Our 2023 Christmas single

November is here and it doesn’t so long ago Chas and I cashed in on the Christmas singles market, but here we are with our cynical seasonal offering “Enforced Jollity” because, after all, that’s what it really is, isn’t it?

Take a listen on your favourite streaming site, and if you’re not paying through the nose for one, here’s a link to the free YouTube offering…

YouTube link

Living the dream?

You might recall a piece I did a little while back in my ’93 men in a Boat’ series about the behaviour of passengers on Thomson Airways? Well, it seems that they’ve been at it again…

A unemployed 48 year old woman was flying home from Tunisia. According to eye witnesses she was already off her face before she got on the plane, which begs the question why they let her on un the first place. ind you, I have to also question how someone without a job manages to pay for a holiday in the first place – but I digress.

It seems that the woman was abusing cabin staff with calls for booze and cigarettes and a parachute and when the crew tried to calm her down ( in my experience a first for this particular airline ), she took off her FALSE LEG and started assaulting them with it!

One passenger commented : ‘She was shouting, “I want cigarettes” and that she wanted a parachute to jump off the plane. She slapped a young girl and then assaulted the cabin crew with her prosthetic leg.‘They took it off her, but she started kicking them with her good leg. It sounds funny, but it was not a laughing matter at the time … We had to sit on the runway for about an hour while the police took statements … She was totally drunk. It was pretty shocking.’

The plane was diverted to Gatwick and she was arrested.

And it seems that Thomson are not having a lot of luck with their customer care at the moment, because another flight – this time returning from Florida – also run into a spot of bother when a disgruntled passenger got so pissed off that he punched the window so hard that he managed to crack it.

Luckily he only managed to crack the inner pane. If he’d managed to crack both then the explosive decompression could have sucked everybody out of the aircraft and possibly caused it to crash. So that’s alright then.

A spokeswoman for Thomson Airways declined to comment on the matter in detail because of the criminal charges, but added: ‘We do have a zero-tolerance approach on all our aircraft. Passenger safety is our paramount priority.’ whihc is presumably why their cabin staff ply passengers with booze to maximise the profits and why I was told to ‘Fuck off’ when I complained.

…which is also why I wrote this piece.

Suspending cynicism…

Every once in a while an idea comes along with the potential to truly make the world a better place.

Unfortunately, ‘Suspended Coffee’ isn’t one of them.

Here’s an excerpt from their ‘mission statement’ which, in my view, is pretentious shite :

“While wandering a deserted beach at dawn, stagnant in my work, I saw a man in the distance bending and throwing as he walked the endless stretch toward me. As he came near, I could see that he was throwing starfish, abandoned on the sand by the tide, back into the sea. When he was close enough I asked him why he was working so hard at this strange task. He said that the sun would dry the starfish and they would die. I said to him that I thought he was foolish. there were thousands of starfish on miles and miles of beach. One man alone could never make a difference. He smiled as he picked up the next starfish. Hurling it far into the sea he said, “It makes a difference for this one.” I abandoned my writing and spent the morning throwing starfish.”

FFS! Suspended coffee is a scheme spreading around the world “to help people in need“. And coffee sellers? Well, decide for yourself because this is how it works, again quoting their mission statement :

“First, it’s simple. You walk into a coffee shop and instead of buying just one cup of coffee, you buy two, or more. You buy one for yourself and one for someone in need.” So far, so good. No problem there.

“Second, it’s direct. You do not need to worry if your money is going to actually help someone or just to take care of a charity organization and it’s overhead and expenses.” No, you just need to worry if your money is going straight into the retailer’s pocket without him even having to provide a product or service to go with it.

“Third, it’s win-win. You not only support a person in need, you also support your local business and all it’s employees. Your money does not go to another state, country or continent. It stays right in the neighborhood where it was spent.” Well, no. Not really. You certainly support you local business by giving them money for nothing. And as Starbucks and Costa are talking about getting involved, I would dispute the bit about the money staying in the local neighbourhood.

From the retailers’ views, it’s an absolute win-win. If he trousers the money, then he’s making a whole shed load of extra dosh and if he plays straight and honest then he still makes extra dosh.

“Lastly, it can be used for more than just coffee. You could buy a hot bowl of nourishing soup, a filling sandwich, water, fruit, bread, or a full meal. Suspended coffee’s simplicity makes it easy to duplicate with other food items.”

After all, we’re all in it together aren’t we?

It’s a wonderful marketting scheme but suspending cycnicism? No, I really don’t think so…