Tuesday 18 April 2017

Outrageous Excuses 2017


Silly reasons for not voting, or voting Leave:

I’m voting Green to send the government a message.

I’m not voting because there’s no difference between Trump and Hillary.

I’m not voting for a politician ha ha.

Why isn’t there a “none of the above” option?

I’m not voting based on fear! (Current in the US 2016)

I'm not political.

They're all as bad as each other.


Here 'the Conservatives always get in', so any non-Con vote doesn't count.

It’s a sad day when you have to vote against people instead of voting for them.

I vote for the man, not the party. 

You can’t trust a politician.
Every vote is a vote for the kyriarchy.

I want to send them a message.

I’m going to leave my vote blank as a protest.

I’m going to spoil my voting paper to teach them a lesson.

Voting for someone who is the least worst is not my idea of change. (voteblankrevolution.com)

I refuse to vote until [insert condition here].

I’ve just had enough of everything.

Voting never changed anything.

I don't care, I hate them all.

Running the country is too important to be left to anyone who actually wants the job.

Well I voted Democrat last time and they didn’t get in so I’m not voting because I want my vote to count.

Racists who voted for Trump/Brexit “are suffering economic anxiety and we should sympathise with their legitimate concerns”. (Leavers and Hillary voters, on the other hand, are just a bunch of moaning minnies who should shut up now.)


Spoke to 2 leave voters in my week in Devon.

1: "I voted out but I didn't think they'd win"
2: "I just wanted out, don't really know why"
(Delicate Snowflake‏ @AndyBodle)

O/heard someone yesterday who voted leave because of "the damage done to the British sports car industry". (Sarah Shaw‏ @Dymvue)  

I voted leave because I go to the supermarket and the banana is straight.
 (Woman on Question Time She was going to vote Remain, but she saw a straight banana and decided she was sick of all the "silly rules they impose on us".)

When I was a young man in the '60s this country was a better place to live in, we had more things to do when we were teenagers.

Latest lame reason for not voting: Just saw someone saying they’re not voting because ‘voting gives legitimacy to politicians’. (Tom Hatfield ‏@WordMercenary)

I'm undecided because I don't know enough about it but I will be voting 'out'. (BBC News vox pop)

I voted against Brussels because I’m fed up with London.
I’m voting Brexit because I want house prices to come down.
I voted Brexit because I didn’t think my vote would count.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
I'm a Cornish fisherman.


Yes, honour killings, forced marriage, baby battering, child abuse, domestic abuse, FGM – they’re all against the law, oh yes, but you see it would be wrong to prosecute because children would have to testify against their parents, it would break up the family, children would see their parents go to prison, it’s a cultural issue, it’s colonial, it takes two to make a quarrel, [insert insane reason here].


Jallikattu (bull-running in Tamil Nadu) is necessary for the "survival and well-being of the native breed of bulls and preserving cultural traditions". BBC (It has just been re-legalised, Jan 2017.) See also “Hunting preserves the countryside”, “There’d be no coppices without hunting”, “Cattle and sheep would die out if we all became vegetarians”, “We should go on smoking cigarettes because the tobacco industry employs poor people”.

Silly reasons for not banning private fireworks:
I don’t like banning things.
It’s the people not the fireworks that cause the injuries (repeat with guns).
And there are 1001 reasons why we shouldn’t tax sugary drinks, and 1001 things we should do instead.

If you don't like banning things, you will be in favour of lifting the ban on:
Arsenic in wallpaper, arsenic in green paint, chimney sweeping by children, opium sold over the counter (and arsenic), flammable children’s nighties, naked-flame footlights, hunting, handguns (banned after Dunblane school shooting), keeping large exotic wild animals in your home, CFCs, smoking in pubs, tobacco adverts on the tube, alcohol adverts on the tube, tobacco adverts on the telly, people smoking on TV and in films, drinking and driving, not wearing seatbelts, bear baiting, hare coursing, badger baiting, cock fighting, bare knuckle boxing.


Explaining away:
Oh, ha ha, Facebook woman has just said people are only marching because victimhood is fashionable and also they want to get on TV. (Kate Long ‏@volewriter)

Thousands came to London for Diana's funeral because they "just wanted the attention".

Mariah Carey’s sound equipment was sabotaged at New Year “because they wanted a viral moment”.

Surely that ignorant sexist is just a parody account – nobody could be that stupid. The meninist who thought women menstruate through their bladders was an obvious hoax/joke/troll. (He seemed genuinely dense. “People have sent me hundreds of diagrams. I don’t know why they think I’d be interested. They say I should go to biology classes, but I can’t afford it!”)


