audi olympics
'funny, and not a little bit strange' - the guardian; 'an offbeat treat' - web user
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Doggedly pursuing a bargain - pt II
(see TAO 16/5/03 for pt I)
Me: Hello, is that AstraZeneca?
AZ: Yes, this is the AstraZeneca research labs. How can we help?
Me: You, ah, do nasty stuff with animals, don’t you?
AZ: We conduct experiments that sometimes involve humane use of animals, yes.
Me: And when you’re done with these animals, what happens to them?
AZ: Well, quite often, they’re returned to source. Sometimes we keep them – in luxury, I might add – for their entire lifetimes. Occasionally, we regrettably have to humanely destroy them.
Me: Excellent, excellent. Got any dogs?
AZ: We have one dog at present, but I believe it’s waiting to be destroyed.
Me: Excellent. Just how bad is it?
AZ: Well, it’s been pumped full of steroidal anti-inflammatories, it’s blind, it has degenerative myelopathy, a Prozac addiction, it thinks it’s a barn-owl, and it’s on a 24-hour drip. Oh, and it smokes.
Me: Excellent. How long has it got?
AZ: Without essential medication and painkillers, perhaps six months.
Me: Hmm, that’s ideal. Is it good with kids?
AZ: Well, I can’t see it posing much of a threat to kids…
Me: Excellent. I’ll give you a fiver.
AZ: Make it ten and I’ll throw in an electric rabbit.
Me: Done.
Aussie expat latest to blogroll
Spengy, an Aussie living, for some reason, in the UK, is my 33rd blogrollee. Mate of yours, Tony?
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Things I don't understand
How you can be 'proud' of the achievements of your football club, your town or your friends. They are nothing to do with you. Get real.
How the government has seemingly failed to provide the British public under the age of 32 with a formal education, particularly geography. As evidence, I offer the following snippets from my office: 'Is Devon in Cornwall?', 'Is Carlisle two words?' and the classic, 'Is Denmark Norway?' As a nifty follow-up, 'Do you read the Sentinel?' works quite well. The Sentinel is a newspaper local to the Stoke-on-Trent area. When you live 83 miles away, it's unlikely.
How a paramedic can be prosecuted for speeding while delivering vital organs at 3.30 in the morning.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Things it’s best not to do while driving to work
When you are in the third lane of the M6 doing, er, 70, and a spider the size of Belgium appears from behind your sun visor, scream, swerve across three lanes, release your seatbelt, get up on your knees and batter it insensible with a Collins roadmap. After you’ve stopped sweating, loosened your tie and have slowly become aware of the astonishment of other motorists, wind down your window, shrug your shoulders and mouth “Spider,” as if that somehow makes it OK.
Saturday, May 24, 2003
Small ad
Tommy Hilfiger blouson jacket, also cheap gold jewellery, flick-knife, half a rusty car (can be seen in garden not working), fantastic range of entitlements, also savage dog and kids. Ask for details.
Friday, May 23, 2003
Fitness advice
When you’re a fat bloke at the gym, before standing on the scales and staring at them in suicidal dismay, try putting down the 2-litre bottle of water you are holding in your left hand.
Thursday, May 22, 2003
Publishing be damned
When tentatively seeking career-advancement opportunities with impressive-sounding publishing companies, don't call Empire Worldwide Press Inc. The illusion of world domination will be diluted when a nine-year-old girl answers the phone and shouts for "Daddy!" to the backdrop of a yapping puppy and the theme tune to Crossroads.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Two weeks' vocation
Benson McTeddy
Audiville Education Authority
Dear Sir
Far be it from me to question the Authority’s choice of work experience for my son. However, when it is his life’s ambition to take up a pupillage and become an internationally renowned barrister with his own chambers, some might say that spending two weeks valeting and repairing second-hand caravans at Stewart Longton's is not the absolute apex in terms of preparation.
Yours etc.
