Category Archives: Work

A terrible smell

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I fear something awful might have happened in cubicle 4 of the ladies’ “facilities” at work.

Generally, on entering the ladies’ to avail myself of the wobbly, splash-sodden toilet seated lavatory in cubicle 3, I always check the doors of the other cubicles to ascertain occupancy levels. You know, just in case there are gases and I feel the need to relieve. Anyway, on one or more occasions last week, I noticed that cubicle 4’s lock indicated that it was engaged. I let my disappointment go unnoticed and continued to my favourite toilet. A couple of times, however, I couldn’t use my favourite toilet because some filthy bitch had left a dirty protest on the actual seat. On the actual fucking seat. How this can even happen is beyond me, other than the culprit hovering over the seat and making a mess without regard for hygiene or even attempting to clean up after themselves. Dirty fuckers. How? How does this even happen?

Back to the point. On each of the occasions when it seemed that cubicle 4 was occupied, I carried on, while listening for signs of life elsewhere in the room. There was none.

Now, usually, I take this as being in one of those uncomfortable situations where another occupant needs to “go”, but is holding back because somebody has walked in and they don’t want to be heard, astwer. This being my assumption, I got on with things, finished up, washed my hands and made an obviously noisy exit as a courtesy to them, letting them know that they could stop crying with pain and carry on.

Anyway (:@)), on my return to work today, female office colleagues were warning of a bad smell from the ladies’ and advising that the disabled facility might be the least offensive option. I don’t fucking think so! I know what people go in there to do and some of them are men! Some of them work in the NHS!!

So, unperturbed, I went about my business in the proper place, but my word! The smell was as if something had crawled into the toilet pan to die, and evacuated every orifice as the life force exited its mortal being. It was horrendous. I noticed that some other user had attempted to mask the smell with a spray of cologne, but as with toilet air fresheners, all this does is produce the nauseating smell of shit and nasty perfume.

I decided to check the cubicles to see if something had been left that needed disposing of. As usual, cubicle 1’s unreliable flush had resulted in some toilet paper that hadn’t fully cleared – got rid of that. Cubicle 2 – fine. Cubicle 3 – (mercifully) fine. Cubicle 4 – locked, but silent. I NEVER venture to cubicle 5 because, well, there be dragons!

Visiting the ladies’ a couple more times today, with the smell as intense as ever, I noticed that cubicle 4 was still locked yet silent.

People seemed happy enough complaining about the stench without doing anything about it, so I reported it to the estates team to deal with. I also checked the BBC News website for reports of missing people, but I might as well have checked a shopping list from last week.

But what if somebody has actually died in there? Won’t I feel bad now after writing this? Not particularly. I’ll stick a red banner on it and call it “BREAKING NEWS”, with live updates from the scene.

What I find remarkable though is that nobody did anything about it. I was off yesterday and apparently it was a bit whiffy then. Why do people just leave it to somebody else to sort out? Because they’re fucktards, that’s why, and that’s one of things that makes me resent spending my time in a place that I have to share with nobheads.

Anyway, if I find that the building has a police cordon around it tomorrow after I’ve struggled through an hour and half of shit traffic to get there, I’ll be pissed off. I should probably have left reporting it until tomorrow, or left somebody else to do it.

Hair bare

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It’s no secret that I consider my hair to be one of those things that just happens.  I don’t deal with hairdressers anymore; my sister does a perfectly good job of hacking away the excess growth in a manner similar to somebody trimming a hedge.  The curls just spring back into place and eventually it all grows back, well it sort of grows outwards, until it reaches a state that is best described as “ridiculous”.  At this point, I wait for an opportunity when she’s in not too bad a mood and I approach her, like a lion tamer with chair and whip, and gently broach the subject of her setting about me with the rat brain scissors.

