Time for Tubby Bye-Bye
Time for Tubby Bye-Bye

If fines seem a little too much like “the rich will just pay their way out of them”, then penalty points on the driving licence would affect everyone equally.

From a Dan Dare comic, in a “Best of the 1950s comic” Eagle Annual.
[edit] After quite a bit of searching, it looks like it’s from the Dan Dare series “Prisoners of Space”.

What are the boundaries or guidelines for what you can be asked to draw next?

Can I just say something like “Give me a 7 second horse” or “give me a 20 minute map of the world, from memory”, or are you specifically looking at computer game characters etc?

“We do not discuss it with outsiders.”

Worf

In the UK, at least, the beans thing is simply:

Will you give money to charity?
No

If someone sits in a bathtub full of cold baked beans for eight hours, will you give money to charity?
Yes

As for the suffering, it might sound ridiculous, but it appears to be a recognised tactic for fundraisers.
The Conversation: The Martyrdom Effect - Why your pain boosts a charity’s gain

That’s what they’re saying… but… so what? Did the police waste hours and millions hunting for a lost mobile phone? Did she receive an ill-gotten temporary replacement mobile phone from work for a few weeks? I’m still struggling to see the scandal or crime.

I think there’s a little difference between charity in general and “charity events” or “fundraisers”.

One one hand, you’ve got people personally deciding to give some money towards something they chose to support, which is great.

But sponsored fundraisers are actually a bit weird.

Fundraiser: “Hi, would you like to donate £10 to help cure cancer?”

Potential donor: “I’m an incredibly wealthy man, so I can easily afford that… but… you just want me to give you some money in exchange for nothing?”

Fundraiser: “It’s not nothing - you get to know you’ve helped a worthy cause, made the world a better place…”

Potential donor: “No… unless… no, sorry, that’s ridiculous…”

Fundraiser: “No, wait! Tell me your idea!”

Potential donor: 'Well, I could probably give you some money… if someone suffered."

Fundraiser: “Suffered?!?”

Potential donor: “Yes, I want you to make a fat, asthmatic man run a marathon, dressed in a really awkward, incredibly warm costume that makes him look ridiculous. If he suffers enough, you can have your £10 for whatever it was you were on about.”

Fundraiser: “Curing cancer is seen to be a good cause - are you sure you couldn’t just donate the money?”

Potential donor: “Yes. I can only give away a tiny pittance of money if there is suffering. You could also make the man sit in a bathtub full of beans for a whole day. I imagine that’s unpleasant enough to appease my hunger for suffering.”

Surely we all agree this whole concept is a bit weird?

I must be missing something. What’s actually the crime or scandal here?

Haigh: “Help, I’ve been mugged”
Police: “What did they take?”
Haigh: “I can’t remember exactly what was in the bag, I guess my money, my bank cards, my keys, my work phone”
Police: “Ok”
Haigh: “Oh, wait a minute, my work phone was at home, they only threatened me, assaulted me and took the other stuff I mentioned”
Police: “Your list was wrong? Ha! Then it is YOU who is the criminal, not them!”
Government, ten years later: “Also, you’re not allowed to fix our railways or have a job”
Tories: “Unlike all our politicians who merely do things like millions of £s of fraud, destroying the economy and endangering the lives of millions of people for their own personal profit - this horrific excuse for a human once put something in a list and then realised it shouldn’t have been on the list, so a decade later, it’s only correct that they shouldn’t be allowed to have a job”

I assume I’ve missed something key here.

Liverpool / Real Madrid?

Unless they’re already on the list, I would also like to add 1980s Rock Star Freddie Mercury, 1992 Formula One Driving Champion Nigel Mansell, and Liverpool FC’s 1980s Midfielder & 1990s Manager Graeme Souness :)

The tasche isn’t square enough for a Kitler. More of a Ron Mael from Sparks.

[Edit] just to note, I’m not mocking your cat - even with its 70s rock-star moustache, it’s a beautiful cat.

To save any other Britons having to search it, “Saran Wrap” is American for “Cling Film”.

Hahaha, yes, exactly this - and perhaps the same situation with “bum crack or inner-fold of a bent elbow?”.

Fried Ian Slip

His main talent is “already having lots of money”.

I had this system for a few decades - I only owned identical black socks with a few white and grey stripes at the top. Any two socks was a pair.

It was unfortunately ruined by a well-meaning present, then destroyed when the shop they used to come from closed down.

Now I live in sock chaos.

Maybe it’s worth bearing in mind Lemmy’s older, nerdier audience?

You remember those build-a-model magazines they used to rip off grandads with?

“Build your own model Lancaster Bomber! Only £1.99! You’ll receive a large piece of the model with your first issue! Then the rest of it in pieces over future issues! (Future issues cost £9.99 a week, for 500 weeks)”

So you get your “special interest” photographs produced into jigsaws, then sell one jigsaw piece a week, eventually completing the full photograph at the end of the year.

Adjacent ideas like “buy cheap, buy twice” or “you get what you pay for” are older, and I imagine the idea behind it is quite a lot older (for example, the wiki article mentions The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist from 1910).

There’s some record in the late 1800s of “the poor” in the UK living hour-to-hour or day-to-day (rather than week-to-week these days) and only being able to buy things on the day when absolutely needed, i.e. going to the shop to buy “one spoonful of tea leaves” twice a day. I’d imagine that, like the boots, that’s a lot more expensive than something which lasts longer - and I’d imagine the idea and complaint existed at the time - but nobody cared enough to write it down, because they were poor people, and “it was their own fault”, and “they keep spending it on luxuries like thimbles”, and they “deserve it because they have lower moral fibre” and “most of them are thieves anyway” etc.

PTerry just put it together in a way that was so clear and eloquent (like his one about crabs in a bucket).

For some reason, it’s always bothered me in stuff like this, that if one of the animals wears clothing, it implies that “in universe” animals wear clothing, which means any animal not wearing clothing is walking around in the nude.

Basically the same issue as “the implication of Winnie The Pooh wearing only a shirt is that he’s walking around swinging his knob about”.