Monday, May 19, 2003
Audiville Times job ad
Predidactic, chronetic iscilliscope operator to correlate electro-pernatic Gurgun-flap display (EGD) with cryomofutic sonic modulation unit. No experience required.
Saturday, May 17, 2003
Hanging around
There's no way of knowing for certain whether you're screamingly bored and homicidally frustrated at work, but sitting on the toilet seat, removing your shoelaces and attempting to construct a workable noose probably provides a fair indication.
Friday, May 16, 2003
Doggedly pursuing a bargain - pt I
Hannah: Daddy, Daddy, please can we have a doggy?
Me: Well, you know what I’ve said about that. Mummy and Daddy both go to work, and doggies need a lot of looking after, so I don’t think so.
Hannah: Aw, please Daddy.
Me: Hmm, I’ll tell you what. You know how Mummy will be off work for a few months when she has our baby?
Hannah: Yes...
Me: Well, I’ve been doing some thinking. I’ve decided we’ll be able to get a doggy after all.
Hannah: Really?
Me: Yes, a very old, very poorly one with around six months to live.
Hannah: Yippee! Tibbie! Tibbie! Daddy says we can have a doggy!
Thursday, May 15, 2003
More inevitable cliches
(see TAO 1/4/03)
When you are at the supermarket checkout, and the checkout person asks if you would like ‘cashback’ on your debit card, you will say, ‘No thanks. I’ll only spend it.’ Weak laughter will follow.
When you receive your payslip from the HR girl, you will thank her and you will then say, 'All this and money too, eh?' Nobody will laugh.
Probably best not to do this
At the start of a training course, when everyone is introducing themselves and their job function, stand up and say, ‘Hello. My name’s Nigel Graber and I am an alcoholic’. Again, nobody will laugh - least of all the bloke opposite with the shaky hands and the face like Rudolf’s nose.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Small ads
Pointing specialist, I will point wherever you like - at the pub, maybe at a favourite aunty, Land's End a specialty, cost-effective, £12.
Furniture mover, light items only, e.g. children’s chairs, small distances preferred, e.g. same room, from £11.
Child’s piano teacher, impatient, alcoholic, violent, sadistic, unstable bastard, hence £3, refs available from Home Office.
Great new online anagrams comp
In the tradition of this site, we’re launching yet another fab new online comp. This time, it’s anagrams. Yes, the sender of the best anagram of ‘The Audi Olympics’ will receive a voucher entitling them to shop at Boots for a full weekend, and a box of nappies specially adapted for a falcon. Simply enter in Comments or through e-mail. Good luck!
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Things it’s best not to do
When you are dependent on your employer to help put food into the mouths of your many children, make the news page of the Plain English Campaign with a quote from your company’s annual report.
Possibly become the first person to supply the Campaign with a Golden Bull winner from your employer two years running.
Monday, May 12, 2003
Frolicking porpoise is latest link
Frolicking porpoise and earth-watcher Thor is my 32nd link. Come on, folks, keep linking me – it gives me something to write about. What was that you said? Lacking inspiration?
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Friday, May 09, 2003
Linked in moderation
There's some quality stuff on my 31st linkee, Neveratoss - 'everything in moderation, especially moderation'. I particularly liked 'Guys, get in touch with your feminine side. Try throwing an object with the wrong hand.' Oh, and thanks for giving me something to blog about.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
Misunderestimating me
Me: You know when I took this job and it said ‘salary neg’ on the press advert? That was short for negotiable, wasn’t it?
HR girl: No – negligible. Your salary is negligible.
Me: Damn. Thought so.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Stray small ad
Lost on Saturday, ladies’ gold watch, possibly in Wickes DIY, or B&Q, or possibly Cemetery Road, or at home, reward: ladies’ gold watch.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Audi man gives in to spam
Mad Mitch
The Danni Minogue Clinic
Minnesota
Dear Mad Mitch
How glad I am that I at last replied to your 479 e-mails offering to increase my manly standing. As you say, I accept entirely that I was at fault for naively thinking that your offer involved improving my social skills. How surprised was I when, after the lightest of local anaesthetics, you crudely yet deftly inserted the Semtex.