Anyway.  ANYWAY! I last had my hair cut two months ago and I swear it’s not grown at all since.  All that’s happened in the interim period is the appearance of some very curly grey hairs and the rest of it seems to have got curlier.  Weird.  It looks kind of cool, but if I don’t balance my styling product, it turns into a mimsy bubble perm within two hours of it being dried.  In conjunction with my official middle-aged status, excess weight and terrible dress sense, I’m sure some who only encounter me by sight must perceive me as a meek secretarial type who lives alone with five cats and who flicks herself off to Great British Bake Off on tape… that’s until I let rip a demonic tirade of foul-mouthed abuse at them for not setting off the millisecond the traffic lights change from red to red/amber.

I do have terrible anger issues when I’m behind the wheel of a car.  But then again, so many motorists, pedestrians and cyclists are utter fucktards.  I’m a firm believer that the UK’s National Health Service, welfare system and compensation culture have had a negative impact on natural selection in our species.  Bad Tina! What I mean by that is that people who are perfectly capable seem to be less inclined to take responsibility for themselves: they know that somebody else will look after them or their kids; that somebody will patch them up or give them healthcare if they don’t look after themselves; that they’ll be able to sue somebody if they get knocked over while wandering down the middle of the road, gawping at their phones and listening to music with their backs to the traffic.

Anyway!

I don’t know

You know that thing when somebody asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to and you reply by saying “I don’t know”?  Why does this then turn into an inquisition?  Surely, if you don’t know, you don’t know. In certain circumstances, you can add “… but I can find out for you (if can be arsed)”, or “let me think about it”, but generally, if I don’t know, I’ll say so instead of coming out with a load of crap or speculating.

Bin the bin

One thing that I do know is that I was right when I predicted that the University’s “bin the bin” policy would result in a health hazard.  As part of its commitment to be an ecologcally-minded and responsible organisation, all office bins were removed about three years ago and, instead, bins and recycling points were located central areas.  The cleaners would no longer be coming into offices to remove waste and rubbish and recycling would only be removed from the designated sites.  This coincided with the annual “catch it, bin it, kill it” campaign that aims to prevent the spread of colds and other nasties by promoting general good hygiene.  So people were forced to “catch it” in a tissue, then accumulate snotty tissues on their desks or in carrier bags placed beneath their desks until such a time as convenient to transport the refuse to the bin in the kitchen.  Of course, office workers aren’t inclined to get up from their desks and wander to the kitchen bin every time they finish a yoghurt or piece of fruit and these tend to be at the desk-side until a natural break point occurs, or until the end of the day.

We had a rather nasty and irritating fly infestation in our office suite the other week after the rubbish bin in the kitchen hadn’t been collected for a few days.  After a bit of a whinge and eventual removal of the offending litter, the flies still persisted, becoming more concentrated in our particular office.  Fly spray was having no effect and work was interrupted by regular outbursts of “fucking flies!” as another colleague came under attack from the buzzing menaces.  And then, there was a collective realisation: one of our colleagues has been off sick for a few weeks.  “Is there any fruit in his drawers or anything? Have a look around his desk”.  And there, under his desk was a carrier bag that was the epicentre of the fly infestation.  Phil the Brave picked up the offending item and carried it out of the office at arms’ length, followed Pig Pen-like by the cloud of flies.

For fuck’s sake.  Nobody can blame the organisation’s anti-bin policy on this incident, not directly; food waste shouldn’t be kept in the office for more than an hour or two and certainly not overnight.  However, if we did have office bins that people chucked the odd apple core or yoghurt pot into, and these were emptied each morning, then, you know, a festering massive of gore wouldn’t have been allowed to grow under a sick colleague’s desk.

Of course, I’d been hoping for a more gruesome discovery in the floor space – body parts, that sort of thing, so I was sorely disappointed when the cause of the plague wasn’t related to the fact that our building is sited on an ancient burial ground .  Not that it is or anything.  Still, the episode has given me lots to think about should I ever leave my job under a cloud.

