them without that idiot with the icicles on his beard. He looks like he just doesn't care. It's physically impossible to get icicles on your beard. I certainly wouldn't like a Yeti lookalike servicing my car should it break down. I hate him - irrational, I know - but I hope you look at the image below, or on your screens, and repeat the exact phrase on said image as I do every time I see his miserable icy face. He's an idiot, and winds me up no end.

It's OFFICIAL!

Yes! The Germans in El Twad HQ have been up all night using their "Baby's First Science Kit" (not to be confused with "Baby's First Scientology Kit" which is far more expensive), and after several über-tests (which only Germans can perform, might I add) - two things have been discovered that will shock the world.

1. Hartlepool is at least 1,000 times better than Darlington; not the previous 400 as once thought
2. The centre of the universe has finally been placed: once thought to be an unknown given that the entire universe is expanding at all places equally, it is finally found to be at Port Clarence, Teesport. A government diagram for this natural phenomena has been unearthed and is displayed below.

Scenes from advertisements that everybody should hate with a passion #1

"SOLAR POWERED KILLING SHEEP!"

Oh my God, I can't begin to tell you, young girl, about how much I hate your unfunny, "alternative" view on great inventions on the government-paid advert for teaching or whatever. So many schoolchildren came up with interesting ideas before you in the ad - what the hell would such an invention create in our modern world aside from your moronic laugh?

I hope that, someday, I get a doctorate in Ruminant Quadraped Studies with Advanced Bioengineering and Renewable Energy so I can build one of these creatures, lock you in a barn with it and see if you feel it was a worthy decision to let somebody take your idea and turn it into reality.

Things you didn't know about Europe, part 1

I've never understood why many people see Spain and Italy as two separate countries. What many don't know is that they're both the same country, just split by that French lot. The facts to support it are obvious:

• Both speak the same language
• Both are Catholic areas
• Both are good at football.

And now you know. Case closed.

W trufax #43

—facts about George W Bush that are absolutely, definitely true.

#43: as an aide-mémoire, he has “left” and “right” sewn into his socks.

Formula 1 Drinking Criteria

At the start of this year's Formula 1 season, I set about investigating the waning popularity of F1 as a televised sport. I ended up identifying a selection of the things that people most want to see when they watch F1.

If there was more of this sort of thing F1 would, I reckoned, be much more popular. But as it stands, these things come up preciously rarely. So, I concluded, you might as well make the most of them when they do.

Now: you should never get drunk and drive a car—that much is clear. But it is OK to get drunk whilst watching other people drive cars, quickly, on a television. (Only when you're watching it using a television—if their cars are actually on top of the television, you have bigger problems.)

From the conjunction of these two ideas sprang the following scheme to enliven lacklustre Grands Prix, in the absence of more of the excitement from which we're now deprived and that we so dreadfully crave:

Imbibe a mouthful—or other convenient unit—of your favourite alcoholic beverage upon each occurrence of each of the following:

1. Crashing
2. Overtaking
3. Fire
4. The Safety Car
5. Michael Schumacher
6. Spinning out
7. Explosions
8. Bits falling off cars
9. Cars leaving the ground
10. Murray Walker

For competitive play, you could each choose a couple of different criteria, and the winner is the first person to get the hiccups.

Of course, adding Lewis Hamilton to that list would just be silly. So only do that if you have plenty of booze.

[[Insert self-reference and recursion here]]

[[Incisively witty, post-modern, deconstructive meta-humour that presents reality in a slightly-exaggerated—yet eminently familiar—way, to either reinforce (safe comedy) or subvert (edgy comedy) preconceived notions (though in the latter case, ironically, re-expressing the preconceived notions in the process of subverting them).]]