The pain, swelling and self-loathing will never leave, but I have met several new women, mainly casualty nurses, lawyers, psychiatrists and reconstructive surgeons. They have told me that the gaping, still-smoking hole between my legs can be filled with thermal insulation and the skin stitched up. This, I am assured, will mean I can still carry out almost all normal male activity, such as needlepoint and scrimshaw-etching, and that intimate relations will be perfectly feasible, although they may take a completely different form, such as over the Internet, in my head or by proxy.
Yours etc.
Monday, May 05, 2003
Bank Holiday observations
The inability to stand up when getting out of bed could indicate that you have played too much tennis.
Eight hours’ tennis in one day may possibly be excessive.
Suggesting that we can do without a pram as they are too damn expensive, and then pleading, on your knees, with your wife, for a Lobster ball machine, ideal for home court use, with 48-ball capacity and adjustable ball velocity of up to 55mph, with built-in random oscillator as standard and with a wide variety of shots to any point on the court at time intervals of 3, 6 or 12 seconds, and only £775.50 including VAT, is a bloody bad idea.
Saturday, May 03, 2003
Named and shamed
Me: Right, Nigella, are we off to bed then?
Wife: You just called me Nigella.
Me: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Maybe. It was, er, a compliment, with me being called Nigel, and, er, you being my soulmate and all that. I kind of see you as an extension of, er, me, in a way and, er, in any case she’s a really hairy man...
Wife: Shut up.
[half-an-hour later]
Me: Sarah, it’s really cold out here. Please can I have another blanket?
Friday, May 02, 2003
Ludicrous-but-true stories: the disciplinary hearing (1987)
Industrial Relations Officer: Nigel, I believe you did A-level French. I wonder if you can help us out with a spot of translation in a final disciplinary hearing involving a French girl?
Me: No.
IRO: Oh, why not?
Me: My French is rustier than one of those corrugated-iron French fart-wagons that they keep their chickens in. One that's been left on the bed of the English Channel for 4,000 years.
IRO: Oh, go on. There’s no-one else. We need you.
Me: Absolutely not.
[half-an-hour later]
IRO: Right, Mme DuVache, Nigel, are we ready?
Me: [grunt] Vous etes pret?
Mme: Oui.
Me: That’s yes. I think.
IRO: OK, Mme DuVache, it is alleged that, on the morning of 3rd April, you were absent from duty for six hours whilst you were in a betting shop watching le Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Me: C’est allege que, sur le matin de, er, troisieme Avril, vous etez dans William Hill's, oui?
Mme: Non, non, non, non, non. Mais, non. Hmm, peut-etre un petit peu.
Me: I think she said 'maybe a bit'.
IRO: Do you have anything to say in mitigation? Bear in mind, your job is at stake.
Me: Avez-vous, er, quelque’chose a dire en mitigation? Votre job est sur la ligne.
Mme: Oui [incomprehensible 22-minute diatribe follows, delivered between sobs and at 135mph]
IRO: Nigel?
Me: What? Er, no. She has no defence.
IRO: Right, well, I am left with no option but to dismiss you forthwith and to insist on your immediate deportation. Nigel, thank you for your time.
Snowman is link number 30
Snowgoon has finally overcome his crippling doubts about my sanity, and bravely blogrolled me. Gordon is the 30th link for The Audi Olympics.
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Small offerings
Nuclear oven, meals in seconds, also very, very large plot of land the size of Bradford, call Mad Mitch today, £21.
Hard of hearing? Immobile? Digital pop-in scooter, put it in your ear and forget about it, heavy, hurts, hence £22.
Chest freezer, very cold, very effective, will swap for Kenwood Breast Defroster, £21.
Stairlifts, buggies and wheelchairs for elderly, various sizes and types, 392 Everest Drive, 4th floor, lift out of order, buttery stairs, buyer collects.
