Category Archives: amusements

You've Got What?!?!?!

One of my less endearing qualities is a lay-scientist’s interest in emerging infectious diseases (of plants and animals). And as such I follow ProMED which disseminates reports of these things from around the world to the scientific community.

And are there some strange and amusingly named diseases out there. So I was amused, but not surprised, this morning to see a report of Wobbly Possum Disease in New Zealand. If you wrote it in a novel, or indeed a comedy script, no-one would believe it! But what would you call a disease which makes possums, well, wobbly?

Others that always amuse me for their names are Astrakhan Spotted Fever (which affects humans), Flaccid Trunk Disease (of elephants), Lime Witches’ Broom Phytoplasma (affecting citrus trees) and O’nyong-nyong Fever (also affecting humans).

Yes, it’s a strange world we live in!

Keep Calm and Drink Up

One of the many contents of my Christmas Stocking was a small book called Keep Calm and Drink Up. It is a collection of quotations and aphorisms about drink — mostly alcoholic drink, of course.

Amongst the more delightfully amusing and/or thought-provoking entries were the following.

The British have a remarkable talent for keeping calm, even when there is no crisis.
[Franklin P Jones]

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.
[George F Burns]

Rum, noun: generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
[Ambrose Bierce]

I never drink water; that is the stuff that rusts pipes.
[WC Fields]

Wine is sunlight, held together by water.
[Galileo]

There can’t be good living where there is not good drinking.
[Benjamin Franklin]

Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer.
[Arnold Schwarzenegger]

The greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer … the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
[Dave Barry]

Headlines of the Year

‘Tis the season for annual round-ups and “best of” series, so who am I not to join the party.

These must be amongst the best (worst?) and most amusing news headlines I’ve seen during 2011.

Rain causes increasing flood risk
BBC News; 16 January 2011

Men trust people more than women
BBC News(?); 09 May 2011

Children hurt by bouncy castle
BBC News; 29 May 2011

Primate apologises over comments
BBC News; 19 June 2011

Uranus Has a Bright New Spot
American Scientist; 04/11/2011

Custard’s Last Stand
The Times; 5 September 2011?

Do headline writers really have no sense of the ridiculous nor re-read what they write?

Anti-Carol

Just for further amusement at this time of great mirth and sadness at the tills, here are two anti-carols, again stolen from friends on Facebook.

O Sing, choirs of children,
Sing in expectation,
Sing all ye shareholders of M&S.
Give to our Family, glory in the Mostest;
O come, let us spend Money,
O come, let us spend Money,
O come, let us spend Money,
Christ I’m Bored.

God rest ye Unitarians, let nothing you dismay,
Remember there’s no evidence there was a Christmas Day,
When Christ was born just is not known, no matter what men say.

Glad tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angel song,
There could have been no wise men for the journey was too long,
The stories in the Bible are historically wrong.

Glad tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

Much of our Christmas custom comes from Persia and from Greece,
From solstice celebrations of the ancient middle east,
We know our so-called holiday is but a pagan feast.

Glad tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

Amusing Meme

One of my Facebook contacts has posted a curious and amusing little meme. It may be an old one, but I’ve not seen it before. It goes like this …

  1. Your real name: Keith Marshall
  2. Your detective name (favourite colour and favourite animal): Yellow Cat
  3. Your soap opera name (middle name and street you live on): Cullingworth Ennismore
  4. Your Star Wars name (first 3 letters of last name, first 2 of middle name, first 2 of first, last 3 of last): Marcu Keall
  5. Superhero name (Colour of your shirt and first item to your right): Null Mouse
  6. Goth name (black and name of one of your pets): Black Harry

Well the last three work fairly well; I have reservations about the rest.

Anyone else dare to try this and post the results?