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Monday 14 July 2008

The UK files: mad but true disease.


Here are a few weird and wonderful stories emanating from the UK that all happen to be true:


In Wales:

Police recieved a call about a UFO. Somebody had noticed a large shining orb loitering behind a mountain (perhaps probe-ingly inclined?). They wanted the police to check it out. It turned out to be the MOON. (From BBC news). A very much identified flying object.



From my mom (a teacher in England):

She was attending a teachers meeting and they were dicussing the next craft class. My mom innocently suggested that the kids use toilet roll tubes (that ubiquitous craft material in SA). This caused shock and horror amongst the staff, who informed her that this was dangerous because the kids could catch germs. Now I am not English myself, but unless they are wired up to some kind of tubing system or all wear nappies, English kids surely have to visit the loo more than once per day? And are they not then exposed to the same germs?

My mom then suggested kitchen roll tubes as a substitute. But no, apparently those are germ - ridden too. Cos kids never enter the kitchen now do they? (I hear Jaws music in my head right now: dudududududu - When health and safety goes horribly wrong).



From my dad (a teacher in England):

He was telling the kids (high school) about his days hunting on the farm in SA . A girl was horrified and attacked him for such cruelty to animals. Fair enough, said my dad, but if you are so concerned about animal cruelty, are you vegetarian? The girl said no. What the hell has that to do with it, she asked.

My dad asked, "So how do you feel about the way animals are treated before they are killed for your meat?"

The girl exploded and attacked my dad. "How dare you say such ridiculous things, so insulting etc etc. People do not eat animals, that is terrible and cruel. Disgusting."

My dad asked, "but, but, where do you think meat comes from then???"

She informed him: "from supermarkets, from factories."

M'kay. Scary. But true.



From me (when working in a coffee shop in England):


During our training we were told that we must warn every single customer who buys a hot coffee to "be careful your drink is very hot." Every single one.

Now I feel that this is quite an insult to the intelligence. I would fairly resent someone telling me that my coffee is hot. I bloody know it is, it's bloody coffee! But apparently some people had tried to sue the company for serving them hot coffee without warning them, and they had burned themselves. Sigh.

In order to combat this evil scourge of hotness, we were instructed to offer customers ice cubes to cool their drinks down. You should see the looks you get when offering someone an ice cube in their Americano. Priceless.

2 comments:

artois said...

Everything we made in art class at school involved loo rolls or dry pasta.
I wonder how many colds I could blame the school for...

po said...

Hmm, I'm not sure about the safety of dry pasta, a small child could insert it into an orifice, either their own or someone else's!

Seriously, I must ask my mom if kids are allowed to use dry pasta over here.