The Edmondson Blog

The Roman Catholic Church has more than 5,000 saints, many of who are patron saints: protectors of certain groups or professions. Here are a few of the more interesting ones.

Saint Matthew: patron saint of accountants. (He was a tax collector before becoming an apostle).

Saint Joseph of Cupertino: patron saint of air travellers (nicknamed The Flying Friar as he could levitate).

Saint Fiacre: patron saint of taxi drivers, haemorrhoid sufferers, and those infected with a venereal disease.

Saint Matrona: patron saint of dysentery sufferers.

Saint Louis IX of France: patron saint of button makers.

Saint Adrian of Nicomedia: patron saint of arms dealers.

Saint Anne: patron saint of women in labour (but see below).

Saint John Thwing: patron saint of women in difficult labour.

Saint Nicholas of Myra (also known as Santa Claus): patron saint of children and pawnbrokers.

Saint Bernardino of Siena: patron saint of advertisers and hoarseness.

Saint Blaise: patron saint of throats (he saved a child from choking) and diseased cattle (he also healed animals).

Saint Joseph: patron saint of Opposition to Atheistic Communism.

Saint Sebastian: patron saint of neighbourhood watch groups.

Saint Joseph of Arimathea (who legend tells was the uncle of the Virgin Mary): patron saint of funeral directors.

Saint Eligius: patron saint of petrol station workers. (He miraculously cured horses, the precursors to cars.)

Saint Martin de Porres: patron saint of race relations, social justice, and Italian hairdressers.

Saint Martha: patron saint of dieticians.

Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs is a cartoon released in 1943 by Warner Brothers. The film is notable for being an all-black parody of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Snow-White, known to its audience from the popular 1937 Walt Disney animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The stylistic portrayal of the characters, however, is an example of classic politically incorrect darky iconography, which was widely accepted in white American society at the time. As such, it is one of the most controversial cartoons in the classic Warner Brothers library and is one of the Censored Eleven cartoons in their library considered unsuitable for present-day viewing. It has been rarely seen on television, and has never been officially released on home video. However, it is often named as one of the best cartoons ever made, in part for its African-American-inspired jazz and swing music.

When four of Father Christmas's elves called in sick, the junior elves did not produce toys as fast as the senior ones, and Father Christmas began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Father Christmas's mother* rang to say she was coming to visit, which stressed him even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped over the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Father Christmas went in the house for a cup of mulled wine and a tot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drunk all the wine and hidden the rum. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the wine jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the bristles off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang. Fasther Christmas, yanked open the door, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree. The angel said very cheerfully, "Merry Christmas, Father Christmas. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?"

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

*For those who follow the Otford English Dictionary,we all know that Father Christmas's mother is Granule.

A little boy walked into our village shop with a huge golden eagle on his shoulder.

The proprietor gasps in amazement and asks, "Where on earth did you get that?"

"There's a school up the road - there're hundreds of them," replied the golden eagle.

During a recent password audit at the Bank of Ireland it was found that Paddy O'Toole was using the following password:
When Paddy was asked why he had such a long password: he replied, "Bejazus! are yez feckin' stupid? Sure, Oi was told me password had to be at least 8 characters long and include one capital!"

Best jokes

What's brown and sweet and glides around an ice rink?
Bourneville and Dean.

What's a specimen?
An Italian astronaut.

What do you call a short sighted dinosaur?
A do-you-think-he-saw-us?

What do you call a man with brown paper trousers?
Russell.

What do you call a man with a pole through his leg?
Rodney.

Why would you invite a mushroom to a Christmas party?
He's a fun guy to be with.

Why was Santa's little helper feeling depressed?
He had low elf-esteem.

Who was England's first chiropodist?
William the Corn-curer.

Why should Christian husbands make the early morning tea for their wives?
Because the Bible says He Brews.

What's the longest word in the English language?
Smiles, because there is a mile between the first and the last letters.
Worst jokes

What is Santa's favourite pizza?
One that's deep pan, crisp and even.

On which side do chickens have the most feathers?
The outside.

What kind of paper likes music?
(W)rapping paper.

What's white and goes up?
A confused snowflake.

What do you call a woman who stands between two goal posts?
Annette.

Did you hear about the man who bought a paper shop?
It blew away.

What's furry and minty?
A polo bear.

How do snowmen get around?
They ride an icicle.

Who hides in the bakery at Christmas?
A mince spy.

What do you call a penguin in the Sahara desert?
Lost.


Worst joke of all time (acording to your Editor's family)

My dog's got no nose!

How does he smell?

Awful!

In the classic sixteenth century novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, author Francois Rabelais gave careful consideration to the subject of alternatives to toilet paper. He explored many options for wiping his bum, until he finally arrives at what he found to be the best.

Among the items that he uses to wipe his bum, the following are included:

• A lady's velvet mask
• A lady's hood
• A lady's neckerchief
• Some earflaps of crimson satin
• A page's bonnet, all feathered in the Swiss fashion
• A March-born cat
• His Mother's gloves, well scented with maljamin
• Sage
• Fennel
• Anise
• Marjoram
• Roses
• Gourd Leaves
• Cabbage
• Beets
• Vineshoots
• Marsh-mallow
• Mullein (a tall herb with coarse leaves), which is as red as your bum
• Lettuces
• Spinach-leaves
• Dog's Mercury
• Persicaria
• Nettles
• Comfrey
• His Codpiece
• The Sheets
• The Coverlet
• The Curtains
• A Cushion
• The Hangings
• A Green Cloth
• A Table-cloth
• A Napkin
• A Handkerchief
• An Overall
• Hay
• Straw
• Litter
• Cow's Hair
• Wool
• Paper
• A Kerchief (again)
• A Pillow
• A Slipper
• A Game-bag
• A Basket
• A Smooth Hat
  
• A Velvety Hat
  
• A Hat Of Taffeta
• A Hat Of Satin
• A Shaggy Hat, which he though the best
  
• A Hen
• A Cock
• A Chicken
• A Calf's Skin
• A Hare
• A Pigeon
• A Cormorant
• A Lawyer's Bag
• A Penitent's Hood
• A Coif (a padded chain-mail hood)
  
• An Otter
• A Well-downed Goose

Some of these options, he found, were not so good, for instance the ear flaps of crimson satin, of which he stated:

...there were a lot of turdy gilt spangles on them, and they took all the skin off my bottom. May St. Anthony's fire burn the bum-gut of the goldsmith who made them and of the lady who wore them!

As for paper, it left him less than satisfied with the results:

Who his foul bum with paper wipes will on his ballocks leave some chips.

But it is the last option, the well-downed goose, that left him most satisfied:

But to conclude, I say and maintain that there is no arse-wiper like a well-downed goose, if you hold her neck between your legs. You must take my word for it, you really must. You get a miraculous sensation in your arse-hole, both from the softness of the down and from the temperate heat of the goose herself; and this is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest.

Ballistic (n.) a damnable lump of wood
Banister (v.) to outlaw ogling
Carnivore (n.) the fourth carnie along
European (v.) to call someone common
Hirsute (n.) what she wears to work
Hurly burly (n.) when Liz puts on weight
Jezebel (n.) a posh doorbell
Matriculate (v.) to move away from Imperial measurements
Menstruate (n.) the thing men dislike the most
Phantasmagorical (n.) one who predicts the addition of drugs to Fanta
Philosophy (n.) when you’ve had enough of Sophie
Polyamorous (v.) to love several parrots at once
Pornographic (n.) being too broke to afford pictures
Samurai (n.) the choice between me and Sam
Sandalwood (n.) what shoes wish they could do
Scabbard (v.) to recover toughly from a wound
Scandalise (v.) to look over untruths
Specimen (n.) Italian astronauts
Subcutaneous (adj.) underneath a beautiful bottom
Substantiate (v.) to be not as good a Muslim as Stan
Teacake (n.) wood pain
Telemetry (n.) a town in Israel
Television (n.) another town in Israel
Temporal (n.) short-lived foreplay
Unfasten (v.) to slow someone down
Vindicate (n.) a girl who eats mostly curry

We begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
In which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

And finally, I wonder what happened to Temporary Insanity 1.

