Oops…! (We all have our Britney moments)
You know the old saw, The only two certainties in life are death & taxes. Well, try to sell that one to your average sequoia tree with a Swiss bank account.
Anyway, there is, of course, another thing that you can be sure about – and that is that between the cradle and the grave all of us will have had to face a certain amount of embarrassing situations. It can be something relatively minor, like your kid breaking the neighbour’s window (or something like that.) It can also be something decidedly worse, like being a Republican front runner, caught in a particularly embarrassing sex act.
Some people are quite easily embarrassed, like The Times’ columnist Caitlin Moran, who has a thing about Bonfire night music:
While, on nearly every level, the organised bonfire is superior to anything you could ever do at home – the sky flowering and flaming with a thousand tonnes of dynamite, a community united in awe, three glow sticks for £1 – there is one considerable problem with the organised do in the park: the music. Oh dear, the music.
Perhaps I have an overdeveloped sense of embarrassment, but I find a PA booming out The Ride of the Valkyries as 15 starbursts go off quite mortifying. It’s a bit . . . overdramatic, isn’t it?
Like men who shout “I’m really GIVING it to you” while having sex. At either point, you don’t really need to ramp the experience up much. You are overegging the exciting-times pudding. You need to calm down a bit, to be honest.
Other people though are as unflappable as a concrete rabbit in a tar casserole.
Remember those old birds who were knitting away quite peacefully, in the middle of the square where the guillotine sang during France’s reign of terror? Well, they had nothing on a certain group of German ladies, who are also quite good at keeping on with their knitting – even in the most surreal circumstances:
A group of German ladies are raking it in - by selling fetish knitwear to kinky fans who like it soft. Their range includes lingerie, face masks and full bodysuits.
Group spokeswoman Manuela Buesch-Dankewitz, 45, said: “The women love to knit, and it’s great to earn something from it.
“Our oldest team member is 86. She makes willy warmers and other gear just like the rest.”
Old age, of course, does come with its own full set of embarrassments.
Most of us will have seen holiday snaps of ourselves where we think, Well, I really didn’t need to be reminded of that one again, thank you!
Now, spare a moment’s thought for the poor souls who have to relive these embarrassing holiday moments in the most excruciating detail, because they have to fill out their insurance claim forms, probably in triplicate…:
One unlucky pensioner managed to lose his false teeth after throwing up over the side of a cruise ship on the choppy seas of the Bay of Biscay. Thankfully for the squeamish septuagenarian, his misplaced dentures were covered in his travel insurance policy under lost baggage, so his claim was paid.
Another unfortunate pensioner had to make an even more embarrassing travel claim after a stroll on the deck of a cruise ship went disastrously wrong. The poor gentlemen was chatting with friends when a strong gust of wind lifted his toupee off his head and blew it into the sea. He never got over the shame but at least his travel policy reimbursed the cost of his hairpiece.
Sometimes though people or organisations can be so breathtakingly and even, in a way, brilliantly callous that you have to wonder if they ever could feel anything like embarrassment at all.
Even though God knows that they really, really should…:
A children’s Advent calendar, featuring a serial killer clutching a meat cleaver, has been removed from sale in tourism offices in Hanover after officials admitted that it was “perhaps a little off-colour”.
An inscription identifies him as Fritz Harmaan, who killed 24 young people during a murderous spree in Hanover after the First World War. He chopped up their bodies and dumped the remains in the River Leine.
The victims were between the ages of 13 and 20. Harmaan was sentenced to death and beheaded in 1925.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.
