Archer fish...

spitting mystery solved, says BBC. Well, and here's me thinking they were just plain rude. In the UK spitting is sometimes called "hocking a loogie". Scientists have discovered that Archer fish don't hock loogies as previously thought but instead push water through their gills and mouth into a jet so powerful it could have your eye out. In piscine terms Archers are not happy fish and say a reputation for spitting has never really opened doors.  Federico Archerfish, pictured, told the BBC, "We're not happy. Spitting has never really opened doors. We're hoping that this scientific breakthrough will do for us what a previous study did for piranhas. Those guys eh? So, it's goodbye spitting and hello gobbing. That noise, Alfonse? Why it's the sound of doors opening. Yee Haw! Sssssspppprritttt...!"

Feathers go back...

a really long way, like really far back. This recenty discovered picture has lain preserved in Canadian shale for millions of years and proves feathers were decorative before they were practical. Ostrich sized Ornithomimids, for it is they, pre-date the animals that pre-date birds by quite some distance. Possessing a toothless beak, large eyes, long legs and tail these animals were particularly succulent when roasted. I've mentioned elsewhere the problems of forcing such creatures into the modern oven.

Ornithomimids were peaceful animals and not prone to fighting, even after a drink. Shorn of hands that might become fists, in a bar scrap, the Ornithomimid made like the peacock, astrutting and apreening, when with feathers for fingers they should have been arunning and afleeing.

Toothless beaks transformed into evolutionary handicaps  as these poor creatures learned that in a world of bone crushing mandibles the gum is not king. Ribald cries of, "Show 'im your teeth, Barry," only emphasised just how bitter the gum pill really was.

Even the Ornithomimids didn't think they'd make it through the early selections. Evolution, laughing like a drain.

Badgers reprieved...

shock. Brian May, sporting a badger said, "It is clear that nothing clings to the head quite like a badger."


A badger spokesbadger pictured below said. "Head clinging is an honourable profession. It's time for the persecution to end. Thank you, we'll take more questions after the buffet."

Approaching Manchester...

eastbound along the M56 I spotted a pheasant dithering on the hard shoulder. Deciding to cross the daft bird was promptly crushed beneath the wheels of a car.
 

What last thought might have fluttered through the creature's tiny head? It certainly was not "My, the traffic's busy today." It could have been, "Well, Lionel, best foot forward eh?"

The bird did not even look around. In my view that bird was COMPLACENT. 

"Tra la la la la. I'm a happy bird. La la la. Day twenty two and no guns. Ha ha ha ha ha. Fuck you Mr Hunter. I know, I'll go this wa_________________________________" *

The pheasant. Can any more be said?

* the shooting season began on 1st Oct.

 

My antipathy...

towards cats is boundless. Cats shit and piss in my plant pots. Cats give me asthma.

In the 1874 Alexander Graham Bell et al were developing a transducer to make sound from electrical impulses. With some success they used the tympanic mechanism from a human cadaver to generate noise. Years later two psychologists achieved better results with cats. First removing the cat's brain then wiring its ears produced an early MP3 device or so insists Jonathan Sterne. Accompanying the EMTY-CAT format streaming through kitty heads clamped to the skull also came the urge to shit in plant pots and piss on babies heads. Early baby netting was not the familiar white gossamer but instead a heavy gauze designed to repel streams of fetid urine. Netting became a de rigueur barrier since the wearer of these pioneering devices was unlikely to hear the shocked parent cry out.

Batteries the size of a modern fridge hampered mobility until the market leader began giving away urchins free with every device. However, innovation could not overcome the product's main handicap which is the cat heads limited shelf life. In winter this period might be measured in hours during summer they could rot off the ears before the satisfied customer even reached the till. Much thought was given to refrigeration as a preservative despite increasing the likelihood of death to the wearer from over-cooling. Some suggested the answer might lie in a smaller battery but the threat of an urchin strike stopped that line of enquiry.

Empty cat to MP3, who'd have thought?

Rock...

found on Mars, shock. Last week news was dominated by a rock. Scientists were aghast that Martian terrain might feature rock. "We planned for everything but this." Said an ashen faced engineer.

A local who would not give her name told  reporters, "Thank you people of Earth for this huge thing that's landed. We've no idea what it does. Send duvets next time eh? It gets cold this far from the sun, dontcha know."  Asked about the rock she replied. "Damn thing, people are always tripping over it."

I've dwelt previously on items...

that may become trapped in car grills. Decorative grills are not designed to catch the unwary. In Massachussets this dog whom we shall call for anonymity's purpose, Dim, was wedged for some 11 miles in the grill of sedan. A qualified mechanic, passing as they often are, safely removed the Toyota from the dog's head. Fortunately, damage to the paintwork was minor though the same cannot be said of the dog whose skull was fractured. I think the lesson is very clear. Fit bumpers.

Slave ants...

or, Temnothorax longispinosus have demonstrated that rebellion is a natural state of being. Put more pithily by Dr Susanne Foitzik, "Enslaved worker ants kill the offspring of their parasites and thereby improve the chances of survival for their neighboring relatives."

Rebellion, it's a DNA thing. Dontcha just love that? A little lesson for us all, methinks.

