Tag: Michael Winner

7 Reasons to Send a Christmas Card

1. Self promotion. Every year, Michael Winner sends out a Christmas card that promotes him, his books and his television show. He’ll send it to any of the readers of his Winner’s Dinners column in the Sunday Times who send him their address. Would you want Michael Winner to have your address? What if he came to visit? What if he told you to “calm down, dear”? The best case scenario is that you’ll get something with a picture of Michael Winner on it. Repeatedly having your middle-toe hit with a hammer is a better case scenario than that.

2. Comedy. If you send a Christmas card without a stamp on, your friend may be forced to go miles to his local post office to pay for the postage. When he phones up to complain, you can tell him that you’ll reimburse him for the amount he was charged, and send him a cheque in an envelope without a stamp on it, forcing him to go back to the post office and pay the excess postage once more. This actually happened to a friend of mine. I was the culprit. The following year I sent him a CD in a box large enough to accommodate an average-sized refrigerator, knowing he would be out at the time of delivery, forcing him to go back to the post office once more. I am a bad man.

3. Cheque. You might want to send a cheque as a Christmas present, and what better place to put it than inside a Christmas card? As you slide the cheque into the card, you can imagine the recipient’s beaming face as they gratefully receive their gift. Obviously, this is not what happens in the real world. The standard reaction to receiving a cheque is to stare at it blankly for several seconds before exclaiming “A cheque! What is this, the dark ages?” The recipient, used to the wonder that is internet banking, will have to go into town and trudge round for ages, attempting to find a branch of their bank that hasn’t closed down. It will probably rain on them while they’re doing this. They will be cold, they will be wet, they will be tired, they will complain about the experience on the internet. They will not be grateful.

4. Handwriting. A Christmas card is your annual opportunity to handwrite something. It’s surprising how hard it is when you’re out of practice, and it’s surprising how tired your hand gets. My cards look like they were written by a messy child when I start them, and a messy child’s dog by the time I finish.

5. Newsletter. Unbelievably, there are people out there who don’t have blogs. These people will sometimes try to impart a whole years worth of family news in a newsletter contained within the Christmas card. These soporific missives usually contain tedious accounts of the summer holiday in Bermuda, Trevor’s hectic year at the office (who knew there was so much to write about human resources?) and Melanie’s second year at Bath (minus all of the interesting bits, as she hasn’t passed those on to her parents). You can send your own newsletter in a card too, containing your description of how you invented the iPob (a portable device to store and play classic children’s television programmes), a torrid account of your affair with Jennifer Aniston and some pictures from your holiday on the moon. You can write anything you want in a newsletter, no one reads them.

6. Protest. When you send a Christmas card you can use a special Christmas stamp without a picture of the Queen on it. Replacing The Queen with a reindeer is one in the eye for the oppressive monarchical hierarchy, and it would also give Prince Philip somewhere to hang his hat.

7. It’s nice. Obviously there are some sad, lonely people out there who might not expect to receive any Christmas cards. It’s not nice to think of anyone not receiving a card so it’s heartening to remember that Jan Moir can actually go out and post a Christmas card to herself.

December 21, 2009
7 Reasons to Hate Pigeons

1. Impudence. Pigeons poo on statues. This is disrespectful. They poo on Churchill, they poo on Nelson, they poo on Eros. Pigeons poo on all of the nice statues of people and gods that we like. Pigeons don’t poo on statues of Michael Winner or Margaret Thatcher. This may be because we don’t have any, but if we did, pigeons probably wouldn’t poo on them, because pigeons are horrid and annoying.

2. Freeloading. We regularly hear stories (some of us have even witnessed this) of pigeons using London Underground trains to get across London. Do they pay for this? No. These sponging vermin are using our transport system at our expense. They didn’t help build it and they don’t contribute anything to its maintenance or running costs. I have to carry an Oyster Card, so should they. Let’s staple Oyster Cards to them.

