Lunchtime blogging - Thursday

Mutterings continued.

I've just come back from a meeting at the other end of the Zoo. This involves a ten minute walk from my office on the opposite corner of the Park, under the new orang towers, passed the capuchins, passed the World of Birds and the old chuditch enclosures (for holding old chuditches, obviously). On a day like today it's very pleasant indeed.

Walking back I saw a couple of pelicans wheeling overhead as they headed towards the main lake. Fabulous to watch.

From the New Scientist: "MARC ABRAHAMS, organiser of the IgNobel prizes, writes to draw our attention to an important but under-reported result in the recent elections in India. Lal Bihari, founder of the Association of Dead People, and thus winner of the IgNobel peace prize in 2003, won 3400 votes, coming in second from last. " That's the trouble with dead people, too damn apathetic to vote.

Also from the New Scientist: "HERE'S one US company where "freedom fries" surely never appeared on the staff restaurant menu, even when Francophobia was at its height. One of its products is a laptop bag which bears a label in English and French. The English version reads simply and sensibly "Wash with warm water; use mild soap; dry flat; do not use bleach; do not dry in the dryer; do not iron". The French version, only, continues (in translation): "We are sorry that our president is an idiot. We didn't vote for him." "