Missing the zeitgeist by quite some margin this ant from the species Selfish Bastardos has a lottery ticket.

Impressive image from...

 the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Some of the light has taken over 13 billion years to reach here. Hubble focused on a tiny spot below the Orion Nebula and discovered it to be full of stuff. Or rather, less empty than previously thought. The universe is huge, even bigger than big. So massive is the area between things the place is more empty than full. Extraordinarily empty by all accounts. So empty in fact that what's in it amounts to almost nothing. Lucky for us then that we've a little corner of almost nothing to call our own. Group hug, yay...

Raging storm batters...

UK shock. Foam covers Aberdeen suburb, shock. Professor says foam is plankton snot. All those tiny creatures, all those colds. Someone ought to complain.

Apparently...

this bit of old papyrus is causing quite a storm. The size of a credit card and written front and rear the text is a note from Jesus to his wife complaining that the chickens were crapping everywhere. The note concludes "Tell your useless brother John to get his head out of his arse and stop letting the chickens in the fucking house."

The argument goes that this note is proof Jesus was married.

The Vatican challenged the document's authenticity by reminding everyone the Son of God never married or used expletives. Cardinal Boniface Strokeachild told the world's press "It is well known the Son of God never married or used expletives." Asked to elaborate further His Eminence replied "In those days Jesus was a common name so this could be anybody." Asked about the chickens the Cardinal said "They can be difficult animals to keep especially if they get in the house."

The controversy is expected to continue. 

It's been a bloody awful...

summer in the UK. Days of torrential rain, whole towns bobbing merrily down temporary rivers. Mountains washed to the size of pimples by the downpour. The force of falling water stripping paint from house exteriors. The weather was so strange, one minute scorching sun (well, not that scorching nor that much sun) then afore you know it major floods.

Originally, these two went looking for sun screen, something with an emollient. Maybe they were crushed by a fickle summer and the driving rain because with backs bent they staggered home beneath 100 kilos of the finest marbled fat. Perhaps only the incessant morse of rain on noggin can explain a firm belief that Lard futures were poised for the upswing. Oh, how this summer nearly did for us all.

Here's amazing footage of the Mars Rover landing. Our first view is the craft's extremely heavy heat shield falling away towards the Martian surface. I couldn't help but think that if there are any natives they'll be really pissed off when that thing lands.

Last weekend enjoyed walking from Chapel en le Frith to Buxton via the path above Combs. It was so cold even the sheep were warning us to keep of't hills.

"Keep of't hills," they said.
"It's bloody cold up there." they said, nodding upwards.
"Aye, and keep of't moors." murmured one sheep.
Another coughed, hawked black spit and muttered, "Aye, ent moors... where's that back rub Jeremy?"
Then they all wandered off to hunt for Jeremy.

It's been some years since I encountered moorland sheep sticking their noses into my business.

Sunday's Observer...

newspaper published an article called "Making a silk purse from a goat's udder." wherein it reported how genetic technology now allows goats with spider genes to produce milk containing spider silk. David Cronenberg dealt wittily with the subject, well I laughed, in his film 'The Fly'.

Inverted goats bleating from the kitchen ceiling. I suppose it's progress, of sorts. 

Discovered this...

whilst looking for something else.

It's footage from 2008 of a man jumping off a cliff, or, basejumping. His parachute fails and he breaks his leg before a tree breaks his fall. Not in the least impressive.

My dad loved...

tripe. Tripe is the stomach lining of sheep and other ruminants, apparently. Tripe really is what it says, it's tripe. Tripe tastes horrible. Dad would poach tripe in milk with onions. Dad would eat tripe raw with vingar and salt. It seems a new book called "Tripe: A Most Excellent Dish." is not tripe.

Dad's lips would also smack for pigs trotters pressure cooked for 30 minutes or so. My childish face would look on aghast as dad chomped and slurped and burped his way through plates of tripe. The years have diminished my aghastness not one jot.

Blondin...

the remarkably hirsute tightrope walker was famous for, well, walking tightropes. Blondin's most spectacular high wire stunt saw him tottering across the Niagara Falls his modesty protected only by a serviette advertising Lyon's Tea.

Plunging is the mode by which most have gone over the falls so it can come as no surprise that the first request for 100 years to cross the chasm by cable has caused quite a stir. As reported in The Independent Newspaper one Nik Wallenda having completed the necessary waivers stands brave chested and foot poised awaiting only the bureacratic nod.

Compared to plunging your man Wallenda's method is the very epitomy of sensible as can be seen is this report from 1951. 

"A British barber, Charles Stephens – known as the Demon Barber of Bristol – is killed when he plummets in a barrel with an anvil attached to his feet. Only Stephens' right arm is found."

This is Liverpool...

on a miserable August Bank Holiday. The Mersey, resplendent in grey is lashed by squalls ripping in off the Irish Sea. The photo was snatched  during a moment of calm. In the distance, bottom left, is the tower of a church in Birkenhead and to its right the Queensway Tunnel air vent.

Ah, the English autumn, neither mist nor mellow fruitfulness.

Today...

was cycling down the Mersey from Jackson's Boat to Stockport and took this rather fetching photo of the M60's underside.

A rat scurried by, up to no good I'd wager.