A Russian tale of caution, overheard on the Victoria Line this morning...

*Two Russian women get on the tube at Highbury and Islington. I can't actually see them as I am squashed up against some man with a giant rucksack he has refused to take off, but I can hear them clearly, not least because one is basically shouting in my ear*

"My friend, she keep snake. Big snake, Anaconda you know? They sqeeze, not poison but verrry big. She keep in her flat and one day notice that snake is being verrry friendly. It come sit with her on sofa, sleep with her at night and so. Now she think this is most unusual, she play with snake often, but it never so friendly."

"That is verrry odd for snake. Snakes not friendly often"

"Yes. So she go to vet and say. Vet goes 'oh no! You must not return home! Snake is not friendly, it is measuring you so's it can work out how it will eat you best. Get rid!"

"Noo!"

"Yes! Get rid! You see snake is like Dmitri. He being friend to you now, so he can make you trust, then he will come in night and kill you."

конец (end)

Scary dolls of Wood Green - an occasional series

Aah the Letchy Unsavoury Loves Arse limited edition vinyl doll... a faithful rendition of the sort of gay alcoholic tramp that occasionally frequents Soho Square - hawaiian shirt? Check. Face distorted and battered through years of alcohol abuse? Check. Fist clenched ready to off any young twinks who spurn his advances? Check. Cock hanging out of star spangled pantaloons...

The Anne Geddes Collection* - bean filled representations that prove once and for all that bestiality is wrong. What better way to educate your child of this irrefutable fact than to buy them a stillborn human-animal hybrid in a box?

The ratbaby is admittedly quite appropriate for Wood Green, situated in the borough of Haringey, best known for A Life of Grime and the Baby P scandal....


*I love that being a 'collection' it means that somewhere, someone has got a whole shelf of dead animalbabies lovingly displayed. It must look like aftermath of some hideous genetic experiment or possibly a nuclear explosion in the nursery of Fuckedupland.

Noble Hound

just because...

Photo of the Day - Dare ye Undertake this Epic Quest?

Many a valiant hero has fallen and great warriors lost their lives...by bumping into their reflection in the hall of mirrors in Longleat Safari Park. Other baser mortals such as myself just wasted a lot of time preening and seeing what the back of their heads looked like after two hours looking at monkeys in the pouring rain.

Dearly Departed, Now with Omega 3

It it with a bit of melancholy I bring you the news that my hamster, Bobo, has died. To be fair, he never fully recovered from the ceiling falling in on him, despite the Flatmate heroically lunging into the dust filled void where my livingroom used to be at 4am to save him while I, dear reader, stood in the doorway flapping my arms about and shrieking about my laptop.


Well anyway, last Saturday I kept checking on him, by the Frasier where Niles agrees to pretend to be still married happily to Mel his breathing was shallow and by the time Frasier hires a butler to try and get on the Opera Society board, he was cold.

I was a bit sad, but what was weighing more heavily on my mind was how one goes about respectfully disposing of a beloved pet in a flat with no garden. After several lame attempts to dig up the mostly concrete front garden with a spoon, a plan B was needed, as Bobo was quite a hefty ham, and I didn't want a reputation as the mad lady who mysteriously dug lots of little holes in the front garden with a bit of cutlery.

Luckily, I had recently finished a tub of Flora, and even more luckily, I have been thoroughly conditioned by the Flatmate to wash out every sodding bit of packaging, right down to petit filous tubs for recycling. So in an act of (in my own head) massive bravery, I gingerly scooped up the dead Bo and plonked him in and put the lid on. Then sat there looking at it for a bit.

Anyway, several bizarre txts later (heya, how are you? Long time no see! Could I possibly bury something in your garden?) Rhi came to the rescue, and Bobo was interred, or more accurately squashed by a large lump of clay as I attempted to bury him with my eyes shut.

RIP Bobo, Feb 2006 - June 2008

Alfred Hitchcock Was Onto Something...

... following on from Sunday's post it appears my fears were not ill founded.

London Lite 12th May 2008

'a pelican gives a friendly welcome'?? I think you will find he is hanging out with his crew on a park bench, probably menacing passersby with squalks, mock fights and annoying ringtones. This newspaper clipping last night confirms my wost fears that the ASBO Pelicans have indeed invaded and are now causing mild peril up and down the land.

Should I be found dead in a mangled feathery heap tomorrow, I suggest you check their mobiles, as they will have doubtlessly taken me out in a happy wing slapping incident.

Marauding Young Seabirds

See items 2 and 4 from the BBC's top news stories. Either it is a very slow day or the pelicans have finally hit puberty and have started to hang around in gangs, causing trouble. Why by tomorrow they might be throwing chips at Grannies down the arcade..

Edit: They are now the top two items of news! The Burmese Government and the murderer of that 16 year old boy WILL be happy..

Chicken Nugget

The rather good Deceiver.com has many examples of why Peta are a load of idiotic hypocrits, but it's amusing to know that animal activists on this side of the pond are also susceptible to moments of brainlessness.

A family friend has an allotment. At this allotment, several plot holders clubbed together to buy some chickens, and being a load of middle class liberalistic enviromentals they endevoured to look after them in the most Jamie Oliverite fashion possible. However, in spite of all the organic grain, fresh water and clean hay, they still turn up one day to find out that someone has stolen the chickens and left a big 'Animal Liberation Front' banner in their place. Strangely enough, the suspicion falls on the one allotment owner who is a member of ALF and also happens to drive a white van like the one that was seen near the coop on the night in question.

It does make you wonder how exactly one 'liberates chickens' - being fat, slow and unable to fly very far, they are not exactly born surivors, particularly not in the Tiddles and Pusskin strewn enviroment of North London...

Oh, except that this is the kicker in this whole tale - these chickens technically were survivors, being that they had already been 'liberated' from a battery farm in the first place by the kind allotmenteers!

Idiots - 1, Chickens - 0

Chinese New Year Themed Pathetic News Stories of The Day

A rat was given the kiss of life by an animal-loving policeman.
The poorly rodent was spotted by PC Adam Westall while on his beat.
'It ran out in front of me and stopped and looked up at me with its beady eyes,' PC Westall said.

'I cocooned him in my hands and he gave a shudder and fell unconscious. I tried to revive him by blowing into his whiskered nose and rubbing his belly.'

The rat did came round and he took it to a pet store in Clacton, Essex, but sadly it later died.

The Metro

AND

THE RSPCA is appealing for information after a collapsed and dying pet rat was abandoned in Somerset.
The white male rat, which was in a very poor condition, was found by a member of public in a cage on a wall in South Street, Yeovil on the morning of Friday 25 May. The member of public took the animal to a nearby shop, who in turn alerted the RSPCA.
The RSPCA collected the animal and rushed him to a local vet, where it was decided that he would not recover and so he was put to sleep to end his suffering. The male rat was dying from the result of an untreated viral problem and had probably been suffering from diarrhoea and been in a poor condition for a number of days.

RSPCA newsletter

I have no idea who this woman is, but she pops up if you put 'sad rat' into google images and it made me chortle