Because women aren't allowed to.
Greecing the wheels of economic recovery
You know me: I like to think outside the box. So try this one on for size. Compare and contrast:
BBC: Greece bailout: Large protests expected against cuts
Greece is braced for large protests against further budget cuts, following a 130bn-euro (£110bn; $170bn) bailout deal aimed at avoiding bankruptcy.
BBC: UK public finances in biggest surplus for four years
The government received more money than it spent in January leaving it with its highest monthly surplus in four years.
In summary, Greece is utterly broke, and we have money going spare. So here's my modest proposal…
We put in a reasonable offer to the Greeks for the Parthenon, dismantle it, ship it over to London, reassemble it in the British Museum's fancy new atrium, and re-attach the Elgin Marbles.
Everyone is happy. It's a win-win-win-win-win situation:
- the Greeks get some much-needed money;
- the Elgin Marbles are returned to the Parthenon (the Greeks have been banging on about that for years);
- the Parthenon is finally protected from acid rain by being placed indoors;
- we get a new tourist attraction;
- the British Museum frees up an entire gallery, thereby enabling it to display yet more plundered treasure.
Sometimes, I impress even myself. I bet even Prof. Alice Roberts would have struggled to come up with that one.
I'm a one-man think-tank, me.
Gruts in a nutshell
I've just been analysing the 11,270 different Google search-strings that pointed visitors towards Gruts in the last 30 days. They make fascinating reading. Top of the list, obviously, comes ‘Alice Roberts’, whom, before her recent promotion to professor, I wisely tipped to lead Italy. Those idiot Italians must be kicking themselves for not snapping her up when they had the chance!
Far more illuminating reading, however, are some of the more unusual search requests which brought punters flocking this way. Here is a small selection:
- gay dog
- george clooney look alike
- bored shitless
- difference between kidney and liver
- spoops
- heart sausage
- dick biscuit
- mnmn
- run over cat
- monk fight
- albatross hat
- dead as a doorknob
- fire breathing rubber duckies
- pee too much
- porpoise cake
- scary duck
- rate my stump
- holding on to something that isn't there
- owl communications
- what is ectoplasm
- you say france and i whistle angry men
- fat man waving
- perfect pubes
- is fent a word
- ginger tits
- freddie mercury vacuum
- she poo dogs
- bare botty
- anonymous helmet
- nudist beauty pagents
- evolution of genitals
- coat hangers
- my nurse uniform
Yes, I think that sums up Gruts pretty well.
Going native
Yesterday, talking with Jen, and without a hint of irony, I referred to two young women we had seen the previous evening as lasses. I didn't even notice I had done it. It was Jen who pointed it out. She was highly amused.
Over ten years, I've lived in Yorkshire, and it's finally starting to rub off. I'll be rubbing cold lard on tut whippet next, mark my words.
'appen.
On yer bloody bikes!
BBC: Drought declared in south-east England
… [Environment Secretary] Ms Spelman said she wanted water companies to look at the possibility of connecting pipe networks so they could transfer water from wetter parts of the country.
For the record, the South of England isn't the only place with low water levels at the moment.
The importance of punctuation
Telegraph: Rupert Murdoch: arrested Sun journalists can return to work
This means a different thing entirely to:
Telegraph: Rupert Murdoch arrested; Sun journalists can return to work
(Unfortunately.)
Not from round these parts
Chaos reigned in Hebden Bridge yesterday morning, as the main shopping street was closed to traffic on market day to allow Yorkshire Bank to film a TV advertisement:
… That would be the same Yorkshire Bank that closed its Hebden Bridge branch a couple of years back.
Totalitarian secularists? Really?!
Telegraph: Britain being overtaken by 'militant secularists', says Baroness Warsi
British society is under threat from the rising tide of “militant secularisation” reminiscent of “totalitarian regimes”, a Cabinet minister will warn on Tuesday.
No.
These so-called militant secularists merely wish to remove all religious influence from official public life. This is a principle which seems to work reasonably well in other countries, such as the United States of America and France—neither of which, as far as I can see, are reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. Secularism is all about equality.
Secularists do not want to ban religion. What people get up to in their own private lives is up to them. Secularists merely think that it is wrong for the state to treat somebody specially on account of their religion—or absence of religion. For example, in Britain we allow children to be segregated into different state-funded schools on account of the professed faith of their parents. Secularists think this is wrong. Were children so segregated on account of the colour of their skin, it would rightly be called apartheid.
A totalitarian regime, on the other hand, to quote Wikipedia, recogni[s]es no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible (my emphasis added). Totalitarian regimes—like many religions—try to control what you get up to in private.
A totalitarian secularist regime is a contradiction in terms.
Random nonsense
The unobservant amongst you will not have noticed that I have just added an option entitled Random to the menu at the top of each page. Clicking this will take you to a random post from the extensive Gruts archive.
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Guardian: What's with all the 'quotation marks'? - in pictures
The inappropriate use of quotation marks seems to be on the rise, but one noble blog – Smosh.com – has started naming and shaming these crimes against grammar and common sense. Please, 'enjoy' our selection of inadvertently hilarious signs, notices and labels – and try not to think too hard about what it all means.
I have to say, one photo in particular made stuff come out of my nose:
