The trials and tribulations of Moonpig.com

Tuesday was my little brother’s birthday so, like any good older brother, on Monday I sat down, logged onto Moonpig and started looking for a card that summed up the right tone I wanted to convey. I was in luck! They had exactly what I wanted. Well, they would have if my brother was an alcoholic and I was staging an intervention and wanted to get him into AA.

I had a few other options left, but one of them involved the many cards that accuse the recipient of being a sex offender. An old sex offender, because my brother’s birthday must mean I want to mock his ageing years. Ageing seven years behind mine, but still ageing and therefore ripe for piss taking.

I found myself browsing the Jewish section and he almost received a Mazel Tov Bar Mitzvah card with the Star of David on the front, which may be out of place, neither of us being Jewish, but wasn’t as embarrassing as the non Jewish alternatives. I don’t think my brother has ever aspired to being on the cover of OK magazine so there’s a whole other section of their website brushed aside in one fell swoop.

After pausing on the Diwali cards (I never looked in the Holy Communion section, I may have missed something there, do people get Holy Communion cards? I thought it happened every week?), I settled on an age joke card. At least I’m only accusing him of existing in the same relative place of existence as the rest of us, not destroying his life and the lives of loved ones.

That took far too long. Before arriving at this I got the checkout stage with a custom made card with no picture and the caption “this page intentionally blank” before getting here.

It wouldn’t be complete without some customisation would it? For a start he’s not called Bruce.

It’s funny because he’s old, and instead of the bat mobile there’s a mobility scooter, and in his youth he had a bat mobile. And the implication is of course that I think you’re old, despite being younger than me, but, it was either this or a card accusing you of being an alcoholic, or a sex pest. Anyway, happy birthday and all that, you ancient drunkard.

It’s surprising how much work you have to put into these things isn’t it? Happy Birthday Bruce.

Watch out for my funkypigeon.com review next year.

Abbotgate

AbbotGate? Seriously? That annoys me as much as people saying they’ll try 110%. It’s 120% annoying.

I think Dianne Abbot is as racist as I am black. Which I’m not. And there ends the amount of opinion I’m allowed to have about the matter, as a white person, except to say that I think it’s telling that the media only seems to take notice of a black woman’s opinion under these circumstances.

So instead I’m going to tackle a side issue. The gate suffix.

Watergate was an actual place. It was not a scandal about water. Therefore, scandals should only be allowed to be a “gate” when a word with the gate suffix is an actual real word. Not just appended to any old word.

To help with this I have provided some examples below. Enjoy.

Police screw up Stephen Lawrence case. InvestiGate

The wife said “turn left”, but claims she said “right”. We’re referring to the incident as navigate.

I saw a copper kick a man in an already broken leg, papers are calling it castiGate

Rebecca Black was accused of lip-syncing, The scandal is being called FriGate

MP’s found smoking in the House of Commons. FumiGate

Footballer in lovechild shocker. surroGate

MP’s accused of not hiring minorities in segreGate scandal

Churches being forced to use budget roofing materials after new lead tax. corruGate.

Columbus mislabels native Americans after missing India and landing in America in a scandal called “circumnaviGate”

Fury as President tries to close the deficit by selling one of the states. DeleGate

MP caught buying “sexual enhancement products”. ElonGate

Fluoride being added to water supplies. ColGate (HT @mmeguillotine)

… The MP denied he has proposed to his mistress. Papers are calling it neGate

An MP was found in possession of bestiality pornography, it’s being called tailGate

There have been allegations of corruption of the watergate hotel. Papers are calling it “Nixon resigns shock”

I’ve written loads of these, I’m getting tired now. It’ll be called. defatiGate

But at the rate I’m going some people will call it profliGate

There’s just too many, as if someone opened a floodGate

That’s it, I’m addicted to “-Gate”. I’ll call this condition gate-AHOLIC

Here are some more words ending in gate. See how many you can do.

aggregate
abjugate.
Ablegate.
Abligate
abnegate
Abrogate
abrogate
Adjugate.
Adrogate
Alligate
arrogate
Bijugate
centrifugate
congregate
delegate
Deligate
Denegate
Derogate
divagate
Evulgate
Indagate
Irrigate
Irrugate
instigate
interrogate
Levigate
lichgate
Litigate
lychgate
mitigate
Obligate
Obrogate
propagate
relegate
Runagate
subjugate

As much as I hate -gate, I’d love to see one of those words in a Sun headline.

Office Life

I really object to the labelling things you put in the fridge mentality. It only happens in two places, student houses and offices, to somehow stop people stealing/”borrowing” your food.
I don’t name my stuff, yes it gets borrowed, yes I’m lazy, yes I don’t’ want to be brought down to their level of petty, but also because if I don’t label it, you’ll never know if the person standing behind you owns your ill gotten gains or not, and one day I’ll be standing right there. It’ll be worth it to talk to you like you’re a child. To make you grovel “I didn’t know”.
What do you mean you didn’t know? You know when the stuff you are using isn’t yours! Why does me putting a name label on it make any difference? It’s not a dog in the street, where a lack of licence tag means there’s probably no owner, the milk I bought didn’t just wander in. Someone bought it, that someone isn’t you.

I bet if I contaminated food and put it in the fridge, somehow I’d be the one in the wrong.

Banksy Exhibition

In a thinking outside the box moment I decided I would try and avoid the 2-3 hour queue for the Banksy exhibition by turning up 2.5 hours before it opened. It made sense in my head at the time.

There was a load of stuff there none of which was what Banksy is most famous for, graffiti. Which is not surprising really, as walls aren’t that transportable. What is there is definitely Banksy though. Pictures, statues, installations.

This one is a bit creepy, the thing in the bowl is an amimatronic fish finger that swims around like a fish.

This one had to be the most impressive, I’m not sure if the model is Banksy, but it’s stunning in detail, and covered with model soldiers.

Ooh, controversial!

I particularly liked the cartoons, they have an almost xkcd.com feel to them (minus maths jokes of course).
Click any image to see it larger.

(“where did you get that hat”, “the same idiot who drew your shoes”)

There are more photos on my flickr, in this set. The exhibition is running till August 31st. If you are near Bristol you need to go. Go early, queues get up to 5 hours (they’ve closed nearby roads just to accommodate the queue) it gets busy fast, and there’s loads (much more than I’ve got here) to see.