No place like gnome

A Bruges man has started a petition to protest at the sale of "gnome
paté" in health-food shops in Belgium. Johan Deprez described the
foodstuff as "disgraceful" and called for sales to be banned. A
petition on his website has already gathered 23 signatures.

Meanwhile a spokesperson for the manufacturer Food and Freedom
defended the product, pointing out that it contains only
meat-substitutes and mushrooms. "There are no puréed gnomes in our
pots," said commercial director Edith Gones. "It might have been more
accurate to call it Gnome-House Paté," she admitted.

Quod erat remonstrandum

A Ghent judge has been told off by the Cassation Court, the highest in
Belgium, for using a little-known Latin phrase in his judgement. The
case was brought by two criminals who were being sentenced by the
judge when in his remarks he used the phrase "quod non" -- which means
"which is not the case". In a desperate attempt to have the judgement
overturned they appealed to the Cassation Court. The bench rejected
the appeal to overthrow the verdict, but remonstrated with the judge
for using a phrase "which does not belong to the vocabulary of the
Dutch language, and will not be understood by everyone".

Elsewhere in Flanders, police arrested 44-year-old Steven Chance, real
name, Bruce Peck, on charges of theft as he was leaving an Ostend
theatre after making an appearance in a show -- as an escape artist.
He was sentenced to one year, and seems to be still inside for the
time being.

Wot, no fat lady?

A football match only officially finishes when the referee says so, an
Antwerp judge has ruled. The appeal court judge was ruling in a case
brought by a gambler who stood to win €10,000 on the result as it
stood at the end of the regulation 90 minutes. But the referee allowed
play to continue, and another goal was scored, wiping the man's
winnings out at a stroke. After consulting the official rules of FIFA,
the judge refused to intervene, and ruled that the ref's final whistle
is the only official end to the game. And the unlucky gambler can now
whistle too, for his lost winnings.

Rising from the dead

A woman found murdered in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 1976 has
admitted she is alive and well and living "somewhere in North
America". Monique Jacobse, now aged 48, disappeared in 1975 from her
home in De Bilt. The following year a body was found which forensic
investigation said was hers -- although one dentist disagreed.

Then in May this year police arrested a local man in connection with
the murder of two prostitutes, and began investigating his links to
the 1976 body. Jacobse somehow got wind of this re-opening of her
disappearance, and turned herself in. The real identity of the body
found in 1976 may never be known.

more bang for the butt

LONDON -- According to The Times newspaper, a 22-year-old man from the U.K. suffered burns and internal injuries after his buttocks blew up.

The explosive incident occurred in Sunderland, a town 275 miles (443 km) north of London, during the traditional fireworks celebration in honor of the 17th century Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament. Paramedics responded after getting a call about a man who had been injured in a firecracker explosion. When they arrived, they were fortunate enough to watch an instant replay of the incident, which the man's friends had recorded on a mobile camera phone. The images were blurry, but paramedics could distinctly see a man bent over with his pants down, and the firecracker exploding in a white flash.

The victim refused to be interviewed, but a member of his family said he was seriously considering a lawsuit against the firecracker manufacturer. "Those things are downright dangerous," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If there'd been a warning label on the firecracker saying it wasn't intended for orifice insertion, this tragic accident would never have happened."

horned and horny

Marquette, MI -- Most college campuses have horny young males wandering around, lustfully searching for nubile females ripe for the picking. But at Northern Michigan University, a recent episode involved a horny male that weighed between 500 and 600 pounds (227 to 273 kg).

According to the Associated Press, a young bull moose wandered onto the Northern Michigan University campus on September 19, and broke a window at the Magers Hall dormitory. Marquette police were alerted about the massive horned intruder and chased it away.

Dean Beyer, a wildlife biologist stationed in Marquette, said this kind of incident is not at all unusual. "We're in the middle of the (mating) rut right about now. Moose, especially a young bull moose, will move long distances ... They're more aggressive this time of year."

A student who lived in the dormitory said one of her roommates had been exchanging instant messages with the moose for several months. "She'd stay on her computer for hours every night IMing with him," the student told the Milwaukee Journal, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Sometimes I'd look over her shoulder and see that their IMs sounded pretty sexy. So she deserves as much blame as the moose does. After all, he's only a year old and she's old enough to know better."

Quit bugging me!

Somerset, Wisconsin -- When high school football star Jake Asp heard loud popping noises, he never suspected it was a beetle having his eardrum for lunch. The discovery was made on September 16, when Asp was awakened from a nap because of something "strange and painful" in his right ear. After 15 minutes, the pain became so unbearable that the boy's family took him to a medical clinic, and there doctors discovered the munching, popping culprit: a beetle that had taken up residence inside Asp's ear. Unable to remove the insect with tweezers, they sent the boy to a nearby hospital where he underwent beetle removal surgery. Within days, Asp had fully recovered and was happily back on the football field.

According to a spokesperson for the Asp family, there is absolutely no truth to rumors that surgeons also removed a live squirrel, a box of Wheaties, and a tree branch from Asp's ear.

Teddy goes taliban.

MILFORD, N.H. - A teddy bear has been implicated in 2,500 deaths. Of trout, that is. State officials say a teddy bear dropped into a pool at a Fish and Game Department hatchery earlier this month clogged a drain. The clog blocked the flow of oxygen to the pool and suffocated the fish.

This is just the beginning. Just you wait. Soon Barbies will be tampering with the power plants and Etch-A-Sketches will be sending messages to Osama's laptop.

(By the way, teddy was no ordinary bear--he was a PADDINGTON. Obviously in cahoots with you-know-who. Shh!)

MCN update

NUTS for all posters to MCN going back to the beginning of time.

NUTS to all readers of MCN, except those who joined up when they just heard there were NUTS being handed out. You cynical fucks can wait it out till next month.

And finally, NUTS to all our new readers, if you really are new, and if you're here to enjoy the site, and not just pick hairs and split holes in it, the way your type so often does. Yeah, you're all so friendly at first, with your "first time posting" malarkey. Then before you know it, there's a knife in your back and you're wondering where your blog went to.

There are those who say I'm taking this too seriously. I say: YOU CAN'T HANDLE SERIOUSLY!

Now I've gone and lost them all again, haven't I? Why do you people LET me DO this?

