Animals

[Mr Pee]

I gave up eating lamb about ten years ago when I realised that sheep were my favourite animals....if the world was ruled by sheep, there wouldn't be any wars. That is the main reason why I like sheep.

You ARE joking, aren't you??

[Lateralthinking1]

It is all true. I'm not advocating a sheep takeover because that would seem bizarre. Other than that, I'm totally serious.

(I had a particularly creepy biology teacher who looked like he had stepped out of Quatermass. He tried to scare the living daylights out of us all. He believed that we would all die not of old age but from war, starvation or climate change and that during our lifetimes rats would take over the world. He absolutely loved the idea of it because he knew that he would get out before it happened. I thought he was as crackers as he was scary. Others could laugh but he did little for my life. It got to me. And regrettably he turned out to be right at least on the latter bit. Rats are in charge. My sheep thing is just a small answer to it).

[ahinton]

Back in the days of the BSE beef ban my family ate Ostrich and Crocodile and thoroughly enjoyed them. Even Tesco stocked them for a while. I occasionally eat horse meat. The local butchers stock these meats but prefer us to order by phone and ask for "our" order at the counter as the natives can be frightened by the names of certain meats.

Ah - a variation on a theme; challenging contemporary music frightens the horses but Chris Newman risks frightening the customers with horses.

[ahinton]

if the world was ruled by sheep, there wouldn't be any wars. That is the main reason why I like sheep.

There's a contradiction in terms there; it the world were ruled by sheep, it wouldn't be ruled at all beause sheep are followers, so there would be no leaders.

a wellington boot

Boot welligton was the term that I once used in a restaurant when having to send back a badly prepared Boeuf Wellington.

[Pianorak]

. . . and that during our lifetimes rats would take over the world. . .

Might not be such a bad idea: http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...rimate-mammals

Given a choice between eating chocolate alone and rescuing their pals, rats will apparently save their pals and then share the chocolate with them. . .

[MrGongGong]

For all you exotic meat requiremnts

http://www.keziefoods.co.uk/

I've been trying to find horse for years in the UK ,
Ostrich is also very low in fat and delicious

[Lateralthinking1]

I like the article about rats. Maybe they have had a bad press in the past. Does that mean though that they wouldn't leave a sinking ship, thereby leaving themselves in an isolated position?

Euros, Mr Gong Gong. You need Euros to buy horse meat. I suggest a quick trip across to Ostend where the homo-sexualist Monsieur di Rupo is doing a sterling job holding an unlikely coalition together.

On sheep being followers, alas, this isn't quite true. They take it in turns to be leader and the rest follow, realising that this is both fair and sensible. It isn't rocket science. So-called democracy is at one end of the spectrum and the realities of ovine politics are at the other.

http://www.squidoo.com/sheeparecool

[Lateralthinking1]

.....Anyhow, time for Lateral's animal of the day. Yesterday it was the bee and today we are staying in the garden. Yes, you've guessed it, it is that friend of the soil, the earthworm:

[amateur51]

For all you exotic meat requiremnts

http://www.keziefoods.co.uk/

I've been trying to find horse for years in the UK ,
Ostrich is also very low in fat and delicious

Surely an ostrich takes a lot of stuffing, and you need a bloody big oven?

[EdgeleyRob]

my animal of the day is the humble bumble bee. http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...-WhBoRSe4TJFiQ

I got stung by a bee once. Charged me £20 for a jar of honey.

[Mr Pee]

I’d like to thank the person who first looked at a buzzing Bee-hive and thought:

“They're hiding something delicious in there- I know it.”

[Lateralthinking1]

I like honey. Today's animal is the hippopotamus, or "river horse".



The hippopotamus is interesting because it puts paid to the lie that vegetarians lack aggression. The hippo has killed more people in Africa than any other animal while enjoying a diet of fruit and grass:

http://www.videouniversity.com/files/ATT66.jpg

A group of hippos is called a “bloat” so I guess they may be politically Conservative. But their greatest contribution to politics was in providing false teeth for George Washington in an age when most were made of wood rather than tusk:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3286/2667690432_6b9700ab5b.jpg

Many recall with affection "The Hippopotamus Song" by Flanders and Swan. Regrettably, it was annilhilated in 2007 when the words were changed for an advert to "Mud, mud, marvellous mud, nothing quite like it for growing a spud". Or perhaps two in this case:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/26/article-1038793-0213D30600000578-418_468x273_popup.jpg

But more happily, in the 1850s, folk enjoyed and respected the Hippopotamus Polka. Even now, the illustration to the sheet music by the lithography studio, Napoleon Sarony, has historical relevance for enabling us to pinpoint the origins of TV series "Strictly":

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Hippopotamus-polka-early1850s.jpg/410px-Hippopotamus-polka-early1850s.jpg

Time for our Picture of the Week award. It goes to Mr Pee for those wonderful Shetland Ponies in post 81. Here's hoping for a bumper crop of good ones in the coming days. Keep trying to smile, even though our world is getting fishier by the day.

[vinteuil]

I’d like to thank the person who first looked at a buzzing Bee-hive and thought:
“They're hiding something delicious in there- I know it.”

Yes indeed.

And also thanks to another hero -

"It was a brave man who first ate an oyster." [Jonathan Swift]

[Ferretfancy]

I’d like to thank the person who first looked at a buzzing Bee-hive and thought:

“They're hiding something delicious in there- I know it.”

I'd like to thank him too, but I think I'd have to go back to Africa about a quarter of a million years ago to shake his hand !

[Lateralthinking1]

Seal -