Fact of the Day - Elephants

I learned this fact today: the elephant is the only animal with 4 knees that can’t jump. I wonder if it is has just never tried. It would be perfectly accurate to say: Charlotte is the only Charlotte who can’t eat baked beans. But is that true? I probably could eat baked beans. But I won’t. I won’t even get close to them. I have probably also never tried.

I have often considered what would happen if I got an advert that paid me lots and lots but I had to eat beans. I have seen the happy looking lady eating beans and I just couldn’t do it. It makes my skin crawl. She actually does like baked beans. She looks happy because she is being paid lots and lots to do something she likes doing. I couldn’t fake it. Nobody could.

So I think the elephant is the only animal with 4 knees who chooses not to jump. How would we know? So really what I’ve learned is: elephants are obstinate.

Walter Hess Bodle: Fool of a Man

I love electricity me. Electricity is good. Well done to Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, EDF or whoever would like to claim responsibility I salute you or yous.

But Walter Hess Bodle -inventor of the freestanding electric tin opener- I can not applaud you. It’s a no from me. You’re not my Pop Idol. I’m out. Adding electricity to a tin opener is clever in a 1950s: ‘look world, I’ve made a robot. By the year 2000 we’ll all be flying’ way, but largely pointless.

My main gripe with the electric tin-opener is that there is nothing wrong with an ordinary tin-opener. It is a simple and effective design. It takes a second to find in the drawer, doesn’t need to be plugged in or faffed with. Opening a tin is no hardship, it is a quick and easy job that has been made annoying and time consuming by the so-called ‘convenience’ of a bulky piece of kit.

Its like inventing a new colour, another breed of dog* or the kindle.

BC, Mr A only ate tins of tuna for his tea, it seems fair enough he would require one fancy pants piece of kitchen equipment and that the only piece befitting would be tin related. His electric tin opener is the equivalent of a dad’s bread maker or a beautiful much coveted Kitchenaid, the difference being the electric tin opener is utterly futile.

The offending item lives in the cupboard and it’s cable always gets wrapped around a million other things, its top always falls off and hides behind things in said cupboard meaning a scramble and general kerfuffle. We have only 2 plugs which means the shiny new toaster or his sister the kettle have to be unplugged and in order to pull the lid off the extra-strong magnet you have to use sufficient force that the brine/juice spills.

I curse the day I lost the cheap bog-standard tin-opener in the divorce.

Ermal Fraze had the best idea: ring pull. So, treasured reader, the moral of the story is this: stop being like Walter and try to be a touch more like Ermal. And don’t get an electric tin-opener.

*NB. If the new breed of dog is crossed with a komodo dragon. I’m in.

Dinosaur Sounding Words

Chiropractor

Paediatric

Septum

Anterior

Ecclesiastic

Gourd

Optic

Decorum

This isn't a complete list.

Primates in Pants

Three men have been arrested in Delhi for trying to board a flight with small primates hidden in their underwear.

Seriously. Seriously?

It writes itself this: Primates Hidden in Underwear, is all you need to know. I'm not sure if their being small adds or takes away from this tale.

Questionable Lump

I just took a HUGE gulp of Galaxy Thick Shake and there was definitely a lump in it. A LUMP. It is not called Galaxy Lump Shake or Galaxy Thick Lump or anything else pertaining to lumps whatsoever.

There was a long moment when I didn't know what to do. Then an even longer one when I realised the sheer volume meant I couldn't spit it out. All that could be done was a slow swallow, trying to filter any lump with my teeth to potenitally grab at the end but that was in vane. No lump grabbing for me.

What was this questionable lump that I was forced to swallow? If I was cool enough to hash tag I would be hash tagging something like feeling uneasy. Or feeling queasy. Or its uneasy feeling queasy*






*This is a direct reference to a Cheetos ad of the 90s 'its not easy being cheesy'. I have cleverly altered it to suit my own purposes although I do feel it works better out loud rather than on paper or screen. Its a rhythm thing.

Alternative Gladiator Name

I am unaware of the size of me.

I do not think I have grown in width but I am walking into tables with alarming regularity. Lolloping and bashing into them with my hips.

I do this several times a day and it makes a loud wobbly type vibrating noise. Not me, the things on table or desk. I make little to no noise. The searing pain on top of the ready-existing bruise where I did it last time reduces me to surprised and mortified silence.  The noise is like that instrument with a ball on the end that you hit. Amusingly called a ‘vibraslap’ Maybe that should be my Gladiator name: Vibraslap. Although I'm not sure what action I could do...

Pesky Spiders

The number of spiders I have been forced into contact with recently is despicable. There are more spiders this year than ever before. ‘Experts’ are attributing this to the bonkers weather but I know the real reason. Spiders are becoming impatient in their spider quest, their ongoing mission, the one true purpose in all spiders’ lives. No, not fly catching, thats a mere smoke screen for their true undertaking: ‘Getting on Charlotte’s Face’.

I will be sat at work and a WHOLE handful of times a spider has abseiled down towards said face.

This week the latest trick in their operation is creating a web across the front or back door so that when I go out of it I get web-face. and not in a sexy way. This morning one tried in the car – webbing it up across the inside of my car door, unnoticed and ready to pounce ‘pon my exit; if I hadn’t opened my door with such gusto, thus knocking him off, he would have been on me, completing the mission and marrying the spider princess to become spider king.

I have, as yet, avoided the spider/face incident but it is getting dangerously close. They are multiplying and getting cleverer.

Bladder Control

People who need to go the toilet during a film, especially at the cinema, are ridiculous. Who can't control themselves and their bladder for between 90 and 180 minutes? Answer: nobody. It is painstakingly paranoid: painanoid.

If these people really do have a problem I am sure they could see their way to going immediately before and after the film, miss the trailers and the credits if you must. Surely you manage to not wet the bed most nights? Which is atleast a 6 hour stretch of no toilet. Therefore, why oh why oh why at the crux of Harry Potter the final film in a series of films which I assume you have been involved in for the last 5-11 years of your life, does your bladder give you the signal? It makes less than any sense to me. The moment old Wee-Wee-Wendy, if that was her real name, excused herself to her husband and pottered (no pun intended) off to relieve herself (urinarily I assume) was a very very VERY crucial moment. She had invested time and money into seeing this film yet her tiny little bladder halted her enjoyment. Not to mention her husband's and everso slightly mine. Good job I'm so easy going...

I realise I am the opposite extreme and incredibly lazy when it comes to weeing. If I could, I would save up and go twice a week. Like I do with the sweetie shop. And yes, thank you for asking, I have given myself cystitis. Twice. And not the sexy kind.  However, people do not need to wee that often. They must just like it. It must be their hobby.What a rubbish hobby.

Fanny

What a brilliant word. I can never imagine it not being funny.

Olden days people called Fanny? Funny
American people calling a bum bag a fanny pack? Funny
Discovering Fanny the Musical from 1954? Funny
Fanny, West Virginia? Funny
Episode of Murder, She Wrote where Jessica falls "...right on her fanny"? Funny
Lesser known Bee Gees song 'Fanny, (Be Tender with My Love)? Funny
Putting fanny into Wikipedia and seeing it written so many times in a serious manner on one page? Really really really funny.

I wonder if willy is the same or whether thats just childish.

Ill Noise

Either my laptop or my stomach just made the longest most grumbly and bad sounding noise. One of us is about to be ill. Very ill by the sounds of it.

I don't know which to plump for. Its like choosing a favourite child. Or between pizza and curry. Or which disease to die from.