Gruts

At last, my twin obsessions meet:

Shropshire Star: Ale returns to mark Darwin celebration
A special brew commemorating the achievements of Charles Darwin will soon be available in pubs across Shropshire after a county brewery re-launched its 'Natural Selection' ale.

There is grandeur in this brew of life… (Very bad pun which only Darwin fanatics will appreciate—normal people please ignore.)

With the exception of Carolyn, I've never thought of accountants as having much of a sense of humour. I was wrong. It seems that some of them not only have a sense of humour, but also downright class:

John Lanchester, London Review of Books (05-Feb-04):
'In those six years alone [1992-1997] the News Corp accountants had moved A$4.8 billion of income past the tax authorities in Britain, the United States and Australia.' And then Chenoweth [the author of the book under review] has found, looking at the accounts, that the company's profits, declared in Australian dollars, were A$364,364,000 in 1987, A$464,464,000 in 1988, A$496,496,000 in 1989 and A$282,282,000 in 1990. The odds that such figures were a happy coincidence are 1,000,000,000,000 to one. That little grace note in the sums is accountant-speak for 'Fuck you.' Faced with this level of financial wizardry, all the ordinary taxpayer can do is cry 'Bravo l'artiste!'

BBC: Parrot's oratory stuns scientists (26-Jan-04)
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short. The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

Oh good grief! Why do people insist on anthropomorphising pets like this?

Don't get me wrong, I like talking parrots as much as the next person (who is currently Jen on the adjacent sofa), but let's not go over the top. It's an undoubtedly well-trained parrot, yes, but:

1. its "remarkable abilities" do not "include telepathy" [because telepathy is impossible]
2. it is not "one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world" [because these are at least 6 billion other animals, myself included, who are considerably more advanced]
3. even though it "has a vocabulary of 950 words" and only "about 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English", it simply does not follow that "if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material" [because being able to use 950 words is not the same as being able to understand and parse them in different sentences and contexts—a skill which human beings are uniquely skilled at]
4. its owner uses "aromatherapy oils" [clearly demonstrating that they have no concept of reality]

Parrots and cheese shops in the same week. Think it's time I went for a silly walk.

BBC: Mydoom creator hunt intensifies
The hunt for whoever was behind the Mydoom e-mail worm, and its sibling Mydoom.B, has intensified with a $250,000 reward offered by Microsoft.

Let's hope they catch the tosser. I've received over 600 MyDoom emails since Tuesday, and have now had to batten down the hatches with my email filters. This isn't what the internet is supposed to be about.

While The Return of the King was clearing up at the Golden Globes last night, I was finally getting to see the film at the Hebden Bridge Picture House (the best little picture house in Yorkshire).

I must have read The Lord of the Rings at least 20 times in my formative years. I greatly enjoyed the film trilogy (despite several unnecessary changes to the plot), but it left me wondering the same old question:

Couldn't they have saved themselves an awful lot of hassle if Frodo had caught a lift off the eagles in the first place?

Another thought then occurred to me:

Strange how those Mordor locations don't appear in any New Zealand tourism advertisements.

Postscript: Oops! Probably should have said spoiler alert.

BBC: Dog driver in milk float drama
A milkman was injured after his dog "drove" his float away, dragging him with it… It is not thought to be facing any penalty points on its dog licence.

Who says BBC comedy ain't what it used to be?

I took some shoes to be re-heeled this week. The receipt I was given proclaimed:

IF SHOES ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO WEAR
THEY'RE GOOD ENOUGH TO REPAIR

Not the snappiest of mottos maybe, but at least they were giving it a go.

Then I got to thinking: Richard, you're a bit of an expert when it comes to thinking up clever marketing taglines. If you owned a shoe-repair business, what tagline would you use?

An excellent and typically perceptive question, if I might say so, raising as it does the opportunity for all sorts of puns of a shoe-related nature. Here's what I came up with:

• Poorly shoes? We'll soon heel them
• Re-iss-shoes
• We'll save your sole
• We'll nail your problem
• We're at it hammer and tongues
• Professional to the last (geddit?)
• It won't awl end in tears
• Rushing in where others fear to tread
• Our competitors are all cobblers
• Dirty Harry says, "Our soles are for personnel"
• Never knowingly under-soled (Ouch! That's the one, I reckon.)

What? You think you could do any better? Suggestions in the comments section below, please.

Never one to be put off repeating a feeble joke, whenever I go out for a Chinese meal and drink some green tea, I like to claim that the two or three leaves at the bottom of the cup are actually mouse droppings—a Chinese delicacy. I once even managed to make the joke in Beijing in front of some American tourists, who, not at all appreciating my sense of humour, assumed I was being serious.

Anyway, I don't think I'll be making that particular joke any more—it's a bit too close to the mark:

BBC: 'Civet coffee' sells - despite Sars
Fears that Chinese civet cats may help to spread Sars have lead to thousands of the animals being slaughtered, but they do not seem to have affected demand for a rare coffee harvested with the animals' help in Indonesia. "Kopi Luwak" or "Civet Coffee" is made with beans that have been partially digested and then excreted by civets.

What gets me is that, at some point in the dim and distant past, some Indonesian has thought to themself (in Indonesian, no doubt), I wonder if this coffee would taste better if I ran it through a cat first. Then, to make matters worse, they actually went and tried it.

Sars via civet poo, eh? So that's how you cat-shit.

BBC: Ancient roots of cream tea discovered
Historians in Devon have unearthed evidence which they claim proves the traditional cream tea originated in the county some 1,000 years ago.

Remarkable when you consider that tea only reached Europe in the 16th Century.