Archive for the ‘Funny’ Category

Spaghetti Junction Attention

It would seem that the complexities of the Birmingham spaghetti junction are soon to be visible from space if plans put forth by the council come into effect which will see lights slapped onto the concrete mammoth.

It has stood large and proud since the 70s when it made a name for itself being a grey drab pile of concrete stuck in the middle of the country - however the council are planning on taking the city down the same make-over route as Susan Boyle by giving the junction a new lease of life.

The move will be part of a massive £6 billion makeover that is said to aim to transform the jumble into a mid-country landmark rather than an eyesore.

A midland attraction

The director of planning at Birmingham City Council, Clive Dutton, has made it clear that the junction is a perfect opportunity to plant a magnificent attraction
In the heart of the city.

“It is an extraordinary structure, one that is known around the country, but we feel as though it can have a massive impact around the world.

“It’s an ambitious project, but what a thrill it would be to think that astronauts in space would be able to look down on earth and spot Spaghetti Junction glowing at night,” said Dutton.

There is nothing definite as of yet but if the plans were to see fruition and jump from the drawing board to the concrete mishmash then the lights that are planned to be attached to the junction will be visible from space bringing the junction to the attention of the rest of the world, like the Great Wall of China or the Palm in Dubai.

The council has already applied for funding from the lottery and is remaining hopeful but is also expecting to hear from private investors who will want to be a part of the move to plough money into the project.

Don’t blind anyone!

The council is still unsure of the amount of lights that will be attached to the junction but they will have to have talks with the strict Highways Agency so as to not dazzle any traffic that uses the junction or nearby residents that could be disturbed by the light.

The hope is that the lights will be plugged in and switched on by next year but that depends on the funding and investors that are able to help the cause along.  After all, the move is hoped to put Birmingham on the map in a totally radical way.

The chairman of the West Midlands Chamber of Commerce, Simon Topman, said, “we asked people in America to name and identify world cities from photographs and Birmingham didn’t do very well.

“They recognised Sydney because of the Opera house and Paris because of the Eiffel Tower.  Getting global recognition creates a unique brand for the city so why not try give this idea a try.”

Is Birmingham ready?

What do you think about the plans for the concrete monstrosity?  Do you think a few lights will put Birmingham on the map with Paris, Sydney or Dubai?  Let us know what you think…

Apparently it wasn’t all doom and gloom in Ancient Roman times – we have all seen films depicting death, sin and hatred.  But a new discovery has uncovered the fact that they managed to shove in a few jokes to lighten the mood as the oldest joke book has been found.

Found by Professor Mary Beard, the joke book is said to date back to the times of the Roman Empire and is written in Greek.  The joke book is called Philogelos which means Laughter Lover – you can imagine how the jokes are going to pan out in the rest of the book.

Professor Mary Beard claims that the book is around 1,600 years old and is proof that the Romans did more than conquer the world – they liked to laugh while doing it.

“They’re also poking fun at certain types of foreigners – people from Abdera, a city in Thrace, were very, very stupid, almost as stupid as [they thought] eggheads [were],” claims Beard.

The jokes in the book are apparently quite similar to ones that fly around today, although from the title of the book we can imagine that we’re talking about cheap stand-up rather than comedy legends we’re used to today like Ricky Gervais.

“Interestingly they are quite understandable to us, whereas reading Punch from the 19th century is completely baffling to me,” continues Beard.

“A lot of the jokes play on the obviously quite problematic idea in Roman times of knowing who you are.

“A lot of the books written during the Roman Empire were written in Greek and although they might not be side-splittingly funny, they do give us a fascinating insight.

“One of my favourite jokes from the book, and probably one of the longest, is about a barber, a professor and a bald man.”

There is even mention to a Monty Python style dead parrot sketch - “A man buys a slave, who dies soon after. When he complains, the slave seller replies, “Well, he didn’t die when I owned him”.”

Professor Beard discovered the ancient book of jokes when doing research for a new book she is working on about humour in ancient times and has brought about concerns as to whether the jokes in the book are actually supposed to be funny for the reasons we are assuming or if they had a completely different message.

Beard explains that in today’s society when we are telling jokes we often try to make them funny for ourselves and if this is not possible then it is as if we are admitting failure – because of this Beard has been left to question whether this is the case with the ancient book of jokes.

“Are we doing that to these Roman jokes? Were they actually laughing at something quite different?” Beard asks.

What do you think?

Do you think the release of the oldest joke book in the world would see it jump to the top of the Times Best Sellers list or do you think it would be a waste of paper?  Let us know what you think…

Be safe…no laughing!

