Pap's Almanac

Monkey Tennis
21

American Fast Food Abroad

Spend any amount of time in the USA and you’ll quickly realise one thing:
Franchises like McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken are dirt.

They’re the franchise restaurant equivalent of shit on your shoe —
quantity over quality, manifested in corporate-branded food factories.

There are far better chain options available in the US, and anyone with a bit of taste and slightly more cash will avail themselves of them.

And yet, these four are the most successful American exports into the UK.
You can find them everywhere.
But none of the better ones ever seem to land.

You can lead Europeans to better food —
but they’ll turn their noses up for a twelve-inch stuffed crust topped with Big Macs and popcorn chicken.

And we’re the ones who are supposed to have taste.

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22

American Football

American Football — or just “Football”, as they insist on calling it — is one of the great contradictions in modern sport.

It may also be the ultimate monument to what happens when you give capitalism a whistle and shoulder pads.

You can moan all you like about the creeping reach of advertising into British sport — I was recently horrified when a boxing match cut to adverts mid-round — but American Football was built for it.

They stop play so advertisers can get their fill.

It’s not a sport. It’s a heavily-armed theatre production with massive breaks in transmission.

It also leads to life-changing injuries.

Surely it holds the crown for most effort, least output in all of sport.

The Church Stretton Annual Snail Cannonball Run concludes faster than most NFL games.

Ironically, it’s actually more watchable when British broadcasters repackage it:

Adverts trimmed, dead air removed, and all action when it happens.

Back then, without the Internet, we just assumed they’d forgotten the rules of another game and made something completely wrong.

They barely use their feet.

They spend a sliver of time running, and the lion’s share waiting around, sweaty, while Skittles are flogged to the population.

People watch the SuperBowl just for movie trailers.

It’s not football.

It’s not even a god-damned sport.

The Church Stretton Snail Cannonball Run may lack pace — but at least it’s real, and the competitors get to come out of their shell.

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23

American Football may not be Sport, but other than a non T20 Cricket Match or day in a box at Golfit is without doubt the 3rd greatest corporate hospitality blag.

You can consume a lot of bad things in the (approx) 6 hours of build-up, game & post match meet/greet.

Allegedly

24

They s Almanac is targeted at a general audience Phil.

Not King Blag.

Although blaggers may appreciate your advice.

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25

American tourists

The United States of America has many fine exports.

The typical American tourist is not one of them.

While recent years have seen more diversity in behaviour, the loud archetype can still be heard booming across Europe — often demanding ketchup in languages not equipped to contain the word.

This archetype struggles in Britain, a nation with no particular talent for customer service and a pathological aversion to complaining.

Which makes the boorish American tourist loudly complaining about the food all the more conspicuous — like a tuba in a library.

Advice for Americans visiting Britain:

Don’t complain.

This is a country that survived the Blitz without whining.

We endured 1960s architecture.

We line up in the rain for buses that never come — and then thank the driver anyway.

If you complain, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb.

And the staff may do bad things to your food.

Quietly. With great dignity.

Advice for Brits abroad:

If you’re on holiday at a resort shared by Germans…

Eat where the Germans eat.

They complain.

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26

Please feel free to provide honest feedback, especially if you think something’s shit or an image doesn’t fit the tone.

Also, let me know if I lose the absurdist balance, especially as we head into B.

27

Okay, you’re a cunt. :smile::smile:

28

…oh, about the thread. It’s very good. :+1::+1:

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29

It has provided a few chuckles…

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30

I’m writing D now.

I could easily provide an examples section for dickhead :smiley: x

31

I’ve been called worse. :grin:

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32

There is one very valuable redeeming point to Anerican Tourists.
They tip.
Boy do they tip.

Obviously I miss them no longer being able to Tour Guide but for an Auschwitz Tour for 2 couples that I got paid £12 for 8 hours work I earned $100 in tips once.

So yeah, always worth arse sniffing and relieving their wallets

33

Looking forward to getting cunts

34

:flushed::flushed::flushed:

35

Dream of that these days

36

Amstrad

Amstrad — or Alan Michael Sugar Trading, to give it its full moniker — was the corporate fiefdom of the aforementioned Alan.
It specialised in all-in-one tat at modest prices.

Your Amstrad hi-fi would never compete with separates.
Your Amstrad CPC was never going to scroll the screen convincingly.
But you could buy one knowing everything came in the box.
And many people did.

To its credit, Amstrad probably (and ironically) made the best ZX Spectrum — after buying Sir Clive Sinclair out of his own business.

To its shame, it also released the GX-4000, which sold fewer units than your average Championship game, and the em@iler — a standalone email device for elderly technophobes, seemingly invented to provide a financial stipend to Mr Sugar for something everyone else was doing for free.

Alan — now Sir Alan — can be found in reruns of The Apprentice (UK), where his barking style effortlessly fits the format.

Amstrad, meanwhile, is now mostly extinct —
out all-in-one’d by every smartphone on the planet.

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37

I’d like to jump in here if I may, with a warning that anybody considering the obvious remark regarding Sir Alan of Golders Green would be putting themselves at risk of Corbyn-style ejection from Starmer’s Labour Party.

38

Anagrams

Anagrams are one of the greatest pleasures of the English language.

The Internet Anagram Server remains one of the funnest ways to waste time online — especially if you’re looking to destroy morale in the workplace.

The game where everyone enters their own name seems harmless.

It isn’t.

It never is.

One particularly unfortunate case involved a middle-aged divorced man hoping to re-enter the dating scene.

His name turned out to be a perfect anagram of:

“Wank Required.”

Also, anyone named Alan should avoid the Internet Anagram Server — unless they’re emotionally prepared to be told how anal they are.

39

Pulse quickening as we approach “AW”… :partying_face:

40

Not itching to find out who “Wank Required” was?