“For over a year, we have been trying to arrest Thomas Eri for illegal sexual activities,” Inspector Adam Busil of the Papua New Guinea police told reporters in Morobe village, north of Port Moresby, “And this time we thought we had him cornered. We'd heard reports that he had founded a sex cult here in Morobe, and that he was promising villagers a bumper banana crop if they had sex in public. He told them their banana crop would increase tenfold every time they had sex in front of him, and they believed him. So many of the villagers began having sex in public, because bananas are a very important crop in Morobe province.

“Early on Saturday morning, a dozen armed policemen came to the village, surrounded his hut, and ordered him to come out. At first, there was no reply, then he came out naked but refused to surrender. He used his two wives as human shields to avoid being shot at, ran to the edge of the village, and fled into the wilderness, followed by seven of his followers.

“I am sure the villagers know where he is hiding, but they won’t tell us. Probably because this year's banana crop is the biggest on record.”

It's not too unusual to hear stories of married couples who met online. But it IS unusual when that couple that meets online and marries also have the same name.

In this case, it's a gentleman from Texas named Kelly Hildebrandt and a lady from Florida named Kelly Hildebrandt. They are about to get married. Kelly Hildebrandt met Kelly Hildebrandt when Kelly, the girl, looked up her own name on Facebook. “I was like, ‘I wonder if there's any other Kelly Hildebrandts on Facebook',” she explained. “So, I searched my own name and he's the only one that came up. And actually, in the picture, he didn't have his shirt on, and I'm like, ‘oh, he's cute!'”

And the Kelly in Texas was also intrigued. “She started off, ‘Hey, I see we have the same name, and I thought it was kinda cool, so I wanted to say hi, I guess'. Lots of laughs,” he said.

Eight months after that innocent Facebook message, Kelly proposed to Kelly, and pretty soon they'll become Kelly Hildebrandt squared

In the event of an emergency deorbit that would bring the Orbiter down in an area not within range of a designated emergency landing site, the Orbiter is theoretically capable of landing on any paved runway that is at least 3 km (1.9 mi) long, which includes the majority of large commercial airports. In practice, a US military airfield would probably be preferred for reasons of security arrangements and minimizing the disruption of commercial air traffic.

Emergency landing sites for the Orbiter include:

• Campbeltown Airport, Scotland
• Lajes, Portugal
• Beja, Portugal
• Keflavík, Iceland
• Gran Canaria Airport, Spain
• Shannon International Airport, Ireland
• RAF Fairford, England
• Köln Bonn Airport, Germany
• Airport Manching near Munich, Germany
• Istres-Le Tubé Air Base near Marseille, France
• Ankara, Turkey
• Yundum International Airport, Gambia
• Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory
• Gander International Airport, Gander, Newfoundland
• Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, near Brisbane, Australia
• Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin, Darwin, Australia

The introduction of the giant fig leaf is one of the great oddities of western art. Contrary to popular belief, the covering of private parts on statues was unknown to ancient Greeks and Romans; the foliage found on them today was added by their prudish descendants.

The reason the fig leaf was chosen for this task is traceable to the book of Genesis. Following the Fall, when Eve persuades Adam to eat an apple from the tree of knowledge, Genesis 3:7 tells us: And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Of course, if you read closely, this suggests a skirt or apron, rather than the oversized single leaf of dubious botanical provenance we find in Renaissance art.

Fig leaves do appear in medieval art, but not to disguise modesty. Explicit nudes abounded during this period, particularly in depictions of sinners and the damned entering hell. Representations of fig leaves were common, but they were simply narrative devices referring to the Fall.

The same applies to early Renaissance art. Before 1500, one seldom finds the fig leaf or covering at all, except when it is appropriate as part of the story. The creation story shown in the cupola of St Mark's Basilica in Venice is a good example.

Leaves and branches were first used by Northern European Renaissance artists, after 1500. This was a response to Protestant preachers such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, who spoke of the sinfulness of human flesh. This belief was ignored in the early Renaissance and the Middle Ages, whose artists regarded the Fall as the corruption of the spirit rather than of the body. Curiously, in several paintings of the early 1500s, Adam has a leaf, but Eve does not, as in Jan Gossaert's Hercules and Deianeira c. 1517.

We cannot ignore the Italian connection to the fig leaf explosion of the mid-16th century. The use of fig leaves (which are plentiful in that country) abound in the work of the great Renaissance artists Raphael, Rubens, Titian, da Vinci and Michelangelo.

