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And now for something cheerful and stupid

dog in the clouds

Must…lighten up…top…page. Too…depressing. Ah, here we go. Daily Mail to the rescue. Here are some images from the Cloud Appreciation Society. For a nominal fee, you too can join the society like 9,613 of your fellow cloud starer-atters. They have a manifesto and certificates and buttons and everything.

Back to the Mail, here’s my favorite headline of the week: Dingo baby mum says she’ll support McCanns. Thanks, but…ummm…

a cat at Downing Street

There’s a cat at Downing Street again: meet Sybil (named after Sybil Fawlty). Her predecessor, Humphrey, was evicted during the Blair years. Rumors Cherie had him offed were so pervasive that she was forced to call a press conference and have herself photographed smiling and holding the beast. That didn’t stem the impression that she had him evicted (or worse), so Humphrey was periodically photographed in his secret London home standing on the day’s newspaper. He died last year, age 18.

Doofuses Wed. The Society for Creative Anachronism doesn’t have a branch in the UK, but chubby people everywhere seem inexorably drawn to period costume. I feel for the horses. Though at least these people had a real live castle to get married in.

Man shoots honkin’ big pig. Sad story, actually. He’s a farmer in Devon and he was raising a herd of wild boar. Animal rights activists destroyed his fence and set a hundred of them free (including many pregnant sows), so hunters are having to track them down and kill them. I fail to see how this is a victory for the animals.

Thank you, Mail. And now let us turn to the BBC, where Mighty Weasel Brings Beeb to its Knees. This article about Muslims fasting during Ramadan began with “Thirty-one-year-old Sumaya Amra is just one of the billions of Muslims who takes part in the holy month of Ramadan by fasting in daylight hours, each day for 30 days.” Oh, I don’t think so, Auntie. I left a comment (which didn’t get published), but it was corrected to “billion or so” not long after. I don’t for a moment think the original was an accident. Reminder: the BBC pulls this shit all the time, and you can track it at BBC-Biased.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 12, 2007, 12:28 pm

Don’t remember where found this, but a cartoon museum opened in 2006 near the British Museum. The current exhibition (July 5 to October 7) is over a hundred drawings from Heath Robinson. Robinson is a great favorite of mine; he’s the Rube Goldberg of Britain (or Rube Goldberg is the Heath Robinson of America. They were pretty much contemporaries).

I’ll be back in London again before the 7th, most likely, but we’ll be too busy packing up the house to go downtown.


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: September 12, 2007, 1:11 pm

I bet that boar was easy to kill being tied up like that.
A cat at Downding Street? No wonder our leaders are always acting like such pussies. They need a dog. A big, angry dog.
My sincerest respect to the world’s 23 trillion Muslims, as they celebrate their holy month of Ramadan by starving themselves.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 12, 2007, 1:16 pm

I bet that boar was easy to kill being tied up like that.

Okay, that was funny.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 12, 2007, 5:14 pm

This guy has a weasel in his garden. He suspects it’s all that’s left of a family of weasels from earlier this year. He incorrectly identifies them as stoats, however. Short, stubby brown tails with no black tip = weasels in Britspeak.

This is in Sussex, where I be moving at. I am filled with the expectation of weasels.


Comment from Dawn
Time: September 12, 2007, 7:10 pm

Awwww…


Comment from porknbean
Time: September 13, 2007, 10:17 am

Cute family of weasels. Do they tend to be like elephants where the wimmins and children hang out, and kick the boys out at puberty, or are they more like meerkats?

Weasel, did you ever think of having a pup of your own? 🙂 Pups are cute overload goodness.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 13, 2007, 10:35 am

You mean…breed?! Good lord, no. I am wholly ill-suited to parenthood.

Weasels hang out in family groups until the young are able to fend for themselves, then they split up. Adults are very solitary. Most of the poor little bastards don’t see their first birthday, though.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: September 13, 2007, 10:39 am

Why do they call them Meerkats? Seems to me there’s nothing mere about them. They’re kinda neat.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 13, 2007, 11:25 am

Shoot, I thought I had a meerkat cam for you, but it doesn’t look like it’s live any more. It was from a wildlife park in the UK, so the sad little shits were often seen standing disconsolately in the rain with water drizzling off their fur…


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 13, 2007, 11:49 am

That anon. comment was me. Don’t know why my nickname was cleared out of the comment thingy, but I’m sure it was my fault.