Smurf Boxer Told to Smurf Off by Smurfs

IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham was served with a cease-and-desist order from attorneys for Papa Smurf and his plethora of illegitimate children. Abraham was known as the Smurf Boxer because he would enter the ring to the Smurf theme song while wearing Smurf apparel and being accompanied by scantily clad Smurfette impersonators (unlike the real Smurfette, these Smurfette impersonators have breasts and camel toes). Speaking on condition of anonymity, a member of the Smurf family said of Papa Smurf, "He was royally Smurfed when he saw that Smurfing boxer Smurf into the ring with those Smurfing whores. Papa (Smurf) said someone should Smurf that guy in the ass, because he looked like he needed a good ass Smurfin'. Smurf that. If you ask me, he needs a good skull Smurfin' after he Smurfs my dick." Now competing as The Artist Formerly Known as the Smurf Boxer, Abraham could not be reached for comment.

Panda Bites Man, Man Bites Panda

According to a BBC News story, after partaking in a number of adult beverages while riding the train to the Beijing Zoo, 35-year-old Zhang Xinyan got an overwhelming urge to cuddle a live Panda. When Zhang arrived at the zoo, he jumped over a waist-high railing and entered the pen of six-year-old Gu Gu, where he proceeded to give the panda a hug.

Gu Gu was far from pleased, and he returned Zhang's affectionate gesture by biting the man on both his legs. Not one to be bullied by a burly bamboo-eating fur-ball, Zhang bit the panda on his back. Fortunately for Gu Gu, his fur was too thick for Zhang's incisors to draw blood.

In a statement to the Beijing Morning Post, Zhang expressed his confusion over Gu Gu's rejection of him. "No one ever said they would bite people," he said. "I just wanted to touch it."

Gu Gu was unavailable for comment, but an anonymous source said the panda was "deeply offended" by Zhang's romantic overtures. The source also said the panda was "seriously considering" filing a civil lawsuit.

I want to speak to my Nuttorney!

Who the hell does this character think he is?

No nuts for imposters!

The simple life

Okay, it'll cost you upwards of $577,000 for what is essentially a shack, but it's so hobbitty! And the houses have names like Quail Cottage, Holly Cottage and Swordsman's Lodge. Best of all, the whole development in Bend, Oregon is called The Shire, which will surely appeal to Lord of the Rings fans all over, just as soon as they save up enough money from their comic-book store jobs to move out of Mom's basement.

Above is an actual, real live tricked-up computer visual of the Swordsman's cottage. Empty your Legolas savings-bank and check it out here.

A bag of nuts to Towse the tipster for steering us Shireward.

Thou shalt not steal, but souvenirs are another matter

Nearly one in ten Bibles placed in hotel rooms by the Dutch Bible Union is stolen, the organisation said in its 2005 annual report, just released. The Union, formerly known as the Dutch Gideons, has been putting a total of 160,000 Bibles in rooms since 1946. Every year 15,000 Bibles are distributed, and 1,200 disappear into guests' bags along with shower-caps and squares of soap.

"Of course it's not the intention that people take the Bibles away," a spokesman said. "But if they do, that means they want to read them."

The 20th chapter of Exodus in particular, presumably.

To Pee or Not to Pee

You know, if this Nut were faced with a choice of giving up drugs to pass a urine test, or buying a fake dick, filling it with a someone else's pee, taking it to a convenience store near work, and asking the dude there to warm it in the microwave, well...gosh it's hard to decide what I would do. Leslye Creighton chose the second option, but unfortunately the convenience store dude thought it was a real dick that she had hacked off some poor guy and called the cops. Now not only is Leslye facing jail time, but she has to pay to replace the microwave. I mean, no one wants their breakfast burrito nuked in a pee-smelling microwave. Makes sense.

Defense attorney William Difenderfer said this was a "a humorous, but weird, case." Yeah? Well, so's your name, buddy. Difenderfer? Come on.

_________________________
Tip of the nutshell to David Rochester for passing along the linked article.

Brit and Kev Parents Again!

Los Angeles (MCN) – According to sources close to Britney Spears and her husband Kevin Federline, the pop diva has given birth to the couple's second child, a son who has yet to be named. "Kevin wants to name him Kevin," Spears gasped between contractions during an Entertainment Weekly interview conducted while she was in labor, "but he can forget that shit. He won't come home at night and people tell me he's still whoring. Until he comes home at night and stops whoring, I wouldn't name a damned dog after him, let alone a baby."

Baby Spears/Federline, temporarily known as BS/F, is the second child born to Spears and Federline. The baby arrived just a few days before the first birthday of the couple's first son, Sean Preston. Spears' New York-based publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, said that Spears' birthing room remarks should not be taken seriously. "Fuck sake, Brit was in the throes of labor," she said. "The truth is—and most people don't know this—she and Kev are Hollywood's happiest couple. They're an all-American couple, not that different from Ozzie and Harriet or Ward and June, but the millions of dollars these kids earn makes life really tough for them. People should try to be more sensitive to that."

In addition to Sean Preston and BS/F, Federline has a daughter and a son with actress Shar Jackson. Sloane Zelnik refused to comment on rumors that Federline also has children with Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Kate Moss, and all the members of the Dixie Chicks.

Photo

Nothing to laugh at here. Posted, just because:

Driving While Intoxiflated

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - A Slovak driver who crashed into a bus shocked rescuers who found him unconscious and half naked with a vacuum pump on his penis.

Police said the 42-year-old man, driving an old Citroen in the Slovak town of Levice, had ignored a "give way" sign.

"It's very likely he had auto-sex while driving, it is a matter of investigation. After the accident he was found lying in the seat, his pants were off and it (the pump) was placed on his penis," police officer Peter Polak told Reuters.

"I've never seen anything like this, nor have my colleagues," he added.

The man was taken to hospital with head injuries.

Kids, if we've told you once, we've told you a thousand times: pull over to a rest stop when you need to pump and turn on the emergency flashers. Have a cup of coffee and a cold shower before getting back on the road. Safety first!

Off yerself and yer outta here!

NEW YORK - A depressed Hunter College student who swallowed handfuls of Tylenol, then saved her own life by calling 911, was in for a surprise when she returned to her dorm room after the ordeal.

The lock had been changed.

She was being expelled from the dorm, the school informed her, because she violated her housing contract by attempting suicide. The 19-year-old was allowed to retrieve her belongings as a security guard stood watch.

And not only that, but you get an F in Drugs 101, a bucketload of tardy slips and a summons for disruptive behavior. You're also banned from attending pep rallies. In a related story, the Hemlock Society is investigating why kids today don't know the magic formula: SLEEPING PILLS PLUS ALCOHOL.

Actually, it's hard to decide which is nuttier: the schools' response to parental lawsuits over suicides or the parents themselves. "It's the university's fault! There was too much pressure! They shoulda known! They shoulda been bugging her dorm room! Oh, but if they do that, we'll sue for invasion of privacy, nyah!" Or possibly nuttiest of all is the suit alleging that suicide wannabes are "disabled" and therefore barring them from attending school is discrimination.

