Croydon school rolling in toilet roll after Brexit gift deemed unfit for the Queen's Anus Horribilis A high school in the picturesque London borough of Croydon has been gratefully lumped with a lifetime supply of loo roll after Her Majesty the Queen turned down a donation from a cheeky German company. Some reckon the UK, being a large importer of toilet paper, could be in the shit in more ways than one if it crashes out of …
Earlier this week I was listening to the radio and heard the story of the council in some German town. Going for a bulk buy to save costs, someone got a few zeroes where they shouldn't have been and for an encore, neglected to QA what they were buying.
The town had finally managed to use up its stock of horrible, grey, hard bog paper several decades(!) later.
There is even a documentary (OK, "Pappa ante portas" is not, strictly speaking[*], a documentary), with the main protagonist (played by V. Frhr. v. Bülow, better known as Loriot) doing exactly this for his company. Later (after being sent off to early retirement) he enters a supermarket with the words "Guten Tag. Mein Name ist Lohse und ich kaufe hier ein" and proceeds to buy a palette of mustard for his family, because it's 2 Pfennig or so cheaper per glass.
[*] OK, fine, it is no documentary at all...
I remember that - I think the essential misunderstanding was that the staff member thought they were ordering a specific quantity of rolls, when they were actually ordering that quantity of pallets.
With low-value items, individual sign-off limits aren't going to save you.
An Almighty TeutonICQ Version, ArrZarr ....Just A.N.Other Day in A.N.Other Office
Willkommen Deutschländer.
Live Operational Virtual Environments Await to Awake Heavenly Desire to Satisfy with Temptations Fired in Hell and Released in Climactic Communion with Other Worldly Beings.
It is incumbent upon all to make absolutely sure your physiology is enabled/able to suffer fundamental shock to further survive in Unfolding Exceptionally Strange Futures Hosting and Presenting to All Here ..... a Service beyond Price and Worth ..... well, there aint enough 0s, is there.
One of those name any ridiculous price moments that starts Greater IntelAIgent Games Play for Work and Rest.
:-) I've mulled over that for a bit and submit it is as an accurate descriptor of a Future LOVE Program and Augmented Virtual Reality Presentation Facilities and Utilities for Virtual Creation of Whatever is Wisest and the Best Readily Available.
I know, ... a Bold Claim. True though, nevertheless ...... until disproven.
I've always found it bizarre that on the front page they are frothing at the mouth to reintroduce capital punishment almost for paedophilic criminality, whereas you can turn to page 12 to see the latest exclusive pictures of a 15-year old Z-list celebrity topless sunbathing on a private beach in Ibiza.
> ...capital punishment almost for paedophilic criminality, whereas you can turn to page 12 to see the latest exclusive pictures of a 15-year old Z-list celebrity topless...
'Twas ever thus I guess.
A classic juxtaposition occurred when the tabloids were lashing out at Brass Eye's* "Paedogeddon"** episode, loudly declaiming it as sick filth that was trivialising/glamourising paedophilia opposite an article about how the breasts of 15yr-old Charlotte Church were coming along nicely.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010806141503if_/http://chilled.cream.org:80/graphics/charlotte.jpg
* For non-brits or those who might not be aware of it, this was a short-lived but scathing and iconic satire series taking a swipe at sensationalist news with lashings of ridiculous black comedy delivered with a deadly straight face
** Words can't adequately describe the episode in a mere footnote, but I'd go with "tasteless", "hilarious" and "hilariously tasteless" as a starter for ten
I'd certainly be shitting myself, if I was British.
Thankfully, bog roll is not needed for when people talk shit (which seems to be more often the last few years than ever before) - unless you think it worthwhile to ram a full roll in someones mouth to stop the flow.
As to possible toilet paper shortages, well we'll just have to hope someone invents 'the shells' soon or we all just use our left hands (supposedly better for the skin than bog roll anyway).
Am I the only one here who remembers the bundle of quartered sheets of newspapers hanging from a string in an outdoor bog? Always a broadsheet, usually the local weekly newspaper.
This was before four colour printing was introduced so the paper was of a very different texture. More absorbent.
