Hitler, sent home from school

Muppet phobia? For Muppets

Look. I do try not to be such a dinosaur, truly I do. Honest. Really. I understand that there’s folk with fears that just can’t be dealt with. I’ve experienced the following:

• Alarmophobia: fear of having to drag your sorry carcass out of your pit in the morning.
• Borephobia: realisation that, no, it isn’t Saturday, Sunday, or a Bank Holiday morning and you’ve got to go and do dreary stuff all day.
• Boorophobia: the fear of having to spend time with, and be nice to, people you’d crawl miles over broken glass, in any normal circumstances, to avoid sharing a microsecond with.
• Dresscodeophobia: all you want to do is grow a beard, have a ponytail, and live out your days in shorts, ragged t-shirts and flip-flops near a beach somewhere. Unfortunately, there’s suits, and ties, and tight socks and uncomfortable shoes to torture you.
• Contactophobia: mobile phone, email, the 24/7 demand never lets up. Switch the things off and there’s the backlog to return to.

That’s just today.

Apparently there are people claiming to have an irrational fear of Muppets. The official line is:

“Automatonophobia is a fear of puppets, ventriloquist dummies, waxworks and animatronic models. In extreme cases, sufferers can experience a racing heart, breathing difficulties, nausea, diarrhea, shaking, sleeping problems and light sensitivity.”

Symptoms that, brought on by a virus, bacteria, or heart problems, deserve sympathy and treatment. When they’re caused by a glimpse of Miss Piggy or Fuzzy Bear? Help me. I’m struggling here.

Hitler: my part in my primary school pagent

A boy was sent home from school. They were having a WWII day, and he was sent in dressed as Hitler. Poor kid. Error of judgement from both the mum or dad or both, and the school.

HMRC – more of the same

Spokeswoman on the radio: [responding to a caller who had filled in the online form, cancelling his child benefit, only to have it continue] “if you do what you should’ve done and we’re at fault, don’t worry, we’ll sort it out”…

…from experience, that should be: we may or may not sort it out, but the ‘may’ is highly unlikely, and even then only after causing you a lot of grief and sapping no end of your time without any payment in return.