Let’s start with some congrats this month.
Firstly to Bobby (boatyard) Cooper and Cheryl for the arrival of a daughter.
Word gets to me that if you whisper Lauren Elizabeth L. Cooper in Bobby’s shell-like he’ll dispel all rumours about Jock stinginess and buy you a beer!
Secondly the buzz on the quayside is that wedding bells are about to ring for Norman and Pam of M.Y. Qatar.
I do however worry about these whirlwind affairs amongst young crew don’t you?
Now then, cast your minds back a few years and you’ll remember Captn. Neville Hall-Reace (very posh for a Japie eh?) and ‘pearl’ Anne.
Well, to keep you up to date, they’ve finally tired of Fort Laughable, Florida and have upped sticks and moved back to Nev’s old country where they are opening a guesthouse in a small town called McGregor near Cape Town.
They tell me, being out in the lush countryside, it’s the ideal place for yachties to forget about the sea and chill out.
NevÕs still got his fixation for big motorbikes and will be organising rallies around that area on such bikes.
To get in touch by email- nevofmcgregor@yahoo.com
Traffic too much for you in Palma? Thought I’d remind you that if you park your car in the Parc de Mar car park they have a number of bicycles to lend out to parkers to pedal around Palma.
Forget the drug scandals, (24 drug violations, including the aptly named Hungarian hammer thrower, Adrian Annus) and the drunk, defrocked Irish priest buggering up the men’s marathon in Athens, did you hear about the winner of one event that ain’t gonna get any medals?
Apparently a couple of bored Olympic security guards decided to while-away their time playing Russian roulette; yes you guessed one blew out the little brain he had!
Whilst gangs of Eastern block criminals use high-tech methods to clone cash cards you can trust the Paddies to come up with more basic methods. There has been a spate of incidents where robbers have used a mechanical digger to rip entire cash machines from the walls of banks, to be sure, to be sure, no doubt.
Now, I say Amen to this!
A bar chain fed up with how long women spend in the toilets plans to install cubicle doors that spring open exactly 60 seconds after they shut in a scheme to flush out timewasters.
Bar group Brannigans is to trial the system - called ´Bog Off´ - after customer research found that the queue for the ladies was the most complained about aspect of a night out in its bars.
The self-release mechanism is designed to stop gossiping female customers hogging the loos.
If the initial trial is a success, it is hoped to extend the project throughout the 15-strong chain by Christmas. Men, it seems, take only as long as is necessary in the toilets.
In a poll of women´s opinion of this plan by the London Evening Standard 67% said it was a ridiculous plan; seems to me like asking lunatics how to run an asylum!
Perhaps the "penny has finally dropped" for the small (minded) shopkeepers of Palma. How many times have you almost been shooed out of a shop at "lunch time closing"? PIMEM, the small shopkeeper’s association, have suggested that perhaps they should stay open when the clients want to shop- in the middle of the day and on Saturdays, when they clients are not at work.
Instead of trying to stop the larger shops opening long hours they have perhaps realised the old saying that ´the customer is always right´?
Which brings me rather neatly, if you don´t mind me saying, to my next topic where I am led to understand that anyone entering Greece these days is given a price list of everyday items to counter profiteering from local traders- what a spiffingly good idea- can you think of another holiday destination (not a million miles from here) where that might be a good idea?
Good old ´auntie´ BBC set up a comments site on the web regarding the recent devastating 145 mph hurricanes that swept through Florida. The site asked, "Hurricane Charley. Are you affected?" One reply was,
"I had to shut down my hair salon for the week. I am losing money by the day. The humidity is not good for people´s hair either. It makes me want to cry"! H. N. Miami, FL.
Only in America!
And, in the fatherland, a court has ruled that Germans are allowed to stick their tongues out in passport photos overturning a decision by officials in Arnsberg who refused to accept a picture of Alexander Mechthold with his tongue poking out.
I can’t help but feel sorry for the chap in the UK who shot his testicles off with his own shotgun and now faces a mandatory five-year sentence for possession of a firearm.I rather hope that he gets off the charge; if I were the judge I’d give him a damned good bollocking and send him on his way! Rough justice, but probably effective- six youngsters caught riding their motorbikes without helmets were made to watch as a dying motorcyclist was attended to by ambulance teams in Madrid recently. While at the scene of the accident in which a motorcyclist crashed, police officers caught the six youths riding by with no helmets.