Arbeit macht pfffft

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I don’t like work.  It’s not that I don’t like my job, which is actually ok, if a little dull at times.  I resent the concept of work, of doing any activity that takes me away from my home or place of comfort for too long.  The whole thing about work is just dreadful: being forced to wake up when your body isn’t ready; rushing around for forty minutes or so while you get ready; fighting whatever hideous travel atrocities you have to face; to spend eight hours with people who are OK, but you probably wouldn’t socialise with them (I don’t socialise with anybody), sitting at a desk, answering e-mails and making spreadsheets just waiting until it’s time when you can go home again.  Ninety percent of the things I do at my desk at work can be done at my desk at home.   If I got myself a new printer cartridge, it’d be 98%.

This situation is nothing new.  I have felt this way since I was a youngster.  I loved my lessons when I was at school and sixth form, even liked the environment, but couldn’t wait to get home – loved it when we got an hour off because of the teachers’ walk outs in 1985.  The same was true at university, and when I came to do my PhD, it was such a huge shock to me because I actually had to basically do a proper job for six days a week, for often more than twelve hours a day.  Well, occasionally, when I’d fucked something up and had to do it again, and again.  Because I was shit at it.

I think the only time when I actually really enjoyed working, really enjoyed it, was when I was doing my first couple of post doctoral associates positions about twenty years ago.  Even then though, I still couldn’t wait until home time.

The day is, at best, one big sigh – a big, massive pfffft.  I find myself restless and bored, unable to concentrate.  I become disruptive and petulant, like a stroppy teenager who needs a good kick up the arse.

There are two parts to this problem.  Firstly, I need something to do that will earn me money, that will challenge me, that I will enjoy doing and that will keep me out of trouble.  Secondly, I need to not leave my house to do this.  I could do fantasy dress-up sex for middle-aged men; that’d CERTAINLY challenge me, well, them: “Yes, you are definitely going to have sex, but it’s all going to be in your head and no, you’re not coming anywhere near me with that thing.  Which would you prefer, dominatrix librarian or the school dinner lady with two huge ladles?”

 

Trolololol

Maybe I could offer other services from the comfort of my own office.  I could take people’s Buzzfeed quizzes for them and let them know how sexy/clever/popular they would be if they were me.  Or maybe a useful service would be to scour people’s social media presences and give them advice on the things they might want to think about avoiding posting, over and over again.  We’re all guilty of this to a certain degree, but it just takes a true friend, out of real concern, and friendship, not annoyance or irritation or anything, to tell somebody to stop posting the same fucking status update over and over again: Oh look, another cream tea and champagne from you; Another moan about being stuck in work from you; You do realise that’s the twentieth photo of your child in the same pose in the last half hour.  To stop living your bloody life through what Timehop tells you what you did one year, two years, four years ago.  STOP STALKING THAT PERSON ON TWITTER!!! Just look at your bloody tweets!  Every single one is a direct response to the same celebrity, who by now has realised that you’re clearly insane that ignoring you or blocking you would destabilise you completely… just like all the other episodes.

When does offering people “friendly guidance” on social media become trolling?  I would make quite a good internet troll: I have the feet and hair for it.

Working from work

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Well, not actually working, obviously.

It’s going to be one of those days where there seems to be little to do and then all my insides will, metaphorically, fall out of my arse when the realisation dawns that I’ve forgotten to do something really important.  That sensation of  instant tension in some muscles and instant loss of control of others is one that I like to avoid at all costs.  Some people thrive on it.  Such people are the types who earn ridiculous amounts of money and/or die young.  They work in arenas of high tension and high stakes, I don’t.  I just leave things too long sometimes and then get into a mad panic when I realise that something I thought had done has been relegated to row ten of the back burners…. mainly because I can’t be bothered with the trivialities of certain aspects of my job and put such things to one side in favour of more exciting things, like spreadsheets and arranging Skype meetings.

Fuck.

