At work, we have a communal container of butter in the fridge. It is for use by anyone in our department, should they wish to smother any of their food in its buttery goodness.

My boss went to get the butter, and was disappointed that someone had "stabbed" it with their knife. They hadn't just scraped their knife across the top like a normal person would, but they had dug the knife into the butter, and pulled out a buttery wedge.

"Who has stabbed the butter?" he asked, quite upset, showing everyone the devastation in the pack.

There soon ensued a big discussion about butter etiquette, or buttiquette as it shall now be known. "It should be spread, not dipped into." "Just slide your knife across the top, don't dig in." The discussion was quite thorough, considering it was only for butter.

"Why does it bother you so much?" I asked.

"Because... It takes so long to repair" he confessed.

"You REPAIR it..........? Really?"

I'd never really appreciated how deep my Bosses butter obsession was until that moment.

At work, one of the ladies had developed a limp over the weekend. We asked her if she had had a sore leg for a while, and she said she hadn't.

We asked if she had a history of sore limbs, and she didn't.

Finally, we asked her if she had maybe bumped into something, causing the pain, and she replied...

"Well, according to me, no."

Just made me laugh that she had actually asked herself the same question. Literally, asked herself.

The ace powers that be at work, or Allan as we all call him, decided everyone who works here should go on work-related courses.

In order to establish whether these courses would be of benefit, we had to all sit a brief exam.

Calculators were not allowed. Phones were not allowed either. If I had an abacus, then THAT would have been allowed apparently, but I didn't have one.

So it came to my turn to sit the exam. I took my exam paper into the test room, sat down, and started to panic.

I know it was against the rules, but I decided to call a very clever friend on my mobile. Who could I ring? Who would know the answers to all the questions on this test? Only one person sprang to mind. The most intelligent man on the planet, Stephen Hawkins.

I rang him, he picked up, and I blurted out:

"Hi Stephen, it's Craig, listen, I'm doing a 30 minute test at work and I need to borrow some of your intellect, I need help with a few maths questions, a few grammar things and some spelling. Any chance you can give me some help?!?"

And he replied,

























OK. Fire away.

Librarians..... they really don't like people who aren't librarians, do they?

Went to the library today and I felt a little unwelcome. There was a trolley full of 10p "sale" books. They were all either really old, battered books, or incredibly unpopular ones. One caught my fancy, so I made my way to the counter with it.

"Hi, how much is this book? It was on the sale trolley." (I actually knew how much the book was. It was 10p. All the sale books were 10p. Asking the price was just an ice breaker.)

Now, to me, I had asked quite a concise question. But the amount of discussion that it invoked was immense.

Where did I get it from, which aisle, was it from the childrens trolley or an adult trolley, did I know how much it was, would I mind waiting because although I told her how much it was she still had to check with someone else how much the "10p books" were....

At the end of the interrogation, I felt hot and clammy. I handed over 10p, and made my way to the exit. As I left, she watched me, presumably to ensure I didn't sneakily pick up any other 10p books on the way out.

They are so scary!

Think about all the knowledge that they have access to in that building... Librarians know everything that there is to know... If there is something that they don't know, all they have to do is order a book about it... They can do that, you know... they can order books just like that...

Don't annoy librarians...

Years ago, when I was 13-ish, my mum was listening to the radio. There was a male opera singer on, who was famed for having a vocal range of 3 full octaves.

His voice could go from incredibly low, all the way up to the same equivalent note 3 octaves higher.

She was WELL impressed with his voice!

I said "I can do that too!" and demonstrated, with my newly broken voice, the deepest note I could do. Then I did the same note three octaves up, demonstrating that my range was the same as his.

"Don't be silly!" she laughed, and walked off, over to the kitchen.

Always amused me that conclusive proof was never quite enough evidence to make my mum believe in things that she didn't want to believe in.

At work, we have a man who comes in every Monday, and leaves a box of food and cans of drink. There is usually a massive selection of chocolate and around 20 cans.