This Nut leaves it to the gentle reader to choose.

Breaking news

TV celebrity and survival expert Ray Mears has been killed while filming a documentary. Initial report say he was stabbed in the heart by a stingsteve.

More as it comes in.

On the lookout

An Iraqi man stopped by British police after driving on the wrong side of the road and speeding in a built-up area has been charged with dangerous driving, after police in the West Midlands discovered he has no eyes.

Omed Aziz, aged 31, lost his eyes in a bomb explosion in his native Iraq. He also suffers from tremulous legs and is partially deaf. He was receiving instructions from a friend seated beside him, but police found the passenger had been banned from driving, so he doesn't count, does he?

From the news story:

Prosecutor Peter Love asked PC Austin if he had noticed anything about Aziz.
The officer replied: "I did - he didn't have any eyes, Your Worships."

Today's recipe

Due to circumstances beyond our control, today's recipe has been cancelled.

We hope to be able to bring you the recipe for Stingray Surprise, braised in shallots and a red wine sauce, at a later date.

Lies, damned lies

A large-scale poll carried out for Psychologie Magazine in the Netherlands reveals how survey respondents lie like a bunch of lying liars.

The survey suggests that we drift off into a day-dream once every 90 minutes on average, a result that will ...


... sorry where was I?

Revenge is the favourite scenario for 70 % of those responding. 69 % said they dreamed of sex with their own partner, while 60 % fantasised about sex with someone else. 64 % dreamed of their own funeral, or exactly as many as the numbers for illicit sex and revenge combined. Duh.

Research news

A study by research bureau TNS-Sofres carried out on behalf of Duh University reveals that 25 % of French workers would "ideally" work for between two and five hours a day, with only four percent choosing to work ten hours or more.

Meanwhile over at the College of Higher Duh Studies, medical researchers found that the human body would rather be fat than thin. It is natural, doctors found, for the body to build up reserves of cake, pie and pudding for hard times that may be just around the corner.

Steve Irwin, singing somewhere in heaven.

[apologies to Bon Jovi]

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART
And you're to blame, crikey!
You give fish a bad name

A big croc's smile is what I see
The blackest of widows baked brownies for me
Poisonous snakes are sweethearts up here
Croc Hunter's in heaven, no Aussie beer

You're a cheeky ray ... mate
You stung me today
No one can save me
But good aim, what hey

Shot through the heart
And you're to blame
You give fish a bad name
I played my part and you played your game
You give fish a bad name
You give fish a bad name

Breakthroughs in scienzzzz

A 17-year-old Bulgarian girl is considering suing Air Malta after cabin crew allowed her to fall asleep on a flight from Valletta to Sofia. When Maria Ilieva woke up, she was back in Malta, and had to cough up €200 for a new ticket.

And the reason it all happened is BECAUSE:

Researchers at Duh University have discovered that teenagers have a different body clock to the rest of us, running about two hours late according to an article in New Scientist magazine, unfortunately available only to subscribers.

For the LORD thy GOD is a comedy GOD

A Pentecostalist pastor in Libreville, which is in Gabon, which is in Africa, took it into his head to do as the LORD did, and walk on water. He set off to stroll the aquatic high road from Pointe Denis beach, only to sink beneath the briny surface and drown.

So not quite as Jesus did it, then.

But that's nothing. I once had a vision I would die and be raised the third day, and I got myself crucified and stabbed in the side. And as I was lying in my tomb waiting for an angel to come and roll away the stone, nothing happened. And I'm still there, dead for all eternity, stuck in that undiscover'd country "from whose bourne no traveller returns" as the Bard has it.

I'm only kidding about the last bit, actually. I did have a vision, but it was that I would vanquish hay-fever, not death. The rest is just plain made-up.

Nutty News in Brief

A run-down of Nutty News in Brief:

Researchers at the University of St Andrews have discovered that chimpanzees are capable of passing information on down the generations by means of teaching and learning. Well if that's the case, what's with the flinging of faeces thing? And perhaps more important, when are those Complete Works of Shakespeare gonna be ready?

• A three-year-old girl in Taiwan is in serious condition in hospital after being attacked by an eel. Her father had caught several eels which he stored in a tank. As he was preparing to kill and eat them, one slipped his grasp and dived into the child's mouth to escape. Father pulled the creature out, but not before it had seriously injured the child's oesophagus.

In related news, Dutch authorities have decided to allow babies to be shown with their mouths hanging open in passport photos, overturning a recent ruling that even tiny-tots had to stick to the rules on how you need to look on your passport pic. A small amount of drool is also permitted, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry said, but strictly no eels.

• A Frenchman hunting wild boar in Trausse in the south of the country accidentally shot his mother in the face during the hunt, killing her. Police investigating the incident said it was a simple case of mistaken identity, and started preparing a sauce of shallots and red wine, with perhaps some prunes.
  

A man in New Zealand was stopped by police after he was clocked driving at 120 km/h in a built-up area. Imagine Plod's surprise when it was discovered that not only did 31-year-old Colin Smith have no driving licence, he also has no arms, and was steering with one foot. Smith escaped prosecution after he gave an undertaking that he would get a licence and only drive in a vehicle adapted to his disability. A policeman said they might have pressed ahead with charges, but Smith did have a leg to stand on.

• A 43-year-old London man will have to live for the rest of his life with the spelling errors of his tattooist. Brainless tit Martin Nolan wanted to honour his mother Breda with a piece of doggerel tattooed on his back. But the tattoo artist had trouble with difficult words like strength and wisdom, giving the following result: God give me the strenght/to accept the things/I cannot change, the courage/to change the things that/I can and the nisdom to/know the difference/BREDA.
  

A bank robber turned up for a bank hold-up in New Jersey armed with a pistol and neatly kitted out in wig and sunglasses -- but forgot to bring along a bag marked Swag to carry off his haul. Cashiers handed over $1385, but when the robber tried to escape holding the loot in his bare hands, he lost at least $1195 of it, which was later recovered. The remaining $190 will go towards a sturdy hold-all and a packet of Post-It notes.

• Police in Zurich, Switzerland, were alerted that the burglar alarm of a fitness centre had gone off. To check the alarm was not a mistake made by cleaners, the police called the centre, and the burglar picked up the phone. To make matters worse, the man and his girlfriend seemed to think nothing of this call from the police, and carried on robbing the place. And were still occupied when police arrived.
  

