Complete and Utter Zebu

A ROUND-UP OF THE MOST GLARING, RIDICULOUS AND EGREGIOUS LIES, DECEPTION AND BULLSHIT OF 2009

Zebu Organisations
Council are high on many people’s hate lists. They’re happy to take our money but rather less happy to provide us with the corresponding services. Thanet Council deserve special mention for their “recycling” services after a Margate resident videoed dustmen taking the recycling sacks he had carefully sorted (as is compulsory) and throwing them into their lorry with all the otheer unsorted rubbish. HOW NOT TO RECYCLE

Zebu Regulations
Regulations are supposed to improve our lives. All too often they have the opposite effect. In the case of CFL lightbulbs, we’re told they’re better for the environment and just as bright as old-style lightbulbs. Now it transpires that the numbers have been fiddled to lie to us. In addition to that, these toxic CFL bulbs are already outdated, so why aren’t we being encouraged to use LED bulbs instead? NEW LIGHTBULBS

Zebu in the Media
The world’s media lapped up the story from Peru of the “vampire killings”, with four men arrested for killing 60 people and melting their fat to sell to European cosmetics companies to be used in miracle anti-ageing creams. The only trouble was, the story was complete and utter Zebu.

PERUVIAN VAMPIRE KILLINGS

Zebu Farmer of the Year (nomination)
I was tempted to put Britney Spears in here for her “What’s up, London?” yell to her audience in Manchester. After all, she had maintained for years that she would remain a virgin until marriage, becoming a heroine to the True Love Waits chastity movement. Then she told W magazine she’d only ever slept with one person, the assumption being that it was Justin Timberlake, only for her mother to reveal in a book that she’d actually given it up to a high school football jock at the age of 14.

But it feels like cruelty to a dumb creature, so the nomination goes instead to Nicolas Sarkozy. He was roundly ridiculed for trying to conceal his true height, wearing lifts and making Mrs. S eschew high heels, standing on tiptoes for a photo with the Obamas and speaking from a hidden box during the D-Day anniversary ceremony. The height of this folly – or lack of it – was when he visited a car factory and a group of vertically-challenged workers were rounded up to stand behind him for the photo op.

But our favourite Sarkozy story was his Facebook entry showing him helping to knock down the Berlin Wall, even though it soon became apparent that he wasn’t even in Berlin at the time. SARKOZY KNOCKS DOWN THE BERLIN WALL

Most Shocking Zebu Story
Revelations about Police “gaming”, the methods they use (“stitching”, “skewing”, “nodding” and “cuffing”) for fiddling crime statistics to make them seem more effective than they are
IT’S AN UNFAIR COP

Dictionary of Deceit
Among the many misleading abuses of the English language we highlighted, one of our favourite was “CHERISHED“, perhaps not surprisingly from a car dealer.

Bizarre Zebu
We still admire the chutzpah of the makers of the OZONE FRIENDLY SOCK

Funny Zebu
Given France’s attitude towards America, how could you not enjoy the political video about the wonders of life in France which was actually filmed in America? LIFE IN FRANCE – AS FILMED IN AMERICA

Part 2 (of 4) of this Zebu roundup of 2009 will appear tomorrow.