Archive for the ‘Everyday life’ category

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Time to move on

June 18, 2011

I have been asked to join the savers’ pressure group, Save Our Savers, as its spokesman. It’s a wonderful opportunity to speak out on behalf of the section of society being made to pay for a recession that was entirely the making of everyone else! I expect to be blogging regularly on the Save Our [...]

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Inventive spam names

May 21, 2011

We all hate spam, except presumably the loathsome bottom-feeders who flood our in-boxes with the bloody stuff. However, we noticed a while back that while the products they tout may be pretty well identical, month on month, year on year, there’s often an element of inspiration when it comes to inventing the names of the [...]

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How casinos carpetbag their punters

April 22, 2011

Swedish photographer Chris Maluszynski was surprised by the garishness of the carpets in the casinos of Las Vegas. Until, that is, he realised that they had a purpose – to stop the punters feeling sleepy because sleepy tourists don’t spend money. If your eyes stray to the floor and see one of these monstrosities, you [...]

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The (over) honest ebay seller

April 16, 2011

How splendid, given the way most ebay sellers over-egg whatever particular pudding they’re trying to con you into buying, to come across a listing that tells it like it is. 605impala certainly does that in trying to shift a copy of one of his mother’s old books, Linda Goodman’s Star Signs: “This is a wonderful [...]

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Slipping one past the authorities

April 1, 2011

Not all instances of deception in modern society make us despair of our fellow man. Sometimes pulling a fast one can be positively applauded, which is why, in Complete and Utter Zebu, we devoted a section to the naming of racehorses. For it is a long-established tradition among owners to try to come up with [...]

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Are speed cameras snapping aircraft?

January 22, 2011

We’ve remarked before how councils justify their phalanxes of cctv cameras by claiming they are for crime-busting while, in reality, they are mainly used for extorting money from hapless motorists. In their desperation to squeeze cash from us, councils become ever more wily. But we were still puzzled to see this speed camera in the [...]

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Toss you for it? Scientists find it can easily be fixed.

January 7, 2011

What could be a fairer way of settling something than tossing a coin? Surely it’s a 50/50 outcome, isn’t it? Not according to scientists at the University of British Columbia. As they reveal in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, they took 13 ear, throat and mouth specialists (don’t ask) from Vancouver and gave them brief [...]

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Fake perfumes may contain urine

February 4, 2010

With money tight, we’re all looking to save money. But those who buy cheap perfume or after-shave at markets, online or when abroad, believing they’re conserving cash, may not realise they are actually putting some deeply unpleasant substances on their skin. Harper’s Bazaar in the United States investigated a range of counterfeit perfumes and found [...]

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Train punctuality figures fiddled

January 19, 2010

YOUR TRAIN IS OFFICIALLY “ON TIME”, EVEN WHEN IT IS LATE Waiting in the cold for a train that seems to take forever, do you ever look at those “Aren’t We Punctual And Wonderful?” posters from train companies and marvel at their claims of 90%-plus punctuality or whatever. Do you ever feel it doesn’t chime [...]

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In Moscow, Big Brother is NOT watching you

January 14, 2010

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CCTV CAMERAS IN RUSSIA’S CAPITAL FED FAKE FOOTAGE TO THE POLICE After an investigation lasting several months, Moscow police have uncovered a massive security fraud. The company StroyMontageServices was paid to instal CCTV cameras throughout the city and then feed live images from them to the Police. What was actually appearing [...]

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Ill Met By Moonlight

January 11, 2010

FORECASTERS AIM FOR CONSISTENCY. BUT THE MET OFFICE’S CONSISTENCY IS IN GETTING ITS PREDICTIONS WRONG Forecasting is an inexact science, no matter what the field. It’s said, for instance, that economists have successfully predicted 14 of the last five recessions. Yet Britain’s Met Office has achieved an extraordinary consistency in its long-range forecasts – by [...]

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Zebu review of the year – part 4

January 5, 2010

Zebu Organization of the YearWhat else could it be but the House of Commons, the high reputation of which has been brought low by the Expenses’ Scandal? It’s as if our 646 MPs lined up their feet and took aim at them with shotguns. What is most disgraceful is not the claims that have been [...]

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Zebu review of the year – part 3

January 4, 2010

A ROUND-UP OF THE MOST GLARING, RIDICULOUS AND EGREGIOUS LIES, DECEPTION AND BULLSHIT OF 2009 Zebu OrganisationsRoyal Mail clearly deserve to be singled out for their “Sorry You Were Out” cards, pushed through letterboxes, whether people are out or not. Initially, facing an imminent strike, Royal Mail’s less-than-stellar management maintained that this hardly ever happened [...]

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Zebu review of the year – part 2

January 3, 2010

A ROUND-UP OF THE MOST GLARING, RIDICULOUS AND EGREGIOUS LIES, DECEPTION AND BULLSHIT OF 2009 Zebu OrganisationsBritish Telecom make the list, primarily for telling the villagers of Hambledon in Oxfordshire that it was impossible to provide them with broadband. That might not have been so difficult to live with, had they not then discovered that [...]

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The most ridiculous calls to the RSPCA in 2009

January 1, 2010

As well as the emergency services, the RSPCA also get their fair share of mind-boggling calls from the public. The RPSCA have issued their list of the most ridiculous calls they received from the animal-loving British public in 2009. A member of the public rang to report a slow moving tortoise on the hard shoulder [...]

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Ridiculous emergency calls

December 31, 2009

“Is that the police? Help! I’m trapped in my duvet”Two days ago Greater Manchester Police revealed that one of the many 999 calls they’d had which weren’t real emergencies came from a woman, possibly drunk, who called because her cat was playing with a ball of string and it was “doing her head in”. Now [...]

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Even the train companies think rail travel is too expensive

December 24, 2009

With train fares due to rise yet again, it is no surprise if commuters find rail travel expensive. What’s more surprising is that Network Rail clearly thinks so too. 200 Network Rail staff had to travel to Coventry from Reading for a conference, a distance of 90 miles. As a senior executive noted in a [...]