A Beer For Our Times.

There's not much to talk about these days that isn't rage-inducing or crashingly depressing so how about some light That's Life-esque relief?

I came across this article today - a German brewery has won the right from the European Trademarks Office to register a new beer under the name "Fucking Hell".

Apparently, "hell" is the German for a "light beer" and Fucking is a little village near Salzburg. The Trademarks Office originally rejected their application on the grounds that it “used sexuality in order to express contempt and violent anger” but the Appeals Board overturned the decision as although

"Hell is in Christian terms, the place of highest torment . . . can it be considered as reprehensible to use existing place names in a targeted manner (as a reference to the place), merely because this may have an ambiguous meaning in other languages.

“The word combination contains no semantic indication that could refer to a certain person or group of persons... [ ] Nor does it incite a particular act. It cannot even be understood as an instruction that the reader should go to hell. The meaning assumed by the examiner is, overall, an interjection used to express a deprecation, but it does not indicate against whom the deprecation is directed.”

 Whatever of our tax that's left over from paying for the Anglo-Irish actually goes to fund shite like this...

Anyway, the residents of Fucking are going (fucking?) mental as tour buses full of fools - who really must have fuck all to do on their holidays - already plague them all summer long and they feel that this beer nonsense is only going to bring more unwanted visitors. Also

So many signs have been stolen over the years that the village held a vote in 2004 on whether to change its ancient name. But the residents voted against the motion. "Twelve or 13 town signs have been stolen. We've taken to fixing them with concrete, welding and rivets," said the mayor of Fucking, Franz Meindl.

And now over to Doc Cox who's going to show you some bollock-shaped vegetables....