Trivial 999 emergency calls

Or for the benefit of US readers, trivial 911 emergency calls.

The 999 emergency phone number saves many lives every year, but unfortunately not everyone uses the service responsibly. For example, the Welsh Ambulance Service recently reported that they received 31,219 non-urgent calls in the last twelve months.

"What is the nature of your emergency..."

To highlight how irresponsible some people are, I've featured below a few examples of some of these non-urgent calls* which illustrate that in some cases people have phoned 999 for the most ridiculous reasons.

* These are taken from genuine calls received by various emergency services around the UK and the rest of world.

To turn things into a bit of a quiz though, I've also included one fake emergency call which I just made up, so have a read of the following trivial emergency calls and then scroll down the page to see if you can guess which one was the red herring...

10 cool internet Easter eggs (part 5)

Another batch of hidden internet surprises...

Real life Easter eggs...  Almost as cool as internet Easter eggs!

As an annual event I like to feature a selection of cool hidden Easter eggs found on the internet, and this year's round-up includes Easter eggs with themes such as monkeys, farts and a dastardly 'crime' captured on Google maps...

1) "Beam me up, Scotty!"

In previous round-ups I've featured a number of Star Wars related Easter eggs, but just so Star Trek fans don't feel left out, this first hidden Easter egg found on YouTube features a Star Trek theme.  It relates to the original series of Star Trek featuring characters such as Spock, Captain Kirk and Scotty, so younger readers may not understand it, but to unlock it simply go to YouTube and type 'Beam me up, Scotty!' into the YouTube search engine, and watch what happens to the videos brought up in the search results:
Beam me up, Scotty!

7 April Fools' Day pranks (2015 edition)

A few of this year's spoof April Fool's Day stories...

Last week I featured a spoof story involving a petty politician, and this week the internet was full of spoof stories, as Wednesday was April Fool's Day. Here are some of the April Fool's Day pranks that various companies, organisations and websites posted on the internet...

1) CATNAV

"Anything dogs can do, cats can do better..."

First up is an interesting new scheme launched by the Royal National Institute Of Blind People ... CATNAV! RNIB help many blind and partially sighted people with their trained guide dogs, and they now plan to expand by training cats to act as 'guide cats'.

An early pilot of the scheme suggests that CATNAV will be ideal for any blind or partially sighted people who want to climb trees or hide under cars.

RNIB introduces CATNAV

If you think our politicians are bad...

...then consider yourself lucky you don't live on the island Geojis Seom!

Drivers of red cars got on the wrong side
of Sijang Sasohan, Mayor of Geojis Seom.

It seems that nowadays politicians are forever in the news for things like false expenses claims, treason, and other assorted inappropriate behaviour, but they don't generally stoop to the level of childish pettiness shown by one politician who didn't take too kindly to a light-hearted newspaper report poking fun at him.

The mayor of Geojis Seom* has made the news before (admittedly, more so in Asia than in the rest of the world) due to some of his strange decisions as leader of the island prinicipality, but his most recent behaviour has to be his most petty decision yet.

* The disputed island territory a few hundred miles north east of Korea which several countries lay claim to.

Sijang got notably upset earlier this year at an official government press conference when he launched a tirade of abuse against the daily newspaper Jalang Simin (Proud Citizen). Jalang Simin published a light-hearted report mocking drivers of green cars, and as Sijang himself drives a green car it seems he didn't take too kindly to the article. In a subsequent fit of rage, Sijang tracked down the perhaps ill-advised journalist who wrote the article, discovered he drove a red car and then quickly introduced a new law giving green cars priority over red cars on all public roads.

True Or False: A few quotes

A part fiction, part non-fiction book by Charles Fudgemuffin

True Or False by Charles Fudgemuffin

'True Or False: A Light-Hearted Collection Of 100 Facts And Bluffs' by Charles Fudgemuffin is now available from Amazon, so to celebrate here are a few quotes from various reviews about the book which have so far been quite positive:


"True Or False by Charles Fudgemuffin will be remembered as one of the classic books of all time."
...The Basingstoke Literary Review


"This book will change the world and help create a better future for our children."
...The World Blueprint Report


Scroll down the page for more review quotes...

The wisdom of Albert Einstein

Happy birthday, Albert!

Albert Einstein, maker of dubious claims regarding fish.

It's Albert Einstein's birthday today, so in honour of his genius here's a nugget of wisdom from the great man himself:

“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Well first of all, Albert, in that case the fish would be right because fish are stupid. And secondly, if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it won’t think it's stupid at all, because fish lack the necessary level of intelligence to be aware that they are being judged.

So whatever you think of it, the fish would live its whole life thinking typical fish-like thoughts such as, ‘Oh, there’s that nasty big fish again. I’d better swim away before it eats me,’ and stuff like that. It certainly won't be thinking, ‘Oh, no! That dude thinks I’m stupid because I can’t climb trees. Sigh, he’s really undermined my self-confidence with his hurtful remarks.’

Cool sayings from around the world

Another slice of wisdom from the four corners of the planet.

Previously on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, I've focused on cool sayings from places like Sweden and Korea. This week I expand the net wider and feature a selection of cool quotes from all around the world.

An elephant, best eaten by the whole village,
according to the African saying.

1) "The best way to eat an elephant is to invite the whole village along."

As you can probably work out, this is an African saying* and it's promoting the merits of teamwork.  It basically means it's a lot easier to succeed when you work together than when you work on your own.

* You don't get many elephants in England.

2) "A Raisin in a sausage."

This is a Norwegian expression which refers to a nice surprise in something which was already enjoyable. Although it's not an exact match, the closest English expression would probably be 'the icing on the cake' which for the benefit of any Norwegian readers loosely translates as 'a raisin in a sausage.' It basically means 'the best part of something which was already excellent.'