Excuses, excuses:

Favourite excuse I have heard for being late: "Actually I was ten minutes early, so I went for a walk, and now I'm late." (Andrea Klettner‏ @aklettner)

What to say when you've overdone the filler: "I was allergic to it, I’m having it reversed.)

Conspiracy theorist who said Sandy Hook was a fake says he’s “Just a performance artist”.

Woman found with knife and cannabis claims she is “wearing ritual dress”.

I didn’t know I was a member of BNP. “It must have been one of those mindless mistakes you make when messing about on the computer.” On finding out his name and phone number were on a list of BNP members from 2008.

Settlements in the West Bank are an attempt to solve the housing crisis.

James O’Brien “felt sorry for Ronald Coyne [the Cambridge student who burned a £20 note in front of a homeless person] because the guy's life has effectively being ruined by one stupid, inconsequential, out-of-character, drunken act. Think of the worst thing you have ever done and imagine that it was recorded, broadcast and placed on social media to haunt you for the rest of your life instead of being left in the "best forgotten" corner of your memoirs.” And besides, his parents aren’t posh!

Debenhams claim the soaking of a homeless man by staff who then laughed at him was “an unfortunate accident”.

"That's not who I am" = the default excuse of the unrepentant. (Nancy Friedman ‏@Fritinancy)

That Farage “analcyst” typo was deliberate.

Dutch rapper says his “Jews like money” song is a compliment.

“You just cannot drive a Rolls-Royce in Beverly Hills anymore, because they have it in for you.” Zsa Zsa Gabor on being stopped for a traffic violation, being found with an open bottle of vodka in the car, and slapping a policeman.

Former billionaire who repeatedly called binman a 'black c**t' and a 'monkey' cleared after he said 'I didn't mean this in a racist way'.

"He's not a vicious dog." (He just BIT ME) "You startled him. (By walking quietly along a public footpath.) "He's never off the lead." (He was OFF THE LEAD.) "He's not a vicious dog." (He just RAN UP AND BIT ME.) (Kate Long ‏@volewriter)

“It was a moment of madness,” says doctor who stole a poster of Steve McQueen from a Belfast hotel.

More here, and links to the rest.


Saturday 1 April 2017

Limericks and Non-Limericks


Riddles
I always run but never walk
I often murmur, never talk
I have a bed but never sleep
I have a mouth but never eat

In marble walls as white as milk
Lined with a skin as soft as silk
Within a fountain crystal clear
A golden apple doth appear
No walls there are to this stronghold
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold


If you're feeling cannelloni 
There's mostarda di Cremona 
Tell the one who zabaglione 
That I can be sfogliatelle
(@lucyfishwife)

Tell him life is all farfalle
Pomodori, papardelle
Da mi vostri ditalini
Swear eternal fedelini
(LF)


Everything will be just fine
With Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein.
We will not vote, but we'll still pay
Our future's in the EEA.
(Celestial Weasel)

Our Father who art in Hendon
Harrow Road be thy name
thy Kingston come, thy Wimbledon
In Erith as it is in Hendon
give us this day our Berkhamsted
And forgive us our Westminsters
As we forgive those who Westminster against us
Lead us not into Temple Station
But deliver us from Ealing
For thine is the Kingston
The Purley and the Crawley
For Iver and Iver, Crouch End.


Bryozoans
They might be small and simple,
They might not do a lot,
Just sitting shifting plankton
In some gloomy benthic spot,
But you can’t beat Nature’s logic –
She’ll always play the ace,
Cos for guts and arms in boxes
She’s found the ideal place.
For when you think about it,
Where better could they be
Than stuck to bits of scallop
At the bottom of the sea?
(@markward63)


Few thought him even a starter –
There were many who thought themselves smarter,
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.

A little old lady, Miss Brine
Accepted an invite to dine
They gave her a meal
Of fish-skin and peel
And omitted to pass her the wine.
(LF)


From here you can glimpse her downstream, her far charm,
Liberty, tiny woman in the mist –
You cannot see the torch – raising her arm
Lorn, bold, as if saluting with her fist.
(Thom Gunn)

Dear Abby, I thought I would write
To confess. Please consider my plight:
I had sex with my ex;
We were drunk—it's complex.
Please advise. Signed, Chagrined and Contrite.
(Jane Auerbach)


Erin
...Thy round towers are crumbling away ;
Proud castles sink fast in decay ;  
The palace is gone,
And where beauty shone,
Remains a lone hillock of clay.
(Irish patriot Dr TCS Corry)


You can’t remember which is which
Or where you put the one you need
Or else you’ve left the thing at home
Chargers really are a bitch.
(LF)

EmphasisHe's stealthily pernicious,
But I'll know 'him when I see 'im.
That miscreant who furnishes,
Defective linoleum.

