Sorry

Hope you were not on this!!!!!!!!!

As A white, hetrosexual, able-bodied male, I feel that I am now part of the minority & therefore request some positive discrimination, please.

A useful tip...the best way to keep unwanted pets off your garden...lion shit! Most safari parks sell it.

(You've got me commenting on the wrong post now!)

How long can you make a career out of sounding like John Lennon on a bad day? Goo goo goo joob!

At school, we used to have competitions to see who could slip the word 'carrot' unnoticed into their homework. It was generally admitted that I won hands-down by getting the word into my maths homework... I left my exercise book at school, so had to do my homework on paper. To show whose homework it was, I wrote my name as 'R.L. Carrot' at the top of the page.

Actually, I tell a lie: I went to a posh school - we didn't do homework; we did prep.

http://www.gingko.ch/cdrom/jwrandom/postmodernism/

"Bet you can't use the hundred most pretentious words in one review" said someone, and so he did.

One of my friends had "washing machine" in an A-level chemistry answer on the same basis.

I'll go for the Falkland Islands: more penguins, you see.

If you follow the link from the word Canada in the above piece, you will see that the Land of the Moose is not without its attractions.

Just a thought.

As for the DNA fingerprinting method, this relies on something called the "polymerase chain reaction" a nobel prize winning technique which is not only a fine way of making (literally) exponentially increasing quantities of DNA, but requires only heating, cooling and the addition of a few basic reagents to cycle.  That means that vast numbers of samples can be run in parallel on an automate machine.  It's likely that each sample takes an overnight run, but many dozens will be run in parallel without manual intervention.  The DNA ladders that you see presented are electrophoretic gels.  I don't know whether they routinely run gels for DNA fingerprinting, or whether the actually use some less photogenic technique, but again they can be automated and run in parallel.

Don't know how many people are caught with the method, but it must be pretty standard - they found the guy who broke into out old K-reg Escort a few years ago from a drop of blood, and if it's worth running DNA fingerprinting for that old banger then they must use it a lot!  I think in that case, as with many, it's not so much the value in court as the fact that they pulled the guy in and said "we know it was you, we have your DNA" and he just said "ok, yes it was me, I was high and trying to get home".

Richard's thing about satire being hard to spot - I can't remember whether it was the same site he linked to that had an item on CCTV being fed to YouTube for monitoring by the unsleeping "online community", but it's got a real ring of truth to it!

Sorry, I'm rambling now too.

An utterly bonkers news item

One interesting point is that if TB is now a Catholic, he would presumably have to go to confession and confess all his sins from the period in which he was faithless including, for example, the last 10 years.  Hope the priest brought a flask.

Until a government comes up with a way to finance the country other than by taxing cigarettes, fuel and drink, they will continue to bang drums in order to appease the do gooders kill joys.

A decent public transport system linked with a sober non-smoking population are not in the interest of the country.

(Steps off soap box)

I found a site that is right up your street...catsthatlooklikehitler.com - spooky!

(Anyone with their hand up has lost touch with reality.)

While at Pontins, they were filming 'Holiday on the Buses'. I'm sure I am in the background in a few scenes.

When they sang Tubthumping on Top of the Pops, their guitarist had a sticker on his guitar saying One hit wonders. Nice touch. Turned down a slot at the Superbowl. Female singer named after one of the Pendle witches.

Or was it on a T-shirt?

Red sky in the morning...Shepherd's house on fire

Minced lamb & mashed potato...Shepherd's pie

(Glad I previewed that, I wrote '...hot chips to dicks...')

(Huge Iain Banks fan, although bit disappointed with his latest works.)

(For info, I stuck with IE6 and IE7 religiously until six months ago. Finally, I migrated to Firefox. I haven't looked back since: it is miles better (and much faster). If you're reading this at home on IE6/IE7, you really should give Firefox a go.)

Yeah, I know. Nag nag nag nag nag.

Speaking of which, I first stumbled here via the taglines page, which is currently broken - try http://www.gruts.com/misc/taglines.php and you are likely to get a load of server errors but none of the usual nonsense at all. Probably progress on balance.

As far as I can work out, your first comment under your nom de plume was made on 17 June 2005 on this item.

Incidentally, I noticed that the first few months of 2003 were rather devoid of comment. I hasten to add....I still haven't found the genesis of the feathered one! I thought it was around the middle of 2004....any ideas?

And there's a rference to a duck in Scene 36.

Coincidence? You decide.

Scene 1 of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

In fact, this rather useful analysis of the word incarnadine explains how it has the same fleshy Latin root as carnal and carnivorous. And chilli con carne, no doubt.

I guess I can live with that.

That's women for you!

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?

No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red"

Macbeth, Act II Scene II

Strong stuff!

You didn't hear the coconut fact in a Pixar film by any chance? Or was there more than one swallow (maybe thirty or so) carrying the coconut?