You must all have been exposed to the hilarity that was caused recently upon hearing the ‘news’ that Kanye West had chosen to call his baby North West, because it’s the highest point in the parents’ relationship and, well, it just doesn’t get any higher than ‘north’, does it? Quite right. Except that the child’s full name is North West, so it’s just ever so slightly skew-whiff of north, if we’re being pedantic. And we are Kanye, we most certainly are.

So this got me thinking about other ridiculous and ill-thought baby names from parents who seem unable to grasp the concept that their baby will grow up to become an adult who is bitter and resentful at being named with such disregard for their feelings.

Of course there are other well-publicised celebrity baby name disasters, which I’ve noticed often fall in particular categories. There are those named after favourite fruit – Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow/Chris Martin) and Peaches (Bob Geldoff); those with lunar obsessions – Moonunit (Frank Zappa) and Sage Moonblood (Sylvester Stallone); the place conceived (perhaps?) – Brooklyn (Beckham) and Egypt (Alicia Keys); and the just downright weird – Pilot Inspektor (actor Jason Lee) and Moxie Crimefighter (Penn Jillette). My personal favourite name is Neville Neville (father of footballers Gary and Phil Neville). Not really a celebrity, but so good, they named him twice… possibly.

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Last week saw the rather amusing consequence of a poorly run company, that fails to evolve in an ever-changing market, fall into the hands of administrators who, whilst sharpening their hatchets to make the necessary job cuts, failed to notice that disgruntled employees had vented their fury via the medium of Twitter.

Of course, I am referring to the music and games retailer HMV; a company that in its wisdom presumably decided that digital downloads were a passing fad and that large high street stores made good business sense. They did well to last as long as 2013.

The tweets that quickly went viral and were picked up by the media can be seen on the left. They were of course deleted once management became aware of the bad publicity. But the damage was already done.

Much more funny than these tweets is something that I stumbled upon recently. Continue reading →

Stay in the tracks, it’s the only way to make it through!

Drama unfolded over the past week as a rarely seen natural phenomenon occurred over much of the British Isles. It was so cold that rain actually froze and fell to earth in flakes of snow; something that has not been seen since way back. Last year sometime. But we can’t say we weren’t warned.

Weather forecasters informed us of impending doom. We should only travel “if absolutely necessary”. As a result, countless people decided against partaking in their evening hobby of driving around aimlessly in circles. It was just too dangerous. 

Then the heavens opened and the snow cometh. Parts of the west experienced blizzards with gusts up to 5mph, resulting in drifts capable of obscuring predatory polar bears, quite possibly looking for new territory due to the melting ice cap, attracted by the ‘arctic’ conditions. Understandably, faced with such dangers, schools closed. Just in case. Continue reading →