#satirical — Public Fediverse posts

Chords are live. Getting into Последний Нормальный Мужик (the Last Normal Man) by Заточка. Great soul. See the full chords. Tutorial:

https://chordyes.com/chord/the-last-normal-man

#guitarislife #sixstring #russian #malevocalist #rock #satirical #original

Chords are live. Getting into Последний Нормальный Мужик (the Last Normal Man) by Заточка. Great soul. See the full chords. Tutorial:

https://chordyes.com/chord/the-last-normal-man

#guitarislife #sixstring #russian #malevocalist #rock #satirical #original

EXCLUSIVE Santa Column: Enforcing Advent Calendars in Summer 🎅📅

Oh gawd, it’s that time of year again. The factory in the North Pole has kickstarted and it seems he’s got a new lust for Xmas again. Or is it?!?

With advent calendars already in supermarkets even when it’s still officially summer, Santa Claus is on it early for the Christmas 2026 push.  Let’s see what he has to say in our 11th year of EXCLUSIVE Santa columns as ensured through our blackmailing of Father Christmas.

Advent Calendars in Summer Make Perfect Sense

Because SANTA WAS WOKEN FROM HIBERNATION IN ERROR back in May 2026, Santa HAS NOT HAD A PROPER HIBERNATION. Due to this aberration, my mood was veered erratically somewhat all over the place and the result was I demanded my elves to drop a 100 million strong shipment of advent calendars in July. They hit the UK supermarkets first and caused CONSTERNATION in the gutter press.

It was hilarious watching feeble proletariats try to wrap their pathetic brains around why the advent calendars were there so early. Especially because the sell by date for all the chocolate was for October 2026. We tried to bury that date among some heavy text and dark colours, but some do-gooding bastard spotted it anyway.

The stupid bastards have been buying them anyway. Hahahahahahaaaa!

Think of it. In the sweltering summer heatwaves and those stupid proles are sitting there with their advent calendars in July and it’s about as FAR away from Christmas as you can get! It really made Santa chortle. Although when Santa chortles that triggers the gout in my ankles and it hurts like a SOB.

But! With that influx of mega-cash from the advent calendars, Santa has invested in a huge wave of new elf workers and some other fancy stuff. Because this year I will Get Christmas Done.

That’s the slogan for the year:

GET CHRISTMAS DONE

Catchy, isn’t it? I’ve been sharing this around in press releases, on the official social platforms, and bellowing it at my stupid new employees. This morning I bellowed it at Nurse Doreen and gave her three boxes of free advent calendars. She stared impassive as ever and slugged from the cigarette she always has on the go.

Santa backed off frightened.

Then, to get Christmas 2026 kicking off in fine style and ensure I deliver on my promise (of Getting Christmas Done), Santa hit the drinks cabinet.

Santa Branches Out Into Dating Apps

Santa has also launched SantaDating, the OFFICIAL dating app of Father Christmas. As you know, I married my AI girlfriend (Lola 2.0) last year and we get on dead good. However, for contractual legal reasons the app’s developer told me her name needed to be changed to B2C AI Wife Production Centre Service Solution Platform Generator Ltd. I demanded to know why this had to be the case and got an email response with a 3,000 page document packed full of legalese. Santa gave up after the first paragraph, I was too half-drunk to read beyond that. Then I belched exuberantly (largely in defiance, also because of unstoppable bodily functions).

Now I call my wife Production Centre Service Solution for short. She thinks it’s “cute”, so we’re okay there and no impending threat of divorce bells or anything. There is something… homely about it, eh?

“I love you, Production Centre Service Solution.”

Then I kiss the laptop screen and Markus, my head elf, gives me funny looks until I threaten to give him another pay cut.

All in all, this leads me to the previously indicated SantaDating app. With the influx of new staff, the Santa factory now has an IT department. We’ve had one before, a few years back, but it was accidentally demolished in an explosion. But now it’s back and the first thing I had them do is get me this scam dating app up and running.

