Here’s my usual round-up of things which have amused me during the year. Unsurprisingly this has not been a vintage year for amusement.
(Most of the images etc. are clickable to display larger views or source information.)
Product
There are three contenders this year, but the winner has to be these Danish Wine Gums (left below) and Salt Liquorice Pastilles (yeuch!).
The runners-up were this Ziplock Bag Thong with Goldfish Crackers …
… and a new (I think) product Waitrose Christmas Chicken Wing Lollipops …
Headline
I think this year’s winner has to be:
Motorist fined after CCTV confuses his number plate with woman’s T-shirt
But it was a close contest with these four runners-up very close behind the winner. (All are from the Guardian.)
Ohio man charged with stealing 58ft pedestrian bridge
Monkeys thought to have escaped private collection on loose in Cincinnati
Old Irish goats return to County Dublin to protect hills from wildfires
Camels enhanced with Botox barred from Saudi beauty contest
Twat of the Year
Leaving aside the whole Tory party in Westminster … the only serious contender for “Twat of the Year” has to be this disreputable scumbag:
I may not be the snappiest of dressers but I’d be mortified to leave home looking this scruffy. I wonder if they found the hole in the hedge before the sheep escaped?
Book Title
Oh dear, there really is only one serious contender this year:
Is Superman Circumcised? by Ray Schwartz
Auction Item
Two superlative auction items stood out for me this year. First, from our local auction house, was this unprepossessing item:
It was described in the catalogue as:
A late 19th century Swiss Black Forest wooden musical coat hook, carved as an anthropomorphic dog with glass eyes, and with gun and powder flask bearing the Swiss cross, with chamois horn feet, fitted with a musical movement with 6cm cylinder numbered 12 223, with applied circular metal label inscribed “C. Spiess Schloss Laufen Patent 16870” and remains of paper label, 39 cm high
As a wonderfully desirable alternative eBay were offering …
Vintage empty tall RAT BAIT TIN … RACUMIN.
Size 8 1/2 inches tall, cardboard tube with tin top and bottom.
Made in WALTHAM CROSS, HERTS.
Not surprisingly it didn’t sell.
Nominative Determinism
Nominative determinism is where people end up in jobs which suit their name. There are many examples but these stood out this year:
- Will Welfare, Public Health Incident Director, UKHSA
- Marcus Scriven, journalist
- Prof. Roger Kneebone, a surgeon
- Superintendent James Pigg, of the Metropolitan Police
Organisation Name
The prize for the “Organisation Name of the Year” must go to the Old Irish Goat Society which you’ll recall was also implicated in one of our “Headlines of the Year”.
Animal
Every year we seem to encounter strange, new (to us) animals. This year we’ve met:
Occupation
Just one winner here this year:
Paper Folder – “People are amazed I fold paper for a living, then they see it”.
Sport
Top of the tree in this category is something I would never have thought of, let alone considered a sport.
Decorative Camel Grooming.
Apparently it can take years to create the art on a single camel.
Epigram
Two, almost priceless, epigrams popped up this year.
The first is from the Irish Goats again:
Goat herding is a timeless profession
And secondly from Emma Beddington who was caught describing our expected Christmas excesses as:
mulled Dickensian jollity
I couldn’t disagree with either of those descriptions.
Marketing Slogan
Earlier in the year we came across a brilliant piece of the advertisers’ art; I can’t call it “marketing bollox” as it is but a simple slogan for Fox’s biscuits:
More yum per crumb
It seems they’ve been using this slogan for quite a few years; I’d just not noticed, but that doesn’t make it any less good!
Word
Our “word of the Year” (which could equally well be “Food of the Year”) comes courtesy of @WhoresofYore on Twitter. It is:
Piss-Quick
Described as
(19thC) A hot gin-based drink drunk from a jar, in the morning to warm yourself. Piss-quick contained a mixture of gin, marmalade and hot water.
Folk Custom
Thanks to two modern artists we’ve discovered a folk custom which was previously not known to us. Called Hat’s On, Tits Out and it appears to happen in random places (and often unannounced) most summers. The artists have even provided us a couple of illustrations.
First from tilloodesigns on Instagram:
And secondly from Peter Collins (1923-2001):
Medical Discovery
In a surprise discovery, medics have found that we’ve had both male and female genitals wrong all these years:
Public Service Announcement
And the winner here is a poster reminding us that it is forbidden to season the pigeons.
Photograph
We have three winners in the “Photograph” category.
What must be the Worst Sofa Ever …
Some absolutely brilliant Zombie Munch Cakes (© Waitrose Weekend paper; 28 October 2021) …
And a strategically placed European paper wasp colony on a wayside shrine in the South Tyrol.
Trivia
I’ll leave you with our final “Trivia” category where we have perhaps the best comment this year on the UK’s appalling government:
You’ll want to click the image and appreciate it full size.
All of which leaves us scratching our head in bemusement.
We’ll be looking out for brilliance again next year; contributions are always welcome. Let’s see if we can make it a really vintage year!
Meanwhile remember Yogi Berra’s words: If you come to a fork in the road, take it..