Okay one more. A would-be bank-robber in the Austrian town of Poggersdorf knew it had all gone wrong when the cashier in whose face he was waving a fake gun pointed out that she was a municipal worker, and he was in the process of trying to rob the town hall, situated not far from the town's bank. The robber took to his heels, and was captured later when he came back to recover his getaway car -- still parked right outside the town hall door.

More Nutty News in Brief coming soon!

That is, one year older than Ehrengard Melusine von der Schulenburg

Koen Druyts of Turnhout in Belgium is officially 338 years old this year. According to the chip in his new ID card, Mr Druyts was born in 1668, the year of the signing of the Lisbon peace treaty between Portugal and Spain; of the expulsion of all Roman Catholics from Ethiopia; of the birth of the composer Couperin and the great Dutch medical pioneer Boerhaave; and of Molière's play The Miser (L'Avare). Mr Druyts commented, "I look not too bad for my age, eh?" The card will be replaced free of charge, but in the meantime Mr Druyts will have no trouble buying alcohol, cigarettes or lottery tickets.

Thanks to Wikipedia for dates.

Robo-Trout: Interfering in the affairs of fish

From the Associated Press 09/02/06, 7:21 AM EDT

GREENVILLE, Maine - Anglers, don't be alarmed if you catch a trout with an antenna coming out of its belly. It's just a "robo-trout."

About 75 transmitter-equipped trout have been released in Moosehead Lake and its tributaries by