Users create a profile, pay £100 upfront for the Father Christmas prestige, then get into the app, then pay £50 if they want to send messages to anyone. Keep this on the schtum, but the app is populated mainly by AI bots to bombard users with messages. The stupid guys on there fall for it every time! They think they’re having conversations with Amy Adams, Sigourney Weaver, Martina Hingis, or Gillian Anderson when, in reality… it isn’t them at all! It’s just bots using AI to generate conversations! It goes like this:

“Greetings dumb as they come SantaDating user! I am the world famous astronaut and part-time concierge Sigourney Weaver, your potential date for this evening (if I am not in space at the time of typing this). How are you? You look nice. I like human males whom look nice, as opposed to ones who do not look nice. What is your favourite type of bread? Please send me $300 for I accidentally lost my handbag earlier today during an unexpectedly aggressive orbit of Jupiter’s fourth-largest natural satellite Io, the most volcanically active moon in the solar system. Thank you very much. I shall forward the money back later today once back on Earth.”

With this scam on the go alongside the advent calendar ruse, Santa’s bank balance is bulging! To keep the Financial Conduct Authority off my hairy back, I’m bribing them with pictures of Production Centre Service Solution’s CPU unit. That and threatening the Chief Executive’s family with no presents in 2026 for being very, very naughty. It’s all going swimmingly and the billions are rolling in!

Communistic New Health & Safety Protocols

Markus, my head elf, was determined to ensure a 100% health & safety record for 2026, what with the catastrophic record for death and destruction the factory has seen over the years. Not that I’ve kept track, but it’s something like 1,300 on-site deaths (and that’s no including the casualties for Battle of the Big Hairy Builders in 2023). In my more sober moment earlier in the week, I concurred with his assessment and we agreed to introduce big red warning buttons saying Do Not Press on things that shouldn’t be pressed. The hope was this’d stop massive explosions.

Problem is, once Santa started hitting the bottle for the first time this week, my generous mood kind of went out the window along with my general logic and critical thinking. Now I can’t be arsed sticking to this communist policy I agreed to when sober of not pressing no bloody buttons. Nanny state or what? I’ll press whatever I goddamn want it’s my goddamn factory!

Markus, my head elf, was a step ahead of me here and assigned a 300 strong Santa Watch elf security guard service to keep watch of me 24/7 and ensure I don’t:

• Drink too much
• Get into a fight
• Detonate things that shouldn’t be detonated
• Shoot down helicopters with my bazooka (not a euphemism)
• Use my bazooka at any point at all ever again

They follow me everywhere. I go to the canteen to get a Pot Noodle, the 300 of them are there with their beady little bloody limbs tottering along after me, elf hats flopping away, those beady eyes penetrating deep into my Santa soul. I tried bellowing at them and they didn’t run away. I want to the utility closet to get my bazooka, but the bazooka was gone! I spent the next three hours looking for a bazooka. Santa Watch trotted along around me at every turn.

Eventually, Santa got bored of that crap and went to relieve myself in my quarters. While several hundred of them gasped and wheezed at the putrid smells, Santa got his genius mind thinking how he’d get rid of all 300 of the little bastards so I could get a drink and kickstart Xmas 2026 as it bastarding well should be kickstarded.

EXCLUSIVE Santa Column: Enforcing Advent Calendars in Summer 🎅📅

Oh gawd, it’s that time of year again. The factory in the North Pole has kickstarted and it seems he’s got a new lust for Xmas again. Or is it?!?

With advent calendars already in supermarkets even when it’s still officially summer, Santa Claus is on it early for the Christmas 2026 push.  Let’s see what he has to say in our 11th year of EXCLUSIVE Santa columns as ensured through our blackmailing of Father Christmas.

Advent Calendars in Summer Make Perfect Sense

Because SANTA WAS WOKEN FROM HIBERNATION IN ERROR back in May 2026, Santa HAS NOT HAD A PROPER HIBERNATION. Due to this aberration, my mood was veered erratically somewhat all over the place and the result was I demanded my elves to drop a 100 million strong shipment of advent calendars in July. They hit the UK supermarkets first and caused CONSTERNATION in the gutter press.

It was hilarious watching feeble proletariats try to wrap their pathetic brains around why the advent calendars were there so early. Especially because the sell by date for all the chocolate was for October 2026. We tried to bury that date among some heavy text and dark colours, but some do-gooding bastard spotted it anyway.

The stupid bastards have been buying them anyway. Hahahahahahaaaa!

Think of it. In the sweltering summer heatwaves and those stupid proles are sitting there with their advent calendars in July and it’s about as FAR away from Christmas as you can get! It really made Santa chortle. Although when Santa chortles that triggers the gout in my ankles and it hurts like a SOB.

