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Monthly Archives August 2009

The Tesco Incident

Later, in the pub, Oriana said: “I don’t like the way people in this country are so afraid of the rules and the law; this would never have happened in Spain - people there aren’t so afraid of the law.”
The whole thing had started when we were in the Tesco supermarket in Aberdare, a small […]

Posted 31 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (3) °

How to decide

Are you struggling with a tough decision?
It may be maddeningly difficult to make a decision, especially when can see good reasons for both sides. Sometimes people write down the reasons in two columns, and see which has more - but the number of reasons doesn’t mean shit. Normally I’m pretty clear about the reasons on […]

Posted 25 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (0) °

Hold the egg

I like cooking hard-boiled eggs. By the time the egg is done, it is a compact ball of heat. You then run it under cold water so you can pick it up… after about 20 seconds it will be cool to the touch; but if you then hold the cool egg in your hand, it […]

Posted 24 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (0) °

Death of the Detective

There used to be a genre called “detective fiction”, but now that’s old-fashioned. What we have now is “crime fiction”.
This is because all the books in the genre used to have a detective as a protagonist. Then, at some point, people started writing books without detectives. So the old name became outdated, and the genre […]

Posted 18 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (1) °

Age

Every day I look a little bit less like me.

Posted 15 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (2) °

Catweazle

The best open-mike night I have ever been to is Catweazle.
A guy from Seattle got up tonight and sang a song called “The psychedelic mind of Moses”.
Then his next song had the refrain:
“I broke the company rules for you
And all I got was a banana”
(NB this is another mutant animal)

Posted 14 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (0) °

Hybrid animals

I am trying to put together a list of all the animal species whose names are a hybrid of two (or more) animal names. Any help would be much appreciated. Sorry, made-up mutants don’t count.
So far I’ve got:
antbird
antlion
baboon spider
buffalo gnat
bullant
bullfinch
bullfrog
bullshark
bumblebee bat
camel spider
catbird
catfish
catsnake
chickenhawk
cowbird
crab spider
cuckoobee
deer hound
dog cockle
dogfish (may also be referred to as a dogfish shark, which […]

Posted 12 August 2009 † John Mansfield § Normal ‡ Comments (1) °