Udderly amazed

"Moo-Arr! Westcountry cows moo in farmers’ accents!"

I simply can't let this pass without comment.

I have no problem with the fact (asserted by West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers) that

West Country cows are wrapped up in cow coats and they are played classical music to help them relax whilst being milked.

I'm even ok with Glastonbury cheesemaker Lloyd Green's claim:

I spend a lot of time with my Friesians and they definitely moo with a Somerset drawl.

No problem there. Everyone has a right to express their personal observations.

What I find disturbing is Mr Frege Green's leap from anecdotal evidence to proof-by-analogy:

I’ve spoken to the other farmers in the West Country group and they have noticed a similar development in their own herds. I think it works the same as with dogs - the closer a farmer’s bond is with his animals, the easier it is for them to pick up his accent.

Of course! It's much easier to accept the world is flat when you realise it would roll straight off the backs of those turtles if it were round.

- - -

Reuters have reported on this, or you may have seen it on the ABC.

New Sleepwear

I didn't go in there looking for a replacement for my old Purple Ronnie T-shirt.

There’s no section marked "Novelty Sleepwear" and even if there were I wouldn’t be drawn to it because I consider my Purple Ronnie T-shirt absolutely irreplaceable.

J doesn’t agree, and it’s a funny thing because my reasons for the T-shirt being a unique, irreplaceable thing of wonder happen to correspond exactly with her reasons for it becoming part of next week’s offering to the Rubbish Gods:

1. It’s well over 10 years old
2. It used to be a bit too warm to sleep in but the large holes and tears that have developed over the most recent half-decade, plus its overall threadbare nature seem to have sorted out the optimum temperature thing
3. It is no longer black, but rather a subdued shade of feldgrau-charcoal
4. It features a poem about farting

Those of you familiar with the Purple Ronnie range of greeting cards or books may understand. For the unenlightened among you it is probably enough to say that Purple Ronnie is a world populated by simple stick figure people, in the early days obsessed with bodily functions, emissions, fluids and orifices, but lately encompassing other less purple themes as well. It is the world as seen, felt, smelled and understood by a somewhat cheeky – yet loveable - child.

You can explore Purple Ronnie at your leisure HERE. For now, here is the poem as it appears on my beloved old T-shirt:
----------------------------------------

A Poem about BOTTOM BURPS

If your bottom burps in public
Try to say in time
“Goodness gracious what a whiff
It doesn’t smell like mine”






Poo-eee

Poo-eee

---------------------------------------------

Perhaps now you understand the raw appeal . . . ?

As I said, I wasn't looking for a replacement - how could you possibly replace THAT - but they were having a storewide sale so my eyes flicked up and down the racks as I walked along, half-looking for shirts and T-shirts (of which I'm generally in need).

And there it was: a simple T-shirt. Prussian blue. It looked a good size, felt well made. I pulled it out from behind the other T-shirts . . .

Damn! It had some printing on the front. That’s an automatic disqualification in my book.

Too bad. . .

Just as I was replacing it on the rack, rejecting it out of hand, something in my brain screamed: “It says WHAT?”

Schlong’s

**KOSHER**

HOT DOGS

[. . image of hot dog in bun . .]

If it isn’t 12 inches it isn’t a SCHLONG

Of course, I simply HAD to have it!

Do we really want to encourage this sort of thing? . . . OMG Yes!

Some of you may already be aware of the Giant Microbes range of plush toys which are available in configurations morphologically identical to Gonorrhoea, Syphilis (at left), Ebola (at right), E. coli and many other microbial nasties.

Well, in the realm of the gross senses (ie those not requiring 50,000X magnification) I was recently pleasantly surprised to come across Pee and Poo.

If your browser is Macromedia Flash capable, take a quick tour here.
And this from their website by way of introduction:

We are Pee & Poo. Escapees from the bathroom, we are entering the world on a journey filled with new adventures. Maybe we can stay with you for a while?

Bring it ON!
*

In Coffee/Dung News . . .

David Sharrock - Ireland correspondent for The Times - reports that for the first time in 288 years coffee dealers in that country will once again be able to legally sell coffee mixed with sheep dung as a filler:

WITH the stroke of a legislative pen, the Irish Republic intends to shrug off centuries of colonial rule when it abolishes thousands of bizarre laws dating back to the first English invasion. . . . Among those laws about to be consigned to history is . . . the Adulteration Of Coffee Act 1718 (which) made it illegal to debase coffee for profit. Among the substances used by unscrupulous traders to “pad out” the sacks of coffee was ground-up sheep dung. As coffee went out of fashion, a similar law was introduced covering tea — the Adulteration of Tea Act 1776 . . .

Read the full article from timesonline.co.uk

In Cow Dung News . . .

I was delighted to learn it's now possible to extract vanilla essence from cow dung (Link). The process takes just one hour and costs half as much as extraction from vanilla beans.

Hmmm . . .

[Insert joke about vanilla smoothies tasting like shit here]

.