Prank ideas for April Fools Day

It's April Fools Day in a few days' time, so if you're looking for inspiration for pranks, here are a few ideas...

1) Hot stuff!

Anyone want to try an Egyptian strawberry?

"Try one. They're great!"

Murray Walker quotes (part 3)

A new formula 1 season starts this weekend as the teams and drivers head to Bahrain for the opening Grand Prix of the year. So to celebrate, this week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog rounds up a few more memorable quotes from legendary formula 1 commentator Murray Walker...

A formula 1 car, pictured decades ago.

1) "And there's a dry line appearing in the tunnel. Obvious really as it has a roof."



2) "And the first five places are filled by five different cars."



3) "That's the first time he had started from the front row in a Grand Prix, having done so in Canada earlier this year."

Paradoxes

This week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a light-hearted look at paradoxes, starting with Swiss cheese...

Swiss cheese.

1) The Swiss Cheese Paradox

Swiss cheese has lots of holes, so the more cheese you have, the more holes you have. However, the more holes you have, the less cheese you have.

So the more cheese you have, the less cheese you have!

2) The Arms Paradox

"If I was faced with a choice between having my arms removed and getting cystitis, I'd wave goodbye to my arms quite happily."
...Louise Wener

I think you might find that a bit hard, Louise.

Quirks of the English language (part 3)

I would imagine that English must be quite a tricky language to learn for foreign speakers, due to its many quirks and peculiarities. Here are a few more of those quirks...

A bomb about to go boom.

1) If tomb is pronounced 'toom', and womb is pronounced 'woom', then shouldn't bomb be pronounced 'boom'?



2) If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?



3) What is the only word in the English language that you can make shorter by adding two letters?
Short.

Cool website quizzes and tests

Several years ago, I wrote about the annoying quizzes which would pop up at the time in your facebook feed. The type which would tell you which Game Of Thrones character your friend was most like, which actor would play them in a movie of their life, or which industrial universal joint they were most like.

However, not all quizzes on the internet are annoying, and some of them can in fact be quite interesting. So this week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a look at a variety of quizzes, tests, and other data themed websites found on the web.

1) The 100 most common English words

Here are three clues, and also a red herring.
Can you guess which is which?

This is an interesting quiz where you have to guess the 100 most commonly used words in the English language. It starts off really easy as you go through most of the obvious common words, but as the clock ticks down it gradually gets more tricky as you try to think of the remaning words.

I guessed 72 of the 100 most common English words, but then at the end when it shows you the full list my reaction was, "How did I not get those!?" There aren't really any surprises in the list, but I suspect most people will probably miss quite a few really obvious words.

You can take the test at the link below:

The Idiot Awards (part 4)

The world is full of idiots, seemingly more so than ever nowadays, and here at the Charles Fudgemuffin blog we like to recognise those idiots for their outstanding acts of idiocy. With that in mind, here are five more examples that are thoroughly deserving of an Idiot Award.

1) Ill-advised architect

The first Idiot Award goes to the architect* who designed this bizarre building:

* Or team of architects.

It's a typically weird and flamboyant building that modern building designers seem quite keen on nowadays. However, imagine the following scenario...

How many days before vampires take over the world?

A vampire conundrum.

My latest book, Fly-Tipping, was published this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post is inspired by a question posed by one of the minor characters from the book:

"If a vampire drank the blood of one human per night, and every human he drank the blood of turned into a vampire who then subsequently also drank the blood of one human per night, how many days would it be before every person in the world was a vampire?”

Before I answer the question, here's a poll to see how many people get it right. Obviously I can't list every possible answer*, so instead I've grouped the answers into various ranges to make things a little easier.

* Well I suppose I could, but it would be a very long poll!