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