These 20-or-so cans are all just sat there, all mixed up. There are usually a few cokes and diet cokes, a few tangos, a few dr. peppers...

I had an idea for a game!

1) When no-one else is in the food room, approach the cans of pop.
2) pick up a random one
3) shake it vigorously
4) replace the can
5) mix up all the cans
6) walk away and tell no-one

It's a game of chance in which people, unknowingly admittedly, open a can and MAY get a face full of fizzy pop.

I called my new game "Rush-can Roulette."

Years ago, eldest-child used to be travel sick. If we were in the car for more than 15 minutes, he'd explode like Niagra Falls. When he's sat in the back of the car, he sits in the middle using the lap strap, so the other two smaller people can use booster seats and proper seatbelts.

One time, he threw up 30 seconds from home. He threw up with such force that the torrent gushed straight between the two front chairs and covered the gearstick. I had to negotiate the last two snail-pace corners to my house stuck in 4th gear.

You could tell when he was going to throw up, because he used to go quiet for a couple of minutes beforehand.

The other two were fine. Not even a trace of travel sickness.

So as we decided to go to Ikea, a 40 minute drive away, we gave eldest-child a travel sickness pill to prevent the inevitable spewing. He ate it, and we hoped all would be well.

35 minutes into our 40 minute journey, and he was still fine. This was a GREAT day! He was chatting away, not spewing, and he showed no signs being ill.

As we approached the car park, I slowed down, pulled in and drove around for a bit to try to find a space. As I was searching it occured to me that, although middle-child was chatty, the other two were noticably quiet.

Suddenly, eldest-child let out an horrific noise. My first thought was that the travel sickness pills must have only stopped him REALISING he was feeling sick, not stopped him BEING sick, and it must have taken him by surprise. But I was wrong.

I stopped the car quickly, turned around to give help, and saw that he hadn't been sick at all. No, that would be too simple. The other two had, absolutely simultaneously, been sick on him, one from either side. He just looked at me, his arms, hands, lap ALL completely covered, and did a massive frown.

I still hadn't found a parking space yet, so he had to sit in the car, covered in two other peoples sick, while I drove around for another 10 minutes.

Five years on, and he only just sees the funny side of it.

"Put your money where your mouth is." That is one strange phrase.

When you make a pretend bet, people say that.

My mouth is on my face, and you want me to put money there too? What, IN my mouth, or just near to where it is? Because if I put it IN my mouth, I won't be able to talk. Maybe that's it! Maybe what they're actually saying is "You're talking a load of rubbish and your bet is impossible, so stuff your mouth with money so I don't have to listen to you talk."

But then, why money? Why not tissues, or something that would muffle the voice better?

Why do people persevere at things that they don't enjoy?

"I don't like Guinness."

"I didn't like it at first either, but you get used to it."

WHY?!? Why would you WANT to get used it? It's something that genuinely doesn't taste nice and costs you money. Move on! There are literally hundreds of other drinks to try, some of which I can pretty much guarantee you WILL initially like a lot more.

Rather than dedicating your time to this stupid cause, committing yourself to acquiring a liking of something that you initially didn't enjoy, why not just move on and drink something else? Why would you put yourself and your poor tastebuds through the initiation?

At the end of "getting used to it" you still don't actually "like" it. You're just so used to it, you've just made it "bearable."

Bonkers.

(Legally I'm probably not allowed to say which big UK postal service is planning on banning deliveries of Christmas cards. But please read on.)

We are told that the number of Christmas cards that are being sent increases each year. Due to the rise and the increased mail that postal workers have to deal with, there are always substantial delays to all postal deliveries in December.

Plans are being introduced over the next couple of years to ensure that normal post still arrives promptly, by banning Christmas cards to remove this annual surplus.

Anything posted in a colourful, or noticably Christmas themed envelope can be removed from the system if spotted, to allow normal post a quicker journey. They will also have the power to open items that they suspect are Christmas related should we chose to disguise them in brown envelopes, for example.

