Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Some irony for a rainy Wednesday

The little pink shoes were a little damp this morning, but surprisingly easy to drive in.

I was down my local hostelry Monday night, having a chat about how utterly pointless and stupid the EU was, and we got to talking about some of the laws which are never going to work, and which are so harmful to businesses, you start to wonder what the point of the EU is.

Firstly, the Working Time Directive. Now, I don't know where these bureaucrats get off telling people how long they can work for, but they do. Personally, I believe such retarded, union-led laws lead to unproductive, inefficient companies and in particular damage SMEs which are the backbone of the economy. Stop these companies from running properly and you are well on your way to fucking up an economy. But the small point of humour in this monstrosity of a document was the number of working hours it took to write and study. We voted on it, of course, in Strasbourg. But before that it went through various committees. My colleague who worked on the document spent many early mornings and late evenings trying to get amendments and voting lists done, many more hours than the maximum of 35 stipulated in the document.

And Strasbourg! My goodness, when I think of the late nights and early mornings there, because some desperate wannabe has stayed up all night submitting split votes and separate votes to gauge the general opinion of the parliament over the most suitable punctuation mark to use in an article, and they only want us to work how many hours? Thirty-five a week maximum? But I had to work 12 hours a day in strasbourg just to get the work done, and there are 4 days. 3*12 is 36, for fucks sake! This means that according to its own laws, the parliament has to shut down and members of staff can't prepare the voting lists for thursday. Actually, I'm all for that. Less crap being passed will be better for everyone.

Especially financial services. I was sent an article yesterday outlining a new form of crackpottery whereby to combat terrorist financing, financial institutions have to have and keep a record of the names of everyone who transfers money from one account to another. Have fun watching your banking costs rise, and your interest on savings fall, whilst terrorists simply find another way of transfering money.

Are you trying to make the countries of Europe the laughing stock of the world? Well, are you? Because you're going the right way about it, I can tell you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read this today in the Times, written by the wonderfully acidic Julie Burchill, and thought of you...

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The sterile life of ‘Shoesers’

I’M GOING to do a total Makosi here — that is act in a profoundly two-faced and self-contradictory manner — and maintain that while I feel it is very difficult to put one’s finger on who is having better sex, it is nevertheless quite easy to put one’s finger on people who are having worse sex.

Female columnists who say, over and over again, that “sex isn’t everything.” (You wish, you frigid little mule.) Women who say: “Chocolate is better than sex.” (Not if you’re doing it properly, dear.) Women who close their eyes after the first spoonful of dessert and go “Oooo. Orgasm.” (My gosh, you’ve really never had one, have you!) Any broad who bangs on overmuch about shopping — apparently three out of four Frenchwomen would rather shop than have sex, and this being the case no wonder all their husbands are having affairs. (In my experience, there’s only one time of your life when it’s not tragic to prefer shops to sex — and that’s when you’re a shoplifting teenage virgin, getting your parasexual kicks from pilfering. Bliss!)

Yes, all these types have surely faked orgasm more times than Makosi has faked friendship. But is there any sadder, more transparently non-climactic female than the one who is obsessed with shoes? According to a recent survey, most women buy a new pair of shoes every month. Why? Do they have 12 pairs of feet?

I just can’t help thinking that there must be some sort of inverse ratio between shoes bought and orgasms had. “Shoesers”, I’ve noticed, also tend to go in for girly evenings, where a lot of bad blush wine is downed, a few half-assed secrets revealed and a job-lot of men dissed. Yet these sexually desiccated boobies never have the guts to go the whole hog and cross the floor. The fact is that if you can’t “come off”, as it is coarsely known, with men then you’re probably a lesbian. Don’t fight it! Being a lesbian is both a good laugh and a noble cause, and there’s not a lot of things you can say both of.

I’m trying hard not to be judgmental here. But you know what? On their deathbed, people generally think: “I wish I’d had more sex!” I bet there aren’t many sad sods who think: “I wish I’d bought more shoes!”

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Don't worry about Julie though - she's only trying to shock people as usual... Quite amusing though - don't you think?

Trixy said...

Good article, true in many places. Although I can say hand-on-heart that not only do I have gorgeous shoes, I also have great sex.

She who dies with the most shoes, wins. And often, having great shoes often leads to great sex. This woman just hasn't thought things through. Maybe she should spend less time watching 'big brother'....