We all know that we have to strap ourselves in when driving.  We can’t eat or drink when driving, no chance of using a phone and if you want to read a book behind the wheel then you might as well drive straight to the jail cell – but one motorist was pulled over in Liverpool for LAUGHING?

The motorist was shown the flashing blue and red lights, pulled over and questioned by police officers for driving under the influence of laughter.

The driver in question was Gary Saunders who was chatting to his brother-in-law over a hands-free mobile phone when he was told a joke and broke out in hysterics.

That’s a crime apparently…

Little did he know that the police that were on his tail were offended by the jovial spirits of the man and signalled him to pull over to the side of the road for a questioning session.

When he pulled over the policeman approached Mr Saunders and actually said “laughing while driving a car can be an offence.”

Mr Saunders was questioned for around half an hour which was a bit of problem for the company director of Spontex Workwear as he claimed that due to the questioning he missed an important appointment.

Mr Saunders was asked to show his license and other documents at a police station – all for laughing whilst driving…

“I couldn’t believe it when he told me I’d been pulled over for laughing.  I was driving very safely in the Birkenhead Tunnel and took a call,” clamed Mr Saunders.

“He said something funny and I was laughing - simple as that. I never took my eyes off the road and was in full control of the car.

“I definitely wasn’t speeding so I asked what the problem was and he told me I was laughing too much.”

No record – waste of time…

However, the incident wasn’t taken to be too serious by the police officer as Supt Kevin Hagger of the Mersey Tunnels Police has said, “There is no record of the incident in the system so it seems the gentleman was just spoken to by the officer and the matter not taken any further.”

However, Mr Saunders won’t be forgetting the incident too quickly as according to him it went from weird to surreal in an instant.

“The officer accused me of throwing my head back in a dangerous way, which I denied since it is definitely not something I do.

“It went from ludicrous to unbelievable. He definitely had a bee in his bonnet about something and I got the brunt of it.  In the end he reluctantly admitted that he had nothing he could accuse me of, but still required me to take my documents to the station.”

He’s got a lighter.  Everyone down on the ground…

Smoking was never so dangerous – six police patrol cars were rushed to a scene where a man was carrying a hunting rifle in a Chinese city and the whole situation could have gotten very messy…if the hunting rifle wasn’t infact an oversized lighter.

Police in the Chinese city of Nanjing were suddenly inundated with emergency telephone calls claiming that there was a man on the loose brandishing a hunting rifle.

The police obviously responded to the emergency calls and were expecting a possible dangerous situation but instead they arrived at the scene to discover the man, clearly unaware that people around him were scared out of their skins, was simply carrying a gigantic lighter on his back.

“We sent out six patrol cars immediately, trying to stop the man before anything bad happened.

“On spotting the man, officers forced him to stop. The man was obviously very scared and said the gun was only a toy lighter, which he just won as an award in a restaurant,” commented a police spokesman.

Well, the flame was pretty hot.

After getting the supposed rifle back to the police station, the police tested the object but once they had pulled the trigger they realised the mistake that had been made as a small innocent flame poked out of the barrel of the gun.

Unfortunately the man who was allegedly stalking the streets with a deadly firearm was given a warning for carrying the lighter, which was confiscated.

The end of novelty lighters?

The news comes as fire officials in Louisville in the United States demanded that novelty lighters were removed from stores as they are apparently responsible for several deaths a year, although not because they are parading as hunting rifles.

The fire officers claimed that the lighters can easily be picked up by children who will play with what they think is a toy and then there is a strong possibility that a fire could start.

“Anytime a child can get to it and they think it’s a toy and they get by themselves in a closet and they’re playing with it and a fire starts, that’s the biggest concern we’ve got,” said Henry Ott of the Louisville Fire Department.

“Kids are playing with lighters, kids are cooking at home, using candles in the room, or they may lay a curling iron down.”

According to an arson investigator in Louisville children are responsible for around half of all fires in the United States.

No real proof…

However, the fires have not been connected with novelty lighters, partly because the United States Fire Administration only started to keep their eyes on the cigarette accessories since January of last year.

Although the move by the Fire Department doesn’t have the backing of some hardcore smokers, the plans do indeed have the unanimous backing of the Louisville Metro Council Public Safety Committee and the full council will be meeting next Thursday to vote on the move.

What do you think?