I graduated top of my class, you know, with a first and everything.  I was a rising star of science in 1991.  And then I did a PhD in a lab surrounded by Christians who tried to make me love Jesus every day.  It wasn’t conducive to good science or good mood.

It’s all about the confidence

Still, being successful requires having oodles of confidence and mine rapidly dissipated between the age of 22 and 24.  So with this in mind, and the need to change jobs fast approaching, I figured it’d be useful to get some tips to help change my attitude towards myself: I attended a “Build your confidence” course.  Actually, I’ve only been to part 1 of 3 so far and I’m already a total wreck after seven hours spent with the super-self-assured course facilitator.

She was a little brusque for my liking and I spent a lot of the first session looking at her thinking, If that’s confidence, you can keep it.

When does being confident tip over into being a complete twat?  I think a good indicator is when you hear yourself saying “I” or “me” or “my” more than twenty times per hour.  Surely truly confident people don’t need to talk about themselves so much; it just shows?

But anyway, I was supposed to be spending the two weeks between parts 1 and 2 of the course engaging in a few daily exercises in visualisation and affirmation.  I don’t really have anything that I want to visualise – other than going on the rampage in John Lewis – and the best time to do it (bed time) is always taken up having  a night time chat to my girlfriend and then falling asleep while still on the phone.

As far as affirmations go, I really can’t see even saying any of the following once, let alone announcing them out loud 20 times a day:

  • I deserve to be happy and successful

  • I have the power to change myself

  • I can forgive and understand others and their motives

  • I can make my own choices and decisions

  • I am free to choose to live as I wish and to give priority to my desires

  • I can choose happiness whenever I wish no matter what my circumstances

  • I am flexible and open to change in every aspect of my life

  • I act with confidence having a general plan and accept plans are open to alteration

  • It is enough to have done my best

  • I deserve to be loved

Honestly, would you?

The only affirmations that I say many times each day are:

  • I am in my happy place

  • And then you saw me dead

And those will do for me.

Working from home

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I’m actually supposed to be doing a bit of work this evening, but I’m waiting for Office to install before I can get started.  Installing software takes forever and it’s hard to draw an analogy to the painstaking task of, firstly, identifying what programmes you used to have that allowed smooth computer usage, then sourcing the installation files so you can get them back on your PC.

This bloody dog of mine drives me to distraction.

Anyway, after flattening my machine last night and reinstalling Windows, I’m now faced with reinstalling everything that got wiped.  It’s the little things that you don’t realise you’re really going to need again that make a lot of difference.  Display driver?  What do I need one of those for?? Canon RAW codec?  Surely that’s for losers!  Perhaps this sort of ordeal is similar to what it must be like when you come out of a coma and try to recover from a brain injury: some bits are missing, but you don’t quite know which ones until you find yourself running down the high street with your nightie over your head.

Or is that Susan Boyle?

So yes, working from home!  I feel energised and enthusiastic… and scared in case I fuck this up.  With a major deadline approaching, this “draft” will have to be a “final”, but hey, it’s only worth £200k… and my job for the next six months.

Microsoft Office 2007 has been successfully installed

Great.

That means that I have to get cracking… and now my energy levels are plummeting with every keystroke.  Of course, this sort of thing is ideally suited to my personality type (ISTJ, if you must know).  A few years ago, I blogged about doing a Myers-Briggs survey to determine whether I had Asperger’s syndrome, or whether I was one of the unfortunate ones to be normal, but to have a personality type that makes them appear to have a personality disorder.  For some reason, I was surprised to find that I still have the same personality type today as I did five years ago.  You can read up all the shite about the sixteen Myers-Briggs types, but this is me in a nutshell:

  • I deal in facts, figures and reality – don’t ask me to imagine things, or believe in anything unless there is evidence for it

  • I am a doer (yeah, right), but more of a finisher than a starter

  • Don’t expect me to write any strategies for anything, but I can implement whatever somebody else comes up with

  • I can’t do anything without a plan and real objectives

  • DO NOT BE FUCKING LATE OR I WILL KILL YOU!

