Gruts

Daily Telegraph: Great physicists 'had Asperger's' [01-May-03]

No they didn't; they just used autistic licence.

The first drop of rain in yonks, and I spot my first slug of the season. Let the slug slinging commence.

I don't believe it: two of my predictions come true in a single news story: "Fact: gnarly rhino" and "Frantic horny gal"…

East African Standard: Joy as endangered rhino gives birth [12-Apr-03]
Kenya's Meru National Park is celebrating a rare arrival of a new-born white rhino… One of the nine endangered white rhinos translocated to the park in March has given birth to a healthy calf - the first one in the park in 20 years… [P]hoto journalists who accompanied wardens in the search of the new born calf were, however, disappointed when the mother rhino vehemently refused to welcome them close to her baby.

Yes, it's a fact: a female rhino (i.e. a horny gal) has given birth and is now vehemently (i.e. franticly) defending her offspring.

So where's the gnarly? It's a bloody rhino: they're all gnarly, for Pete's sake!

…And, while I'm in the business of special pleading, how's this for yet another prediction that came true:

BBC: Radcliffe raises the standard [14-Apr-03]
In the space of 12 months, Paula Radcliffe has catapulted women's marathon running into unimagined territory. Since her debut win in last year's London Marathon, Britain's distance queen has improved her own best by over three and a half minutes. And in taking 1min 53secs off her world record on Sunday, Radcliffe ran more than two minutes quicker than Britain's legendary male marathon runner Jim Peters.

Well, she's a woman (or, if you'll forgive the expression a girl), she certainly ran, and she must have been bloody hot by the end of the race… And, to cap it all, she's British - fancy!. (Hot girl ran. Fancy! Geddit?)

BBC: Police consider lie detector tests
Police in the North West could soon use lie detection tests to interrogate suspects… The Silent Talker device has been developed in the region and is touted as having a 90% success rate.

As opposed to tossing a coin, which has a 50% success rate.

Come to think of it, how do you measure the accuracy of a lie detector? If the subject knows it's just an experiment, they'll probably behave differently to people who are genuinely being interrogated. And, if the subject doesn't know it's just an experiment, there must be some independent means of measuring whether they're lying, which presumably must be 100% accurate… So why not use that method to interrogate suspects in the first place?

Lie detectors in Blighty, I ask you. IS THIS WHAT GRANDAD FOUGHT THE NAZIS FOR?

BBC: Scents 'influence women's behaviour'
Strong smells can trigger a change in mood in women

So that's the cause. I've often wondered.

Is it just me, or does the nose in the photo accompanying the BBC article look suspiciously male? It's the stubble on the top lip that's the dead giveaway.

When I'm not rescuing little birds from drainpipes, I like to save the planet in other ways. This morning, I decided to help reduce demands on the world's limited petrochemical resources by freewheeling my car into town. I live near the top of a hill, and the town is a mile away in the bottom of the valley. I actually managed to coast my car all the way from my front drive right into town and park - with the car in neutral all the way. What's more, I had to give way to other traffic twice en route (pardon my French).

Now, if only I could figure out a way of breaking not just the traffic laws, but the laws of thermodynamics, I might be able to freewheel that car of mine all the way back up that hill.

I did a very fine and noble thing this afternoon. I suppose it would be a whole lot nobler if I didn't tell anyone about it, but that's just not my style.

I was just about to start mowing the lawn, when I heard a right old racket coming from a nearby drainpipe. Rats, I thought (both literally and figuratively). But then I noticed a blue tit on a nearby tree with a very concerned look on its face (don't ask, I just did). Putting two and two together, I deduced that its mate must have been gathering cobwebs from the gutter to use as nesting material, and had fallen down the drainpipe.

I looked in the bottom of the drainpipe and removed the dead leaves that were blocking it, but there was still no sign of the expected bird. So guess what Muggins did next… That's right, I only went and got his screwdriver and removed the drainpipe from the wall. And out flew a blue tit, right as rain (which, considering where it had been, isn't a bad simile). Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out.

Of course, you realise this means I'll probably go to heaven after all.

BBC: Rare Woolf manuscripts bought
A series of previously unpublished manuscripts hand-written by Virginia Woolf are among a collection that has been bought by The British Library. The manuscripts form part of two mock newspapers composed by Woolf's nephews, Julian and Quentin Bell, as children.

Mock newspaper articles: hardly likely to be of the calibre of The Aftermath, are they?