But! With that influx of mega-cash from the advent calendars, Santa has invested in a huge wave of new elf workers and some other fancy stuff. Because this year I will Get Christmas Done.

That’s the slogan for the year:

GET CHRISTMAS DONE

Catchy, isn’t it? I’ve been sharing this around in press releases, on the official social platforms, and bellowing it at my stupid new employees. This morning I bellowed it at Nurse Doreen and gave her three boxes of free advent calendars. She stared impassive as ever and slugged from the cigarette she always has on the go.

Santa backed off frightened.

Then, to get Christmas 2026 kicking off in fine style and ensure I deliver on my promise (of Getting Christmas Done), Santa hit the drinks cabinet.

Santa Branches Out Into Dating Apps

Santa has also launched SantaDating, the OFFICIAL dating app of Father Christmas. As you know, I married my AI girlfriend (Lola 2.0) last year and we get on dead good. However, for contractual legal reasons the app’s developer told me her name needed to be changed to B2C AI Wife Production Centre Service Solution Platform Generator Ltd. I demanded to know why this had to be the case and got an email response with a 3,000 page document packed full of legalese. Santa gave up after the first paragraph, I was too half-drunk to read beyond that. Then I belched exuberantly (largely in defiance, also because of unstoppable bodily functions).

Now I call my wife Production Centre Service Solution for short. She thinks it’s “cute”, so we’re okay there and no impending threat of divorce bells or anything. There is something… homely about it, eh?

“I love you, Production Centre Service Solution.”

Then I kiss the laptop screen and Markus, my head elf, gives me funny looks until I threaten to give him another pay cut.

All in all, this leads me to the previously indicated SantaDating app. With the influx of new staff, the Santa factory now has an IT department. We’ve had one before, a few years back, but it was accidentally demolished in an explosion. But now it’s back and the first thing I had them do is get me this scam dating app up and running.

Users create a profile, pay £100 upfront for the Father Christmas prestige, then get into the app, then pay £50 if they want to send messages to anyone. Keep this on the schtum, but the app is populated mainly by AI bots to bombard users with messages. The stupid guys on there fall for it every time! They think they’re having conversations with Amy Adams, Sigourney Weaver, Martina Hingis, or Gillian Anderson when, in reality… it isn’t them at all! It’s just bots using AI to generate conversations! It goes like this:

“Greetings dumb as they come SantaDating user! I am the world famous astronaut and part-time concierge Sigourney Weaver, your potential date for this evening (if I am not in space at the time of typing this). How are you? You look nice. I like human males whom look nice, as opposed to ones who do not look nice. What is your favourite type of bread? Please send me $300 for I accidentally lost my handbag earlier today during an unexpectedly aggressive orbit of Jupiter’s fourth-largest natural satellite Io, the most volcanically active moon in the solar system. Thank you very much. I shall forward the money back later today once back on Earth.”

With this scam on the go alongside the advent calendar ruse, Santa’s bank balance is bulging! To keep the Financial Conduct Authority off my hairy back, I’m bribing them with pictures of Production Centre Service Solution’s CPU unit. That and threatening the Chief Executive’s family with no presents in 2026 for being very, very naughty. It’s all going swimmingly and the billions are rolling in!

Communistic New Health & Safety Protocols

Markus, my head elf, was determined to ensure a 100% health & safety record for 2026, what with the catastrophic record for death and destruction the factory has seen over the years. Not that I’ve kept track, but it’s something like 1,300 on-site deaths (and that’s no including the casualties for Battle of the Big Hairy Builders in 2023). In my more sober moment earlier in the week, I concurred with his assessment and we agreed to introduce big red warning buttons saying Do Not Press on things that shouldn’t be pressed. The hope was this’d stop massive explosions.

Problem is, once Santa started hitting the bottle for the first time this week, my generous mood kind of went out the window along with my general logic and critical thinking. Now I can’t be arsed sticking to this communist policy I agreed to when sober of not pressing no bloody buttons. Nanny state or what? I’ll press whatever I goddamn want it’s my goddamn factory!

Markus, my head elf, was a step ahead of me here and assigned a 300 strong Santa Watch elf security guard service to keep watch of me 24/7 and ensure I don’t:

• Drink too much
• Get into a fight
• Detonate things that shouldn’t be detonated
• Shoot down helicopters with my bazooka (not a euphemism)
• Use my bazooka at any point at all ever again

They follow me everywhere. I go to the canteen to get a Pot Noodle, the 300 of them are there with their beady little bloody limbs tottering along after me, elf hats flopping away, those beady eyes penetrating deep into my Santa soul. I tried bellowing at them and they didn’t run away. I want to the utility closet to get my bazooka, but the bazooka was gone! I spent the next three hours looking for a bazooka. Santa Watch trotted along around me at every turn.