the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife as part of an effort to track them and maintain the right mix of fish.

~~~

Just what is the right mix of fish? Why should Maine taxpayers' money be funneled into the cause of Ichthyological social integration? You'd be hard-pressed to find any town hall meetings where fish bigotry is hotly debated. Besides, it's none of our damned bidness.

[looking around]

Can I say "damned" here, Miz Paula? 'K

Yes, now and then we hear stories about salmon grabbing the best feeding and spawning grounds away from other fish, claiming "divine right". Frustrated trout then bully the bass out of the best of what is left.

Last week there was an unconfirmed report of several bass donning cat costumes and speeding through both salmon and trout resting grounds in the middle of the night, meowin', hissin' and raking their confused victims with sets of small, sharp twigs as they swept past them. Salmon and trout in both areas scattered in terror, screaming, "Save the fry!"

[chortle!] Ya gotta admit, that was clever thinkin' on the--what, Mr. MacDonald? Oh. Sorry. Facts, right, the facts. Well, the fact is this: the government of Maine shoulda kept out of the whole fishy bidness!

See, a few months after the start of the project, ichthyologicalists... ichthyologicals... fish scientists noted an alarming change in the spawnin' habits of all three fish, as in they weren't spawnin' at all. Nope.

Once the fish with antennas realized that they could pick up free satellite TV, all three classes got together with some electric eel tourists to fix up TV's dumped in rivers. Now it's like:

"Time to head out to the spawnin' grounds!"

"OK, OK, just five more minutes..."

"No, really, we have to reproduce. Our only real drive in life, right?"

"I'm tryin' to watch the Sopranos, here! Shaddap!"

"Really? Cool! Yeah, we can wait..."

"Dammit, Charlie, don't wiggle, yer messin' up yer antenna's reception!"

"I gotta go to the little fry's room."

"Yer a fish for gawd's sake! Just poop where ya are!"

So, the good news is that the salmon, bass and trout no longer fight amongst themselves and peace reigns throughout the rivers. The bad news is that they can't tear themselves away from their shows long enough to spawn. Not to mention that they've been runnin' up their credit cards on the Home Shopping Network. Yes, they have developed Couch Fish Syndrome (CFS).

We can only hope that Satellite TV providers find these Couch Fish soon and whap them with such huge bills that the fish can no longer afford their habit... and, so, return to thier Continuation of the Species duties.

Hiss boom bear.

VAIL, Colo. - A 72-year-old woman making pot roast in her kitchen discovered uninvited guests in her home Thursday: a bear and her cub.

The unidentified woman walked into the kitchen and found the bear standing six feet away, apparently surprising it, Vail police Sgt. Dan Torgerson said. The bear hissed at her and swatted her chest and arm, giving her some minor scratches. The woman then scared it off by yelling and clapping her hands.

Torgerson said the bear hissed again and then left through a side door.

"If the bear was trying to hurt her, it very easily could have,"he said."I think it was just surprised."

The woman then found a cub in her house and she pushed it out the door, Torgerson said.

An intrepid Nutter cracked a source who admitted the woman's name was Goldilocks. "Revenge, innit," said the source. "Bears never forget." Apparently the Mom Bear was the same Baby Bear in the famous story and is still pissed off that Goldi slept in her bed.

There's a moral in there. Or perhaps a mural.

Obesity crisis linked to liberalism.

According to Rush Limbaugh, recent studies that state obesity rates for adults in the United States increased in 31 states during 2005 are proof that liberals are killing innocent people.

"This is what happens when you let the left run things," Limbaugh said, forgetting that all three branches of the U.S. government were run by Republicans in 2005. "We've seen the babies with the extended tummies, the walking skeletons, told that kids can't learn unless they're fed. We've been guilted into pouring resources on the problem. And now, now, the latest crisis is that there is obesity among those who are impoverished. Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity."

Limbaugh went on to say that in America, we "didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a... slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter."

In a related story, Land O' Lakes is set to announce their newest product, "Beef Butter," this weekend. The product and its tagline, "REAL butter. REAL beef. REAL slaughtered cows," was the brainchild of Land O' Lakes Product Development Supervisor Phil Phillips.

"Ever since I saw that Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial where the guy walking with the chocolate bar runs into the guy walking with the peanut butter and the chocoloate bar goes into the peanut butter and they're both all indignant until they try it and it tastes great because it's a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and who doesn't like those, I've had this nagging voice in the back of my head saying, 'Slaughter a cow to get the butter... Slaughter a cow to get the butter...,'" Phillips said. "Then when I heard Rush (Limbaugh) say those same words, I knew I had something."

The obese Limbaugh, rumored to be a potential celebrity spokesperson for Beef Butter, could not be reached for comment.

Whales don't need marriage counselling: study.

Yes, someone had to study this due to growing fears that the high divorce rate among humans was going to permeate the animal world and destroy life as we know it. Can you imagine if divorce lawyers were all suddenly snapped up by orangutans and there were none left for Donald Trump and Joan Collins? Horrors! But not to worry. Killer whales, at least, kiss and make up soon after disagreement.

Eight of the disputes were between a mother and a father, for which the female would chase the male, who would be trying to evade her.

After several minutes of chasing, the two would split apart as to "cool down", and then reconcile by swimming side-by-side for about six to ten minutes, what Noonan calls an echelon - or synchronous - swim.

If you're wondering what caused the initial tiff, sources say it's because the guy whale left the toilet seat up and the chick whale fell in. She would have forgiven him even sooner if he hadn't begun calling her "Tsunami Mami."

World's oldest woman dead at 116; foul play suspected

QUITO, Ecuador - Maria Esther de Capovilla, the oldest person on Earth according to Guinness World Records, has died at 116 years of age, her granddaughter said.

While initial reports claimed Capovilla had died of complications from pneumonia, lead investigator Javier Ortega de Richcorintheanleather believes otherwise. "It is 94 degrees here," he said through a translator. "Who gets pneumonia when it is 94 degrees?"

While as of yet no official suspects have been named, Elizabeth Bolden, of Memphis, Tenn., only 11 months younger than Capovilla and now the oldest person on Earth, was reportedly seen in the neighborhood Wal•Mart purchasing "unusual quantities of ice." Bolden could not be reached for comment.

Born on Sept. 14, 1889, Capovilla was married in 1917 and widowed in 1949. She is survived by three of her five children, 12 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren, two great-great grandchildren, four mediocre grandchildren, one super-duper great-grandchild, three shit-for-brains grandchildren and her 114-year-old Australian shepherd Nifty.

Girl next door a problem for pussy-obsessed teen

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

A 14-year-old boy has been charged with harrassment after he was like, meow? to his gnarly like old neighbor lady?

"Every time he sees me, he meows," said 78-year-old Alexandria Carasia, clearly immune to the boy's seduction technique.

The boy commented, ""Mumble mumble walking through and mumble looking at us. I mumble mumble dog leave the yard. When I mumble mumble, I meowed."

The boy's mother said there had long been tension between the two families. One family dispute led to the boy's cat being "sent to live with her parents," unusual as it is for cat parents to still be living together so long after the children have grown up and left the, er, nest.

Police defended their ridiculous decision to press ahead with charges. "He engaged in a conduct repeatedly that serves no legitimate purpose," ludicrous laughing-stock Sergeant Donald Johnston, poor imitation of a Wiggum, said. "I don't feel the victim should have to go through her golden ages being harassed by the defendant."

Ramses Moves to Suburbs

After more than 50 years of living the wild life in Cairo, Egypt, the 3,200-year-old statue of Pharoh Ramses II sold his prime real estate in Ramses Square and moved to a quaint little plot closer to where he grew up near the Great Pyramids.

The 83-tonne statue was escorted by a convoy of 1,500 soldiers for his move, which lasted a full 10 hours. One soldier, when asked why so many people were necessary for the relatively short move, was quoted as saying, "Dude's got a lot of shit."

Ramses' new home, near the site of the future Grand Museum of Egypt, is reported to be a six-bedroom, four-bathroom ranch with central air conditioning, hardwood floors, slab-granite kitchen countertops and main-floor laundry.