Is this proposal to ban joke lighters a good decision or is it just another example of how wrapped up in cotton we are as a culture?  Let us know…

A baby at 75…

It’s never to late to try something new – but in Paul-Louis Mariasusay’s case 75 years old is apparently not too old to parent a child.

Paul-Louis from London was shocked and thrilled at the news that his new wife, Gena, was to bear his child.  The news came to the pensioner just months after marrying Gena, who is only 38 years old – almost half Paul-Louis’ age.

The child, named Xavier, isn’t the first for Paul-Louis who has already brought two other children into the world, not to mention his 5 grandchildren.  Infact one of his children is actually older than Gena.

Paul-Louis, who used to work as a BT engineer, is said to be thrilled at Xavier’s arrival who was born at a healthy 7lbs 11ozs.

Born in Malaysia, Paul-Louis has been living in England for over 30 years but actually found his new love on a trip he took back to the Far East to visit his family.

Excited at the chance to be a father again…

Speaking about the birth of his son and how he is dealing with being a father at such a mature age, Paul-Louis stated how much he appreciated the chance to be a father to a small baby once again.

“I may be a pensioner, and it is almost 40 years since I looked after a baby, but I haven’t forgotten how to change a nappy and it is just marvellous to be a father again.

“I know that Michael Douglas and Cary Grant both became fathers again when they were older - but I am older than both of them,” said Paul-Louie.

“The baby came as a complete surprise. I had no idea that I could still become a father at my age but Xavier is a lovely gift.

“We soon became good friends and then I asked her to come to this country for a holiday - and while she was here I proposed to her. She accepted and then she never went home.

“I get plenty of comments about Xavier when I’m pushing him in his pram from people who think I am his granddad. I am proud of Gena and Xavier and I want to walk with my head up high,” he continued.

Not everyone is happy about the birth.

However, Paul-Louis didn’t hide the fact that his family had been against the marriage to Gena and didn’t take the news too well when they found out that the couple were expecting little Xavier.

Still, Paul-Louis wants to keep his focus on being a good father and bringing Xavier into a good family home.

“I will do everything I can to be a good dad - educate and provide for him and my wife.

“I just want to spend as much time as possible with my son and don’t want to think about the future - everything is perfect so far.”

Paul-Louis, Gena and Xavier live in Acton and were married in February of last year.

How would you feel?

Would you feel comfortable taking your baby to pick up your pension or do you think it’s a bit unfair on the child?  Share your views!

Cricket isn’t English?

It seems that we have been wrong all these years – travelling around the country, bragging that we, the English, were the creators behind the charming game of cricket…but new academic research would seem to have proven us all wrong.  Belgium had the sport first…

According to a poem that has been discovered, that is said to have been written in 1533, suggests that the game actually originated from Flanders.

The news has taken the country unaware, striking shock into the hearts of the living rooms and streets of cricket lovers nationwide.

The poem, attributed to John Skelton, has claimed that Flemish weavers were called “kings of crekettes”.  The poem also gives mention to “wickettes”.

Skipping church for a quick game…

Paul Campbell, of the Australian National University, who has been declaring that the game was really a foreign import, made the discovery.

The original belief was that the game we know now as cricket evolved from an English children’s game and the first mention of the game being in England was found in the form of fines that were handed out when people skipped church to have a play.

Cricket was taken up by the majority of the country and then eventually found its way into public schools and then into both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Cricket isn’t even an English word.

Mr Campbell is quite sure that there is no chance that the game was created in England and has been backed up with Dr Heiner Gillmeister’s earlier research, which had already claimed that the word cricket couldn’t have come from the English language.

“‘There is no way to relate the term to any existing English word,’ he told the BBC,” said Campbell.

“I was brought up with Flemish children and I know the language well. I immediately thought of the Flemish phrase ‘met de krik ketsen’ which means to ‘chase a ball with a curved stick’.”

Meanwhile, upon hearing the news, cricket historian David Frith took the news quite well, saying, “It is hard to deny that this is a breakthrough. This discovery points to an addition to the great history of cricket.

“It’s exciting we haven’t yet written the final word on it.  It does make you wonder why Belgium isn’t playing Test cricket though, doesn’t it?” he continued.

Dr Gillmeister – golf isn’t even Scottish!

However, fans of Dr Heiner Gillmeister will be pleased to discover that his research didn’t come to a halt with cricket – he also pledged to discover the origins of golf.

Scots won’t be very happy to hear that as he is taking cricket away from England he is also quite happy to take golf away from Scotland.

Gillmeister is claiming that early records again indicate that the Belgians could have been found to play a similar game before the British.

What are we going to do?

