Tuesday 16th June #LaughterSpreadsFaster

My Directors Of The Bored, Good Morning to you.

From time to time, as we gather more followers to the blog – (thank you for being there) – I feel a quick refresher as to WHY we’re here is a good thing to do.

So here it comes.

You ready?

We’re here to make you laugh.

That’s pretty much it. To fill it out a little, this blog came into being right at the start of Lockdown when we had no clue how long it was going to last, what it would entail, and, most importantly, whether we were in real peril.

Its sole purpose then, as now, was to try and make you laugh at a time when you thought such a thing couldn’t be further away. To draw out a guffaw, and make you feel better, even if for a moment.

Our contention is, no matter what this virus throws at us, and how quickly it travels, a smile or chuckle can speed around the world faster and last longer.

#LaughterSpreadsFaster

You’ll find the laughs, every day, towards the end of the blog, but between here and there, there’s always a bunch of good stuff to check out too, and, more recently, before we get into any of it, we start by pulling something else from the last 24 hours that we think might help educate people such as me, white, and therefore privileged (it has little if anything to do with financial wealth) towards being better educated on the subject of racial hatred so we can find a path to eliminating it once and for all.

One of the most important things we’ve learned so far is that it’s no longer simply enough to just not be racist – we have to shine a light on what is happening and try to make it stop.

Today, we’ve pulled something significant from TV. How on earth do you explain this to kids, who simply don’t get it? No-one is born hating another skin colour or feeling superior because of their own.

Watch.

There’s one other thing which touches on this subject today, right at the end of the blog from a youtube special called Class Of 2020, where Bono was one of a few stars to make a commencement speech of sorts. I urge you to watch that too.

Right now though, let’s get on to the blog for Tuesday 16th June 2020.

The Useful

Let’s start with yet another ingenious, if playful way of guaranteeing social distancing amongst your cafe/restaurant clientele upon reopening.

Next, the evolution of the facemask for Phase 2.

This story is kind of reminiscent of something that happened to us over the years as we’ve slowly restored the house we live in. Built in 1850, the broad bones of it at the very least will stand proud to the sky long after we’ve vacated it. That’s Aberdonian granite for you, but what we’ve discovered as we’ve tried to reintroduce certain elements that are more in keeping with the property and more to our own taste, is that everything which could be ripped out by previous owners (and I mean EVERYTHING), has been. So whenever we’ve entered a room to redecorate or install a slate fireplace or the like, we’ve literally had to start from scratch and get the room completely re-plastered.

Over the years we’ve enlisted a steady co-operative of tradesmen and workers we can call upon in a similar way to Nick Fury assembling The Avengers, (although more than one has a hammer, and their immediate ancestry is more Doric than Nordic).

One of them, a plasterer, was initially chuffed, and then slightly emotional, when in the process of stripping back one wall to resurface, he found his own father’s signature and date in the previous plasterboard, where he’d toiled in the same trade years earlier.

For the record, both were masters of their craft.

Which is a slightly convoluted way of arriving at this story, where a couple decorating their flat found this message from the previous owner as they stripped the wallpaper.

They’ve subsequently located Jon to thank him, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Jon is not on social media, he far prefers writing notes. Eh, voila.

Slim pickings for the newspaper journos today, huh. And if you think that’s bad enough, wait until I show you the story about the girl who says we’ve been filling our ice cube trays wrong all these years.

All these years, in fact, to the point most modern manufacturers don’t even provide ice trays with the fridge-freezers, they have ice making compartments instead, which, in turn dispense ice cubes or crushed ice, and operate solely by magic.

Next, watch this, and if you’re a kid whose early movie-going years were in the 80s, feel your heart skip a little bit with joy as this trailer unfolds.

The good news is, you don’t have to wait for any length of time, AND it’s for a charitable cause, so enjoy Reunited Apart – Ghostbusters.

World Of The Weird

The CEO of the company that produces this line of Duck Eggs for Waitrose must be quaking in their boots today.

Possibly even quacking up.

Sorry.

The story is about a girl who’s been furloughed realising she finally had the time to try something she’s seen online before and always wanted to have a shot at.

Meet Beep, Peep and Meep.

They were hatched at home, after being bought in a carton of Duck Eggs in the supermarket.

Ever doubted the complexities and work-rate of fate?

This couple thought they’d met through University when Ed got in touch with Heidi, because she’d lived as a student in the same flat the year previously, and Ed wanted to know if she could help him with the instructions to operate the washing machine. Heidi obliged purely because she thought he was hot.

Subsequently, they fell in love, and got married. Awwwwww.

But, it turns out they’d met years before as kids on holiday.

Things That Make You Go Awwwwww

Just a Dad and daughter having a singalong.

I’ve included this video as well from Sophie Ellis Bextor, who’s been singing along from home every week of the Lockdown in her Friday kitchen disco. Here, she’s made a habit of performing a song which doesn’t fit that format, directly after finishing the kitchen disco, and making that available as a solo effort afterwards.

What I especially enjoy about this is how, (despite the value and subsequent size of the property) Sophie is still amidst the crater that is a child environment, and just about multitasking as she goes. Trying to stay afloat like the rest of us.

Things We’ve Discovered In Lockdown

In the immediate future looks like weddings could be pretty different.

They’re talking about no hors d’oeuvres!

I guess the thing there is that they’d all have to be served to the one person in order to guarantee no risk to everybody else. It’s a tall order, but for your sake and the spirit of marital tradition, I will take that bullet.

It’s time for The Funnies

Today’s News In Brief