So that’s about it.  The little dog has curled up in his bed, so I’ll take this brief mither-free window to start what I was supposed to be doing.

And then you saw me… get distracted with something else.

Waiting for Aslan

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I know it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s still wintery in February, but I was kind of hoping that the new month would bring some sign that spring was coming. Certainly, it’s getting lighter earlier in the mornings and taking longer before darkness descends in the evening.  In addition, the green shoots of the bulbs I planted in the autumn are showing through; the shrubs that I thought had died over winter are also sprouting new buds of leaves.  Where there is broken bark, there is hope.

And then the snow came again.  The east and south of England were worst hit, but here in Rochdale, we got a nice covering… along with gale force winds and freezing temperatures that made the -1°C temperature feel more like -5°C.

Here are some photos:

February snowfall

February snowfall 2

Rocky really loves the snow.  I really love the way the snow sticks to him and then leaves little puddles of water all over the house as it melts.

Rocky snowdog

Rocky snowball toes

But as usual, it seems to have been winter forever, and there’s still at least two months of it to go.  And summer never, ever, follows.  It’s like living in Narnia under the spell of the White Witch.  Always winter and never Christmas.  And even though we do have Christmas, that was crap this time.

At least the sun is shining.  We certainly won’t see that between June and September, so I should be thankful for it now, even with the freezing temperatures.

Blind in one eye

Anyway, things aren’t that bad and the prospect of spring and sunshine has prompted me to start wearing my contact lenses again.  Why, when I can’t see out of my right eye with them, I don’t know, but being able to see is a small price to pay to be able to wear sunglasses.  Sunglasses are the most fantastic addition to any outfit (apart from a beige jumper of course).  Unfortunately, I always look a total twat when I’m wearing them, but I look a twat whether I’m wearing sunglasses or not.  The best thing about them is the way they hide the dark circles and bags under my eyes…. oh and the way they protect my eyesight from harmful UV rays of course.

Working from home

I’ve been working from home these past couple of days. Aware that the weather might turn and delay my journey home from work and being worried about getting home for the dog, I thought it sensible to stay here and be very productive indeed.  It’s OK working from home, coffee on tap, warmth (compared to my office at work), saving on petrol… Rocky.

Rocky is a lovely little beast, but he won’t leave me alone while I’m trying to work.  Always insisting on sitting on me, jealous that my fingers are tapping the keyboard and not tickling his ears, he has a habit of nudging my hand away from the keys.  It’s quite irritating, but kind of lovely.

Here he is on my knee:

Rocky suspects

Awwww.

Better get back to work and send some very stern e-mails to people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

Hell in the Big Brother House

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I have to go away to Wales on Sunday for an “away trip” with colleagues from work. The senior team members are staying in my boss’s second home there, the plebs are being put up in a holiday home nearby. Here’s the specification:

Situated at the top of the road that winds its way down to Nefyn’s magnificent sandy beach, its close proximity to the beach will, undoubtedly, make it a popular choice. The property is well maintained, but very simply furnished. The front of the house has recently had upvc double glazed windows fitted.

Sleeps 20 (+ cot) in 5 bedrooms

The ground floor comprises the main lounge, with French door opening onto the front garden, an electric fire & colour television; toilet; the ‘French Lounge’ with an assortment of games, TV and video player has French doors opening onto the drive at the side of the house, and is accessed from the dining room which has French doors onto the back patio. The kitchen, also off the dining room, is equipped with a catering size gas range, an urn and a fridge/freezer; the utility room, beyond the kitchen, has another fridge and freezer, washing machine tumble drier, 3 additional sinks and a door to the rear garden.

