Did ya hear that one about the hedgehog ...

As an antedote to my sour faced rant, I feel its appropriate to lighten up the mood again with a few crap jokes.
BBC Scotland have picked up a story about the ten funniest jokes in Britain this year.


They were judged to be:

1) Dan Antopolski - "Hedgehogs - why can't they just share the hedge?"

2) Paddy Lennox - "I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: 'This could be interesting'."

3) Sarah Millican - "I had my boobs measured and bought a new bra. Now I call them Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes because they're up where they belong."

4) Zoe Lyons - "I went on a girls' night out recently. The invitation said 'dress to kill'. I went as Rose West."

5) Jack Whitehall - "I'm sure wherever my dad is; he's looking down on us. He's not dead, just very condescending."

6) Adam Hills - "Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. You know you're going to get it, but it's going to be rough."

7) Marcus Brigstocke - "To the people who've got iPhones: you just bought one, you didn't invent it!"

8) Rhod Gilbert - "A spa hotel? It's like a normal hotel, only in reception there's a picture of a pebble."

9) Dan Antopolski - "I've been reading the news about there being a civil war in Madagascar. Well, I've seen it six times and there isn't."

10) Simon Brodkin (as Lee Nelson) - "I started so many fights at my school - I had that attention-deficit disorder. So I didn't finish a lot of them."

Now I have allowed you to have a read through yourself, may I make the observation that if these are the funniest joke from the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival then our humour is in a dire way.

Of course jokes are tricky and it is always in the telling I find that they become funny, ie the funniest joke in the world can fall flat told by someone dull or the crappest can be hilarious told by someone incredibly funny.

Jokes date back to our prehistoric ancestors with the oldest joke believed to be about farting - typical!

Anyway as if the humour wasn't completely dead, time for me to reproduce my favourite joke as told to me by a Mexican waiter to completely kill it stone dead ...

Why did the Mexican push his wife off the cliff
TEQUILA - screeched in a Mexican style voice to sound like to kill her - geddit? Prob not.

On the breadline

1500 applying for 95 supermarket jobs, 900 join army in four months and a major business scrapping its graduate recruitment scheme, times are as bad as any in living memory.

What is to be done about it?

As thousands of young people leave school and university, the chances of employment are slim to the point of anorexic.

Tesco proudly announced today that they received 1,500 applications for jobs at a Co Down branch.

Meanwhile despite the number of army deaths in Afghanistan mounting so high, the MoD hospital are weeks behind in performing autopsies on bodies returned home - and if the Talibans guns don't get you, swine flu will - recruitment is through the roof. 900 people have signed up since April.

As if the redundancies and halt of temping work with the civil service, Northern Ireland's biggest employer is not bad enough, BT had announced they will be stopping their graduate recruitment scheme.

Bleak, bleaker and bleakest however fear not because "business professionals" are feeling confident again...

Wahey, because we all have confidence in that crowd....

Bitter? Me? Pah!

Loyality to moggins

We in old Blighty love our pets, more than 50 per cent of the population have at least one and acts of cruelty to animals hit the headlines almost as hard as cases of cruelty of children.

Recession, what recession, According to the Times, vets are cashing in from offering such treatments as heart surgery and alternative therapies for sick pooches and seeing a whooping 37 per cent return on their business.

So loyal are we to old moggins, he is now the latest sufferer of the disease of the afflument and spoiled - obesity.

While happily NI has the lowest rate of pet obesity, 35 per cent of dogs in Scotland are obese - wow whee, are those crazy kilt wearers deep frying their mutts tinned grub?!

This has particularly caught my attention as I am currently in the market for my own little bit of shitting, yeowling fur ball to love.

I plan to adopt a cat, I have always wanted one but never lived in suitable accommodation to keep one - dodgy Dublin flats + cats = heart breaking end to pet story.

To this end I have spent much of today sourcing what I will need to make aforementioned furball happy when he/she lands in the house.

What a crazy world of pet accessories, I was prepared for have to buy a cat bed and flea collar, was talked into travel case - kind of figured old plant tray as a litter tray and decommissioned bowls for food, and thought that was me set.

Oh no, was I sorely mistaken, any self respecting cat owner should apparently also be buying a cat water fountain, self cleaning litter house, work out centre, a number of different toys placed around the house to cater for different moods, a full grooming kit including potions for volumise their fur and that's just for starters.

If you really care about your cat, cue emotional blackmail, you should also be considering buying your cat clothes, jewellery and gourmey food!

A friend of mine recently adopted a cat from the Cats Protection League, not only did they vet her and inspect her house before she was allowed to take a cat home but they also followed up on the adoption with two more visits to make sure the animal was happy.

What a funny old world.

Electrifying Euro day

Wow whee, what a day, who'd have thunk it?

Record low turn out almost 10 per cent from 2004.

Sinn Fein topped the poll for the first time in a Northern Ireland wide election.

The DUP vote basically collasped to the point where their candidate instead of topping the poll as they have since 1979 scrapped in without making quota.

Ulster Unionists, or UCUNF as they have distastefully rechristened themselves, topped pro union poll.

Jim Allister got 70,000 plus votes and was even in the frame for a seat at one stage.

Greens tripled their vote.

And well Alliance and SDLP turned up for a cup of tea.

DUP quickly adopted the mantra "This is a bad day for unionism", presumably because they didn't top the poll? No, according to Jeffrey Donaldson, because unionists didn't turn out.