After fining them, the officers kept them to watch as the ambulance team tried to save the life of the accident victim, in order for them to understand the dangers of riding without a helmet. The man, died shortly afterwards in hospital.
It was the former UK prime minister, Aneurin Bevan who said, “I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction"
With this thought in mind I offer you a comment from a yacht broker. "Their (Daily Bulletin) front page story on the arrival, at Mallorca of Brad Pitt´s new yacht, Kalizma was full of crap. I should know because I am the agent handling the sale and I can absolutely attest to the fact that it isn´t so. I even rang the news desk to tell them they were out of order and although they promised a Bulletin journalist (surely an oxymoron in their case) to call back but never did. This story came out about 3 weeks ago in the UK press and I even called BP´s agent in LA to let them know what was going on and they were mystified about the story and not a little PO´d that so much duff press was going about."
According to a recent report by the ministry of work and social affairs 47% of Spaniards say that to punish a child physically is sometimes necessary, and many women, in particular, are quick to use the open hand.
Why therefore do I have to be in the same supermarket queue as the other 53% where there is inevitably a little snivelling git screaming and shouting because mum refuses to buy any sweeties? Call me unsociable but I´d garrotte and disembowel them in the gutter outside, quarter them and bury the bits in different parts of the island! Whilst I´m in this good mood the same treatment should be metered out for women who don´t bag their shopping as it´s going through the till and then take an age to find their purse AND then realise they don´t have enough money AND so have to go through their purchases to eliminate items. Retail therapy?
Bonking Balearics?
A new survey by the National Statistics Institute has revealed that more than half, 55%, of Spanish women have only had sexual relations with one person. The number of men making a similar claim is half - 24%..
Some 21% of men claimed to have had ten or more partners, a claim only matched by 4% of women. The regions of Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura and Andalucia claim to be the most faithful, while the Balearic islands are most promiscuous.
If we need any more proof of the madness of Islamic radicals and their danger they have launched a new magazine publication on the internet especially for women.
The aim of the magazine is to show women how to reconcile the apparent contradiction of fighting jihad while maintaining family life.
Some take a somewhat patronising attitude, dwelling on supposed female weaknesses that must be overcome in the cause of jihad - such as over-dependence on home comforts like TV and air conditioning.
A section on current affairs also devotes some space to an attack on the recent development of having women presenters on Saudi TV, suggesting it is a kind of prostitution.
But get this; one of its encouragements to jihad reads: "The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are our sacrificial offering."
What can you do with people who think like this?
Life has been short for the one and two euro cent coins launched with such fanfare less than three years ago. The stubborn Finns abandoned the almost worthless coins at the outset in January 2002, complaining that it was not worth the trouble of minting and distributing them.
The Dutch are now following suit: the Dutch authorities have ordered shopkeepers to round prices to the nearest five cents from September 1 - either up or down depending on which is closest.
Sounds OK but look out for crazy "rounding up" if it´s introduced here.
Judging by the "creative accountancy" during the transition from Pesetas to Euros look out for Catalan maths they are different! The phrase, "Waiter there´s a fly in my soup" somewhat pales into insignificance by the story of a woman who found a part of a finger (complete with nail) in her take-away beet-root salad from a New York bistro. She´s claiming 3 million dollars for negligence; not a figure to thumb your nose at perhaps!
Here’s a quickie:
The Rabbi was not happy with the constant noisy disturbances he was having during his sermons so he decided to call on old Abe to help him solve the ´coughing problem´.
Comes the next Sabbath morning, the Rabbi gave old Abe a bowl of cough drops and instructions to give a cough drop to any congregation member who was coughing.
So following his Rabbi´s orders, every time a member coughed, the Rabbi could see old Abe giving them a cough drop and then strangely seeing the member leaving the synagogue during the sermon.
At the end of the service, half of the members were gone.
After services the Rabbi called old Abe at home and asked him what he had said to the members that made them leave.
Old Abe says, "So vat did I say? ...All that I said wuz, the Rabbi says, ´For Cough!”