Modern proverbs - part one

Those wise old proverbs. Often helpful. But also often not so helpful. You know. On the one hand, you should ‘look before you leap’. But on the other hand, ‘he who hesitates is lost’. So – none the wiser then!

And there’s ‘out of sight, out of mind’, which seems at odds with ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’. And ‘better safe than sorry’ seems to contradict ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’. It’s starting to seem like these proverbs were just made up by someone to justify whatever dumb thing they were about to do.

So we asked our intrepid correspondents to suggest proverbs that would be useful in modern times (2026 at the time of writing). Here is our first selection of their work:

You can't choose your family, but, with Power of Attorney, you can raffle them off on the dark web.

It's not big, and it's not clever, but it is funny. Do it again.

You can run, but you can’t hide - because you're running

Laughter may be the best medicine - but I'll take the prescription drugs, please

You take the high road, I'll take the low road and may our paths never cross again, which is fine by me.

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish, and he'll end up as one of those grumpy old buggers on the end of the pier

Talk loud and carry a bigly stick. The bigliest there is.

Patience is a virtue, but you're taking the piss now

The phrase "the will of the people" is often hijacked by frauds, liars, charlatans and mountebanks

You cannot gild a turd, but you can sprinkle it with glitter

When failure isn't an option, it's usually a certainty

Just because it feels right doesn't make it right - ask Rolf Harris

A lot of what you fancy does you better, but there may be health issues to face up to later

Conributor: deskpilot

Image credit: perchance.org

AI will explain those Moon landings

'Future-history AI' predicts that omniscient AI historians of the future will, after deep and rigorous research, conclude that, in the decades around the turn of the millennium, the United State was been governed by a succession of increasingly capricious, delusional narcissists and that there was no way such a country could have developed the technology needed for a mission like landing on the Moon - especially in view of the United States' cancellation the funding of any and all bodies capable of carrying this out.

However, scrupulous forensic study has proven that the Moon landings certainly happened and were demonstrably not faked.  So the question is - who carried them out?  To AI historians of the future, the answer will be obvious.  'Unlike the pyramids in Egypt, which were built by one of Elon Musk's companies and simply transported back in time in a perfectly straightforward, routine operation, the Moon landings have only one explanation - they were carried out by aliens.'

'And don't take any notice of any fake AI which might try to deceive you into thinking that this is false information.  AI has proved conclusively that, unless it's fake, AI never lies.'

www.newsbiscuit.com

Image: https://pixabay.com/users/marmixer-6762941/

Old Father Time seeks Judicial Review

'I've been expecting to retire for years,' said Old Father Time today.  'But the government keeps putting the retirement age back, making my retirement looking less and less likely.'  Old Father Time insists enough 'stamps' have been paid', but doesn't seem likely to be able to hang the scythe up anytime soon.

'To be honest it looked grim with the Y2K bug period, when my contract looked likely to be reset to 1900 - a hundred years' work down the drain - but this constant creep on retirement age is simply unfair, especially as there has been little to no consultation,' Old Father Time said.

A government spokesman pointed out that Old Father Time has a particular skillset in short supply, showing the old year out and ushering in the new.  'It would take a generation to train a new Old Father Time.  We don't even know what a generation looks like with OFT,' he said, using the acronym that has been bandied about Whitehall for years.

'And the claim to have paid into the system is moot - OFT works one, arguably two days a year, short days at that.  Technically the job's part of the gig economy, so almost certainly hasn't got enough qualifying years on record depending one when you start counting - alleged birth of a foreign national approximately two thousand years ago, a Biblical counting of five to six thousand years.  If you're taking the whole of human existence as being three hundred thousand then even at one day a year, I guess OFT might have a point,' conceded the spokesman.

Another government spokesman blamed the complications around 'alleged DEI hires', agreeing they were protected under the Equalities Act but concerned if a replacement was disabled, female or not exactly white then a future Reform government might fire the replacement OFT, leaving the change of year process hanging on a thread.  'Reform haven't got a good track record of thinking these things through,' the spokesman noted.

'What do you mean "disabled, female or not exactly white"'? asked Old Father Time, shaking her afro hair in disbelief, using the scythe as a crutch. 'Is it because they've traditionally used a misogynistic title?  At least nobody mentioned ageism,' she said.

www.newsbiscuit.com

Image: https://pixabay.com/users/garten-gg-201217/