Monday 17 August 2009

Newsfalsh! August 2009



Welcome to Newsfalsh, where we here at Emotionally Fourteen recap some of the stories you may have missed over previous months.

Indian Tiger park 'has no tigers'

Yes, you heard correctly. A TIGER PARK in India has finally admitted that it has no tigers. Apparently they USED to have tigers, but now...they don't have tigers. The news was announced by the State Minister of Forests, Rajendra Shukla.

Doesn't "State Minister of Forests" sound like a job that must suck, as an aside? A guy who sits at his desk all day, debating whether or not a group of trees counts as a forest, occasionally breaking to inform people that their beloved tiger parks have been deceiving them all this time?



So apparently, it works like this: If forest authorities (those people who decide what constitutes a forest and what constitutes a particularly tree-abundant glen) don't see an animal for a particular amount of time, they put in a request for a particular authority to do a "special census" on the area in order to ascertain whether or not the animals are all dead or otherwise no longer there.

I love the idea that they're taking a census of all the animals in the area.
"Hey, you there, are you a tiger?"
"No, I'm a badger."
"Right, carry on. Hey, you with the orange fur! What are you?"
"Heathcliff."
"Where have you been all these years?"
"I don't know!"

Incidentally, is anyone else troubled by the notion that not all the tigers died, and are just roaming wild around India?

More disturbing still, how the fuck can an attraction be considered "one of India's main tiger parks" when it doesn't have any tigers, and authorities report having not seen any in some time? What does it say about the other tiger parks that they can be second place to an empty forest?

Brothel offers 'green' discount

Essentially, my theory on brothels is that if they offer you a green ANYTHING, you should politely decline.

I like this story, I have to say. I find the idea of a brothel suffering from the 'tough economic times' quite amusing. I could believe it if they had said that the brothel was suffering due to the economic recession, because it implies that something has shrunk.

It's also quite tickling to my funny bones (yeah, comedians have more than one; it's science fact) that the discount offered on their hookers is available to people who can prove they came on public transport. Surely the idea that they turn up late and in a bad mood should be enough of a clue. Oh, and they can use a bicycle as well. They can ride a bike through the village in order to ride the village bikes slightly cheaper. Nice to know irony isn't dead in Germany.

Is five euros a good discount on a hooker? Perhaps if there was a site like comparethepussy.com, we would be able to see going rates. However, knowing most advertisers, they'd stick an ad up pretending that people are misinterpreting the address.



Monkeys recognise 'bad grammar'

This automatically makes monkeys better than half the people on the Internet.

I keep seeing stories about animals on the net at the moment, and sometimes they're science stories and sometimes not. For a while there was a run of dead mice turning up in products. I saw a story a few weeks ago in the newspaper about a mouse in a malt loaf, which had been compressed and everything. It was so depressing; I really like malt loaf.

So yeah, stories about animals and science I saw one today about how rooks can actually use stones to raise water levels to make the water high enough for them to reach whatever's on top. There are quite a few stories about monkeys and research on the links for this story, my favourite being a story simply entitled "Monkeys challenge language theory". Why is it my favourite? Simply because it makes it sound like monkeys actually actively make a point of challenging a theory as a group.

To put it another way, scientists have obviously decided: "hey, fuck those people with cancer and other incurable ailments. It's time to see if a tamarin can decipher this text message."



3 comments:

  1. LOLZ!

    I have a theory (and a horrible one at that) that it will be considered extremely politically incorrect to correct somebody's grammar in five years' time... and that you could be burnt at the stake for even mentioning grammar in ten.

    I'm also getting a bit sick of hearing the argument that it's in poor taste to insist on correct grammar or spelling because of the increasing number of dyslexic people in society. I mean, if we extend that argument to other disabilities, everybody will have to have their eyes gouged out so that blind people won't feel discriminated against.

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  2. pronunciation is probably a bigger gripe for me..

    for starters, sittingbourne has 'T's in it.. have we declined into a slack jawed society which cant be bothered to pronounce words properly, or is it that you are too strung out on White Lightning to care?

    Also.. the name Jordan.. it reeks chav.. but when pronounced JJAAAAOWWW-DAAAAAAAAAAHN! it adds a certain shine to it..

    gawd bless this country..

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  3. I hear you, J.B. Of course, linguists will tell you that the glottal stop that is so common in the South East of England (and elsewhere) is a completely legitimate reqional variation and that it would be wrong to expect everybody to use the received standard form of English.

    Personally, I think there's a fine line between legitimate regional variation and just not teaching your children how to speak correctly and the former is far too often used as an excuse for the latter.

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