(The story so far… Stella is a contestant in a “Miss Sea Star Canada” pageant, and during a pre-competition visit to the ladies’ room, the suckers on her very realistic starfish costume got her stuck to the wall. Guy, a security officer and her knight in shining armour, rescued her by releasing her limb by limb from her costume. By… Read more »
(This piece was inspired by my discovery that there is such a thing as a Miss Mermaid competition (national and international), and by the statement in this article that most girls growing up want to be a mermaid.) “Can I get a hand in here?” Stella’s voice reverberated around the performers’ washroom in the theatre. She listened. Other than the… Read more »
News item: “Saudi Arabia is to behead a… man to death…” News item: “Shopping is one of our most traditional past times” I spotted both the above two editing fails on the same day. At the time, I thought of ranting about poor editorial standards, but thought better of it. I think the following script, which was inspired by my… Read more »
Headline: Driver caught practising bagpipes at wheel I’ve never hidden my feelings about bagpipes. My heart bursts at the sight and sound of a lone piper playing on a heather-carpeted ben across the glen from my vantage point. That solitary figure seems to magnify the sense of space; isolation; desolation. And the sound—it’s so mournful, and evocative of the Scottish… Read more »
The “XXXy McXXXFace” meme/fad seems to have gained a life of its own and spread to places one would never have expected it to. For many, the most famous example is “Boaty McBoatFace”, a suggestion made for the name of a polar research vessel in the UK. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find references to, for example, “Hooty… Read more »
News Item: Why do people still think the Earth is flat? Why indeed? I watched the video embedded in the above article, and tried really, really hard to take at face value what was being said. One gentleman pointed out that man hasn’t yet drilled more than eight miles into the ground (I haven’t verified that) so there’s no knowledge… Read more »
Headline: London Buses to Be Powered by Coffee Needless to say, this was a clickbait headline—coffee’s far too valuable a commodity to waste on powering transportation. But apparently, the new biofuel will be a blend of oils extracted from the coffee grounds and diesel. I’m not sure if this is an attempt to be innovative in the use of waste,… Read more »
This past summer, I wrote a piece about political correctness where fruits and vegetables are concerned. It was based on a fictitious future (circa 2032) news item about scientists having discovered that fruit and veg can understand human languages. This led fruit and veggie advocates to inform the world that expressions such as “red as a beetroot”, “blow a raspberry”… Read more »
Now that the Poppies Are Gone… It’s November the twelfth, and yesterday I was laying a wreath on behalf of the First Okotoks Scout Group. Several hundred people attended this outdoor ceremony at the cenotaph, where the bright sunshine was making the hoar frost sparkle on the trees. It’s a setting that I much prefer to the indoor ceremony, for… Read more »
News headline: Sheepdog puppy led a herd of sheep into his owners’ home To paraphrase the UB40 song from 1986— “There’s a sheep in mi kitchen, what am I gonna do?”… What would you do if you found nine sheep in your kitchen? Fall asleep as you counted them? Threaten them with the mint sauce jar? Tell them to get… Read more »