Words About Things

A teenage girl in New Zealand is recovering after being hit by a car whilst flashing her breasts at passing motorists. The driver of the car was distracted by the sight of Cherelle Dudfield’s breasts and accidentally plowed into her.  Ms Dudfield was fined $275 after the incident in Invercargill.

“I was stupid… Don’t get drunk and stand in the middle of the road and flash anyone ’cause it hurts when you get hit,”

The girl told the police that her friends had encouraged her to flash herself to oncoming motorists but she regretted her actions. After rolling over the bonnet of the car she hit the windshield and was lucky to escape serious injury. The Judge charged Ms Dudfield with ‘disorderly behavior’ and encouraged her to keep her attention grabbing breasts undercover.

Having run out of ideas completely I have decided to write the least original blog post ever…welcome to the 10 worst things about the years 2000 – 2009! (excluding war, terrorism and household appliances).

1. The ‘noughties’

Worst name for a decade ever (so far).

2. Piers Morgan

A vile man with all the personality of a dead badger (see also: Nick Griffin, Jeremy Clarkson)

3. Crocs

Special shoes for special people. You don’t even have to wear shoes, trainers will do or anything that doesn’t make you look like a hospital cleaner.

4. Kate Nash

Annoying, ginger, mockney excuse for a singer. “I hate seagulls and I hate being sick. I hate burning my finger on the toaster and I hate nits.” = music for the mespace generation.

5. Ugg Boots

Proof that girls only care about what other girls think and couldn’t give a monkeys about what men think.

6. Bands getting back together

If you haven’t spoken to each other or made any music for 10 years then you should call your tour the ‘Cashing in before we’re too old tour’.

7. blogs

There are now more blogs than there are people with more than 1 brain cell which explains rubbish posts like this.

8. The ‘Credit Crunch’

The most patronizing bit of dumbing down ever, because people couldn’t possibly understand a word a long and complicated as ‘Recession’.

9. Reality TV

People like to complain about reality TV but we only get what we deserve. If people didn’t watch it they wouldn’t continue to make it.

10. Your mum joining Facebook

A baby seal has been discovered in a garden in kent, 18 miles from the sea. It was found rolling around in the snow by Harriet Dwyer after swimming up the river Rother, which meets the English Channel at Rye. Harriet told her father who thought that perhaps she had been at the mulled wine.

“My daughter was out with our dog Jack in the snow when she came in and said ‘There’s a seal in the garden’. I said ‘No, it must be an otter’. We all went out and under the hedge was a seal looking quite chirpy and slithering around in the snow.”

”I went back indoors and rang the RSPCA and police. The seal made its way across the garden into the pond, where it sat happily staring out of the pond in an enchanting way with its eyes just above the water.”

The RSPCA took the young pup to the Mallydams Wood Wildlife Centre in Hastings and named him Gulliver. The seal had a tag indicating that he was from a rehabilitation centre at Ostend, Belgium.

A lot of time and effort is spent trying to work out how and why we buy in order to get us to part with as much money as possible. They layout in your local supermarket is clearly not haphazard and it’s no coincidence that the sweets and magazines are next to the till. Our decision making patterns are observed and tested so that we can be convinced not only to spend but to spend more often. Ideally (for those doing the selling) we will leave thinking that we have found a great deal or got more than our moneys worth but this isn’t necessarily the case.

We all know that something at eye level is more likely to sell than something that needs to be sought out. We also know that something priced at 99p is supposedly more likely to sell than something for £1. there are however some tricks of the trade which you may not know about:

• The second cheapest wine on the menu is often the bottle with the highest profit margin. This is because most of us want a bargain but don’t want to look cheap so we go for the second cheapest option. For similar reasons the cheapest wine on the menu probably tastes disgusting, what were you expecting cheapskate?

• By adding an extra expensive option to the menu restaurateurs are able to make a high priced option seem cheaper by comparison.

• If items are bundled together (for example a set meal) we find it difficult to work out if we are paying a fair price particularly if the items are not available separately.

• Different size portions are often sold for different prices. This means that those who are hungry will pay more and those who are trying to save money will get a smaller than normal portion. Whilst the customer feels like they are getting more of a choice they still aren’t getting more than their moneys worth.

• Coffee chains like Starbucks sell their drink in confusing sizes like Tall, Grande and Venti but never ‘small’. By taking away the relation between the names and their sizes they are aiming to make us feel like we aren’t getting a small portion or being greedy by having a ‘large’.

• The upper right corner of the menu is apparently where we all look first (eye tracking studies have proven this) so items placed here are given a lot of thought. Often an expensive and fancy option will be placed here, this makes everything else look cheaper and makes sure that this item is not missed.