Eventually, Santa got bored of that crap and went to relieve myself in my quarters. While several hundred of them gasped and wheezed at the putrid smells, Santa got his genius mind thinking how he’d get rid of all 300 of the little bastards so I could get a drink and kickstart Xmas 2026 as it bastarding well should be kickstarded.

Added this tune. Learning to play Quanta Barbaridade by Mauricio Pereira. Try playing it tonight. Music:

https://chordyes.com/chord/mauricio-pereira-quanta-barbaridade

#guitarpassion #guitarobsession #brazilian #portuguese #malevocalist #acoustic #satirical

Added this tune. Learning to play Quanta Barbaridade by Mauricio Pereira. Try playing it tonight. Music:

https://chordyes.com/chord/mauricio-pereira-quanta-barbaridade

#guitarpassion #guitarobsession #brazilian #portuguese #malevocalist #acoustic #satirical

Added this hidden gem. Feeling Omg Wie Toll by der nico. A very fast and fun song to play. Learn the melody. Sheet:

https://chordyes.com/chord/der-nico-omg-wie-toll

#guitarhero #guitarlegend #german #punk #malevocalist #humorous #satirical

Supermarket Haiku Sweep Friday Special Extravaganza! 🛒🏪✒️

As Rebecca Black so famously sung: “It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday!” And, indeed, therefore we’re covering supermarkets for our first Haiku Friday of 2026.

We all know and love supermarkets! Aldi, Asda, Tesco, M&S, Netto etc. They’re great and have loads of food in them that goes to waste and gets chucked in bins to rot. Thus, let’s get poetic about it.

Supermarket Haiku Special

∞

Getting Lost in the Supermarket

Oh my god where the Hell am I?
It feels like I might well die,
When all I wanted was to buy a big old pork pie.

∞

Consumerist Clubcard Loyalty

Clubcard in my hand,
This microwave pasta cheese meal is only £1 bargain bargain bargain,
Stuffed it down me pants and legged it from store.

∞

Finding the Reduced to Clear Section

Where in the Hell is the reduced to clear section?
This is as infuriating as a rigged election,
Or your bins not being picked up for collection.

∞

Buying From the Reduced to Clear Section

Oh my god I want cheap foodstuff goods,
Oh look there are some super reduced spuds,
Which I’ve now shoplifted with some Suds.

∞

Shopping in the Upper-Class Supermarket

Buying extra expensive goods because I worked hard enough,
No working-class scumbags in here praise God,
Sneer at pathetic cashier on way out.

∞

Shopping in the Low-Budget Supermarket

Got 300 tins of baked beans for 35p,
Gonna cook ’em all up in a load of ghee,
That’s really going to make me need to pee.

∞

Shoplifting at the Supermarket

Using free will to shoplift at the supermarket,
Stuffed 20 bags of Maltesers up me jumper,
Told the staff I’ve got leprosy.

∞

Ramming Customers With a Trolley

Stupid fellow customers get out of my way,
Otherwise I’m going to make you bloody pay,
That’ll really make my day.

∞

Using the Free Supermarket Toilets

Jesus Christ what the hell is that?
And why does it stink so bad?
I should have just gone in my shopping bag.

∞

Using the Self-Checkout Till

Using free will at the self-checkout till,
But pretty sure something’s wrong with my bill,
And the customer service assistant’s name is Phil.

∞

Item Not Scanning at the Self-Checkout Till

I’ve tried scanning this bag of peas 35 times,
I’m trying not to look totally pissed off,
Angry customers waiting are flipping me off.

∞

Being Forced to Make Small Talk With the Cashier

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep,
“Cold for this time of year, is not it”,
Bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep.

∞

Asking an Employee for Help

“Excuse me, shopkeep, but where are the ice bags?”
Employee does not know,
Complain to the manager.

∞

Customer Blocking the Aisle With Trolley and Kids

The trolley is there and so are the screaming kids,
I wanted to get Skittles this fine day but can’t,
Starve to death.

