I didn’t know this until I read about it in The Guardian, but apparently in France it is legal to marry someone who is dead. About 20 people do it each year, but you have to ask the President for permission. You can’t just choose to marry anyone – the authorities only allow it if…

When I came home from work the other day, my son asked me whether I work hard. “Yes, of course” I replied (and actually I do). “So is your teacher happy with your work?” I suppose it’s an entirely logical view of the world when all you know is school. It has obviously never occurred…

I hate to miss out on things, and after having had a fax at home for several years I have finally started receiving junk faxes, at present just two pages each time (in the middle of the night). This is mildly annoying because it wastes my paper and ink, but thankfully it hasn’t woken me…

Fumier, a Hong Kong lawyer, expresses surprise at being sent a copy of Hong Kong Lawyer magazine (and reports that he appears in one of the photographs published in the self-same magazine). Now you can call me stupid if you like, but I’d have thought that the publishers of that magazine had pretty much scored…

It goes something like this: Me: "Hello, can I speak to Ms —— who is staying in your hotel" T: "Yes, can you repeat the name for me?" Me: (repeats the name) T: "Can you spell it for me?" Me: (spells the name) T: (spells out the name using the Tango, Bravo, Charlie, notation) Me:…

A rather strange story from The Guardian about garages that are too small to park a car. I don’t normally have much time for consumer stories, since they typically serve to highlight that people have been naive or stupid, but this one is a bit mysterious: It would appear that architects do not consider how…

With thanks to Shaky for finding this: You’re Fiji! As calm, relaxed, and removed from life as they come, you’re just so chilled out, it hurts people to see you. Everyone aspires to be where you are, but most of them just can’t put their stress away. Little do they know that even you sometimes…

A while back I mentioned the HSBC ‘Instant Gift Draw’ Well, I managed to qualify for this stoopid draw by spending over HK$500 in Park’n’Shop, and so I called their hotline to register. As I expected, it is a painful process – the first time something went wrong after about 3 minutes so I had…

Thanks to Jim for sending it to me, but I’m not sure where it originates from.

I came across this story about the British government’s response to the pressing problem of hot water coming out of baths taps. Apparently it affects about 600 people a year, and so the government are going to introduce legislation to make it mandatory to install “anti-scald” devices on all taps. A spokesman for the Royal…