This was largely a function of Counter-Reformation fanaticism — the Catholic Church trying to outdo its Protestant enemy in piousness — which was cemented by an edict of the Council of Trent that explicitly forbade the depiction of genitals, buttocks and breasts in sacred art.

In 1557, fig leaves were instituted by the bull of Pope Paul IV to reduce the amount of nudity on display. Sometimes, as in the famous case of Michelangelo's The Last Judgment, drapery or extra branches from any nearby bush were used; at other times, a giant fig leaf was modelled and slapped on the offending article, such as on the statue of Mercury in the Vatican.

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, "Well, I'm off now. The man should be here soon."

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale.

"Good morning, Ma'am", he said, "I've come to..."

"Oh, no need to explain," Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, "I've been expecting you."

"Have you really?" said the photographer.. "Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my specialty?"

"Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat."

After a moment she asked, blushing, "Well, where do we start?"

"Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bath, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there."

"Bath, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!"

"Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results."

"My, that's a lot!" gasped Mrs. Smith.

"Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be In and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that."

"Don't I know it," said Mrs. Smith quietly.

The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. "This was done on the top of a bus," he said.

"Oh, my word!" Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

"And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with."

"She was difficult?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look."

"Four and five deep?" said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.

"Yes," the photographer replied. "And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in."

Mrs. Smith leaned forward. "Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh ... equipment?"

"It's true, Ma'am, yes.. Well, if you're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away."

"Tripod?"

"Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long."

Mrs. Smith fainted.

A man is driving along the back roads around our village and sees a sign in front of a run-down farm labourer's cottage:


He rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the back garden.

The man goes round the house into the back garden and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

"So, you can talk?" the man asks.

"Yep," the Lab replies.

After the man recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he asks, "So, what's your story?"

The Lab looks up and says, "Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the Government, so I joined MI6. In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.

"I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running. But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.

"I got married, had loads of puppies, and now I'm just retired."

The man is amazed. He goes back to the owner and asks what he wants for the dog.

"Ten quid."

"Ten quid? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"

"Because he's a bloody liar. He never did any of those things."

The mayor of Delhi has launched a campaign to stop gentlemen urinating in the streets. Kanwar Sain wants to clean up the city's image before it hosts the Commonwalth Games next year. Posters have been stuck up around the city urging:

Gordon Brown flies to the US to met with President Obama. After a hard day discussing world affairs they slip out of the White House and pop into a local bar for a quick drink.

A guy walks in and asks the barman, "Isn't that Obama and the British Prime Minister sitting over there?"

The bartender says, "Yep, that's them."

So the guy walks over and says, "Wow, this is a real honour! What are you guys doing in here?"

Obama says, "We're planning the Third World War."

The guy says, "Really? What's going to happen?"

Obama says, "Well, we're going to kill 140 million Muslims and one blonde with big tits."

The guy exclaimed, "A blonde with big tits? Why are you going to kill a blonde with big tits?

Obama turns to Brown and says, "See, I told you, no one gives a shit about the 140 million Muslims."

We are the Village Green Preservation Society,
God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and Variety.
We are the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society,
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties.

Preserving the old ways from being abused.
Protecting the new ways for me and for you.
What more can we do?

We are the Draught Beer Preservation Society,
God save Mrs. Mopp and good Old Mother Riley.
We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium,
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them.

We are the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular.
Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula.
We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity,
God save little shops, china cups and virginity.
We are the Skyscraper condemnation Affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique shops and billiards

Preserving the old ways from being abused.
Protecting the new ways for me and for you.
What more can we do?

God save the Village Green.

The (originally underground) artist Robert Crumb's launched his Devil Girl Choco-Bars in 1994. They were considered pretty good chocolate and were an instant success when they hit the market. Sadly they are now long gone.

It's the FA Cup Final. Seeing an empty seat, a man walks up and asks the occupier of the next seat if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him.

"No", he replies, "the seat is empty."

"This is incredible!" said the man, "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the FA Cup Final, the biggest sporting event of the year, and not use it?"

"Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. My wife was supposed to come with me, but she passed away. This is the first Cup Final we haven't been to together since we got married."

"Oh... I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. I guess you couldn't find someone else, a friend or relative or even a neighbour to take the seat?

The man shakes his head... "No. They're all at the funeral."