So, Brexit has happened. Remember the “Big Ben Bung a Bob for a Brexit Bong”? (Something like that.) Did you hear any bells? Well, that’s because it didn’t happen. The only thing Boris bonged was a gong, which completely ruined his attempts at any alliteration.
Here is a compilation of the idiocy (if you are taking part in the recording challenge, you might want to skip this bit) :-
Sticking with Brexit, a new 50p coin has caused a kerfuffle in the UK. It was struck to commemorate the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, but many people think it is a divisive move against the 48% of the population who wished to remain. But that’s not all, it is also inscribed with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”, which might seem to be something most people would agree with, however, many people are annoyed that it is grammatically incorrect, because of a missing comma.
Use of the Oxford comma would change it to “Peace, prosperity, and friendship with all nations”.
See? I keep telling you punctuation matters.
Let’s walk away from Brexit, and look at gender equality: There has been a call for men to stop talking about cricket and football at work, because it excludes women. Well, according to the head of Britain’s Chartered Management Institute, Ann Francke. She told the BBC, “It’s very easy for it to escalate from VAR (video assistant referee) talk and chat to slapping each other on the back and talking about their conquests at the weekend.
Personally, I think it might be better to tackle (pardon the pun) the glass ceiling and the gender pay gap, rather than assuming women aren’t capable of holding their own in a conversation about sport.
There was some bad news for the middle aged this week: According to a study, published by Bupa Health, ambition dies at the age of 33. The same study found that regardless of your age, motivation is still a struggle for most adults overall, with 50 per cent admitting it is “a battle”.
Seemingly the top 20 life goals to be achieved by 33 are: to save money, eat more healthily, exercise more, relax more, drink more water, go on holiday to a dream destination, be kinder to yourself, pay off debt and carry out a DIY project. Along with spending more time with family, drinking less, eating less meat, practising mindfulness, moving house, studying more, learning a new language, stopping smoking, and cycling or walking to work.
It sounds more like a list of my New Year resolutions.
There has been some progress made towards creating a fairer world this week, with Wales voting to ban smacking children. It joins Scotland and 27 other countries in banning corporal punishment. It is not all good news though; in a 2012 poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion, 63 per cent of Britons voiced opposition to banning parents in the UK from smacking their children. Sadly the law doesn’t come into force until 2022.
My thoughts on the matter is, if you aren’t big enough to smack any of these guys, you don’t smack a little kid.
And finally, according to a story in the Independent, an Oxford University professor, Charles Spence, has created a scratch and sniff patch infused with the smell of bacon to ‘help vegans cope with meat cravings’. The idea is that when a person who is wearing the patch scratches it, it produces a smell similar to that of cooked bacon in order to trick the mind.
Professor Spence said, “Studies have shown that scent can reduce food cravings”. Are you kidding me? Has he never seen a cartoon?
Sources
- The Guardian
- Business Insider
- The BBC
- The Independent