The Importance of Proof-reading

No-one should ever have to worry about giving the Cross a good bum. 

Packaging

I've just bought these contraceptives, I mean, lightweight bicycle innertubes. If the front of the pack isn't enough, I ask you to read the back of the pack.

Wait - what? Performing maintenance? What? This is sexually INexplicit. I'd hate to think what the Italian or French translations read like.

I'm just glad these arrived mail order, in discreet packaging and that no-one was looking over my shoulder when I opened it up.

The Baby Monitor of Fear

Parents often tell of the fear that their baby monitor brings, as they anxiously listen for every movement or sleep-grunt their offspring makes. Well, imagine the fear that that I feel when this is accompanied by the sight of my baby monitor in the dark. To complete the terror, imagine the red eyel, imagine the fear that that I feel when this is accompanied by the sight of my baby monitor in the dark. To complete the terror, imagine the red eye flashing repeatedly while the green eye fixes you with a cold and constant stare.

The Baby Monitor of Fear

A Christmas Apologia

Right, let's get a few apologies out of the way

• I didn't get around to writing any Christmas cards - for this I am sorry. This is on account of my uselessness. Merry Xmas anyway.
  
• I haven't done a Christmas CD this year - this is on account partly of my uselessness, but partly on the fact that I'm now a father in my thirties and consequently haven't listened to any new music at all. I could probably do you a CD containing all the new music I've listened to this year, in total, regardless of whether I liked it or not, but I suspect this would just be rubbish. By way of a replacement, I'm just going to point out that the Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog is chock-full of sleigh bells, but isn't in the slightest bit Christmassy. I think the fact that one of my cultural references is a song from 1969 is proof that I am now too old to listen to anything new. The other thing I was going to say was that I really liked the Dirty Projector's cover of "As I Went Out One Morning", but I don't think vicariously liking a 1967 Bob Dylan song really counts as the most 2010 thing in the world either. Ah well.
  

I will leave you with two seasonal thoughts:

• All these strikes and the snow reminds me of 1978, The Winter of Discontent, when the binmen and gravediggers went on strike. What a sad state the country was in: we couldn't even bury our rubbish, and the dead bodies were piling up on the streets uncollected.
• Why would anyone refer to "bigfoot" or "sasquatch" when you can call him the abominable snowman. Honestly people, how often do you get to say abominable, let alone in relation to a snowman? The English language, great and varied as it is, has given us no more beautiful term.

Warning

This warning came on a bag of screws with a flat-pack table.

If, however, it's warning me of the dangers of ghostly apple-headed babies, well, I'm ahead of them there, as I suspect are you.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11: New Features

I've been lucky enough to have had a go on the new Tiger Woods PGA 2011 game. I thought I'd run through some of the key differences between previous versions so you can see what's new:

• New Contrition Mode: accurately simulates handwringing and looking rueful with new EA© Sorrowometer©
• Fully Immersive Emergency Press Conference Mode featuring accurate simulations of top golf writers and seedy tabloid hacks.
• 15% more shots of three-time US Open©-winner Tiger Woods looking stern and sad, as though his past indescretions weigh heavily upon his broad, successful shoulders (see picture above).
• Now features no women golfers, just to be on the safe side.
• New voiceover of your dead dad, expressing his dissapointment in you, after every shot you play.
• New unlockable feature enables you to appease both sponsors and wife with a press release through your manager
• New downloadable content allows you to keep your game up-to-date with the latest leaderboards, world rankings, weather conditions and steamy sex scandals.
• Balls now harder to hit, reflecting your mental anguish.

Rage, Articulated Adequately

A mother who will now think twice before she insists they all go on a family visit to Grandma's again.

Reptiles!

I'm not sure whether this counts as advertising, or a desperate cry for help.