In the press...

this week I was reminded of that great joke about a horse on entering a bar being asked by the steward 'Why the long face?'

Watching one of the many re-runs of Jurassic Park on the telly last night there was the bit where a corrupt employee is killed by these small spitting dinosaurs that also have this expanding neck flange arrangement. I was really impressed with them. You can keep your T-Rex and your velociraptors they've always seemed a bit too one trick for my liking. Even if important body parts can be severed with one snap of their mighty jaws, so what. Your gobbing dinosaur, now that's an entirely different kettle of history.

Imagine how cool it would be to have one of them as a constant companion. How useful in a bar, say when someone is being boorish or too loud. With a spitting reptile on the next seat, maybe nursing a Jim Beam and eyeing up the custom it wouldn't take much for it to hock a post Cambrian loogie of astonishing proportions across the bar and knock that fucker right off his stool. And, should some student then decide to barf their liquid lunch in your direction would that umbrellic throat feature not provide the perfect splash guard? Finally, strolling alongside such a buddy what encountered horse could escape the observation, "Long face? You should get a load of his neck."

It's a shit that Evolution has denied us those pleasures.