Sending Christmas cards is a tradition that we cannot let be abolished.

So please, SAY NO TO ANY PROPOSED BAN ON SENDING CHRISTMAS CARDS!

Facebook rocks!

Decided to join twitter, after seeing yet another facebook friend convert to it.

All I use facebook for really is to update my status, so twitter is ideal for lazy guy like me.

To open an account, you have to set up a unique twitter suffix. I tried twitter.com/craig but that was already in use. So I tried /CraigA, but some other Craig had obviously got there a'fore me. My thinking was that there must be quite a few Craigs on there already.

So I became AnotherCraig

After setting up my account, I realised that I couldn't remember who it was that also had accounts on there.

Oliver Cranfield was not fat by any means, but he did have a very round face. Bear this fact in mind towards the end of the story, and all will become clear why it is relevant.

So, back when I was about 18, 19-ish, my semi-cousin Ivan and I went to a pub, referred to by locals as the Athy Arms.

After purchasing a pint, we noticed Oliver was also in, so we went to sit with him. I hadn't seen him much since leaving sixth form a few years back, so it was nice to catch up with him. He hadn't changed much, other that he now had spikey hair. We sat there, chatting. We chatted and drank for a few hours.

Back then, you could smoke in pubs. Oliver was a smoker, and his cigs were on the table next to his lighter. He announced he would be "back in a minute" and ventured towards the toilets.

The lighter he left on the table was one of those cheap disposable ones that you can take to pieces, tamper with, and make the flame massive. When I say "massive" I mean change the flame from 2cm to about 30cm, so that it roars as it burns just like they have on oil rigs. You could make the flame that big that you can see the gas bubbling and draining through the translucent sides. It is very dangerous and I do not advocate doing it.

I thought it would be amusing to do this, just for a laugh. Obviously the moment he went to use it I'd stop him. I'd stop him and say something like "Oli! I've made your flame massive, so watch out when you light it!"

So, Oli came back and sat down. He picked up his cigs, took one out and put it in his mouth. I was poised to jump in and warn him just at the most amusing time....... Then he suddenly put his left hand over his cigarette end, like you do when you're outside trying to shield the flame from wind, and whooshed the lighter up in his other hand. If he lit his lighter now, his hand, his nose, his eyes AND his cig were all in severe jeopardy.

I blurted out "WHOA! NO!" which made Oli jump. He froze and stared at me. I said "I've made your lighter flame massive! You'll burn your face off!"

He took down his left hand, gave me a sarcastic look, didn't move his lighter from directly under his cigarette, then suddenly lit it.

The flame WHOOOOSHED up literally 12 inches, singed his cigarette, scorched his eyebrow, and up over his head. He jumped back, not really realising initially what had hapened.

Bear in mind that everyone around the table was just a little bit "very drunk", including me. Oliver looked at me, and I looked at Oliver. In fact everyone at our table looked at Oliver, amazed he'd survived. We were all drunk, so we all slowly tried to make sense of what just happened.

Although we could all see, Oliver hadn't yet realised that a few strands of his spikey hair at the front were on fire, and that the flames were slowly burning their way towards his head. WE could all see, and none of us could comprehend why he didn't also know. So we just stared at him.

He didn't change his sarcastic expression at all. He just sat there, staring at me, smoldering.

With his spikey hair slowly burning down onto his round head, honestly, my initial thought was "Oh my GOD! OLIVERS HEAD LOOKS LIKE A BOMB!"

We all stared at him for what seemed like minutes, with him staring back at us. We all watched the flames slowly descend. Finally, he must have felt the burn, and he brought his hand up and smacked his own forehead to extinguish the flame.

He was mightily displeased, which I thought was unfair. He'd brought joy to many spectators, but still seemed quite grumpy. After a few minutes of me apologising, Oli checking his hair in the mirror, we agreed that it wasn't really noticable. Only a couple of strands had been removed, and unless you knew where to look, you really couldn't tell.