"I think that today if Ramses could talk, he would say 'Thank you for moving me,' " Grand Museum antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told state-run television in an interview scripted by the state.

Ramses, reportedly dead since 1225 B.C., could not be reached for comment.

Who even thought there was such a thing?

Tom Cruise is now officially too bughouse for Hollywood.

You couldn't make it up.


Tom Cruise scares the shit out of an old lady, yesterday

Sad news for Pee-ell-you-tea-oh

Pluto, prior to hearing the news, yesterday

Ghost ship

Italian authorities are trying to fathom the provenance of a ghost ship found drifting off the Porto Rotondo resort in Sardinia. The ship (pictured), showed no signs of life, but was described as being very old but in good condition, according to a report in Pravda.

I think I may have a clue: found on board were "French maps of North African seas, a flag of Luxemburg, Egyptian food leftovers and a wooden tablet in bad Italian that said “Bel’ Amica” (with only one “l” instead of two), which translates into English as “Beautiful Friend"."

A flag of Luxembourg? On a ship?

Here's a map of Luxembourg.
See if you can spot why this is not considered one of the world's great maritime nations.

Tiny little land-locked Luxembourg, pictured yesterday

Archive: Company tells truth in ad shock

A television ad for Oral-B toothbrushes showing in Belgium contains a clear warning to viewers that one striking image is an "exaggerated rendition" of reality. The ad shows a microscope-enhanced image of bacteria the size of New York monsters attacking teeth the size of New York skyscrapers.

In addition, a spokesman for Procter & Gamble, Oral-B's parent company said, the gigantic killer bacteria have had some colour added "to make them more lifelike" according to Vincent Vandepitte.

Oral-B claims to remove 100% more plaque than normal toothbrushes, which might also be a slight exaggeration.

Archive: Is there life on Mars?

The price of chocolate risks sky-rocketing, thanks to a plague of moths at cocoa plantations in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua-New Guinea. The insect, if moths are insects, caused about $20 million damage in Indonesia in 1998. The so-called cocoa pod borer moth is thought to attack the plant by erm boring into the cocoa pod.

A delegation from Mars, the chocolate company not the planet, is to visit Papua-New Guinea to assess the threat. Meanwhile scientists are looking at ways to combat the moth plague by screwing with their pheromones, which are basically what romantic moths send each other in the absence in the culture of flowers and, yes, chocolate.

Cocoa futures dropped 16 percent at the Liffe exchange in London, after putting on 18% in July. Act on investment advice from MCN at your own risk. Values may fall as well as plummet.

Archive: Love not bowl of cherries, man claims

A 39-year-old West-Vleteren man was beaten and thrown around the room by his love-rival after he went to claim €5,000 in compensation for the man stealing his mail-order bride.

Strawberry grower Marc Brysbaert had paid €10,000 in expenses in order to bring 37-year-old Olga to Belgium from her home in Ukraine four years ago, together with her young daughter.

Last year, however, the marriage was in difficulties, when Brysbaert discovered Olga was having an affair with local blacksmith Johan F. She soon moved out and into the village smithy.

When Brysbaert got the idea of reclaiming some of his expenses from the smith, whose name was not released as the case is ongoing, the man beat him up. Brysbaert pressed assault charges, and the case continues for medical reports.

A bowl of cherries, such as love is not

Archive: Top fashion names fed up with chavs, wags

The world's most prestigious fashion houses are tired of being associated with chavs like David Beckham and his wag* Victoria, according to Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper. The paper reports that Gucci has declared Victoria persona non grata after former designer Tom Ford threatened sales staff with the sack if they sold her any of his creations.

And Burberry design head Christopher Bailey was hauled over the carpet after he attended a party at the Chav Queen's disgracefully tasteless mansion. Though fashion experts reckon Burberry, a favourite with chavs in its knock-off form, has already sunk lower than their haughty gaze can determine.

A chavette very like Victoria, complete with bling, pictured yesterday

The daily moos

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Cows have regional accents, a group of British farmers claims, and phonetics experts say the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Lloyd Green, from southwest England, was one of a group of farmers who first noticed the phenomenon.

"I spend a lot of time with my Friesians and they definitely 'moo' with a Somerset drawl," he said, referring to the breed of dairy cow he owns.

[...]

According to [some cheesemaker], accents among cows probably develop in a similar way as among humans, and resulted from spending time with farmers with differing accents.

Read the rest of the article here

Load of horseshite, I say. Though on second thought, my cats definitely mrow with a fuck-off type tone. Could they have learned it from someone? Hmm.

Archive: The Violence of the Voiceless (PL)

No one cares about them. Their value to society is based on the most shallow of premises. They're left naked for days or weeks and then casually manipulated into obscene positions. Some are abandoned utterly, tossed into cold, dark warehouses and forgotten forever. Do we never learn? It was inevitable that they would begin to rise up and strike out against their oppressors.

Diana Newton, 51, of Westminster sued the J.C. Penney Co. last month after she was allegedly thwacked on the head by a department store dummy. Newton said she was ambushed by a legless female mannequin at the company's Westminster Mall store, a skirmish that left her with a bloodied scalp, a cracked tooth, recurring shoulder pain and numbness in her fingers.

The alleged attack was the latest in a string of mannequin mayhem incidents nationwide.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Archive: Luckily the socks wouldn't light

A Flemish pilgrim started a forest fire in Spain after he ritually set fire to his walking shoes on completion of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. The man had been walking for more than three months, and decided to perform part of a ritual common in the Middle Ages. Then, pilgrims would burn all of their clothes three days before the end of the trek and complete the way naked. The man was arrested and spent the night in jail, and now faces a fine.

Santiago de Compostella is reputed to be the resting-place for the remains of St. James the Greater, an apostle of Jesus said to have been killed in Jerusalem then shipped miraculously to Spain by a flock of angels. St. James is prayed to in cases of arthritis and rheumatism, and is the patron saint of horsemen, furriers, Puerto Rico, pharmacists and apothecaries, Spain and the archdiocese of Seattle, but nothing that would make this story funnier.

Archive: Dutch graduates are pigs in the kitchen

The higher a Dutchman's educational attainments, the more likely s/he is to use a dish-towel to wipe the kitchen floor, according to research from the Dutch Food Centre, a government-sponsored agency. More than 35% of Dutch people having studied to higher-education levels made such disgusting use of the dish-towel, the survey showed, compared with only 17% of people with only a secondary education.

The research came as part of a new campaign designed to teach people of the dangers of filthy dish-cloths, which are a breeding-ground for bacteria. Only 40% of Dutch people change their dish-towels daily.

Archive: Just because... (PL)

Mr. Karr raped and strangled a poor defenseless baby beauty queen is no reason to MOLEST him so rudely. OTOH, he looks as if he might be enjoying it.

P.S. Watch the Boulder police fuck this up to hell.

Archive: Taking the piss?

The Vale of Glamorgan local council in Wales confused all half-dozen local Welsh-speakers with road-signs in Welsh and English warning cyclists of a road hazard.

The sign at roadworks read "Cyclists dismount" in English.

In Welsh, the same sign read, "llid y bledren dymchwelyd" -- which translates as "bladder inflammation upset".

One possible explanation, according to the sort of people who would even bother looking for an explanation, is a mix-up between the word for "cyclist" and the word for "cystitis".

Picture at the BBC website.

Call that shifty bum a constant?

According to a report in New Scientist, the constant µ, known to its friends as mu, is changing before our very eyes. Mu, as you're doubtless aware, expresses the relation between the mass of a proton and that of an electron, and should be 1,836. But, scientists have found, the ratio has changed by as much as 0.002% over the past 12 billion years. Meaning it's not a constant at all. Objects were later reported to be flying about in defiance of gravity as a result of the findings, their constituent particles no longer able to place their faith in any laws of physics.

MCN contacted a woman, who commented: "That's µen for you. Can't count on 'em one bit."

A particle pictured yesterday

Archive: Executive, Judicial, and Larry (DR)

