Friday Newsletter: June 15, 2012

This week there is more British health and safety madness – at the rate at which we are going in the UK the only solution will be to wrap the whole island in cotton wool.

There are some truly awful school dinners in here too, a really funny parody on a popular internet hit by a group called The Key of Awesome and what might happen if ever Tetris was turned into a movie.

Finally there is one of the most boring pictures I have ever taken for your enjoyment too.

Now even a day out at the seaside is too dangerous according to Britain’s health & safety jobsworths.

A day out at the seaside has been an innocent pleasure enjoyed by generations of British school children.

You get to eat ice cream, build castles in the sand and dip your toes in the rather chilly waters which surround our isle. In the summer it is sometimes even warm enough to swim in the sea.

Recently a trip was organised by a former English county cricket captain, to take a group of disabled teenage children, including partially sighted children and those with learning difficulties, to the seaside.

However these children never got to dip their toes in the water.

Why?

Well before they were allowed to go on the trip a ‘risk assessment’ had to be carried out and one of the main conditions of the risk assessment was that under no circumstances were the pupils to be allowed in the sea.

Swimming was out of the question, as was paddling and even rolling up their trousers and dipping their feet in the water was deemed too risky.

Even with six experienced adults – four teachers and two volunteers – watching their every move, the risk assessment was clear that they were not to enter the water. Such a thing was just too dangerous to contemplate.

Great isn’t it?

If this madness continues we will all be frightened of our own shadows.

[Via: Daily Mail Richard Littlejohn column]

Same old Patrick…always moaning and always in search of attention.

The spam commenter is the bane of every blogger’s life. I have one persistent spammer who uses the name “Spirit Animal” or “Spirit Animals” but it always links to a different URL and also has different email and IP addresses.

Whenever I see “Spirit Animal” I now always spam the comment and blacklist the IP address however I almost left up one of their comments (with the link removed of course) just for the sheer cheek of it.

The comment was this:

“The next time I read a weblog, I hope that it doesn’t disappoint me as a lot as this one.

“…I do know it was my choice to learn, but I actually thought you’d have something fascinating to say.

“All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you can fix if you weren’t too busy in search of attention.”

Maybe Spirit Animal really does read my blog after all…always whining about something…always seeking attention…come to think of it, that does sound a bit like me.

I know school dinners were bad, but surely they were never this bad?

Adults always like to joke about how grim their school dinners were.

I remember that the food served up at my school was rather unexceptional but not at all grim.

We used to queue up for second helpings when it was available so it can’t have been that bad.

However I am sure if I had gone to the school which nine-year-old Martha Payne attends then I would hardly have made it through the first serving – let alone volunteer for more.

And it seems that Martha agrees because every lunchtime she photographs the culinary delights served up in her school canteen and posts them on her blog – the appropriately named NeverSeconds.

The first thing I find amazing about her food is just how awful it really looks.

The second amazing thing about this whole story is that her teachers have actually given her permission to photograph this dreadful food and show it to the world on the internet.

Here are a selection of Martha’s meals.

Picture credits: Martha Payne/NeverSeconds

The Key of Awesome parody of ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’

The other day I was taking part in some high-powered business discussion or other in a Skype chatroom, or maybe I was just playing online golf…well it was one or the other.

Blain Jones was on the call and he did what he likes doing a lot in these circumstances…he threw up a link to a YouTube video.

Blain likes sharing stuff he finds on the internet but most of the links he provides are not really suitable for this newsletter.

He found a parody to the YouTube hit ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ by Walk off the Earth. The chances are that you have already seen that video because it has notched up more than 113 million views.

Just in case you haven’t seen it then it is the first video below.

If you have seen it then you can skip it and go straight to the parody Blain found by The Key of Awesome.

Should you have seen both then just skip to the next item in the newsletter.

Note: There is one swear word in the parody video which is (almost) beeped out, so if bad language offends you then you might want to give it a miss.

‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ by Walk off the Earth

‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ (parody) by The Key Of Awesome

Video credits: walkofftheearth/YouTube and duxoop8253/YouTube

 

ThumbVu – the unofficial game

Over at ThumbVu there is a cool unofficial game you can play while surfing.

For those that don’t already know, ThumbVu works by clicking on an image of the advertiser to surf through the sites.

The images are shown randomly from all the members advertising sites and are shown at the bottom of the page.

So by choosing which images you want to click on you can build up a collection of thumbnails with pretty patterns.

Here are some I did earlier:

Maybe I have too much time on my hands some days, but it amuses me at least.

 This is why I take cool sunset and sunrise pictures.

In recent weeks I have posted some pictures on this blog of really nice sunsets and sunrises I have seen while looking out of my window.

There is a reason for doing so.

Normally when I look out of my window I see this…

 

So on those rare days when I see a really colorful sky then of course I get excited!

Tetris The Movie:

You’ve played Tetris right? Well now watch the movie.

Ok well Tetris the Movie might never get made but if ever it did get made then it might look like this…

 

Do you think Tetris: The Movie would be a cinematic hit? Personally I think it would be a blockbuster.

Video/still credits: Warialasky/YouTube

And finally…

Don’t you think it’s about time we started referring to flat screen televisions, simply as televisions?

 

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Have a good weekend and God bless.

Tagged as: Friday Newsletter