How Cinderella came to play football for England

Once upon a time there was a girl called Cinderella who lived with her two ugly - by which I mean differently beautified - sisters. The ugly sisters were out all the time and Cinders was left back at the house, practising her role as sweeper.

Now it happened that Prince Charming, who was very fond of ball games, decided to throw a ball. As he didn’t really understand how social media worked, he ended up inviting absolutely everyone.

The ugly sisters told Cinderella that she wasn’t old enough for ball games, and couldn’t go. Even though their judgement was clouded from too much practice at headers with a medicine ball, Cinders accepted their decision.

On the day of the ball, Cinders helped the foul sisters into their away strip, waved them off, and cried.

Suddenly, something magical happened, and Cinders found herself with her fairy godmother, who said that she could go the game after all. Her fairy godmother her a beautiful ball gown, with a fairly discreet corporate logo, and a pair of golden boots. She magicked up an amazing coach and six smartly dressed footie men. The coach was pulled by six of Harry Redknapp’s horses. The only condition was that Cinders must leave at full time as the transportation couldn’t go south of the river after midnight.

At the ball Cinderella managed to handle all the dodgy passes and outflanked the opposition. She avoided the princes tackle and kept him out of the box. As full time approached, Cinders sprinted past the wall and ran for her coach, even though the prince wanted extra time. In her hurry to go, she left behind one of her golden boots.

The prince was desperate to agree a deal with Cinders while the transfer window was open. He searched high and low for the foot to fit the golden boot.

Eventually the Prince tracked down Cinderella and said she was the special one and a keeper. He signed her immediately, offering a massive sponsorship deal as a dowry. And although Cinders is really Greek, or Italian, or German, depending on who you choose to believe, she played happily ever after for England, and scored many times.

Hat tip to SteveB

image from pixabay

Office of Useless Sods: the Bermuda Pants Triangle

One of the greatest political innovations is the Bermuda Pants Triangle. Rather than making any attempt to fix the problems they created, leaders in power whine about the people blaming them for how everything is screwed up. So politicians and special advisers are tasked with coming up with a way of shifting the blame for everything somewhere else.

The solution is to install a czar to look into the problem, and then create independent watchdogs and regulators to oversee the specific things screwed up. The people blame their leader, the leader blames the czar, the czar blames the regulator, and the regulator blames the government. The people become disillusioned with nothing actually being fixed, and the whole problem disappears into the Bermuda Pants Triangle.

Inevitably, much more time and taxpayer money is spent shifting the blame than could have gone into completely resolving the issues in the first place, and the whole useless mess becomes the accepted norm.

That's what great leadership is all about.

Now when you contact anyone about a problem and you are given the run around several departments, you are sucked into a BPT vortex and lost forever. Here is your comprehensive guide to the czars and watchdog offices of responsibility-hand-washing:

Rudeness csar: OffHand

Animal organs czar: OffAll

Carpeting czar: OffCuts

Cycling czar - OffRoad

Prevarication czar - OffAgenonagen

Sickness czar - OffWork

Redundancy regulator - OffShove

Missing persons supremo - OffRadar

Murder czar - OffBump

Offend - Government body formed to look into bottoms :

Offence - Government body formed to regulate the trade in stolen goods

Offline - Government body formed to oversee drug rehabilitation centres

Office - Government body formed to oversee activities in Antarctica

Offend - Government body formed to look into bottoms

Offsett - Government body supervising farmers' provision for badgers

OffTen - Government body responsible for supervising decimalisation

Office for Retail Milk Standards to be called OffMilk

New Government body to regulate boring football talk - OffSighed

Music Industry regulator - OffBeat

Skiing - OffPiste

It support - OffAndonagain

Counterfeit goods - KnockOff

Offquay - regulator for small harbours

Offerr, offagain and offtopic - regulatory bodies for "Just A Minute"

Offgrid - regulation of crossword, sudoku and related puzzle compilers

Offlimits - governor governance

Offsure - management of uncertainty in parliamentary statements

Offwight - local government quango overseeing Ryde to Southsea journeys

Offenders - alternate name for the Council of British Proctologists

OffplanIT - committee overseeing large government technology projects

Offcock - gender reassignment surgery

And the new Water regulator is to be renamed as UTwat, the 'U' standing for Useless, and...

Contributions from and hat tips to:

Lockjaw, deskpilot, Jack the Quipper, Titus, FlashArry, peterg, SteveB

Your August Horoscope, by Toxic Meg.

Aries: This month the wind will change while you’re doing your sex face, and you’ll stick like it. Fortunately, you’ll be alone when it happens. You can’t go out looking like that, you’ll scare old ladies. Stay at home, and wait for Tomasz Schafernaker to issue a hurricane warning.

Taurus: The person who loves you more than life itself, who would die or kill for you, will be by your side every day, all day. Honestly, stalkers nowadays just laugh at restraining orders.

Gemini: As Venus enters your sign on all fours, a chance encounter with a handsome stranger leads to romance. This will be followed by a trip to the chemist the next day to buy the morning after pill, an appointment at the clap clinic a few weeks later, and a lecture from the STI nurse who will call you a daft tw@t for not using the willy wellies she gave you last time.

Cancer: You will run into an old friend this month. Sadly, you’ll be driving a car and he’ll be crossing the road when it happens. Euggh!

Leo: Due to an Electoral Roll cock-up, a beloved pet will be called up for jury service, and through a sequence of ludicrous events will end up being elected Foreman. This may result in friction when they return to the family home and expect a greater say in the decisions affecting the house. However, you will be spared this upheaval if your pet is a goldfish as they will have forgotten all about this on the taxi journey home from the court. Your significant colour this month will be Unassuming Beige #21 on the Pantone scale.

Virgo: Your dream of becoming a successful travel writer comes true this month, when your review of a bed and breakfast in Shitterton gets 2 likes on TripAdvisor.

Libra: Nope, I’ve got nothing for you this month. Don't let that bother you. Well, not too much anyway. Mind you, the last person I said that to didn't get his affairs in order, and look where he is now! There's always the chance you might be okay, possibly, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Oh, that's what happened to the last guy. Oops!

Scorpio: The planets have an important message for you; ‘You matter. Don’t give up!’ No, sorry – I read that wrong. It actually says, ‘You don’t matter. Give up!’.

Sagittarius: A little bird tells me that you believe horoscopes are not real, and it's all made up. After your head becomes jammed between two awkwardly parked Volkswagen Beetles on Church Road at 11:34 next Thursday morning, your faith in astrology will be restored like never before.

Capricorn: Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. Just not as often.

Aquarius: As Saturn enters your house of employment, you will feel slighted when someone in a position of authority fails to recognise the value of your input at work. Consider these words from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The work is its own reward.’ Conan Doyle did NOT say, ‘If your boss annoys you, p!ss in his desk drawer.’ Expect a call from the HR department soon.

Pisces: Thank you for visiting the Newsbiscuit horoscopes page. Your visit is important to us. An astrologer will deliver your horoscope shortly. Thank you for waiting. You are next in the queue…

Contributions from and hat tips to:

sydalg – Taurus

lockjaw – Cancer

FlashArry – Leo

Sinnick – Libra

SteveB – Sagittarius.