On the 1st floor are: 3 bedrooms (rooms 1 and 2, each sleeping 6 in purpose built bunks, room 3 with a double bed); Bathroom with shower and toilet; 2 toilets; Shower room

The 2nd floor at the top of the house contains a further 2 bedrooms (room 4 with 2 single beds and room 5 with 4 single beds), tucked under the eaves and enjoying sea views.

There is a enclosed garden at the back of the house with a patio outside the French doors from the dining room, and large & small grassed areas. Access is from the utility room, dining room or side gate opening onto the driveway.

All beds are provided with 2 pillows and a duvet. A cot may be available on request.
You must bring your own bedlinen (sheets, duvet covers, pillow cases) and towels.

Additional Information

  • Pets are welcome

  • Smoking is not permitted in the house.

  • Wheelchair access is limited to the ground floor.

  • Background heating is by night storage heaters.

  • Parking for up to 6 vehicles.

  • Gas and heating is included in the rental

  • Other electricity by £1 coin meter

I, at the tender age of 38, will be sleeping in a bunk bed, sharing a bedroom with two others, who I’ve never met. It’ll be freezing (storage heaters + Wales + cliff top = fucking freezing).Ten of us will be driving there, but there’s only parking for six cars. We’ll probably be made to eat seaweed and moss and take baths in used water in a tub in the yard.

But here’s the most dreadful aspect of it all: no internet access.  I figured I could use my mobile to connect my PC to the Orange 3G network, it usually works really well, however look at this:

Orange

Orange

What about using my 3 phone?  That could do the same thing – if it gets collected today and returned on time  (been waiting since 7am for Parceline to come and get it, it’s now 3.30pm).  What’s the 3 coverage like there?

3

3

Ok then, so they’re both non-starters? But maybe one of those mobile broadband dongles from the other networks might be useful anyway, perhaps it’d be worth investing in one of those?

Vodafone

Vodafone

T-mobile 2G

T-mobile 2G

T-mobile 3G

T-mobile 3G

O2

O2

So there you go.  Staying with a bunch of people from work, who are actually OK, in freezing cold Wales, in a single bed, in a shared bedroom, with shared bathroom facilities, eating seaweed… and no chance whatsoever of an internet connection… for over TWO FUCKING DAYS!

Still, I get to go quad biking on Monday afternoon, so if I’m lucky, I might die or at least be hospitalised and then I won’t need internet access anyway.

Wasted days

Another day of decent weather has been wasted waiting in for those tossers to come and collect my mobile for repair.  Me and Rocky could’ve been having loads of fun, instead, I’ve been doing a bit of work.  Actually  I’ve had five attempts at burning a DVD of a avi file of a film.  The film plays fine in media player, the video burns to DVD OK, but there’s no sound.   I tried a different burning packages, and that just burns with the sound hopelessly out of sync.  I’m on my sixth try now, but I don’t hold out much hope.  It’s weird because I had no trouble burning the latest episode of the fabulous L Word the other night, but it’s now gone tits up.

Pissed off.

Second coming

The installation of President Obama is certainly a historic event.  It signals wonderful progress and brings a certain degree of hope to the Western World that we might actually stop being seen as evil.  Hope is one thing, action and results are another.  It does seem that an awful lot of hope has been pinned on him and, with a whole load of work to be done, it’s questionable that anything will actually be achieved.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and that.

Obama has almost been elevated to Messiah status – certainly by Auntie Beeb.  He’s just a bloke with a huge job to do, with a rather unfair weight of expectation placed on his shoulders.

And we in the UK have experienced something similar before with Tony Blair.  I never fell for the smooth talking back in 1997, I saw right through him and New Labour and knew damned well that they’d achieve absolutely fuck all while ruining the country – because that’s what Labour does.  It’s the lack of integrity, the lies, the erosion of values, the erosion of our civil liberties that hurt most from the past eleven… twelve years of Labour’s appalling governance.  We all knew they’d fuck up the economy (but perhaps not this badly), but the snooping on its people, the gradual introduction of a police state, and the sheer hopelessness that has been heaped on us all – not even I would have expected that from them. Then again, that’s what you get with a government that is out of control and afraid of its own people.

