I’m old enough to have lived in a house with “outdoor plumbing”. That, by the way, is a euphemism for an outdoor toilet. In my case, it was a flush toilet with a tank on the wall near the ceiling and a chain-pull to flush, and it connected to the municipal sewer network. Many have lived with outhouses as their… Read more »
News item: Stink bugs threaten New Zealand car imports The background to this story is much more serious than you would suppose from the headline. But that’s what you get for calling an insect with a perfectly healthy Latin name (Halyomorpha halys) “stink bug”. (The seriousness of the story stems from the stink bug’s rapid global spread and its voracious… Read more »
Life in the south-west of England must be so exciting in the winter. Three incidents in that region caught my eye this week. Sheds News item: Driver caught with shed balanced on car in Newton Abbot The gene pool needs more chlorine, it seems. No. I take that back. Who was it said, “Don’t judge other people, or you might… Read more »
News item: Still Friends? The trouble with old sitcoms Reading the above article this week, I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, be angry, gloat, shake my head, or just do a little sideways head-tilt that older people do when they want to do a generational comparison thing. It seems that those that grew up with “Friends” and who loved… 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 »
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 »
It’s been discovered that herrings pass gas. While congregated in great shoals. The news isn’t new—in fact the background studies were done in the early 2000s—but my attention was drawn to it by a “Fact or Crap” page-a-day calendar (on September 21 to be precise). Where do I start? The pitch? The communal nature? The interpretation? So many facets—so little… Read more »
Dear Mr. Disney, My name is Kelvin and I’m 10 years old (in my head). I’m writing to you about the choices you have made regarding what I believe are called “re-makes”. In the past 70 years, you have made two movies of Cinderella. In the past 50 years, you have made two movies of The Jungle Book. In the… Read more »
A man in Nova Scotia has been banned from having his last name on his licence plate. It’s been determined that it’s now too rude. This, despite him having had the plate in the family for decades. Unfortunately, he’s just another victim of Trump’s style (or lack of it). The man in question is of German heritage; his name is… Read more »
A few weeks ago, you may have read that the day we’re all barcoded (or QR coded) would be the day it wouldn’t matter what you call your offspring. (The context was the abominable alphabet spaghetti of spellings that parents use when naming their progeny.) Tattoo Parlours worldwide must be looking forward to that day—business will boom! Although, since they’d… Read more »