Trivial pursuits

Started work yesterday, today I have a day off, that's the life. Well, Ok, not quite as utopian as it sounds. My normal working week will be Tuesday to Friday, but I had to swap days this week because of the training schedule.

So I'm catching up on some household tasks, which sounds boring, but there is interest in everything.
One of the ads on TV that has quite a yuck factor for me is one where a woman cleans her work surfaces and fridge using a chicken quarter. This is to illustrate that when people use ordinary household sponges and not special wipes impregnated with disinfectant, they might as well be using salmonella ridden meat.

Suddenly however, the ad is not only yucky, but also out-of-date. Kevin sent me this article last week in which scientists in Florida have determined that if you place your sponge in the microwave for two minutes you kill most of the microbes and general germs. They have also determined that if, when trying to broadcast the good news to householders everywhere, you forget to tell them to wet the sponge first, what you get is a home filled with the smell of burning tyre and a ruined sponge. Oops.

For some reason, I have not bought a washing-up bowl since I arrived. This was annoying me, so I decided to seek one out.
The first thing I discovered is that every shop here isn't bursting with said item of drudgery in every colour, shape and size. Au contraire. All we could find was one bowl in one colour and one shape and one size. And it wasn't even clear it was a washing-up bowl. Not that is until I used the failsafe I have developed. Look at the French. Yep, French said quite clearly, 'Cuvée à vaisselle'. English mentioned nothing to do with bowls or washing up.
Ok, so wasn't that the most boring story ever? Maybe. Until I noticed that when it had a small amount of water in the bottom and I turned the garburator on, the water formed regular criss-cross patterns in the bowl. I think I'm on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, one that I bet it turns out, someone else discovered three hundred odd years ago. Oh I love year one science.

Back to the advertising industry. The word 'healthy' is an adjective. I can eat healthy food, but I can't eat healthy. That would be healthily. Why do that advertisers think it is their job to lower standards? Damn them, damn them all to hell, they should be informing us, not making us dumber.

Meanwhile, more daft things in Florida, must be to do with the weather or David Carruso's bad line delivery or something. A woman who went to report that she had been raped, was jailed. It seems there had been some outstanding fine she was supposed to pay, so instead of dealing with all the after effects of the trauma she had suffered, yep, she was sent to prison.
Not funny at all, but it did remind me of an anecdote I recounted to Kevin and Laurence the other day.

A parent had come into the school where I was working and was generally being abusive and shouting the odds at the Headteacher because the school was doing something unreasonable like excluding her child for bullying another pupil.
The Head, never one for suffering abuse for longer than it took him to phone the local Constabulary, or get his PA to do so, summoned the local Plod who responded very enthusiastically to his request.
'Aha,' they said, 'we have an outstanding warrant for that lady's arrest, we'll be there toot sweet to take her off your hands and into our cells.'
And they were, and they did.