Recent polls show that Americans can name The Three Stooges more easily than they can name the three branches of the United States government. Grant funding is pending for a study to determine how accurately US citizens can identify The Three Stooges' behavioral counterparts within governmental branches.

Archive: Read that part about fluids to me again?

From our Couldn't Make It Up Dept., at KXTL Radio:

Peace protestor Cindy Sheehan has been taken to hospital from her vigil outside George W. Bush's ranch in Texas, suffering from dehydration. Ms. Sheehan has been on a liquids-only diet, which followers have imaginatively described as a "hunger strike".

So wait, if she didn't get the liquids part right, what exactly was this diet again?

Archive: Will lounge around at functions for food

A troop of young Flemish nationalists will this week deliver a food parcel to the villa in Tervuren outside Brussels occupied by Prince Laurent, third child of the King and eighth in line to the throne or thereabouts, God forbid a nation sighs. The package will include Cha-Cha chocolate bars, chocolate mints, Jupiler beer and local cheese.

Last month, Laurent complained that he was having trouble making ends meet on the €295,000 a year he is given by the Belgian state. Laurent is married and has three children, including a set of twins. Owners, sorry parents with twins of their own will probably sympathise. That's not even €6,000 a week.

Archive: Study: Sexy cavedrawings triggered teen sex (PL)

Just as today's kids never even think about having sex unless they're listening to raunchy music on their iPods, it was the same for caveteens. Most peeps in the Stone Age waited until age 25 before taking a mate, at which time they were most likely dead (necrophilia wasn't such a big deal back then), but children who grew up with nasty drawings on their cavewalls were often having sex at 14. The ones who delayed disgusting physical gratification either had no drawings or drawings of Nice Things Only, such as birdies and flowers. And not those Georgie O'Keefe type flowers either--those are way too suggestive. We're talking daisies here, maybe an occasional tasteful daffodil. Nothing seedy though, ick.

Archive: No panda shooting though

Chinese authorities are to auction off hunting licences allowing the highest bidder to hunt down and kill rare species such as the wolf, the yak and the erm blue sheep, which is not blue and doesn't look much like a sheep, not that that's a good reason to kill him for €2,000.

The sale will be organised by the animal protection authorities, who will also accompany hunters to make sure limits, such as no murdering of pregnant beasts, are respected. No announcement has been made regarding the price of animal protection officers.

Archive: Record is truly Plastic, court rules

The voice you hear on 1977's smash-hit Ça plane pour moi is indeed that of Plastic Bertrand, a Brussels court has ruled. The court was giving judgement in a case brought by Lou De Prijck (careful with the spelling) who wrote and produced the hit, but wanted to be recognised as the performing artist as well.

De Prijck offered no evidence in support of his claim, reports said. Bertrand, on the other hand, had a signed contract and his name on the record-label.

Plastic Bertrand's career failed to live up to the promise of his early hit, and reached a nadir when he sang for Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1987 and took second-last place with four points, quatre points. Turkey was last with nul points, no points. To make matters worse, the Final was held right here in Brussels.

Things have picked up since, however, as he appeared to great acclaim on a Belgian TV show on Idol lines. He also helps coach young talent, and takes part in Scrabble tournaments at international level.

De Prijck later went on to lasting worldwide fame as the lead singer of Lou & The Hollywood Bananas (pix here to refresh your memory). The judge fined him €10,000 for what he described as a "groundless and vexatious" suit.

Plastic Bertrand looking a bit of a twat yesterday

Archive: Mayor to stand for election

Elections for municipal councils throughout Belgium due to take place in October will have at least one star candidate. Walter De Donder, who will stand on a Christian Democrat list in Flemish Brabant province, is a double-barrelled star of children's television, beloved to children across the Dutch-speaking world as Kabouter Plop, a forest gnome, and as De Burgemeester in Samson & Gert, where he plays the mayor of a small town -- a post to which he was never elected, as the character is fictional.

Kabouter Plop, artist's impression


Burgemeester De Donder pictured yesterday

Archive: Because the brain is where it's kept

From our Please Tell Me He Didn't Just Say That Dept, at USA Today:

Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.

[...]

"I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors. "It blows my imagination."

Archive: Picture this (PL)

As news organizations comb through their photo files after the recent Reuters photoshop disaster, another appalling breach of shutterbug ethics has come to light. Apparently the famous 1945 "kiss" photo was edited to remove an insanely envious physicist from the final cut. One of the staff of Nuts tracked down the source, who said, "Hey, Al was always trying to hog in on all the nookie action. I was just giving that poor sailor his moment of glory." For shame!

Archive: Say cheese

From the BBC website:

An Iraqi man filmed video footage of potential targets for a terrorist attack on London, a court was told.

Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye were among the sights on tapes made by Rauf Mohammed, Woolwich Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

So, when in Rome, never mind what the Romans are doing. No pictures of the Colosseum, the Vatican or the Circus Maximus. No skyscrapers in New York. No casinos in Vegas. And just stay away from Egypt altogether.

This travel advisory brought to you by May Contain Nuts. Coming up next, weather wherever you are.

Archive: Making with the makings

An object lesson, in the British regional press.

A MUM wants more information about where pastry offenders live after a police officer warned her to keep her cakes 'covered up' in her back garden.

A pound of Dawn Booker's flour was playing nearly naked in her garden in The Broadway, Harborough, with four eggs and some butter, when a passing officer warned there could be cakeophiles in the area and she should take more precautions about letting her ingredients out unprotected.

However, Harborough Police said they were advising Miss Booker as a precaution, and there was no suggestion that she was living near a tart offender.

Miss Booker (39) said: "I was out in the back garden with Homepride (8), my youngest and she was playing around.

"A police officer was walking past and called me over. At first I thought she was telling me not to use my garden hose because I was watering the garden but instead she told me that I should keep Homie covered up because there were pie-ophiles living nearby."

Story continues at above link.

Archive: Broken news

Our first story concerns Zyban, a drug used to help people give up smoking, which regular readers will know has a special place in my heart and especially in my lungs, the drug that is. Researchers at the Free University VUB have asked the government to put the drug on a blacklist of doping products because, they say, not only can it improve performance by 9-25 percent in cyclists taking part in a Tour de France-style time-trial, it can also cause body temperatures to rise to as high as 40 degrees when used by athletes performing in warm conditions.

It's true, and I can testify, that Zyban can cause hot flushes and night-sweats, just as it says right there on the packet. But might I be allowed to point something out to the esteemed researchers? The drug is being used for smokers, hello? How many smokers do you know, even recently-stopped, who participate in any athletic competition at all, let alone time-trials à la Tour de France, let alone competitions in conditions of elevated temperature? The advice given by Professor Romain Meeusen is, "Whoever stops smoking with Zyban and wants to start exercising again had better not do it under the blazing sun". Thanks, Prof.

***

We go over now to Tilburg in the Netherlands, where a survey published last week tells us that the number of Belgians who described themselves as "very happy" is inferior only to the equivalent number of Irish, Danes, Dutch, Icelanders and Northern Irish. More than four in ten Belgians put themselves in that category, with 51 percent saying they were "pretty happy". In other words, only 8 percent of Belgians are not happy. Which is good news, though unlikely to cheer them up.

However, what to make of these figures: 48 percent of Belgians said they would rather NOT have a "right-wing extremist" as a neighbour. Great, you think. Stand up to the shaven-headed, bovver-booted scum, and the Vlaams Blok too. But the total also means that just over half of Belgians don't care, a figure that presumably includes all those "right-wing extremists" themselves.

To confuse matters more, the same respondents would also prefer not to live next door to a gypsy (34%), a Muslim (20%), a gay person (18%), an immigrant (16%) or a Jew (11%). So if I've got that right, nearly half of all Belgians won't move in next to a right-wing extremist, while rest of the population are in fact right-wing extremists. Either that, or Belgians just long for a detached house.

