Weird headlines (with a corona virus theme)

The corona virus produced a number of weird headlines during its peak. Here are some of the weirdest, and for every headline, I've provided a link for proof.

1) German cafe reopens but makes customers wear pool noodles on their heads

This one had me giggling away to myself at how utterly crazy it would be to sit in the cafe pretending everything's normal when everyone has got these stupid foam noodles on their heads!

If it was me, I would be laughing too much to eat my food. Judging by the people in the photo though, they seem to be fine with it.

I think it would be pretty cool to carry on this tradition once the corona virus is over, just for the pure comedy value of sitting in a cafe eating your food with brightly coloured foam noodles on your head!

Headline: German cafe makes customers wear pool noodles on their heads

Name fits job (part 2)

A topic I've featured before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog is the subject of aptronyms, and as regular Charles Fudgemuffin readers may remember, an aptronym is a 'name which is appropriate for its owner'.*

* Or if you're clever, you might have known that anyway, even if you don't read the Charles Fudgemuffin blog!

Anyway, there are many more people in the world who have names which fit their jobs, so here's another round-up of aptronyms...

"Say cheese fromage!"

1) Mr Fromage the French cheese maker

Bruno Fromage was the former Managing Director of Danone, a food company that makes cheese and other dairy products!

To make Mr Fromage's name even more appropriate, Danone are a French company!

Have you never ... ?

Previously on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I've advised readers to never trust the polls. However, this week I'm going to be a hypocrite, as I take a look at polls investigating various things that people have never done.

The following statistics and are collected from various surveys, research and studies*, and reveal the percentage of people that have never done certain activities!

Even adults can climb trees!

* Conducted by Resolution Foundation, Honest Organic study, Ofice for National Statistics, Kayak, Ginger Research, Iceland, O2, You Gov and others.

1) Never climbed a tree = 67%

Incredibly, two thirds of adults have never climbed a tree! Wow! They don't know what they're missing!

Obviously I don't climb trees nowadays, because I'm old and boring, but when I was young I used to frequently climb trees, and I kind of assumed it was just part of being a kid. If you ask me, anyone who didn't climb a tree as a child had a deprived childhood.

Things that unintentionally made me laugh (part 2: How to survive an ice age)

I recently watched a very amusing TV show which I felt deserved credit for how much it unintentionally made me laugh. The show in question is Snowpiercer, so here's a short summary of the plot:

"Oh no! There's an ice age. What shall we do?"
"I know! Let's build a train!"

Scientists try to save the world, but it turns out they're clueless muppets and they end up making an ice age by mistake. So to survive, mankind decides to build a train that goes round and round the world.

You know, as you do when there's an ice age!

I imagine the planning stage, when faced with this ice age, went something like this:

Create your own calendar wallpaper!

A new year is here and with a new year comes traditions such as making new year resolutions (in England), eating twelve grapes (in Spain), or throwing water on everybody (in Thailand). Of course, wherever you are, a new year is also the perfect occasion to create your own calendar wallpaper for your computer!

There's a great website called Calendar Labs which lets you create your own calendar wallpapers, and they do most of the work for you. You simply upload your photo, then select a few options, such as the month, where you want the calendar positioned, and wallpaper size, then click 'create wallpaper' and it resizes your photo and adds a monthly calendar.

If you're feeling lazy, I suppose you could use the same photo for every month, and quickly churn out twelve almost identical calendar wallpapers for every month of the year. Or if you prefer variety, and if you're not lazy, it only takes a few minutes to upload a different photo for each month.

Here's a set of monthly calendars that I made using some of the covers from my books and short stories...

January:

January's calendar is based on the cover to my scifi short story, The Darkness And The Light, which is set on a planet where each day lasts for the equivalent of one hundred and twenty four Earth years. As you can imagine, this leads to fluctuating valuations within the property market.

The Darkness And The Light