So long as Obama and his team demonstrate the utmost integrity and at least some degree of competence during their administration, then I will be satisfied.  There won’t be miracles.

Rocky takes time out

Rocky has a habit of kicking off and shouting his head off at the slightest noise outside.  I’ve had enough.  He goes for a time out in the kitchen as soon as he starts grumbling to himself.  It won’t stop him doing it, but it’ll keep him quiet for a bit while I’m trying to concentrate on my work blog.

Little shit.

Is it hometime yet?

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It’s about a quarter past ten, the 23rd December 2008.  I’m at work.  I have sent an mail-merge e-mail – get me! – and a couple of work-related e-mails.  There is absolutely nothing going on as we run down towards the Christmas holiday.

Should you have to take annual leave for a day or two off if things are so quiet at work?  I suppose it’s better than being laid off or being forced to work reduced hours, as so many people are at the moment.  I’d normally have a “working from home” day, but I don’t think I’d get away with it somehow.

So what am I doing instead?  Well, I have my iPod with me and unrestricted internet access.  The only things missing are Frasier or MTV Dance, an endless supply of coffee, a comfy sofa and a bouncy little dog and I could be at home.

It’s very cold here too and I’m about to call on the services of the cardie of mirth.

Today’s Daily Mash brings us some useful Government advice from the Department of Stating the Blindingly Obvious and Nannying:

“BRITAIN GETS THE STUPID CHRISTMAS ADVICE IT DESERVES”

GOVERNMENT guidelines on how to avoid accidents at Christmas are every bit as obvious as they need to be, it was confirmed last night.

As the emergency services braced themselves for three days of utter chaos, experts said the government had done everything it possibly could short of strapping everyone to a chair and feeding them pulped turkey through a tube.

Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: “You will notice page five of the Daily Mail carries an angry story about ‘why oh why does the government have to treat us like Christmas morons?’.

“But if you then turn over to page six you will see a story about a man from Dorset who called the fire brigade after shoving at least 18 inches of Norwegian Spruce firmly up his back passage.
“Page seven is devoted to the Yorkshire family who celebrate Boxing Day by piling all the empty boxes in the middle of the living room before setting fire to them.

“And we then turn over to a double-page spread featuring a heart-breaking interview with the sole survivor of the Great Hemel Hempstead Turkey Disaster of 1983.”

A department of health spokesman said: “Instead of a real Christmas tree this year why not go for a small, laminated photograph of a Christmas tree? Leave it floating in a bucket of water in case you’re tempted to set fire to it.

“And if you’re worried about food poisoning from an undercooked turkey, just eat a load of crisps instead. But not the sharp ones. Go for a soft, round crisp like a Wotsit or a Quaver. And don’t forget to keep a bucket water nearby in case you’re tempted to set fire to them.”

This article is actually closer to the truth than seems imaginable as the Department of Health in England has produced an Advent Calendar-style leaflet that warns of perils associated with the festive season.  I don’t know how we’d get out of bed without causing ourselves life-threatening injury without our wonderful government telling us what to do.

Papa-Ratzi’s Christmas good will to all men (so long as they’re not gay, lesbian or transgender)

Kiss the ring, muthafucka

Kiss the ring, muthafucka

Thank goodness for Pope Benedict!  He’s going to help re-train all us queers so that humanity will survive, or rather, heterosexuality will survive.  Apparently, saving the world from sexual deviants is as important as saving the rain forests.  Fucking Nazi.

How about saving the world from religious nutcases?  Why do they feel the need to be so hateful?

I suppose that’s what you get when you appoint somebody who was in the Hitler Youth as the top bloke and voice on earth for the invisible bearded man in the sky. The pope condemns gender bending. This is a man who wears lovely white frocks, accessorised with a red stole & matching ruby slippers.

Cunt.