Casper The Commuter Cat
Posted on | July 30, 2009 | No Comments
A cat has become such a well-known user of a Devon bus service that its drivers know where to let him off. Casper has been queuing with other passengers to get the number three service from his home in Plymouth for months, the bus company said.
It added that he often sat in the queue and then quietly padded on board and curled up on a seat for the ride.
Casper’s owner Susan Finden, 55, who picked him from a rescue home in 2002, said he had always been a free spirit. Mrs Finden said she named her pet after Casper the Friendly Ghost, as he has a habit of wandering off.
I don’t know what the attraction is but he loves big vehicles like lorries and buses.A spokesman for the bus company said that drivers had been bussing Casper around for months, but Mrs Finden said she had only just found out about his use of public transport.
The care worker said: “He’d always go off and have a wander. “Once I had to walk a mile-and-a-half with a cat basket to bring him back from a car park. “He does love people, and I don’t know what the attraction is but he loves big vehicles like lorries and buses.”
A notice has been put up by First in the bus drivers’ rest room in Plymouth bus station asking them to look after the rogue passenger if they spot him sneaking on board.
Crop Circles Mystery Explained
Posted on | June 25, 2009 | No Comments
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.
Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine. She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops. Australia supplies about 50% of the world’s legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told the hearing.
“Then they crash,” she added. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.”
Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually. “There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles like drunken animals,” he added.
Retired Tasmanian poppy farmer Lyndley Chopping also said he had seen strange behaviour from wallabies in his fields. “They would just come and eat some poppies and they would go away,” he told ABC News.
“They’d come back again and they would do their circle work in the paddock.”
Some people believe the mysterious circles that appear in fields in a number of countries are created by aliens. Others put them down to a human hoax. Perhaps it’s just Mother Nature getting high on the plants 
Robinson Crusoe Canine Found Alive
Posted on | April 26, 2009 | No Comments
A pet dog that was washed overboard and believed drowned has been found four months later – as a castaway on a remote Australian island.
Sophie Tucker – named after the famous US entertainer – vanished as Jan and Dave Griffith sailed through stormy waters off Queensland last November.
But unknown to her grieving owners, the plucky dog survived a long swim across shark-infested waters to an island.
There she lived on a diet of baby goats until being found by visiting rangers.
The Griffiths were amazed to hear of the discovery and have now been reunited with their pet.
“She was a house dog and look what she’s done, she has swum over five nautical miles, she has managed to live off the land all on her own. We wish she could talk, we truly do.”
The Griffiths had been on a sailing holiday off the north-east Queensland coast when Sophie Tucker – an Australian cattle dog – was lost overboard.
“We hit a rough patch and when we turned around the dog was gone,” Mrs Griffith said.
“We were able to back-track to look for her, but because it was a grey day, we just couldn’t find her and we searched for well over an hour.
“We thought that once she had hit the water she would have been gone because the wake from the boat was so big.”
But the hardy dog had swum five nautical miles to be washed up on the largely uninhabited St Bees Island.
There, Sophie Tucker survived on a diet of baby goats until rangers, who patrol the island, spotted her.
They eventually captured her, believing her to be a wild dog until they were contacted by the Griffiths.
“She was seen on St Bees looking pretty poor and then all of a sudden she started to look good and that was when they discovered she was eating baby goats,” Mrs Griffith said.
“She had become quite wild and vicious. She wouldn’t let anyone go near her or touch her. She wouldn’t take food from anyone.”
There was an emotional reunion when the Griffiths met the rangers’ boat bringing Sophie Tucker to the mainland.
“We called the dog and she started whimpering and banging the cage and when they let her out she just about flattened us,” Mrs Griffith told the AAP news agency.
Mrs Griffith added that Sophie Tucker had been quick to readjust to the comforts of home. A heart-warming story if ever there was one!
Unfortunate But Funny Names
Posted on | April 1, 2009 | No Comments
What do you call some of the most unlucky people in Britain?
Justin Case, Barb Dwyer and Stan Still.
It sounds like a bad joke, but a study has revealed that there really are unfortunate people with those names in the UK. Joining them on the list are Terry Bull, Paige Turner, Mary Christmas and Anna Sasin. And just imagine having to introduce yourself to a crowd as Doug Hole or Hazel Nutt.
The names were uncovered by researchers from parenting group TheBabyWebsite.com after trawling through online telephone records. Retired airman Stan Still, 76, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said his name had been “a blooming millstone around my neck my entire life”.
“When I was in the RAF my commanding officer used to shout, ‘Stan Still, get a move on’ and roll about laughing,” he said. “It got hugely boring after a while.”
But 51-year-old Rose Bush, from Coventry, West Midlands, said she loved her name. “I always get comments about it but they are always very positive,” she said.
Researchers also scoured phone records in the US and found some unlikely names there too. Spare a thought for Anna Prentice, Annette Curtain and Bill Board the next time you sign your name. A string of Americans also have very job-specific names, including Dr Leslie Doctor, Dr Thoulton Surgeon and Les Plack – a dentist in San Francisco.
A spokesman for TheBabyWebsite.com said: “When the parents of some of those people mentioned named their children, many probably didn’t even realise the implications at the time. “Parents really do need to think carefully though when choosing names for their children.
“Their name will be with them for life and what may be quirky and fun for a toddler might be regretted terribly when that person becomes older or even a grandparent perhaps.”
MORE UNFORTUNATE NAMES:
Jo King
Barry Cade
Carrie Oakey
Priti Manek
Tim Burr
Do you know any other silly names? Let us know!
Council Flat Complaints
Posted on | December 22, 2008 | No Comments
These are genuine quotes from British Council flat tenants complaining to
the Council about problems with their flats. You will not believe some of the comments!
My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fungus
growing in it.
He’s got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can’t take
it anymore.
It’s the dogs’ mess that I find hard to swallow.
I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob
off.
I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his
foot in the hole in his back passage.
And their 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against my
fence.
I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I
think it was bad wind the other night that blew them off.
My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?
I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.
Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and
fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.
I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen
50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster and 50% are plain
filthy.
The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.
Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.
I want to complain about the farmer across the road; every morning at 6am
his cock wakes me up and it’s now getting too much for me.
The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is
unsightly and dangerous.
Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third so
please send someone round to do something about it.
I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do
something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.
Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my
wife. I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still
have no satisfaction.
This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can’t get
BBC2
Reindeer Gets Toupee for Christmas
Posted on | December 12, 2008 | No Comments
Here’s a bit of festive cheer for Christmas that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside…A reindeer farmer has come up with an inventive solution to spare the blushes of his chief sleigh puller. Shaggy, who lives on a farm near Bromyard in Herefordshire had lost his antlers following the rutting season.
Children visiting the farm kept asking where they were. So farmer Trevor Hill made Shaggy his own antler toupee. The toupee, made out of antlers strapped to a headpiece and padded with fur, are strapped over Shaggy’s head so he looks like Rudolph once more.
Mr Hall said they had to stay away from Shaggy’s enclosure for six weeks while the rutting season was on.
“Afterwards, his hormone levels dropped and so did his antlers.”
Watch the reindeer video here.
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