The Welsh And The Sheep

 History, Humour  No Responses »
Feb 202016
 

2012-05-19-sheep standing guard.small

The whole Welsh carnally like sheep thing is pretty funny? Plenty of opportunities for jokes in there. But do you know where it comes from?

Unfortunately I don’t have a source for this (I’m a bad historian!), but I do remember reading it from a respectable history book.

In medieval times, there were two crimes you were likely to be charged with if you were caught in possession of sheep you didn’t own back then. One charge (sheep stealing) was dealt with by the King’s courts and dealt harshly with any property crime – sheep rustlers could and frequently were hung for stealing sheep.

The other charge (unlawful carnal knowledge of a sheep) was dealt with by the Church courts who were somewhat more lenient, and the punishment was more likely to be a fine or a short imprisonment.

Anyone with half a brain would opt for the Church courts, and it seems from the records that the Welsh picked up on this legal loophole very rapidly. After all being known as a sheep-shagger is somewhat preferable to being hung.

Dear Mr Huawei ..

 Computing, Humour  No Responses »
Sep 242015
 

2015-09-24 19.02.32

Your new phone turned up on my desk today. It's all very sparkly but there is one big problem with it.

The name.

If you are going to release a product named with an English-language word, then you may want to check the spelling of that word because spelling that word wrong is not very impressive.

Now Americans would have you believe that the word is spelt as you have spelled it – honor. However there is a clue to the originators of the language in the name; you should the spelling with the English.

If you ever release a version of the phone in North America, it would be reasonable to use their spelling of the word. But elsewhere in the world, please use the correct spelling.

It's a bit over the top to insist on a product recall for this, but please remember when it comes to releasing the next version of this phone that it should be called the "Honour 8".

The Key To Alternative “Medicine” Phrases

 General, Humour  No Responses »
Jul 052015
 

Herbal

An untested chemical that grows in the garden. Possibly not your garden.

It could be benificial – Aspirin is after all a cleaned up and tested version of what was previously a herbal remedy. It could be safe; at least it could be safe in the kind of doses suggested (everything is poisonous enough in high enough doses – even water).

But it has not been tested properly either for effectiveness, nor safety. And if it is effective, is it more effective than a placebo?

Chemical-Free

Another way of saying an empty bottle. If you shake your bottle and it rattles or gurgles, send it back as it's got chemicals in it.

Homeopathy

Expensive water.

In fact if there were any positive value to homeopathy, there would be no complaints of joint pain in hard water regions (calcium carbonate is supposedly a treatment for joint pain).  And guess what? I get both hard water through my taps, and joint pain. 

Natural

… as opposed to "man-made". Both are a means of production and neither means of production has any implications as to the effectiveness of a product.

However evolution does not tend to produce something whose sole purpose is to cure headaches; the willow tree evolved to have a nasty bitter tasting bark to discourage animals from eating its bark not to cure headaches. That was an accident. To treat a headache "naturally", you will need to find a willow tree, pull off a chunk of bark, grind it up, and eat it. A man-made pill labelled "Aspirin" is more readily available, safer (it only contains the chemical for the headache treatment), and is less damaging to those poor willow trees.

So in this case, "natural" is actually a bad thing.

Faith-Healing

Asking an imaginary friend for help. Frankly asking a real friend is just as likely to work, and any effectiveness is due to the placebo effect.

Acupuncture

If you want someone sticking pins in you to make a little wax figurine replica of you to say "Oww!" then by all means go ahead.

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