Tetherd Cow Ahead

This sentence has threee erors.

Does a rhetorical question need a question mark?

In my collection of newspaper clippings I have this small snippet from a couple of years back:

Just Do What the Chicken Says

Police are hunting a robber who held up a shop at gunpoint dressed as a giant chicken. The wanted man walked into the grocery store in Columbus, Ohio, in the yellow costume and demanded cash from the safe.

“We have guys with fake moustaches now and again but never anything like this,” a Columbus police spokesman said. “The person obviously has some kind of access to a chicken suit, or possibly even owns a chicken suit,” he told local television. “So if you know of someone, please call the robbery squad.”

The man fled on his giant orange feet but was not pursued. He faces several charges, including robbery, aggravated menacing and intimidation.

There are several points of interest here. First, note the perspicacity of the Columbus police: “The person obviously has some kind of access to a chicken suit, or possibly even owns a chicken suit”.

Yep. That would be a fair bet.

And even though I am the first to acknowledge the brilliant audacity of Chicken Man’s plan, I can’t help but question the wisdom of wearing ‘giant orange feet’ whilst making the getaway. Surely he could have just double-parked the Chickenmobile outside the joint?

Then there is the issue of ‘aggravated menacing’. A man in a chicken suit could attract many different adjectives but menacing doesn’t spring readily to mind.

I got to wondering about Chicken Man and whether CSI might have turned up something on the scene with their fancy fluorescent lights, so I did a search. Well waddya know? Looks like he’s been busted. News Channel 5 has the dirt.

We all know how it will turn out, right? They throw him in the coop (probably Alcatraz), where bottled-up rage and frustration work on his bird brain, rendering him insane. Then, exposure to some radioactive compound in the prison laundry mutates and amplifies his avian powers until… oh, need I go on?

Nurse Myra took great delight in bringing to my attention this Wanted ad from Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald. It reads:

Wanted

Viking Warriors

Calling all Erik the Reds, Odins, Thors and Beowulfs. Several ‘Viking warriors’ required for two weeks work. Authentic Viking appearance and extensive knowledge of Viking culture preferred. Must have own complete Viking costume including arms and armour. Historical re-enactment experience preferred.

Auditions 9.30 am Friday 28 October 2005.
Australian National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour. Applicants requested to be in full costume. Please bring references.

Valhalla Awaits. Beserkers† need not apply.

I don’t know what thrills me the most: that applicants must arrive in full costume, or that they are expected to bring references!

Man, I really want to read those references. I imagine a typical one would go something like this:

To Whom it May Concern

Thangbrand Breiðskeggr has manned an oar in my longship for six months and I have found him to be a fine and upstanding fellow, if somewhat strongly smelling. His raping and pillaging skills are eclipsed only by his capacity for quaffing prodigous quantities of ale and his proficiency at knatteleik.

I think I can say that most of us here on the Mjöksiglandi Spörr will be sad to see Thangbrand go, but Odin knows that he is destined for bigger and better things.

I wish him every success in his future endeavours and I am sure that if he can control his temper and avoid further beheadings of his co-workers he will be a valuable addition to any workplace that will have him.

Yours &c
Erik Breiðrböllr

Dedicated readers of The Cow will have by now realised where I’m heading with all this. A bunch of Vikings turning up at the Maritime Museum in costume on Friday, and me with time on my hands as of Wednesday… Yes, that’s right, not only do you get to read about it but I’m going to go get you some pictures.

I was especially motivated when I read the following description of Viking dances on Regia Anglorum:

“Several sources mention warriors performing acrobatic dances (often naked), whilst wielding weapons, usually in connection with the cult of Odin.”

I don’t know about you, but when I imagine yer typical Viking performing an acrobatic dance, fully armed and naked my brain has a sort of vodka-and-curdled-yoghurt-through-the-nose hysterical spasm.

Oh please let these guys on Friday be really dedicated.

†Tsk. You’d think that someone would check an unfamiliar word like ‘berserker’ before cavalierly whacking a spelling error up for all the world to see. Especially when they’re appealing to people with extensive knowledge of Viking culture…

Organic water? Huh? My brain hurts. What do they mean? Why are they torturing the language so? In the proper scientific sense of the word, water is profoundly not organic since it contains no carbon compounds.

The only way it could be considered to be organic, would be if it contained carbon-based life-forms. That is, things floating in it…

I think I’ll go have a beer.

[Thanks Sarah]

OK, so I was watching the DVD of the Jacques Perrin/Jacques Cluzaud documentary Travelling Birds (Le Peuple Migrateur) last night, and what should I see at about 8 minutes in, but the following sequence:

~Migratory ducks arrive in snowy landscape.

~Ducks settle down to weather out the cold and blustery night.

~Ducks awake in the morning. The blizzard has subsided.

~Ducks make many and sundry quacking noises.

~An avalanche begins and ducks fly away.

There you have it: a filmic record of a duck’s quack starting an avalanche! (Sure, the film-makers try and make it look like the avalanche startles the ducks and causes them to take flight, but I believe the footage speaks for itself. Go rent the DVD. Tell me I’m wrong.)

In further news, this site reveals that scientists at Sanford University have carried out a comprehensive Duck Quack and Echo experiment, so those nitpickers who scoffed at my own exposé (no names except to say Universal Head) can now go view a (sniff) proper experiment.