***

Finally, to Ghent, and the doctoral thesis of Charlotte De Backer at the faculty of political and social sciences there.

Dr. De Backer's thesis was all about gossip, which she found out makes you wise and what's more as happy as a Belgian living next door to a stormtrooper. It gives you a strong bond with those other nattering ninnies you call your friends, and it makes you intelligent because gossip is full of interesting facts but she would say that, wouldn't she? Some more facts about gossip:

• Gossip about women is mostly about their appearance, from "Did you SEE that hat?" to "Fwooaar!"
  
• Gossip about men, on the other hand, concerns status and performance, and not just that kind.
  
• Men and women, not surprisingly, gossip differently from each other, with women more likely to use gossip as a tool to ruin reputations – like her at Number 34 who's always at it.
  
• Young people gossip about relationships, when they can be bothered taking the iPods out of their ears to talk to each other at all, that is.
  
• And people in general use gossip as a sort of negotiable currency, like Marlboros in prison, to establish, raise and maintain their own social standing, not unlike the good Doctor De Backer herself.

All very interesting, if not exactly earth-shattering news for the most part. But then you'd understand why if you knew what I know about that Ghent faculty. But I mustn't. No really, I mustn't.

From July 2005

Archive: All the news that's unfit

These are hard times for humorists trying to scratch a living raising a smile from the wacky wonders of the world. The trouble is, real life is wiping the floor with us. The news these days is full of so many ridiculous, improbable items that comedians are being put under intolerable pressure to go one better.

And I'm not even talking about big-time international items like news that Iran might take over Rover, or the US authorities recent boast of having "nearly" captured Public Enemy Number Two Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi (it won't have escaped your notice that "almost captured" is precisely the same as "still at large").

I mean the smaller, local items from your area. Here's what's being advertised in our local papers here over recent days. See how many of them you think I made up:

• A 22-year-old Moroccan girl died after visiting a faith healer to be cleansed of evil spirits, which process took the form of drinking an estimated 11 litres of water while he chanted Koran verses. The girl literally drowned. This was in Koekelberg. Last August a 23-year-old died in Schaerbeek from the attentions of a faith healer, who fed her emetics for eight days as a treatment for infertility.

• A 35-year-old Dutch-born woman from Tongeren in Limburg province spent one minute touting the joys of Belgium on the Oprah Winfrey Show. As well as telling Oprah about chocolate, beer and frites with mayonnaise, Maleka Berkers also pointed out that Belgian women think the American Dream is not in reality what the movies make it out to be. Collective gasp from chicks who were expecting a car.
  

• Men dream of sex, often involving women not their wives, and also of firing guns and driving fast cars, not necessarily at the same time, according to a recent sleep study. Women, on the other hand, dream of shopping, and sitting round the table with friends. This news is not exceptionable in itself, but what is incredible is that someone thought it worth reporting.

• Abroad, and a Frankfurt court has ordered Gunther von Hagens, creator of the flayed-corpses exhibition Körperwelten, to pay € 108,000 for using the title "Professor" without being entitled to. Von Hagens does have a professorship of sorts, awarded to him in China. But the court ruled this small fact was not made sufficiently clear by Von Hagens. The case was brought by Hamlet's old university of Heidelberg.

• Still abroad, and a shopping centre in Oude Pekela near Groeningen in the Netherlands has banned old people from assembling within the precincts, on pain of being ejected by police. The old folks, according to the centre's management, block the view of shop-windows, obstruct pathways and snoop on the contents of other people's shopping-carts. The centre already bans other disruptive elements, such as pets, skateboarders and young lollygaggers.

• Staying with crime, and thieves ripped off a family from Heers in Limburg twice on the same day. In the daytime they broke into the house and stole some jewellery, as well as the keys to the Merc. At night, as the poor benighted victims slept, the thieves came back for the motor.

• Doctors attending an emergency case will be allowed to drive over the speed limit if they warn the coppers first by calling 100, according to a new plan from health minister Rudy Demotte.

• More than 47,000 of the names listed in the central weapons register of the police are of dead people, some of whom fired their last salvo ten years ago. Nobody knows what became of the guns in question. And one in three of all weapons is registered under a wrong or a fake name, including multiple instances of a Mr. M. Mouse.

Yes, it's a funny old world, all right. It's enough to make a humour writer cut his own throat. And I'm not joking.

PS – Not a single one of the above stories was made up. There's no need to make things up these days.

From May 2005

Archive: Useless research

A paediatric renal specialist from Ghent University, Johan Vandewalle, has sent shockwaves through the scientific world with a plea for children to be allowed to go to the bathroom when they have to, er, pee. According to Dr. Vandewalle, holding it in is not good for children's bladders, and they can't always be expected to go when the school reckons it's a good time. He also revealed that children's bladders are smaller than those of grown-ups, and perhaps haven't had the practice of keeping control.

Elsewhere in Dr. Vandewalle's research was an earth-shattering claim that has never occurred to anyone in the whole of human history since apes first came down out of the trees: standing up to pee is an unnatural posture, and should be discouraged among boys at least. This will come as a surprise to pub-patrons, football fans and building-site workers the world over, not to mention toilet designers – though cleaning ladies will probably heave a sigh of relief. Dr. Vandewalle justifies his claim by pointing out that doing it standing it tends to cause the, er, subject to splash himself and others.

***
Staying in Belgium, and researchers at the Free University VUB in Brussels have issued advice on how to blow your nose. Ear nose and throat expert, Professor Peter Clement, led the team who discovered that if you close one nostril off while blowing the other – blowing only one half of your nose at a time, if you will – you'll be more successful at expelling the troublesome particles from your nose than if you leave both open and blow them both at the same time, in which case the irritants whirl around inside your skullal cavity but don't get expelled. You should also, the Professor concludes, blow your nose as little as possible, especially at the opera. And if it's blocked up, don't bother even trying.

Well, thanks, Prof. But my grandmother explained it to me years ago, and I tell my children at every opportunity: your nose makes snot not to annoy you, but to soothe your troubled hooter. If you blast it all out into your hankie (we won't even mention those Mediterranean gentlemen who have learned to shoot it out in the street, into the path of trams) you'll only force your poor snout to make more, thus necessitating another hankie. It makes perfect sense, and you don't actually have to spend years at university to figure it out.

The team also found, though I'm not certain this was one of their prime objectives, that nose-blowing is a uniquely human activity. You don't see cats or dogs or hamsters blowing their noses, far less tapirs or elephants, more's the pity. Quite what those other creatures do is a matter for the zoologists, I suppose, though the curiosity of Sour Grapes is piqued.

***

Abroad, and more ground-breaking research, this time from scientists in the University of Münster in Germany, which has shown that women lose their sense when they go out shopping. By implanting electrical probe thingies in the brains of shoppers, the Münster researchers found that the centres of the cerebral apparatus responsible for rational thought shut down, while those which deal with pleasurable feelings of self-satisfaction fizzed and sparked like the Green Room at the Eurovision for Kiddies after a round of free cola-drinks.

And the more expensive the goods on display in the shops, the team found, the more pronounced is the effect. Men also experience the same shutdown in their thinkal areas, the research revealed, but only when they're shopping for fast cars, electronic gadgets and computer games.

***
You couldn't cover useless research without citing The Lancet, and the latest edition includes the gem that clean air in the workplace contributes to healthier conditions for employees. Scientists at McGill University in Montreal found that if building superintendents clean the air filters on their AC, people are less likely to come down with "the bug that's going around". Such precautions don't take account of employees snogging in the stationery cupboard, obviously. Neither do they protect against absenteeism on Friday afternoons, Mondays or days when Kim or Justine are playing live on Canvas.

Published in The Bulletin, Brussels, January 2004