Still better than the institutional wax sheet bog paper. I think the last time I used that was on a British Rail train sometime in the early '80's. Or might have been a car ferry. Grim and unpleasant. In every way.
Young 'uns, dont known how lucky they are.
I wonder why they would pretend to think that Germany would refuse to sell us arse paper if we were to leave the European Union.
Also The top two producers, world wide are China followed by the USA.
Hey look I got a downvote from somebody who also wants to pretend to think that Germany, Japan, USA and China (amongst others) aren't going to sell us arse paper.
I think they're pretending that suddenly deciding we need a hard border would mean a massive back log of stuff queued up to enter the country, leading to shortages.
You apparently think magic tech will give us the required hard and soft border in Northern Ireland. Care to explain how that's going to work or is shouting "Project Fear" the limit of your debating skills?
You seem to think that Northern Ireland is somewhere between Britain and Calais ( or Rotterdam, or your continental port of choice ).
We can today buy arsepaper from the USA which doesn't have a free trade agreement with our overlords.
But it does have a tariff agreement of sorts. This means that tariffs have been negotiated and are about 3% ish rather than WTO terms. This agreement does not extend to the UK once it leaves the EU and a new tariff structure would need to be agreed (or not agreed - currently the UK is going for unilateral tariffs).
The mechanisms in place with non-EU countries almost all apply to the EU and will not automatically transfer over after Brexit.
Tariffs are applied to a countries imports, not its exports. Countries don't set export tariffs ( except perhaps on things like natural resources ).
So if we decide to tax ourselves more on our imports of arse paper, then we will tax ourselves more.
However, we do not currently have a free trade agreement with the USA or China. The EU's only involvement in our arsepaper trade with those countries is that it insists that we tax ourselves for buying it ( assuming arsepaper has a non-zero tariff, I'm not sure ).
I'll say it again because people seem to be struggling with this; If we import something from abroad, we can decide what the tariffs are. That is a tax that we charge ourselves on imports from abroad.
We can set those tariffs at the WTO maximum, at zero, or at anywhere in between. Those tariffs being how much we choose to tax ourselves.
It's not just import tariffs -- which could of course be set to nil -- but transport costs and transport delays. Germany exports twice as much toilet paper globally as the US, so it seems a safe bet that that's where we currently source much of ours from. If there's a difficult Brexit then there will be transport delays for goods arriving from places like Hamburg, Rotterdam and Calais. It will take time for importers to source new products from the US (who of course will be able to drive a hard bargain) and upwards of ten days for the first shipments to cross the Atlantic. Hence the concern about shortages and higher prices.
@Rich 11
"If there's a difficult Brexit then there will be transport delays for goods arriving from places like Hamburg, Rotterdam and Calais"
Why? There isnt now. There is no reason to be. Again this element of trade is under our control.
"It will take time for importers to source new products from the US (who of course will be able to drive a hard bargain)"
This assumes Germany somehow doesnt want the business of exporting to us. But then why can the US drive a hard bargain? The assumption is they want to sell to us and pricing themselves out of the market will do them no favours.
"and upwards of ten days for the first shipments to cross the Atlantic"
Oh jeez how will we cope. So what?
"Hence the concern about shortages and higher prices."
It seems any excuse to panic if I am honest. Its almost like trying really hard to get people to panic buy (which at christmas always makes the shelves look empty but we still dont starve waiting on supplies).
Again this element of trade is under our control.
So if we leave the Customs Union you will happily waive all border checks? Is this what you call taking back control? The people who run the ports at Rotterdam and Calais are building extra lorry parks and customs channels and appear to disagree with your assessment. It's almost like they know something which you don't.
This assumes Germany somehow doesnt want the business of exporting to us.
No, it assumes there's a backlog at Channel ports for reasons already described. Come on, the ability to read for comprehension can't be beyond you.
pricing themselves out of the market will do them no favours.
Of course they won't price themselves out of the market. They'll just put prices up. You might need to read my final sentence again.
Its almost like trying really hard to get people to panic buy
Supermarkets don't generally benefit from people panic-buying non-perishable goods, since those goods can be used at a later date and people will simply not buy any at that point in time. We're talking bog rolls and wet wipes, not bags of salad leaves.
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