MeerKats. Well, they do stand around a lot. That may be why I think they’re neat. Didn’t know they stood around in the rain, too. Idiots. My respect for them dwindles. That’s something turkeys do. That’s probably why they’re called…..turkeys.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 13, 2007, 1:18 pm

Tattoo generator. Okay, yes it’s a cat. They didn’t have much in the way of weasels.

Hit home to see their other image generators.


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: September 13, 2007, 2:57 pm

People pay good money to come and see Meerkats standing around (‘they thinks they’re people!’) and staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. And by god, they’d better do it too. Even when it’s drizzly. Shit, at least they don’t have to eat scorpions anymore. It’s like my old grandma used to say to me as I sat on her knee and gnawed on her arthritic fingers: ‘If you eat scorpions, eventually you’re going to get stung.’
All we have in our garden (apart from birds and the occasional cat that isn’t ours) is a squirrel. Western Grey squirrel, not the European Red. I enjoy watching him sitting on his hind legs and chewing on his nuts.
I’ve never seen a weasel, stoat or ferret, but I noticed some Missing Posters stapled on trees around here not long ago. Some poor chap had misplaced a ferret and was offering a large reward for information. Living in the country as we do, we get a lot of Travellers (formerly known as Gypsies or Pikies before the PC movement), so I reckon that guy’s beloved ferret probably got eaten.
I’d be interested in keeping a weasel as a pet. They’re very cute and fascinating-looking, but alas, I’m getting (hopefully) a Siberian Husky soon and apparently they’re fond of eating fast-moving small animals.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 13, 2007, 3:07 pm

Have to be the fastest damned husky that never pulled a sledge.

A stoat ran in front of me, the other week. The little bastiche moved like an alchemical fusion of silk, lightning and mercury.

I missed him.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 13, 2007, 3:17 pm

Does the squirrel that chews its nuts belong to you?


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: September 13, 2007, 3:20 pm

No, it’s wild. But technically the nuts are mine.


Comment from Chris Blumen
Time: September 13, 2007, 3:56 pm

What can I say, I just need to start writing again : )


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 13, 2007, 4:24 pm

Ha! In case anyone’s wondering who the heck Chris Blumen is and what the heck he’s talking about, I was giving him shit on his blog earlier. He hasn’t posted anything in ages and then he squeezed out, like, six in two days or something.

Anyhoo, his writing is in extremely bad taste and often very funny. I kind of feel like I have a grownuply duty not to laugh, but then I do anyway. I think kids are a lot raunchier than we were.

I blame those darn crystal radio sets. And comic books.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 13, 2007, 4:27 pm

Too much information for me, Gibby. None of my business. Sorry I asked.


Comment from Lokki
Time: September 13, 2007, 4:37 pm

Sigh

Lokki carried a coffin today.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 13, 2007, 4:40 pm

You have my sympathies, Lokki.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 13, 2007, 4:48 pm

Oh, geez. I am sorry, Lokki. That’s a bad day, right there.


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: September 13, 2007, 5:32 pm

Condolences Lokki.
Chris, that site of yours is hilarious, most notably the logo of the raptor chasing the kid in the wheelchair.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 13, 2007, 5:57 pm

Lokki, should we inquire? Family, relative, friend…? Expected, or unexpected?


Comment from Chris Blumen
Time: September 13, 2007, 9:47 pm

We ARE a lot raunchier nowadays. Blame television, the interwebs, and porn. Thanks for dropping by you guys, and thanks for giving me a good old shit-drop today Stoats.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 13, 2007, 9:52 pm

Hey, thanks Chris. I learned a new term (from Gibby, but at your place):

Cow’s nork.

Now that’s a term to strike horror or disgust in a person – without even knowing to what part it refers. You just KNOW a cow’s nork has got to be untouchable. I am so pleased. I can’t wait to use it.

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