We finished our drinks, I apologised to Oli for igniting his head, and Ivan and I left.

The day after, Ivan told Neil about what had happened. Neil found it funny and decided to also tell everyone that he knew about what had happened, but that they shouldn't tell Oliver that they knew about it. Instead, they should stare at his head and say "What the hell happened to your hair?!?"

So for the next three months, every time Oliver saw anyone that he knew from school, they ALWAYS asked why his head looked odd, which probably made him hate me more.

I laugh when people slip on ice and fall over in the street.

I don't just mean I laugh, but I LAUGH. I laugh a lot. Often, I point and laugh. I do it far too much to be socially polite.

The more arm-flailing they do on their way down, the more I laugh. Their arm-speed is usually a great indication of how funny I will actually find it.

If they are walking normally and their foot shoots out from under them, but they manage to swap from one foot to the other in mid-air and STILL fall over, I'm in hysterics. I like to think that it looks like they're kicking an invisible snowman. "If I'm going down, you're coming with me you invisible man-made snow creature!"

If it's someone that I know, then I'm really sorry, it makes it funnier still. If I know you in real life, and I often see you walking about on your feet, to see you suddenly not on your feet is really amusing. Amusing to the point of..... VERY.

In fact at school, years ago WAY before I got so old, Damien Johnson slipped and fell on the school "skiddy patch" outside the IT block. He slipped over face first and broke his glasses. He sat there, blood oozing from his nose, picked up his glasses, put them wonkily back on his face, tried to stand up, slipped again and re-smacked his face on the floor. My cheeks ached for about a week.

If it was a combination of all the above and someone that I knew was walking outside, started to flail about, swapped feet in mid-air, kicked a snowman, whooshed down and hit the floor bum-first it would be so funny, I'd probably just wee there and then.

I mentioned a few months back that our drinks machine at work had different strength sachets of coffee, ranging from 1 to 7. (click here for a recap) Although they go from 1 to 7, none of the coffees were of strength 1. It has bothered me daily since.

So I filled in the "contact us" section of the Flavia website.

Inquiry Type: Question
First name: Craig
Last name: Anderson
How did you learn about FLAVIA: We use Flavia here.

Message Text: The coffee sachets that you sell range in strength from 1 to 7, but none of the coffees are strength 1.

Why is that?

Even the decaf is strength 2.

Why doesn't the scale go from 1 to 6 instead of 1 to 7?

I soon received a reply.....

From: On Behalf Of Flavia
Sent: 11 December 2008 09:45
To: Craig Anderson
Cc: Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com
Dear Mr Anderson,

Thank you for contacting Flavia with your inquiry. We appreciate hearing from you and will be happy to help you out.

We rate them on a scale of 1-5.

Our ratings are:
Mild #2
Medium #3
Strong #4
Strongest #5
Sumatra (5+)

Our flavoured coffee (Hazelnut) is not rated by strength.

You can see these ratings on the product menu on www.myflavia.com
This page will detail out the strength ratings
and you can make your selections accordingly.

Once again, thank you for contacting Flavia. Please feel free to contact us again should you need further assistance. Have a great day!

Sincerely,
Flavia Customer Service

It's really good that they reply to people so promptly. I've contacted a few companies over the years that don't get back to you, or acknowledge that you've asked for something to happen but don't bother instigating your request. Flavia, on the other hand, did a fine job of getting back to me.

The one small thing that they didn't do is answer my original question.

This warranted a reply....

> -----Original Message-----
From: Craig Anderson
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 12:19 PM
To: Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Hi again.

Thanks for your reply explaining the strength-of-coffee situation, but your reply raises further questions.

If the coffees are rated from 1 to 5, then why do our sachets here show 1 to 7?

Also, why are there no coffees of strength 1, 6, or 7? They all range in strength from 2 to 5.

So if none of the coffees are strength 1, 6, or 7, they why don't you move the numbers down so the strength indicators go from 1 to 4?

