Tag: silly

“It’s like having a dog.”

Courtesy of whoever was ‘kind’ enough to buy a tube of green toilet rolls for me in the office Secret Santa, I have now discovered that green is the new black. Renova sell their ‘Black’ paper products (kitchen rolls, toilet rolls, napkins and handkerchieves) in a range of colours: black (naturally), red, orange and — the latest addition to their range — green. Can’t help feeling that the marketing people have got a little over-excited, though. For example, of their paper handkerchieves they say

Be invaded by these vibrant… pulpy and glossy green handkerchiefs….

A handkerchief invasion? Scary! They describe their toilet rolls as

Luxury tissue paper in emerald green to celebrate exotism [sic] in the bathroom. Enjoy!

They even suggest that using Black toilet paper will

Promote your business name and fame!

Really? Business success has never been so easy….

A warm mystery in every single olfactive [sic] moment.
Soft and glamorous… A paper of pleasure.

From now on, I will flush with pride!

Whilst wondering just how desperate for news the Adver (and me, for that matter) must be to be publishing a story about a cat pawing paint over someone’s carpet, I also can’t help thinking that any other person, having fallen asleep with their front door open, would just be grateful that nothing worse had happened (such as a burglar walking in), rather than complaining that neither their insurers nor the council would pay for the damage. The lady should just paws for thought and consider how lucky she was that things didn’t turn out far more serious.

Thamesdown Transport must feel like they’re going round in circles at times, even whilst sat in their own offices. One of their comments on the Swindon Central Area Action Plan got a less than helpful reply. (It’s on page 80 if you don’t believe me.)

Ref No

312 Thamesdown Transport

Objection summary

We would remind the Council that cross-town bus services provide some important links – eg to/from the Great Western Hospital – and need to be maintained in any review of town centre traffic management.

Response

Thamesdown Transport is responsible for the bus service within Swindon, and is currently consulting on a proposed new bus network for Swindon for implementation October 2007. Your comments have however been noted and will be forwarded on to Thamesdown Transport.

Next time you want to contact Swindon Borough Council, just try talking in front of a mirror instead.

No, I’m not talking about the Adver, nor anything local for once.

It’s not every day that one comes across extreme profanity in an academic journal published by a learned society. However, the Royal Society of Chemistry have managed it. An article published in the journal Chemical Communications repeats one of the least acceptable four-letter-words of the English language, many times. Many, many times. The Society have even put a photo including said word on their website (and just in case they get a little churlish later on, I’ve stored a screenshot here). Those that have a subscription or feel that £22 is a reasonable price for a little hilarity at a stuffy academic society’s expense will see that never before have thin-walled and thick-walled copper nanotubes (and their pretty young friend, Bismuth nanotubes) been abbreviated to such effect.

What’s puzzling is how this ever made it into print. One can imagine a western colleague of the Chinese team that wrote the article ‘helping’ his colleagues with their English, wondering just how far the joke would get before someone pointed out the unfortunate acronym… and being somewhat amazed when it went as far as it did. But what about the editors at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s publishing branch in Cambridge? Either not a very worldly wise bunch, or too consumed by their high-brow interests to notice what’s now so obvious.

I see that The Register got there first ten days ago, but still worth a little extra publicity, methinks.

It’s amazing how much effort some people put in to their Hallowe’en decorations. It’s certainly brightened the Railway Village for the last few days.

Earlier this summer, Westcott Place was re-surfaced. When a special high-visibility, high-grip road surface was aded at the site of the school crossing patrol near the entrance to Robert le Kyng School, I thought it might indicate that there was to be an upgrade to a proper pedestrian crossing, but that hasn’t happened. The re-surfacing work was completed, just in time for Westcott Place to serve as a diversionary route during the works on Kingshill. School term started. The crossing patrol did not resume. So now there are road markings to maybe hint that traffic should slow and give way and pavement marking to encourage children to cross here, but nothing to ensure that either actually happen.

You’d think that, if you were writing an article about an error in an earlier report, you would be very careful about proof reading it. At the Adver, apparently not. Was it volcanoes on Tuesday or tornadoes on Wednesday?

Excuse me for being slightly underwhelmed by the new name for the unitary authority that will replace the existing district and county councils in Wiltshire. The new name? Wiltshire Council. Wow! How original and distinctive.

Initially it had been recommended that the new council should retain the name of Wiltshire County Council but members were concerned the new authority needed a new identity. They agreed the name of Wiltshire Council

The newness and difference in identity is… stunning.

I’m not sure which I find more ridiculous: the leader of the New Mechanics Preservation Trust, bewailing the loss of some sarsen stones at Wharf Green, that were barely noticeable to most shoppers. (She does seem to have a fixation with large stones in parks.)

In trying to create new Swindon they are trashing old Swindon. I feel quite sad and disappointed this has happened. Apparently they were too heavy to move. They are a local material and they had tremendous presence. They could have been used in a car park or put in a park.

Or our council leader, eulogising on the return of the facade of the Baptist Tabernacle that will be nothing more than an out-of-place token gesture to the past in a modern development.

It is nice to see the stone back. I did see the stones all jumbled up in Northampton. But to see them here, sorted, in boxes, and being put into slots, has been quite a moment for me. Of course now it’s just a gigantic jigsaw puzzle for someone to start putting back together. I wanted to get the stone back because I thought it could be an important symbol in the regeneration of Swindon, but all along I have thought that to bring this off would be nothing short of a miracle.

Between them, they illustrate why the preservation of Swindon’s industrial past has fared so badly.