How do you feel about the news?  Have you changed your views about cricket or do you think cricket is cricket…

It’s OK – the problem has been solved…

Everyone can relax – stop worrying, the wait is finally over…a scientist has uncovered the mystery of “belly button fluff”.

Georg Steinhauser, an Austrian chemist, has found a type of hair that actually holds pieces of lint that are floating around the belly button and then drags them into the navel.

This news didn’t come without a bit of sweat or tears as Dr Steinhauser spent his recent free time studying 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button over a three-year period.

And if you thought that the contents of the belly button fluff were simply bits of lint then I’m afraid that Dr Steinhauser has proven you wrong.  Inside the fluff apart from the lint you will find particles of dead skin, fat, sweat and dust.

And here’s the reason…

Writing in the journal, Medical Hypotheses, Dr Steinhauser claimed that the scaly structure of the hair promotes the “abrasion of minuscule fibres from the shirt” thus moving the lint into the belly button.

According to Dr Steinhauser’s study “small pieces of fluff first form in the hair and then end up in the navel at the end of the day”.

“The hair’s scales act like a kind of barbed hooks.  Abdominal hair often seems to grow in concentric circles around the navel,” continued Dr Steinhauser.

“The question of the nature of navel fluff seems to concern more people than one would think at first glance.

“We hope we have been able to provide information for doctors when they are next confronted with the simple question of ‘why some belly buttons collect so much lint and others do not’.”

No stranger to the strange…

Dr Steinhauser is no stranger to weird and wacky studies – he has also looked at answering the question of why his wedding band erodes.

To add to the study, Dr Steinhauser explained a number of methods of ridding the body of the unproblematic fluff.  If you found the fluff to be an annoyance then you should think about shaving the hair or even getting a belly button piercing fitted.

However, Dr Steinhauser was quick to remind shavers that the problem would resurface as soon as the hairs grew back.

Another tip from the doctor is to wear old clothes as they tend to shed less amounts of lint compared with newer clothes.

When you think that a new item of clothing can lose up to a thousandth of its weight over the course of a year then perhaps this isn’t as much of a laughing matter as you might have originally thought…

Maybe more valuable than we thought?

Of course, there are always viable reasons for keeping hold of the belly button fluff and one man that will definitely not be shaving his belly button or fitting a piercing will be Graham Barker.

Mr Barker has been building up a collection of the fluff since 1984 in hopes that he might one day see a picture of himself in the Guinness Book of Records.

The most expensive bottles of Vimto in the world?

Police chiefs have waster almost a quarter of a billion pounds of taxpayers money by investigating the so-called theft of 5 bottles of Vimto by other police officers.

The bottles of Vimto in question were discovered by two transport officers, Rob Mitchell and Kris Catterall. They found the bottles of the popular cordial inside an abandoned cardboard box next to a rail line.

However, they stepped out of line according to police rules as they should have brought the box in to the station where it should have been reported lost or stolen.

Unfortunately for the officers and the taxpayer, Mitchell and Catterall couldn’t contain their excitement and had to share the bottles as equally as possible between each other and other colleagues.

18 month suspension and an internal probe…

These actions led to the officers being suspended for 18 months until the ridiculous case against them was dropped.

However the officers had to wait for 8 months until lawyers decided upon a charge, being a fine of four wages each for the officers who were forced to plead guilty to neglecting their duties – a sum of £400 each.

Mitchell and Catterall still face an internal probe over the situation.

A waste of taxpayer’s money…

Still, the biggest upset over the whole issue has to be the fact that the investigation has cost the taxpayer around £200,000 and has been blasted as a gross misuse of money.

Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers’ Alliance has spoken out about the situation, which he says could have been resolved without wasting so much time or money.

“This is an absurd and shocking waste of taxpayers’ money and utter incompetence on behalf of the senior officers involved.

“If disciplinary action needed to be taken it should have been done quickly and without wasting money. The police chiefs who oversaw this episode should be held accountable to taxpayers,” said Elliott.

Unnecessary stress on the officers!

Meanwhile, the officers in question will be feeling the stress involved with such a remarkably weird investigation as well as the approaching internal probe looming over their heads.

The chairman of the British Transport Police Federation, Alex Robertson, who is representing both officers involved in the Vimto issue, claimed that the whole situation was a huge upset for both the officers.

“To be suspended for so long over something so trivial will have put the officers and their families under great stress.”

Were they wrong?

However, in retaliation the British Transport Police have claimed that the officers they employ must remain devoted to the laws of the land if they expect to continue at their jobs successfully.

