April Fools' Day pranks (2017 edition)

It's that time of year where I round up a selection of some of the April Fools' Day jokes that were found on the internet to celebrate April Fool's Day last week.

1) Russian hacking services

The award for the most unexpected April Fool's Day prank had to go to the Russian Foreign Ministry who posted their apparently updated answering machine message on their facebook page. The message advises callers:

As unbelievable as it seems,
facebook deleted the link,
but you can still read the transcript.

"You have reached the Russian embassy. Your call is very important to us. To arrange a call from a Russian diplomat to your political opponents, press 1. To use the services of Russian hackers, press 2. To request election interference press 3 and wait until the next election campaign."

For legal purposes, they add:

"Please note that all calls are recorded for quality improvement and training purposes."

You can listen to the prank answering machine message below:

Update: Sadly, in an extremely uncharacteristic move ** shifty eyes**, facebook have now deleted the prank answering machine message, so unfortunately you can't listen to it anymore. I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it!

Silly job titles (part 3)

"Would you like me to facilitate ketchup
on your mobile sustenance?"

I've mentioned before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog that modern society seems to have an increasing obsession for replacing straight forward traditional job titles with fancy long-winded descriptions.

I was reminded of this the other morning when I noticed a van parked outside our neighbours' house with the slogan...

'Height Safety Solutions'

Or in other words...

'Scaffolding'

On the face of it, 'height safety solutions' would seem a logical, if unnecessarily wordy, way to describe scaffolding.  However, surely the safest way to achieve height safety is to stay on the ground!

Anyway, once again it's time for another quiz based on confusing job titles, so see if you can guess what jobs the following list of jargon actually refers to. To start you off, the first job title may be familiar*...

'Many volcanoes erupt. Moldy jam sandwiches, unusually niffy. Phew!' and other mnemonics

The planet dwarf planet Pluto.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Last week I promised to explain what 'mnemonic' means, and any non-word nerds will most likely be disappointed to hear that I'm keeping that promise!

A mnemonic is actually a memory device or technique which helps you remember information.  For example...

"Many Volcanoes Erupt. Moldy Jam Sandwiches, Unusually Niffy. Phew!"

...is a mnemonic I learnt at school to help remember the order of the planets. The first letter of each word corresponds to the first letter of each of the planets, namely...

"Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto."

An alternative phonetic alphabet

As a Geordie, when I speak to people on the phone they often confuse my 'A's with my 'E's, so when spelling words verbally I often have to use the phonetic alphabet. The offical phonetic alphabet is very formal and efficient, but it's also quite boring, so just to confuse people, it's fun to use alternative words that sound like letters themselves, and say things like...

Gnomes

E for Eye  (E for I)
Y for You  (Y for U)
S for See  (S for C)
A for Aye  (A for I)
E for Ewe  (E for U)

It's also fun to confuse people altogether with silent letters and unusual pronunciations such as...

P for Pterodactyl
K for Knowledge
W for Wrinkle
P for Phonetic
G for Gnome

Here's an alternative phonetic alphabet (featuring misleadingly pronounced words) that me and a few work colleagues came up with during one of our breaks (and definitely not when we were supposed to be working).

Bread bun, bap, cob, scone, roll, barm or muffin?

Controversial questions: The bread debate.

On the Charles Fudgemuffin blog we're not afraid to tackle controversial issues, and so this week I take a look at a question which has divided many people and produced a variety of opinions.

It's a straight forward but controversial question. Take a look at the following photo and then answer a simple poll...

What is it?

Bun, bap, cob, scone, roll, barm or muffin?

10 unusual town names

This week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at towns and villages with weird names. The towns are from all around the world, and despite their unsual names, they're all real places.

Na na na na na na na na...

1) Batman

As well as being the alter ego of [spoiler alert] Bruce Wayne, Batman is also the name of a town in Turkey.

Amusingly, back in 2008 the mayor of Batman threatened to sue Warner Bros for not asking his permission to use the name Batman in the movie 'The Dark Knight'. I'm no expert on copyright law, but here are two facts which may explain why the mayor of Batman never actually went through with his legal threat...

* Batman first appeared in Detective Comics 27 published in May 1939.
* The town of Batman was previously called Iluh. It's name wasn't changed to Batman until the 1950s.

Random thoughts (part 3)

Here are a few more random thoughts on a variety of random subjects, including dentists, double glazing, and the secret to immortality.

"They're going for a walk without us again..."

1) How a dog sees the world...

When you go to work each morning, your dog probably thinks you're going for a walk on your own for eight hours.

2) Poor counting skills

A survey was recently carried out which asked people, "Who would you most like to run a three-legged race with?". Top of the list of answers was Holly Willoughby, which is a perfectly understandable choice. However, at number four on the list was, surprisingly, 'Ant and Dec'.

Ant and Dec?

In a three-legged race?

Maths must be different nowadays from when I was at school because back in my day that would have been a five-legged race.