3. Imagery. Pigeons are oft described as “winged rats.” That’s “rats,” terrifying pointy-faced, sharp-toothed creatures. That’s “winged,” which is one of the scariest words in the English language when pronounced as a word of two syllables, “wing-ed.” “Wing-ed rats.” It makes me shudder.

4. Idiots. Pigeons attract idiots. Look at this American woman in the Piazza San Marco, Venice. She’s in one of the most beautiful parts of one of the world’s loveliest cities and she’s fascinated by the pigeons. She’s clearly an idiot. She could be looking at the Basilica, she could be looking at the Doge’s Palace, she could be looking at the Procuratie Vecchie but no, she’s looking at pigeons. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bloody pigeon-woman.

5. War. Pigeon excrement was the only known source of saltpetre (potassium nitrate) in 16^th century England. Saltpetre is an essential ingredient in gunpowder, so if your Tudor house was damaged by canon-balls or if your copotain hat was knocked from your head by musket-shot five-hundred years ago, you can blame pigeons.

6. Emasculation. Wood pigeons are the larger, nobler cousins of the urban pigeon. Historically these creatures, with their quite pleasant and distinctive call, have been content to live in trees far away from people (who do not live in trees). Recently though, a pair of these creatures have moved in near to a house belonging to a friend of mine. Their favourite game is to poo on the love of his life (his shiny, expensive German car) and then to sit on his garden fence cooing at him. They do this every day. Not unnaturally, this makes him very cross. If he could get hold of them, he would probably tear their heads off in a murderous rage, but every time he approaches, they casually retreat to a safe distance and continue taunting him. It is because of this that he is now known as The Pigeons’ Bitch. And because of me, obviously. He should never have told me.

7. Profiteering. The use of a fleet of trained carrier pigeons was instrumental in the allowing the Rothschild banking family to make vast fortunes during the Napoleonic wars. They were able to manipulate financial markets for their own gain, based on having exclusive access to early information about the results of battles. Pigeons filled the bankers’ wallet (the Reverend Spooner himself would have been proud of that one, and astonished by the mental image).

December 11, 2009
7 Reasons to use Photoshop

1. Spots. As surely as crumpets will land butter side down or jam will spill on your new tie, it is inevitable that on the morning you’re attending a wedding, you’ll wake up with a spot on your face. This always happens. The size and prominence of the spot is governed by the importance of your role at the wedding, ranging from a minor blemish (your second cousin’s wedding) through a noticeable carbuncle (your brother’s wedding), all the way up to a puss-filled second head (your own wedding). While there’s nothing you can do about the spot on the day, you can erase all record of it using Photoshop (fortunately).

2. Vanity. A recent survey discovered that 100% of internet humourists use Photoshop to adjust their eye colour.

3. Laughter. This picture is very funny, but Photoshop makes it hilarious.

These people made it

4. Revenge. Ever wanted to exact revenge upon someone for making fun of your spot at a wedding? With Photoshop you can. We have already seen that you can remove a spot from your face with Photoshop, you can also use it to move that spot to someone else’s face, and make it bigger and redder. You can put it on your tormentor’s face as many times as you like. She will then call you a “poo-head” and not speak to you for three days, in my experience.

5. Protest. Protestors often hold up really dull placards. You can use Photoshop to make them more interesting. I tried to do something about the stripy top too, but my computer melted.

6. Deception.The University of Wisconsin couldn’t find any group shots containing any black students so they just photoshopped one in (badly). If they hadn’t been sued by Diallo Shabazz (the photoshopped student), who knows what they might have done next. Removing stairs from pictures to demonstrate their wheelchair access perhaps, or removing images of staff pointing at tall buildings and aeroplanes, to make themselves appear a little more sophisticated.

7. Celebrities. Don’t you hate it when friends bump into Dan Akroyd at the train station and keep showing you the photo? With the aid of Photoshop, you can stop them, by manufacturing a picture of you having tea with the Dalai Lama or going for a jog with Ted Danson. Also, if you should ever bump into Michael Winner, you can remove him from any photographs.

December 3, 2009