Annoying adages/ proverbs / stupid sayings that no one cares about
Don’t you just hate it when you are arguing with someone and they, usually a parent or more elderly member of the establishment, as way of reply to your well thought out and concise argument (or series of random utterances as the case may be), say something like "a rolling stone gathers no moss" and then sit there looking all smug even if the saying is completely irrelevant to the argument you have been having.
So I have decided that to put these adages out of their misery once and for all and point out the stupidity of each and everyone until I have no breath left in my body, or I find something better to do, or I get bored and decide sleeping is a better use of time. Anyway on with the crusade.
A rolling stone gathers no moss: Well for starters the adage itself is a pile of bollocks, I think you will find that if you get a stone, cover it in super glue and roll it down a moss covered slope it gathers a significant amount of moss. Whereas a stationary stone gathers relatively little. I set up an experiment to prove this, unfortunately the super glue covered stone I rolled down the slope collided with a small rodent, which had disguised itself as a clump of moss, to avoid detection by aliens I can only assume. The rodent then ran off, with mossy stone attached, taking with it my scientific evidence. I was traumatised by the fact I had almost certainly sentenced that poor rodent to a slow and painful death, or a quick and painful death if the aliens found him first, so I was unable to bring myself to repeat the experiment. The adage is also a pile of bollocks when it comes to its supposed meaning. I believe it is supposed to refer to the fact that if you move around a lot you collect relatively few possessions. I ask of you this; how many of you have come back from holiday with less random crap than you had in the first place? No you just come back with a hell of a lot less money and nothing to show for it but a peeling nose, a load of photographs you will never look at again, a load of shiny stones you picked up off the beach and some tacky model of the Eiffel tower (even if you went to America). Of course certain members of the lower socio-economic classes (tramps to you people who watch big brother (ok I watched big brother for one entire series but I was hypnotised by those adds with the random appearance big brother eye)) confuse things because they tend to travel around a lot in search of bars they haven’t been kicked out of yet, and only gather bits of rubbish in shopping carts (for which I applaud them as someone needs to transport Gareth Gates, and a shopping cart is the best way I can think of). Ok having turned the majority of the population against me I think its time for the next adage.
Honesty is the best policy: Now come on if honesty was the best policy natural selection would mean we would have evolved to be incapable of lying. For example if you have murdered someone for no good reason and the police have no evidence that you did it, and you are asked to make a statement, what is the best policy here? Trust me Honesty Isn’t, I mean erm not that I have experience of that. Another example; you are George Bush and have been asked why you; invaded Iraq, dropped lawsuits against companies for poisoning water with arsenic, allowed drilling for oil in the Alaskan wildlife reserves, refused to ratify Kyoto, I could go on but I think you see where I’m going. Unless you are being asked by oil executives wondering whether to give you corporate sponsorship, honesty might not be the best policy.
You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. I think you will find with the right combination of restraints, hoses and pumps you can make a horse drink whether it wishes to or not. Of course you could also do it in a non-cruel and forceful manner by showing the horse movies of scantly clad, hot sexy horses of the opposite sex (unless the horse is gay, then use a horse of the same sex) making romantic advances towards another horse drinking water. I guarantee this will work as horses are stupid with highly malleable minds, now I must go and by that latest Lynx deodorant.
Well I’m back and all Lynxed up, for some reason the sexy ladies haven’t appeared yet, but that is probably due to my generally unappealing appearance (ugliness for the big bro watchers, if you are still here and haven’t had enough of my arrogant ramblings). No "I’m back and all Lynxed up" isn’t an adage, I’m getting to that. An apple a day keeps the doctor away; I admit this one may have some scientific basis in that apples appear to be good for you. However I strongly advise that the world food program does not base its policies on this idea alone as you will find that it takes a hell of a lot more than an apple to keep the doctor away. Unless that is it is a giant apple, genetically enhanced to provide an entire balanced diet and containing drugs that cure all human diseases. And even then you would still need psychiatrists to deal with all the people that go insane from eating apples every sodding day. By the way the adage only applies it the apple is eaten, simply buying an apple and throwing it at a gypsy does not constitute an apple a day, nor does wearing them on long chains around your body, although that does make you look rather fetching.
Every cloud has a silver lining: What clouds have the people that came up with that adage been looking at? I can’t say that once in my life I have seen a cloud with a silver lining, it’s just a lighter shade of grey, or yellow if the sun is behind it. Even then on a really cloudy day you can’t see the lighter grey lining of the cloud, and what if you live on a planet that is completely surrounded by cloud? You’re pretty much buggered then. The whole issue of "looking on the bright side of life" just goes to piss me off even further, lets see you have lost all your house and possessions but at least you still have your health. Yes but if I hadn’t left that pile of plastic explosives next to the fire I would still have my health, and I would have my house and possessions as well! To me looking on the bright side is a way of avoiding making things better and hence it pisses me off most of all when politicians use it; "we may have buggered up the rail network but at least…… (sorry, taking me a while to think of something) but the economy hasn’t crashed (like we keep saying it will to keep you spending money)." Yes but if you weren’t such a load of dumb asses the economy wouldn’t have crashed and the trains would run roughly on time. There’s nothing wrong with looking on the bright side to cheer yourself up, but it’s no reason to ignore the mistakes you make. (Just don’t dwell on them too much or you end up bitter and twisted and writing about how stupid adages are)
Are you still reading? God you must be bored, then look who is talking, or typing to be precise. Strike while the Iron is hot! I think whoever came up with that one needs to refine their Ironing technique. Striking clothes with an Iron is not the best way to remove wrinkles, instead you want a smooth lateral motion across the clothes. Striking may result in burnt Iron shaped holes in your clothes, which you will regret, especially if those holes happen to be through the crotch of your trousers and you forget about them.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That really depends on your point of view, if you are a conservationist you should value the two birds in the bush more than one in the hand, as they enhance the biodiversity of the area and if of opposing sexes may well breed and produce a prodgeny of little bush birds to thrill all who observe them. Also a single bird in your hand is likely to get lonely and may well decide to end his sorry existence by means of jumping off a cliff. As you can see a bird in the hand, deprived of the normal challenges of its natural habitat becomes stupid, as the fact it can fly hinders suicide attempts by cliff jumping. What you really need is a small bird circus, damn they’re entertaining, with the parrots on the bicycles and so forth, and if you get bored you have a ready supply of bird meat.
No use shutting the door after the horse has bolted. There is significant use to shutting the door after your horse has bolted, I once had a horse which bolted so I decided to follow advice of the old adage and awoke to find all my possessions had been stolen and my family butchered by roving horse barbarians, bastards. (Ok I stole some of that joke from rathergood.com as I have just discovered he has a very similar thing on his website, I did come up with the initial Idea myself though, great minds think alike).
Oh bugger what have I just done patient reader? I have used a bloody adage that’s what: Great minds think alike (but fools seldom differ). You can see how these adages sneak into our minds and corrupt our thoughts. Great minds think alike? Well yes they great minds think in great ways, they have that in common, but you could hardly say Van Gough and Einstein thought alike. Einstein tended to avoid cutting off his ears for starters, but then I suppose he didn’t consume the vast amounts of Absinthe that Van Gough put away in his lifetime. I suppose all great minds tend to think in imaginative ways. Well ok because I used that adage myself it is allowed to be correct, now let us never mention this again.
Sod it I’m bored I’ll go and get on with some animation which is all most of you really care about.