She never lived in stasis,
She was prone to prance and babble,
And always the emphasis
Was on the wrong syllable.
(LF)


In Hampshire a UKIP contender,
Whose chances were anyway slender,
Was given the boot
For saying he'd shoot
The Tory incumbent defender.
(Mick Twister ‏@twitmericks)

Of parties there used to be two.
Now what's a poor voter to do?
It's so hard to select
Which is best to elect –
I don't really trust any, do you?
(PD)


The world is all nonsense and noise
Fantoccini, or Ombres Chinoises
Mere pantomime mummery
Puppet-show flummery
A magical lantern, confounding the sight

Like players or puppets, we move
On the wires of ambition and love
Poets write wittily,
Maidens look prettily,
'Till death drops the curtain—all's over—good night!"
(Pierce Egan)


There once was a sculptor named Phidias
Whose manners in art were invidious
He carved Aphrodite
Without any nightie,
Which startled the ultrafastidious.

The deadly bubonic disease
Was carried to Europe by fleas
From gerbils, not rats,
According to stats
Collected from rings on old trees.
(Mick Twister ‏@twitmericks)

Him as takes what is’n his’n
Must give it back, or go to prison.

In pursuit of the utmost frivolity,
A poet with excess of jollity,
Wrote down, with eyes shielded,
Some words which then yielded
A haiku of questionable quality. 
(PE)

I tried to write one.
It didn't have enough lines.
Not a Limerick.
(PE)

Said a bridge player splattered with gore
looking down at the corpse on the floor:
‘De mortuis nil
nisi bonum – but still,
he’s been caught out revoking before.’
(Via Katharine Whitehorn)

There was a commuter from Ewell,
Who feeling in need of renewal,
Commuted, poor sinner,
from Ewell to Pinner,
How fate is vindictively cruel!
(AL)

Twinkle twinkle, small 5p
How I wonder why you be.
How I loathe thee 5p-piece—
How I dream of thy decease!
Fiddly, fumbly, far too small,
Through my fingers apt to fall.
(Lucy Fishwife/Chris Maslanka)

When falling through an atmosphere
You don't keep getting faster,
Eventually you reach a speed
Where friction is the master.
(ND)

My vacuum has a healthy roar,
and it's 1200W.
I use it for the kitchen floor,
and hard-to-get-at spots.
(PE)

I think that I shall never see
A thing as lovely as a tree
I think, unless the billboards fall,
I shall not see a tree at all.
(Ogden Nash)

When they beat your door down
And drag you away to an unknown fate,
That's the time to start complaining
About a Police State.
(TD)

Some men make gods of red and blue
to rob our Saviour of this due.
The good shall go to heaven, the fell
Blasts of thy wrath shall send to hell.
(Thomas Babington Macaulay aged six and a half)

If I were Fortune - which I'm not -
B should enjoy A's happy lot,
And A should die in miserie -
That is, assuming I am B.
(via TI)

The rain it raineth all around
Upon the just and unjust fella,
But more upon the just because
The unjust has the just’s umbrella.

After the rise, the fall
After the boom, the slump.
You dance with the Prince at the ball
Then come down to earth with a bump.
(Anon/LF)

Conspiracy Fruitcake (recipe)
Half a dozen nuts (assorted)
Three or more matching dates
Currants of suspicion and paranoia
Mix well. Half-bake, and decorate attractively.
(RN)

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
Till peasants learn to read and write
And build a welfare state.
(via RG)

These shades are 'designer',
it says so on the sign
Where I got them in that Shell garage,
For three ninety-nine.
(Alan McGinn ‏@Chainsaw_McGinn)

What is matter?
Never mind.
What is mind?
No matter.

Thus Departed Derek
Derek lives in Newbold Verdon,
Separate from Kirby Muxloe
By a stretch of open country.
If you go past Newbold Verdon
You will meet a lot of nothing
Till you get to Market Bosworth, or
Maybe miles and miles of suburbs 
Blessed with not a single chip shop.

“Open? Desford is between us.
If you’re looking for a chippy
You should go to Newbold, Desford
Barwell, Ibstock, Hinckley, Groby,”
Signed, your humble servant, Derek.

And the Kirby-Desford bus route
Also goes through Newtown Unthank.
Thought I ought to add that – Derek.
(WUR/LF/DC)
(Sadly Derek now has left us.)


More here, and links to the rest.