“The integrity of officers is paramount in maintaining public confidence and any failure to uphold our high standards will always be treated seriously,” claimed a spokeswoman for the British Transport Police.

How about you?

What do you think about the whole Vimto fiasco?  Do you see it as a complete waste of your money or are you on the side of the Transport Police who claim that their officers must remain observant of the laws of the land, even in the smallest of cases?

Is that a phone in your belly or are you just happy to see me?

A businessman who misplaced his phone on a beach magically turned up – inside the belly of a gigantic cod caught by a fisherman.

The man in question, Andrew Cheatle, thought the handset had been lost forever when it fell out of his pocket at the beach, however a week after the incident his girlfriend’s phone rang and on the other end of the line was the amazed fisherman who had found the handset in the belly of the fish.

Amazingly after pulling the phone out of the belly of the 25lb cod and drying it off the phone still works!

The fisherman that found the cod and the phone, Glen Kerley, used the phone to call Cheatle’s girlfriend, Rita Smith, who was shocked to see the old number calling her on her phone.

“I was messing about with my dog and my phone must have fallen out and been swept out in the swell. I kept calling it but I gave up hope after a couple of days,” said Cheatle.

The call came…

But then around a week after the incident, Cheatle’s girlfriend received the call and said to Cheatle, “Your old mobile number is calling my phone.”

“She said some guy was going on about my phone and a cod so she handed it over to me and he told me where he had found it,” continued Cheatle.

“I didn’t believe him but went to meet him and found it was my phone — a bit smelly and battered — but incredibly it still worked after I let it dry out.

“I thought he was winding me up but he assured me he had caught a cod that morning and was gutting it for his fish stall and that my Nokia was inside it - a bit worse for wear.”

Maybe it’s time to spring for a new one?

And now apparently Cheatle is still clinging on to his phone and still using everyday.

“It was working but it kept playing up so I had to get the circuit board changed in the end. But now it’s fine. I know it sounds a fishy tale but it is 100 per cent true,” claimed Cheatle clearly happy that he has been reunited with his handset and of course his address book as he runs an online retail company.

Not the first fish to have eaten a weird object…

Picking up the odd cod with a weird object in its stomach is apparently nothing new for fisherman Kerley who has claimed to have found a number of out-of-place objects in the bellies of the fish in the sea.

“I’ve found plastic cups, stones, teaspoons, batteries and I’ve also heard of someone finding false teeth in one.

“I know what it’s like to lose your phone. It can be really frustrating. So I thought I may as well make a few calls to see if I could get it back to him.

“It was a bit smelly but I was glad to return it.”

Google Earth aliens found…

Google Earth browsers got a bit of a shock when a supposed flying saucer was discovered through the application in Romania – however Romanian UFO investigators are pleading with people to stop reporting the alien craft because it is actually just a building…

The building, that does surprisingly look like a flying saucer from the skies, has caught the attention of a whole bunch of Google Earth surfers who have been urgently getting in contact with the Romanian authorities.

The circular building is situated in a farming area close to Timisoara and after first hearing about the possible alien landing the Romanian UFO Network set out, understandable eager and excited, and ran straight to the location.

Imagine the disappointment on their faces…

However, to their dismay the unidentified flying object was merely an abandoned water facility – talk about a let down!

And now, according to the UFO Network, the phone won’t stop ringing and the guys in the office are getting a little fed up.

Please stop calling us…

According to the president of the Romanian UFO Network, Paul Dorneanu, the whole situation was a bit of a let down, not to mention the fact that the building wasn’t the only one of its kind in the vicinity.

“I’ve been there and taken some shots of that building,” said Dorneanu.

“It is just a water pumping facility that used to supply Timisoara city in the past. There was another similar building a few miles away.”

“Some people believe we are all part of a conspiracy to obscure the truth about UFOs. We do have solid reports about UFO activities in Romania but this is definitely not one of them.”

Roswell is sooooo last century…

Some online bloggers were claiming that the sighting was proof that aliens were getting bored with Roswell and were sure that the buildings were indeed alien flying saucers.

Whatever we believe it is interesting to know that most of the unidentified flying objects that have been supposedly spotted over the years have mostly come from the United States, although rumours have been circling that Romania is supposed to be quite a steady location for UFO spotting.

Is the truth out there?

What are your views on our alien buddies out there in space or indeed in a little farm area in Romania?  Do you truly believe that we are sharing this planet with aliens keeping track of our every move or are we the only intelligent beings in the universe?  Speak your mind…