The Open Wound

Many people wonder what the little suffixes attached to car names mean e.g. ‘BMW SE’ must mean something. 
BMW is obviously Big Motor Wagon, everybody knows that, but what does that SE signify?

Here is a short guide to help you through this potential MF, (Mine Field).

CD 
Compact Driver.  If you see anyone taller than about 5’6″ climbing out of one of these, you can bet they have a bad back and probably a temper to match.

SE
Solar Energy.  These cars are powered by the sun and once dusk falls they stagger to a halt.  They are seldom stolen as most car crime happens at night.

GT
Gran Tourismo.  Named after the Playstation game in which you drive as fast as you can and push other cars off the road.  One of my mates once lapped the Monte Carlo circuit in 1minute 40seconds, which is better than he did on the Playstation.

GL
Gran Loser.  The driver can’t afford the GT.

Ci
Crazy Italian.  Will suddenly start driving on the right-hand side of the road.  The driver cannot control this and their subsequent panic stricken arm movements only serve to increase the appearance that an Italian is driving.

SL
Strung Low.  This refers to the chasis, but funnily enough, also to the driver’s trousers, which you will notice as they emerge from the car.  Women drivers will usually expose just a bit more thong than you need to see, and men a bit more M&S Y-Front.

Y-Front
The side door swings up and open so that the little helmeted driver can pop out.

Numbers, eg 304, 507. 
These numbers represent the driver’s IQ multiplied by the number of previous models of the car that the manufacturers scrapped for safety reasons.

TT
Tiny Tackle.  Driven by men trying to compensate for something.  The female version also exists, but you can work that one out for yourself.

TDi
Terrifying Driver inside.

TDi Soft top
Terrifying, registered insane, Driver inside.

Sport
The Australian model, usually with a soft top so the inmates can shout amusing comments at the Sheilas.  Conveniently, this also means that you can chuck stuff in at them.  Cups of hot coffee, ice creams, stuff like that.

Coupe
A car with a fixed roof and a sloping back.  The Quasimodo of cars.  Comes with a bell instead of a horn.   

IS
Insurance Swindle.  This car is actually parts of several cars, which explains its ugly appearance.  Usually glued together but sometimes an attractive crochet or cross-stitch is used which can increase the value by several pounds.

EVO
This car is mainly held together with that smelly glue that you can’t get off your fingers.  You shouldn’t drive in weather that is wet or hot in case everything starts falling apart.

IS EVO
See above.  An Insurance Swindle held together with glue.

ZX
Zulu Xray.  Driven by those who like to pretend they are in the SAS or Marines.

“I’m just taking Zulu Xray to GPS point 256.12 and will rendezvous with Team Alpha at approximately 18:00 hours.  Over and out.” 
“Yes, don’t forget the milk and cheese spread, will you dear?”

“You’re supposed to say ‘Over’!  Over.” 
“Oh, sorry dear.  Over over.”

X3
Uses three times as much fuel as necessary, but makes a nice growling noise, especially if you put petrol in the diesel version.

GTO
Got To Overtake.  “No sorry, I just have to, it’s not me it’s the car doing it.  Bye!”

Office workers are baffled by computer jargon and make serious business blunders because they see ‘IT speak’ as a foreign language, a survey has revealed.

Among office workers 26% aren’t sure what a firewall does and therefore have been tempted to turn it off and a massive 61% believed that a megabyte is some sort of a cheeseburger.

A further 23% are not sure whether to upload or download – requiring further contact with the IT department for an explanation.
“I like to explain things personally to the younger secretaries in the peace and quiet of the Server Room,” said IT administrator Chip Qubit.  “I often find that I can upload much faster if I think of Angelina Jolie.”

Office administration worker Chloe Oldfield, 27, from Llandudno, admits her grasp of IT is very limited, but doesn’t feel she ought to know more.
“They might as well be speaking Welsh to me because I haven’t got a clue. Normally when the technical support people come to fix my computer I just disappear and make a cup of tea, if I can get Chip to switch on that water boiling thing for me.”

‘But I don’t feel I should know more – that is their job. If we did it all ourselves they would be out of a job.”

Yes, you’ve seen through their scheme now Chloe.

And it isn’t just the older generation who feel out of the loop – 54% of office workers under 30 have made a blunder because of confusion over the meaning of IT jargon.
“What the hell does ‘out of the loop’ mean?” said one respondent, “Why can’t you just use existing, normal words instead of trying to be clever and making stuff up?”

Asked for his comments, a senior robot for Microsoft said:
“Do your SLA’s specify stringent RTO’s and RPO’s?  How about near-instant access to critical applications?”

Yeah, ok, so I copied that last bit from a letter I got this morning.

There are so many orange coloured people about now.
I think it started out as a quick way of getting a suntan that went wrong, but now it’s become a new label of celebrity. 
Like torn jeans.  Marilyn Monroe wouldn’t have worn torn jeans, only poor people did that.  And then, a few years ago, some skinny model somewhere wore them and appeared in ‘Hello, Look at Me!” magazine and now all the fashion followers wear torn jeans.

In “OK, So I’m Great!” magazine there are scores of young, silicone enhanced, orange women.  They are smiling through bloated lips and hanging off the pinstripe-suited arms of confused looking footballers. 
Orange skin = Celebrity life style.  That’s good enough for Josephine Public, we don’t have to worry about the suntan thing anymore, we can skip that and go straight to the orange.

And as for wrinkles, moles and grey hair!  Who needs those?

Well, they are nature’s brass rubbing of your existence.  They are the map of your life drawn in flesh.

When you step through the golden gates of whichever particular heaven you believe in, all your false dyes will wash away.  Colour-blind angels will run their hands over your body to read your life, as if they are reading Braille. Don’t confuse them by filling in your lines and cracks, and by sanding down your bumps and imperfections. Be proud of your scars and the badges of your age.

Why should you be ashamed when compared to the young?

“Hey, you sad youngsters! Look what I’ve carried and how far I’ve come!”

“P*ss off you old git!” they will no doubt reply.

There’s been some controversy in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.  Apparently people have been voting for the couples they like instead of the couples who are dancing the best.  That’s outrageous!  Imagine if we did that when we voted for politicians and ignored how good their policies were and just voted on how nice their suits looked.  The country would be run by a bunch of smarmy, devious, media led con men.  Hang on a minute…..

The judges got very excited when one of the better dancers had to leave because the public voted for a TV sofa bunny.  They were shouting on the TV and ranting in the newspapers.  It took our minds off the horrors of the world, war, famine and climate change for a while but eventually it got too much.  You couldn’t get out of bed without Craig Reveal Horrid stepping out of your wardrobe and saying, “Surely it’s all about the dance not the celebrity!” in a snidely sort of a way.

I was glad when the News headlines changed to the freak hailstorm in Colombia.  So much hail fell in such a sort time that a whole bunch of cars were trapped in what became a river of ice.  The TV showed one poor wretch pulled out of the window of his car by the local rescue services.  Shivering from cold and fear and with tears frozen to his cheeks, he turned to the cameras and asked the question that had been tormenting him throughout his imprisonment:
“You must tell me Senor, did Dominic and Lilia make it through to round six?”

No mate they didn’t, and I’m not sure I’ll make it through to the next one.