Jim Allister was like a shark circling, no one knew quite where he was going to pop up or how big his bite would be.

Fairly gruesome as it turned out, taking 70 per cent of the ballots.

Now there had been some warning signs with disquiet on the doorsteps about DUP expenses and political dynasties.

Paddy Power's bookmakers also showing a shrewd grasp of an unusually tricky election at one stage were cutting the odds on Allister several times a day as it became apparent his vote would be stronger than expected.

The Ulster Unionists (no I won't use that awful short form) also shocked by becoming the first unionist to be elected. While representatives were talking about the come back of the party, it remains to be seen if the "Dromore effect" is a false dawn or a new beginning.

Now because politicians have been abusing and bending voting figures, here are the facts. A low turn out skews the figures slightly but still make for some interesting reading.

Jim Allister (DUP) 175,761 (2004), TUV 66,197 (2009)
Bairbre De Brún (SF) 144,541 (2004), 126,184 (2009)
Diane Dodds (DUP) 88,346 (2009)
Jim Nicholson (UUP) 91,164 (2004), 82,893 (2009)
Alban Maguinness (SDLP) 87,559 (2004, Morgan), 78,489 (2009)
Ian Parsley (All) 26,699 (2009), no candidate in 2004
Lindsay Whitcroft (Green) 4,810 (2004), Steven Agnew (Green) 15,764

Expenses backlash

It had to happen, the public are starting to get fed up with the intrusive prodding and abject humiliation which is the expenses row.

Stands to reason if you take on the most powerful people in the UK they will bite back, this morning, it was via that programme we all watch to kill time before The Politics Show.

The headline on The Big Questions this morning was Is It The Daily Telegraph's Fault?

Erm, I'm a big a fan as the next about squeezing every possible follow up out of a story however this did seem a little ridiculous.

Was it the Daily Telegraph that forced former Cabinet Minister Douglas Hogg to claim for cleaning out his moat, was it they who convinced NI Secretary of State Shaun Woodward it would be a good idea to dodge a capital gains tax bill of more than a million pounds when selling his mansion to rock god Sting, did they convince First Minister Peter Robinson to rack up a £30,000 food bill, well did they? I could go on but you get the picture.

Of course the Daily Telegraph are not whiter than white, Lord no, they claimed they wanted to clean out the ridiculousness of expenses but really just wanted to pimp up their circulation figures in a time when newspapers seem to be dying.

But that didn't stop selected members of the public, probably overpaid employees of some of the over claiming MP's from ranting about the Daily Telegraph, oh no.

Some of the backlash must be biting because the Telly, if I may be so bold, have removed the excellent expenses section from the front page of their website

Of course this backlash should have been expected, politicians will do anything, suggest anything, fill any room full of their supporters.....

The Belfast Telegraph's David Gordon found this to his amusement after he was the only hack barred from interviewing Ian Paisley on his resignation for his efforts in exposing Ian Og.

Lesson to politicians, when you find yourself in a tight position, best just humbly apologise, act repentant and promise to amend your ways, Ok it seems even more humiliating but it does shut down the stories instead of hiding or even worse lashing out.

Of course sometimes survival is just brazening it out a la Ian Paisley but then that's a whole new can of worms best not opened at this point.

Here endeth the rant.

Wheeeooo!

Results from Thursdays Euro poll out tomorrow (MON) with the turn out at 42.81per cent, down nearly 9 per cent from the 2004 poll, should make for a veeery interesting day - Bring it on!

Knowing the price of everything and value of nothing

It's always those random moments in life that spark off my little philosophical musings.

Yesterday when looking for a birthday present for my mother I happened upon a lovely Japanese plant of the type that used to cost upwards of £20.

It was reduced from £9.99 to £4.99.

Half of the price was peeled off so the shop assistant asked me how much it cost and when I told him, he said "Ah, yes last time I was looking at these they were £14.99".

"That's awful depressing," I murmured.

"What? How is that depressing getting a bargain," he hit back with an irritated look.

"Oh, well you know, such a beautiful plant and now it is so cheap and you used to have to pay so much more for them, it's like it has been completely devalued."

Shop assistant from that point clearly thought it was best to ignore the weird woman who seemed to be complaining about lower prices.

However the conversation has really stayed with me.

I remember when those plants first started to be sold, it was only in the upmarket flower shops and they were the only plant to be seen with for a couple of years.

So that was how it caught my eye as a present for the mother, because it was something a little more special than the average plant plus she did not currently have one.

If everything is dirt cheap, where is the fun in splashing out for something I might not necessarily be able to afford for someone special?

Lily Allen eloquently sings: "I am a weapon of massive consumption and its not my fault it's how I'm programmed to function."

Guilty as charged.

I'm from an all woman family where part of the fun of shopping is knowing that you can't really afford the treat you are buying and you take enormous care of it.

As a teenager my mother would take my sisters and I on mammoth shopping trips which were enormous fun.

When we got home mother snuck us in the back door so our father didn't see the number of bags and realise the extent of the damage on the good old plastic.

However later on after much eye lash fluttering we'd put on a fashion show for father to show off our new wares.

Ms Allen's mantra: "It doesn't matter cause I'm packing plastic and whats what makes my life so fucking fantastic." was very much the order of the day.

It's a female tradition dating back long before credit cards - who could forget one of the original spendaholic, Marie Antionette who actually managed to bankrupt a country from her love of pretty shoes, dresses, cosmetics etc

Ah female role models...