Dumb and dumber and dumberer

Here are three random stories that caught my attention this week:

Man died when gender reveal firework exploded and sprayed him with shrapnel

It used to be that terror organisations like Al-Qaeda were the biggest domestic threat to the USA. But they might as well retire now as you seem to have more chance of being blown up at a gender reveal party. Or in this similar case, being blown up making an explosive device for a gender reveal party. The obvious question (to me anyway) is why. Just why? Why can’t you just text people and let them know the gender, or just wait until the thing is born. I’m not being a misery arse, have a party if you like (for, let’s be honest, the gifts) but don’t call it a shower. Well, not unless a cannon explodes and literally showers the guests with shrapnel like in the first story. Only the one person died in that story despite five people being in close proximity to the IED, I mean reveal cannon. The survivors must be some of the first people to get PTSD from a gender reveal party. If they go to any more of these in future I imagine at the reveal point they will be cowering in the corner like Private Ryan in, er, Saving Private Ryan.

Gwyneth Paltrow has long Covid and recommends you buy some expensive shit

Now here is the thing; there is nothing wrong with promoting a healthy lifestyle. The problem I have with Gwyneth’s health and lifestyle brand (GOOP) and anything similar is that they take advice to the extreme when all the proper answers to living a healthy life are, to a lot of people, too boring and slow. Eat fruit and veg, exercise a few times a week, don’t overindulge on chocolate cake or heroin, all that stuff the NHS and anyone sensible promotes for a healthy and long life. However, GP (how she refers to herself) is not content with just peddling advice such as steaming your own vagina, which as you can imagine can have disastrous consequences. She now claims she had Covid recently and is still suffering from ‘long-tail’ symptoms, whatever the fuck that means. But fear not, for there is some (expensive) advice she has shared for lucky me and you.

Go on, give it a read. But be careful because every picture in that article is something that can be bought! I know, why would you talk about things and then have pictures of them; it’s almost like, oh I don’t know, a big fucking advert for loads of shit you don’t need! Even the big picture of GP before the article even begins has her wearing a t-shirt which ordinary peasants like you and I can buy for the low, low price of $125. There is also a nice glass ($112) to drink your smug non-alcoholic herbal cocktails out of ($89) before rounding off your arrogance with some pointless supplements containing all those alarm-bell words like detoxifying and high-potency ($12 to $90). You can really complete the ‘I’m better than you’ look by spunking $500 on an infra-red sauna blanket V3 (I’m assuming the first two versions set people on fire – the ultimate skin detox!). There is more, and I mean a lot more so get ready to detoxify your credit cards and cleanse all that nasty money that isn’t yours off them. I think when the medical director of NHS England is publicly rebuking you for suggesting long Covid solutions that the NHS would suggest are not solutions (the nicest way to publicly say ‘STOP BEING SO FUCKING STUPID’) you should really reel it in a bit.

Although I have to add, while ‘researching’ this blog at GOOP ‘university’ I did come across this in the shop for just £23:

According to the blurb the journal is designed to be picked up right after sex. Which sounds great. I don’t know about you but it’s the first thing I think of after sexual intercourse; I just love jotting down some thoughts after it, a bit like writing a football match report just as the final whistle blows (oo-er). Inside the journal you will find prompts as well as space to write about what went well, what you both wanted out of the experience and how you are growing together. It sounds like the unsexiest thing ever to do after having sex, short of going into the en-suite and having a massive, loud shit. Oh but don’t worry because if you feel awkward at any point of this the journal also has a guide to managing those feelings. Hopefully this bit just says, ‘throw this book away and go and have sex.’ One final thing to note as can be seen in the image above; this journal is for couples. A sex journal for yourself would just be weird.

‘It’s ludicrous’: Anger as Chorley potholes left half filled as team runs out of asphalt on the job

Well I did say random stories. In an article that neatly demonstrates just how small some people’s worlds are, this one details at length the history of a few potholes on a small street in a tiny village in Lancashire. For some reason the person kicking off is named as Beckie Ramsay which has BEM after it as if it is an acronym of her name. Now unless my knowledge of the alphabet has disintegrated this doesn’t make sense and indeed, Beckie, or BEM to her friends, is not referenced again like this in the article. Not to be pedantic of course.

Anyway the crux of the matter is that there were two potholes on the street and only one was filled in, leaving BEM apoplectic with fury. In fact the pothole repair people drove over a pothole to fix the other one. However it is revealed halfway down the article that the repair team actually ran out of asphalt after filling the first one in. Which, let’s be honest, is a perfectly reasonable explanation. I don’t know what BEM expected them to do when they ran out. See what they can cobble together from the van and fill it in with half a bag of Haribo out of the glovebox? Put a rag in the hole and jump up and down on it until it is fully secure? What do you want BEM?

The article then goes on, with a comment from a local councillor who doesn’t have a weird acronym after his name. He moans about the online system used to report potholes (Report It – good name, I like it, not like BEM) and that he gets ‘extremely frustrated’ when defects are reported as fixed (denoted by a blue triangle) but ‘then go out and, low and behold, the massive great pothole is still there.’ A massive great pothole! It’s coming to get us! Revenge of the Killer Potholes! [Adopt movie voice] In a world…where asphalt has run out…councillors can do nothing…..but one hero will rise…..with a weird name…..BEM…

The council did add that it was planning to return a few days later so it is hopefully now filled in and we all won’t die. Please be careful out there. There could be anything in these massive great potholes. Thieves in scuba gear. Tiny aliens with weird faces. Covid itself may be lurking in these potholes just waiting for you to fall in.