One of the ways I find stories to write about on this website is by using Google Alerts and being updated with news items for terms such as ‘conservatories’, ‘double glazing’, ‘ultraframe’ or ‘everest windows’.
A lot of the time I find that I end up reading all sorts of nonsense on the internet, including blogs poking fun at double glazing salesmen, websites suggesting double glazing is a worthwhile investment in the fight against climate change or general forum posts or press releases created by SEO companies on behalf of companies like Trade Price Conservatories, Prior Conservatories or Safestyle UK.
Today I found the following story on the Yorkshire post website, and i thought it was mildly funny. Mainly because we go camping ourselves (although we go upper class and take a caravan), and secondly because I know a lot of window fitters.
These are the words of Gervase Phinn:
One summer our tent was sandwiched between a miserable know-it-all and his ever complaining wife on one side and a very pleasant and good humoured couple and their teenage daughter on the other. The girl, Melanie, a very capable and articulate young woman, was only too happy to baby-sit for us on a few evenings and we got to know her quite well.
One morning Melanie rushed over to our tent beaming widely. “I’ve just got my GCSE results,” she told us excitedly. “I can’t believe it. I’ve got five As, three Bs and an A star in French.” “Congratulations!” I said. “Very well done. That’s brilliant.” When the girl had gone, the miserable know-it-all in the next tent who had been eavesdropping, shared with me his considered opinion. “Hardly brilliant,” he commented. “Exams these days aren’t anywhere near as hard as they were in the past. A monkey could pass some of them.”
“Oh,” I said, “you work in education do you?” “No,” he replied. “You mark examination papers then?” “‘No, I fit double glazing,” he told me. “I’m just saying that standards in school have declined and that the exams are easier. Kids these days don’t know half as much as what we did at school.”
The following day I came across the “educational expert” in the supermarket. “Do you speak the lingo?” he asked me. “Pardon?”
“French. Do you speak French?”
“A little,” I replied.
“Well, the wife wants to know the name of this cheese we’ve been eating. She wants to see if they have it back home. Can you come and ask the fellow at the charcuterie what it’s called?”
I accompanied him to the counter to find “the wife” was pointing and nodding and mouthing something volubly in a sort of pigeon English.
“May I help?” I asked.
“No thank you,” she said, “I can manage.”
“If you would like me to ask –” I started.
“No thank you,” she interrupted sharply. “I said I can manage.”
At the check out the couple were ahead of me. “Did you discover what sort of cheese it was?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” said the man holding up a large wedge in greaseproof paper. “The wife’s going to ask for it back home at Sainsbury’s. It’s called fromage.”
If you’ve got any other jokes about double glazing (or cheese) then please get in touch.
1 response so far ↓
1 Ian Longbottom // Oct 15, 2008 at 8:42 am
I bumped into a couple of old friends lately at an ad hoc pub re-uninion. Just the three of us, our Range Rovers and our dogs…
We had a good laugh over old times and compared our fortunes; the other two having done a little better than me selling my wares in the window industry.
Things got a little heated as we finished our roast chicken and the dogs who had behaved themselves up to now started to get excited.
My friend David (a surgeon) then took charge of the situation. Looking at the remains of the chicken and smiling he said “My dog is fantastic watch this…” with that he threw the remains of the chicken on the floor and shouted “Scalpel - bones!”
The dog set about the bones and in less than 2 minutes had built a perfect model of a human skeleton.
“Christ almighty!” I thought, but before I had chance to comment my other freind Chris (an architect) responded; “That’s nothing, my dog’s even better - watch this…”
I looked nervously at David and he looked back stone faced. “Vernier - bones!” shouted Chris and with that his dog dived on the bones and similarly in no time at all built a scale replica of the Eiffel Tower.
I hung my head as the other two looked at me intently. Then without further thought I realised my the cover for my exit. “Bollocks - bones!” I shouted. Bollocks leapt into action … scoffed the bones, shagged the other two dogs and took the rest of the afternoon off!
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