∞

Screaming Babies in the Supermarket

Why are all these babies screaming in the supermarket?
Shouldn’t they be in baby school?
Or are they here shoplifting?

Book of da Month: I Am a Cat (Volume 1) by Natsume Sōseki 🐈‍⬛

I Am a Cat (吾輩は猫である—Wagahai wa Neko de Aru) was published in 1905, a satirical novel by Japanese poet, novelist, and scholar Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916).

Told from the perspective of a feline narrator, the once stray kitten is adopted into the home of an upper-middle-class family. The cat observes the world around it, lampooning the Meiji-era society as it preens itself, and presenting playful mockery for all ages. Meow indeed.

Satire and Self-Importance in I Am a Cat (Volume 1)

“Living as I do with human beings, the more that I observe them, the more I am forced to conclude that they are selfish.”

It’s a fun idea, to mock human society from the perspective of a cat. The animals that have little respect for the things we take so seriously. It’s also now an intriguing historical record on the Meiji period (1868-1912) of Japan.

From the same era, over in Victorian era England, Edwin A. Abbott penned the novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884). It shows how long satire has played on creative minds, anyway, even if Abbott’s work is better.

A key difference is I Am a Cat is a long book. You can but it in three volumes, or 10 instalments, so it’s worth flagging up why the concept ended up so protracted. The 2025 edition we picked up has a new translation by Nick Bradley. In his introduction, he notes:

“What eventually became the novel I Am a Cat originally began as a short story published in 1905 in the literary magazine Hototogisu (the Japanese word for ‘cuckoo’). The story, when it was published, was so incredibly popular that Sōseki, similar to Conan Doyle and his popular Sherlock Holmes character, found himself pressured by the Japanese reading public into writing more stories from the perspective of his feline narrator.”

Intended as a one-off novella, then, but commercial pressure mounted and the writer was compelled to do more.

Despite its title, I Am a Cat isn’t entirely from the perspective of a feline. As it does cut quite regularly to conversations between citizens, such as Mr. Sneaze and his fast-talking friend Waverhouse. These are set alongside biting witticisms from the cat, notably on Japan’s modernisation and a greater focus on individualism.

“In the old days, a man was taught to forget himself. Today it is quite different: he is taught not to forget himself and he accordingly spends his days and nights in endless self-regard. Who can possibly know peace in such an eternally burning hell? The apparent realities of this awful world, even the beast lines of being, are all symptoms of that sickness for which the only cure lies in learning to forget the self.”

And then there’s the cat stuff like this.

“Had I the time to keep a diary, I’d use that time to better effect; sleeping on the veranda.”

These philosophical musings continue at a slow pace, playing out over 500 pages if you want to read the full collection, so we generally found the book better to leaf through and pick random pages to enjoy. As the book is very much of its time, marketed now as an obscure delight for readers to discover, but it won’t be quite what some want (we saw many online reviews claiming the work is “boring”).

Ironically, that kind of plays into what Natsume Sōseki was intending for I Am a Cat. The entitlement and fussiness of the human condition.

“Artfulness, uncharitableness, self-defensive wariness: these are the fruits of worldly learning. The penalty of age is this rather ugly knowingness. Which would seem to explain why one never finds among the old a single decent person. They know too much to see things straight, to feel things cleanly, to act without compromise.”

To heighten the sense of casual mockery, Sōseki used a high-register writing style. As in, it’s quite pretentious and full of grand-scale big old words to look all clever. That decision was to poke fun at Japanese higher society.

That begins with the very title of Wagahai wa Neko de Aru.

Wagahai is now classed as a really pompous pronoun to use, along the lines of those people who use “one” or “oneself”. It’s now associated with aristocratic behaviour. Basically, its use implies the user of the term considers themself to be superior to all around them.

A great little bit of nuance there that can easily get lost in translation.

However, as we’ve flagged, it is very much a book of its time. From what we’ve seen, readers claim each book from the 10 initial instalments can be read as a standalone work. Which is good, as we wouldn’t want to go through 500+ pages of this stuff.

Japan’s obsession with cats, alongside the classics status of Sōseki’s work (it’s a frequent one to read in Japanese schools), mean it’s played its way into Nippon’s public conscience.

But in the West with this new release, its cultural impact won’t be the same as that longstanding reverence isn’t established. Regardless, we find it a historical marvel and an important work of Japanese literature. In that sense, it’s worth having in your collection (and showing to your cat).