Honestly, same-sex marriage rights are wasted on some people.

Two Canadian brides had the nerve to criticise and insult a guest for their choice of wedding present (a food hamper).

The Daily Mail kindly provided a picture of the offending hamper:

Now, it does look a bit cheap for a wedding (I would expect pretty jars, not sweets and crisp packets) but this is Canada. They don’t have Harrods or Fortnum and Mason’s there, poor lambs. Not the point though – you don’t complain about a gift!! And you certainly don’t ask for a lot of money instead!!!

Those bints are “of Italian and Croatian descent” apparently and say things like “I’m European and in my culture blah blah blah”, which real Europeans would never say since ‘European’ is not a nationality and there are dozens of wildly different cultures within Europe. That kind of crap annoys me more than anything. You want Italian or Croatian wedding gifts, go have your gay wedding there!

Oh wait… you can’t. Duh.

As for the mysterious gluten intolerance that comes and goes when it’s convenient to the ‘sufferer’ and allows them to be massively rude to others, all I can say is I’ve been there, only with asthma instead. As somebody once said, you want sympathy? It’s in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

I don’t think anyone can ever top this.

Seriously, don’t even try. Especially you, women.

So, scientists have finally discovered something I’ve known since I was a teenager (from being on the receiving end of it): men are seen as more attractive by women if they play (or are merely seen carrying) a guitar, but this doesn’t work the other way around.

And the reason for it is obvious: most women are impressed by a guy who can do something they can’t, especially something artistic, but most men resent it if a girl can do something they can’t. After all, how can they hope to impress her now?

And if the guitar-playing girl isn’t the one they’re interested in, it’s even worse: she’s attracting attention that belongs to them!

The funny thing is, even male musicians react that way if (female) you brought your instrument to the party and they didn’t. Before you know it, they ask to borrow it… and don’t give it back. Within seconds, girls who showed zero interest when you were playing start flocking around them as if by magic. And when you try to get your guitar back after a solid 45 minutes of horrible jazz (yeah, they always play jazz. I hate jazz), it’s the girls who give you the stink eye and/or complain loudly that you’re interrupting the wonderful concert! Some of those girls have been known to include your best friend!

(… and breathe)

Plus, the guitar mystique only works on a man, really. A woman with a guitar just looks awkward, probably because she knows she doesn’t look sexy. Look at the top pic in that article, no girl could carry that off. When I was young and going to music lessons, I just felt embarrassed lugging that huge guitar case around. I’m sure a boy would have burst with pride.

Women on the other hand look good playing the piano. It’s posh, it’s elegant, it’s refined. It’s just not cool.

There’s also the harp. Now that is a quintessentially female instrument. Very, very few harpists are male, but then that’s probably because you can’t nonchalantly sling a harp over your shoulder and go off to be the life and soul of the campfire.

I am being reliably informed by an actual man that a girl holding a violin or cello does look sexy. Yup, until she starts playing it. The violin gives you a double chin and the cello… well, the legs akimbo playing position is hardly the prettiest, is it?

Interestingly, when looking for pictures of women playing the piano, I found quite a few showing a woman tickling the ivories whilst a man stares at her in admiration. Search for pics of a woman playing the guitar, however, and the male admirers suddenly disappear. Also, half of the girls in the more arty pics are clearly just holding the instrument and couldn’t play a note to save their lives. Pfft.

I’m afraid I can’t take much credit for this one. I don’t brew much anymore (stupid work getting in the way) and I’m crap at duelling as my cordless mouse is a bit sluggish. Still, yay us!

Those who can’t create, destroy

I don’t usually believe in ignoring the law but that little cabin is on private land in the middle of nowhere, was built out of natural materials and doesn’t even have any foundations! It’s basically a shed (albeit a very pretty one).

I just hope they’re not planning on baking triangular flapjacks in there, or the world would surely end.

Councils just hate it when people show self-sufficiency, don’t they? If this couple had asked for planning permission, it would have been refused for some flimsy reason (harmful to the ‘rural character of the locality’?! ‘Not essential to provide accommodation for an agricultural or forestry worker’?!). So why bother?

From the comments: “If this house is torn down I hope the council are going to provide this family with alternate housing because they will have made them homeless.”

Too right. So the council wants to feel needed, does it? Well, now’s the time to deliver – and that council house had better be a lot nicer than this one. Good luck with that.

What is this? No, seriously, what is this?

Wisdom, huh? This tragic crap makes a Hallmark greeting card sound like Schopenhauer.

Some of those gems are unintentionally funny though. This one should really be sung to a disco beat by a man in drag. And I had to smile at that one… I, too, used to love Chumbawamba.

#Oh Danny boy, Danny boy, Danny boy…#

What? I’m random! And crazy!

Clue: it’s cold, it’s liquid and there isn’t much of it. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

YES! That’s right, my problem is with the tiny, usually half-filled, mockery-of-a-refreshment glass of orange juice one always gets as part of a hotel continental breakfast. And you can’t generally ask for a refill either, unlike with tea or coffee. No provision is ever made for those of us who don’t like hot beverages but need to drink at least two decently-sized glasses of something cold in order to be able to eat.

Considering the juice is usually straight out of a cheapo carton anyway – I can tell from the slightly uriney taste – I’m not sure why they’re so miserly with it. Yes, it costs more than tea or coffee but we’re hardly talking Tropicana prices.

I can still remember those dreadful breakfasts when I was young, at guide camp or on any kind of school outing, where all I had to drink was water as the only two options were café au lait or hot chocolate. It was stomach-turning but since there was nothing else to drink I didn’t have much of a choice. Not a good way to start the day. On top of that, I had to put up with everyone staring at me as if I were an alien (not liking hot drinks makes you a pariah everywhere you go). Sigh.

So now I bring my own juice to B&Bs and have a nice swig in the room before coming down to breakfast – and the only reason I bother having breakfast is because it’s already paid for. In hotels I skip the overpriced breakfast altogether (and why is it served so early anyway? I’m on holiday, dammit! But that is another rant for another day).

…but it’s not a SpongeBob SquarePants soft toy, more’s the pity.

Baby On Board signs cause accidents

Well stop selling the damn things then. I loathe them; they are huge, hideous, smug, useless and create blind spots for drivers.

That woman is talking out of her bottom by the way:

‘Baby On Board’ signs are useful in alerting the emergency services that a child may be involved in the event of a crash,” said Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive of the charity, Brake.

Rubbish. Emergency services regularly deny that they even look at the things as they are trained to search for children regardless. How many parents bother to remove the carbuncle when their kid isn’t in the car anyway? None. The ones who said they did in the article are almost certainly lying. Why would they remove them? They’re still ***A PARENT*** and that’s what needs to be advertised to the world, isn’t it? As for other drivers being extra careful around their oh-so-precious offspring, honestly, who gives a shit? My life is precious too but who’s being extra careful around me?

The very fact that Loud Chav (one of our less savoury neighbours) who yells at and insults his wife in front of their little girl on a regular basis has a “Little Princess On Board” sign in his car tells me all I need to know about what kind of parent he is.

The things are novelty items, full stop. It’s rather ridiculous that a charity is peddling an urban myth, although my cynicism towards charities and their self-serving ways increases by the day.