Thursday, March 12, 2009

Found when spring cleaning.

Spring cleaning is such an animal impulse. We shove out the old winter's bedding and droppings from our holes, start to rebuild and refurbish.

Let's get that skirting board job done at last! cries my mate, and before I know it, he's doing it. We pull out the shelves, and I'm turfing out the drawers and box files. How much room we will make! But soon it is apparent that creating space by tidying is like the thrifty measures of cost-cutting that those who seek to govern us promise will finance all manner of wonderful new things elsewhere; there comes a point when it can only be achieved by painful ruthlessness, and is that what we really want? And I find myself shoving things back into holes rather than make the decision to throw them out. and that's usually the point when I say 'Bother spring cleaning!' and go off to mess about in boats.

And it's doubtless what has happened in previous years to these couple of items. This is a scan of an amazing capture Tom made with the old Canon film SLR we used to have, when we had an old rope washing line outside the back door, and the swallows used it as a stopping off point.

~~~

Do you remember the days before the internet, when the office or staff room photocopier served to circulate things considered edifying or entertaining? Do I remember the days when I frequented an office or staff room? Only just. This one I've kept around as it makes me chuckle every spring, so I'll give it a new lease of on-line life.

Training courses

New courses are available to heighten the need for human resources development appropriate to the challenges needed for the 21st century.


SELF IMPROVEMENT:

S110 - Creative Suffering
S111 - Overcoming Peace of Mind.
S112 - Ego Gratification through Violence.
S113 - Whine Your Way to Alienation.
S114 - Guilt without Sex
S115 - Feigning Knowledge - a career advancement strategy
S116 - Keeping Facts out of your Management Structure.
S117 - Carrying a Piece of Paper whilst Walking Briskly.
S118 - Effective Stupidity.
S119 - Discovering Clockwatching
S120 - How to Appear Interested
S121 - The Art of Problem Making

BUSINESS AND CAREER COURSES

BC10 - Money Can Make You Rich
BC11 - Packaging, Marketing and Selling your Child
BC12 - How to Profit from your Own Body
BC13 - The Under-achiever's Guide to Very Small Business Opportunities.
BC14 - Tattooing your Colleagues as an Income Supplement.
BC15 - Credit Purchasing with your Kidney Donor Card
BC16 - Stressed for Success
BC17 - Indecision - Which Way Now?


FITNESS AND HEALTH

FH10 - The Joys of Hypochondria
FH11 - High Fibre Sex
FH12 - Skate your Way to Regularity
FH13 - The Repair and Maintenance of your Virginity
FH14 - Optional Bodily Functions
FH15 - Baked Beans and the Contortionist
FH16 - Standing up to Haemorrhoids
FH17 - Preventative Self-abuse
FH18 - Nasal Hair in the 21st century


CRAFT COURSES

CR10 - Bonsai your Pet
CR11 - Needlecraft for Junkies
CR12 - Drawing Genitalia in Soft Pastel Shades (Spring term only)
CR13 - Orchestrated Flatulence Appreciation
CR14 - Making Others Panic
CR15 - Enhancing Others' Reputations
CR16 - Introduction to Backstabbing
CR17 - Recycling Bodily Waste


HOME ECONOMICS COURSES

HE10 - Cultivating viruses in the Home Refrigerator
HE11 - Sinus Drainage in the Open Plan Office
HE12 - Khmer Rouge cookery for Beginners
HE13 - Advanced Dandruff Sculpture
HE14 - Interesting Bathroom Fungi
HE15 - Indentifying Toilet Smells.
~~~
Ok, some of them were pretty tastelss or oherwise not very funny, but it's a quick and easy blog post, and that's two sheets of A4 that can go for recycling and their contents saved for posterity, which will make room for some other treasure.
Off to find some fresh bracken for the lair now...

21 comments:

julie said...

:D
I thought they were pretty funny. Thanks for sharing, Lucy!

Lee said...

Thank you - great start to the morning. I obviously have much scope for self improvement.

jzr said...

I am in the midst of spring cleaning out too and it's so easy to give up and shove it back on the shelf, but this year I'm determined to get rid of some stuff. One trip already made to the SPCA second hand store and more on the way!! Happy Spring!!

meggie said...

So glad it is Autumn, no cleaning expected!
Love the pic.

christopher said...

Lucy, thanks for this.

Michelle said...

I always feel virtuous after I've spring cleaned, it's just getting around to it :)

Love the swallow photo.

Linda S. Socha said...

Clever, and funny. Frankly , I can hardly decide where to begin
Thanks Lucy
Linda

Rouchswalwe said...

Those wonderful swallows! Thank you for that pic.
Spring cleaning time makes me feel just the way you describe. Hurrah for packrats!!

Roderick Robinson said...

Funny enough but no need to go beyond the clonking, polysyllabic introductory para: "... to heighten the need for human resources development appropriate to the challenges needed for the 21st century." On quiet Herefordian afternoons I warm myself with thoughts that I am no longer within earshot of managers (remember that genus?) uttering words like "motivation" and... Hey! Catharsis! I've forgotten the other examples.

apprentice said...

Thanks for the laugh. I don't miss the "Introduction the Backstabbing."

HLiza said...

Oh the birds on the cloth line is a sweet one. Funny I don't remember any photocopier experience..he he..

Jan said...

WEll...SO much choice!
Was it April 1st every day?
Bet it's gorgeous where you are now.
Lucky Lucy.

herhimnbryn said...

S117- bought memories rattling back of a certain manager I worked 'with' in a social services office.

I 'spring clean'-ish when visitors come to stay. That is I toss acumulated items into baskets and hope all looks charmingly rustic;^)

Zhoen said...

"Drawing Genitalia in Soft Pastel Shades (Spring term only)


I think they're all funny, actually. But, then, I'm doing a series on toilets.

Lucy said...

Thanks chaps, glad they raised a smile. I can't remember where it cam from; I imagine it was something that got appended and edited as it did the rounds.

I think ' drawing genitalia' is perhaps my favourite too. The 'Khmer Rouge' cookery made me wince a bit, but it is actually kind of clever, and I don't really believe in too much censorship so I left it in.

Looking forward to seeing the swallows again soon.

Bee said...

I shall forward the proposed training courses to Sig. He is chafing under the yoke of bureaucratic BS at the moment, and that is just the sort of things that appeals to his sense of humour. No doubt he will send it 'round . . . and it will take on new life.

As for spring cleaning, my youngest daughter's room is begging for it. I cleared a large pile of paperwork/bits from the kitchen counter yesterday . . . but it will replace itself soon enough.

Anonymous said...

Too funny! On sunny days I see how dirty the windows are, how dusty the furniture and floors, but it's too nice to do housework. On rainy days, the house looks clean enough. My desk is a mess of bits of papers, notes to myself of things to do, like clean house!

Sheila said...

I love the swallow photo! That's precious. We have a wren nest out the backdoor now. I've taken some pictures with my fancy binoculars (gift of hubby) but don't know how to get to them yet.....

Whatever amount of cleaning gets done (or undone), enjoy spring!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for spring cleaning both items our way, Lucy. A wonderful moment captured on the good old SLR (I still use ours sometimes), and the more tasteless the course titles, I'm afraid the louder I laughed.

PS Both ferry and accommodation are now booked and it seems that we are just over an hour away from you. Work out your escape route now!

julia said...

I failed S120 miserably, so THAT'S where I went wrong!

Rosie said...

I wish that time for pastel shaded genitalia would hurry up and arrive