Norwegian Blue

Blogging has been somwhat light on the ground, following an outbreak of what was at first thought to be Bird Flu.

When the male inhabitants of Trouser Towers also became somewhat under weather it was obvious that it had mutated to a strain of Bloke Flu, which mainly entailed sitting within easy reach of the widescreen, remote in hand and uttering feeble remarks such as "...I don't think I can make it to the toilet...", "...my arms are all wrong..." and " oh yeah, two sugars'd be nice...".

Following this the virus rapidly mutated through a series of weakly infective and totally ineffective puns.

The hiatus did give us time to discuss a new submission to Large Business by our German correspondent, Herr Grossen Hosen, about the rebranding of Iraq ("Branding Sand...with a Smile"). Keep watching the pies.

LargetrouserS: All trousers, no talk.

Ass lickers

Good evening, and apologies for the temporary hiatus in service.

Tonight we return to an animal theme. The other day, fueled up on a heady concoction of canteen super-saturated lipids and chemically enhanced beverages ("lime", "flavour", "diet", "cola" is a current favoured nutri-narcotic), conversation turned to the surprising recent upturn in the price of donkeys. It would appear that the recent "Shrek" films have enhanced the image of these traditional beasts of burden, such that they have become the must-have urbane pet of the moment.

Those of you who have watched disappointedly as your carefully nurtured sea monkeys fail to sport little crowns and perform acrobatics and stubbornly remain featureless specks, will recognise the way in which the pet donkeys become abandoned in the back garden after they refuse to repeatedly make weak wisecracks and partake in discourse in a jingoistic black patois.

Left at the bottom of the garden, perhaps used to store tools or as mobile planters for spring bulbs, the donkeys are now suffering.

One enterprising idea may be to rehabilitate these equine outcasts as part of a service to city dwellers. Many apartment dwellers have both windowboxes, which having been enthusiastically planted in the spring soon beceme unkempt miniature jungles, and windows, which are notoriously difficult and dangerous to clean at heights.

Dangling Donkeys (TM) Ltd. will solve both problems by carefully lowering donkeys over the sides of large apartment blocks. When the donkey is level with the window of a paying customer the operator will stop lowering the donkey, which will proceed to munch the excess herbage from the windowbox before licking the window clean. Small oscillating movements may then be used to scrub the donkey against the pane to dry the window,providing the customer with a sparkly clear view, unobstructed by wilted daffs.

Of course, there is always the danger that instead of falling on your arse, your ass might fall on you.

A full business plan and cashflow forecast will be available soon for interested investors.

LargetrouserS: Orange is the pigment of my imagination

Genetic muddification: Pavlovian pillocks

Most of us are familiar with the Pavlovian response: the way that you can get someone to salivate, merely by showing them a picture of a raspberry-covered meringue.

This is of course a conditioned response. A similar trick is used to get a rat to press a button in order to receive a reward or to get a pigeon to peck at an image of the Tirpitz and thus guide a avian-directed torpedo.

This brings me to the SPANKRDs, a new social sub-class that I believe I have identified. Those of you who have read my recently published paper will be familiar with the term but for the rest of you it stands for Socially-inept, Pushbutton, Anaemic, No-mates, Reclusive, Dullards.
These etiolated individuals, festering like toadstools in the sickly blue light of the CRT, have become addicted to being cerebrally rewarded at the push of a button: a TV turns on; a microwave speedily prepares your minced jessop; a camera provides an instant image of your unfortunately unattractive child; a mobile 'phone connects your bus to another vacuous skull almost 100yards away; and another animated sprite lose its innards in a hail of sanguine pixels.

All hail the button, which really is more powerful than a sword.

Of course, progress has left the the SPANKRDs unable to leave any button unpressed in the vague hope of some form of reward. Truly a modern conditioned response that has been bred into the latest scions.
A few days ago, I was waiting with some colleagues in the basement of our building, having called the lift. Just then a slack-jawed SPANKRD loped up and repeatedly jabbed the lift call button. I saw fit to open a dialogue:

LT: "Excuse me, what does that button do ?"
SPANKRD (removing earphones and hefting gum wad to rear of maw): "Uh ?"
LT: "Well we've all been standing here wondering what that button did and we saw you press it - what is it for ?"
SPANKRD: "Makes lift come"
LT: "Really? Well aren't we lucky that you happened along when you did, otherwise we would all have been standing here until next Tuesday !"
SPANKRD: "When ?"

Another thing that I've noticed about SPANKRDs is that they've had the last vestiges of humour bred out of them. Genetic muddification at work.

LargetrouserS: Smell the quality, eat the width