By the way, I'm not complaining, I'm just really curious.

Craig Anderson.

I thought that was nice and concise. Nice short email, that gets straight to the point. But would they have an answer...

> -----Original Message-----
From: Flavia
Sent: 12 December 2008 15:22
To: Craig Anderson; Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Dear Mr Anderson,

We apologize for the mistake as it is just a print mistake on the filterpacks and the range should go from 1 to 5 and not 1 to 7.

Have a nice day.

Sincerely,
Flavia Customer Service

They answered the "6 and 7" thing, but I was still none the wiser about the lack of "1"s in the range.

I didn't think I was getting my point across fully, and felt this needed addressing. I replied, but concentrating on just the lack of "1"s.

From: Craig Anderson
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 6:15 PM
To: Flavia
Subject: RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Hi.

Thanks for your reply, clarifying the situation regarding the 6's and 7's. I now understand about those two, and will ignore them. Phew! That is one big load off my mind!

The only tiny thing I still don't understand is, the point from my original cantact, that none of the coffees are strength 1. The scale goes from 1 to 5, but no coffees seem to be strength 1.

Even in your explanation of the ratings, your description started at #2 (Mild), omitting #1 entirely.

So do the coffee strengths actually only go from 2 to 5?

It's a bit of an anomaly if they do as all other scales, as far as I can see through personal experience and extensive internet research, start at 1. They HAVE to, otherwise it's like asking someone how much they like something on a scale of 4 to 9, or asking someone to give a rating on a scale of 1 to 5, but not to use 1.

If "1" is a secret flavour that only Flavia employees are allowed to know about, don't worry - I won't tell anyone! You can let me in on the secret, secure in the knowledge that this inside information will go no further. Your secret will be safe with me!

So, just to recap....... What is strength 1? Is it a secret flavour?

Are there any coffees that are strength 1?

And if there are no coffees of strength 1, does your strength scale actually go from 2 to 5?

Thank you so much for tolerating my questions! I was worried that I might get ignored as my questions may seem petty and argumentative. I really do not mean them to be, and I do feel bad for pestering you, but you are my only hope in a world of chaos.

Craig Anderson.

They COULDN'T avoid answering my original question now, could they? That was all I'd asked them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Flavia
Sent: 15 December 2008 12:44
To: Craig Anderson; Flavia
Subject:RE: Contact Me Regarding myflavia.com

Dear Mr Anderson,

Thank you for your update.

We have no answer yet and are dealing with this matter.

Best regards,

Flavia Customer Service

DAMN! Fobbed off!

I'll wait a week, then email back asking if they have dealt with it yet.

Wesley is a very good mate that I met about 10 years ago, when I worked where I used to work.

But he doesn't appreciate stupid people.

He lives in Manchester, and we were due to meet up at the Middlebrook shopping estate in Bolton, so on this occasion he decided to drive to come to me.

All he knew was that "Middlebrook" was near "Bolton", so he followed the signs from the motorway for Bolton. When he reached Bolton, he couldn't see any signs for Middlebrook, so pulled into a car park to ask someone directions.

He wound the window down, and called across to a nearby man.

"S'cuse me mate, I'm trying to get to Middlebrook. Where am I now?"

The man looked around for a minute..... "....Netto."

Instantly, Wes became enraged, but trying to control his temper replied, "I know I'm in Netto car park, yeah? But where AM I? Am I near to Middlebrook?"

"Ooooh, Middlebrook...." the man pondered.

"Yeah, Middlebrook. It's a big shopping thing, yeah? DO YOU KNOW WHERE I MEAN?"

(At thie point, Wes briefly blacked out with anger. Don't worry, no people were harmed.)

Wes, after getting no nearer to finding answers a few questions later, waved at the man, smiled through gritted teeth, wound his window up and wheel-span off the car park. Then he rang me, just to rant about the conversation.

One hour later, he turned up. I was starving after waiting for so long, so he bought me a Burger King meal.