Tetherd Cow Ahead

Many years ago, my good friend Bronni & I used to amuse ourselves by taking well known proverbs with animals in them and substituting a cow for said animal.

This was a source of constant mirth. So for today’s diversion, I give you:

•Like a cow up a drainpipe.

•Flat out like a cow drinking.*

•That’s put a bit of a cow in the ointment!†

•Wow, she really has a cow in her bonnet!

•That’s put the cow among the pigeons!

•More tricky than herding cows.

•Better a cow in the hand than two in the bush!

•He’s a real cow in the grass.

•As cunning as a cow.

•The early bird catches the cow.

•Like a cow on a hot tin roof.

•I’d like to be a cow on the wall for that conversation…

OK Acowlytes – over to you. The one that makes me laugh most gets a Cow Medallion!

UPDATE: It occurs to me that some of you may have missed the point of this particular activity. It’s all about the image that you form in your head when you do the transposition of animals. For instance: ‘a cow on a hot tin roof’ conjures an amusing vision of a cow clattering along on your corrugated iron verandah awning… Get it?

So:

‘Cow in a gilded cage’ = Funny
‘Let sleeping cows lie’ = Not Funny

See – it’s not just as easy as chucking the word ‘cow’ in any old proverb.

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*Hmm. Some of these might be a little obscure to non-Australians…

†Isn’t ‘ointment’ a great word? Why don’t we have ointments any more?

Thanks to Radioactive Jam for sparking old memories.

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This last week has been an extremely aggravating exciting time here in Sydney, with the city being comprehensively ground to a standstill by the carnival of clowns that is APEC (aka ACROCK). Today we have George Bush, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin slowing down the traffic and stealing the media attention away from more important issues like footballers getting busted for doing drugs.

As APEC has progressed, we’ve been treated to some terrific banter between these great minds of our age (the Leaders, that is, not the footballers. Although, really, there’s not much in it). The press was all over this exchange between George W and John Howard at a barbecue lunch:

George (loads plate up with steak and sausage): I’m a meat man.

John: I think we know that.

Onlookers: Hahahahahaha!

Honestly, I didn’t stop laughing for a full attosecond. And to think they hold Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw up as the finest examples of English language wordsmiths.

Mr Bush said in a speech this morning how much he loved Sydney and that he was hoping to be invited to the ‘OPEC’ summit next year (now was that ever a Freudian slip). It would seem that he thinks APEC is held in Sydney every year. This man is the Leader of the Free World. SpaghettiMonster help us all.

Some of the other fine word manglings I’ve heard this week include annualized, disendorsed and our own Beloved Leader’s stadia (which he evidently thinks is the plural of stadium but it isn’t. It’s a made-up modern word that someone thinks follows the rules of Latin. It doesn’t. A more correct and wholly less pretentious thing to say would be stadiums)

Meanwhile, since International Talk Like a Pirate Day is imminent, and you all know how much I like to get into the swing of things here on The Cow, I propose we start celebrating a little earlier this year and keelhaul the lot of ’em.

I had cause today to phone an insurance company and when I got through heard the following message:

Your call is important to us and has been placed in a priority queue.

Priority queue? Priority queue? Wha? Wha?

So now, apparently, there’s (at least) two kinds of queues that you can get on people’s switchboards? Since I just dialed in using a number from the phone book it got me to wondering just how insignificant you’d have to be to get the normal ‘non-priority’ queue.

I waited and waited on the priority queue. But at least I eventually got through. Some schmuck is still hanging on…

An excellent way of demonstrating to the world that you don’t have any.

So anyway. The Vatican has evidently decided that, in keeping with their habit of meddling in matters in which they have no expertise (nor even barely adequate knowledge for that matter), they need to hand down some rules, Commandments, even, for the drivers of motor vehicles. Yes, you heard right, The Holy Office has decided that what the world really really needs is a Catholic Church endorsed Ten Commandments of Motoring.

What? I say, what?

How do they get an imprimatur to do this kind of thing? Where the hell is anything about motoring mentioned in the Bible? (OK, OK, not counting that bit about Moses charging across the desert in his Triumph)

To demonstrate the clarity of mind with which The Holy See tackles this matter, I ask you to scrutinize the above image taken from their 36-page document Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road. In case you can’t quite make it out, this a picture of a chap wearing a t-shirt that says ‘Being Drunk is Fun’ whilst directing traffic. The traffic consists of rabbits in open-top cars. The man holding the sign has some kind of radiation emerging from behind him. Note the black arrow that points upwards near his Stop sign.

OK. Without reading further, anyone have even a remote idea what this is supposed to convey?

Let me enlighten you: this is Commandment of the Road #9 – On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

Do I need to offer a more persuasive example of why religion in general, and The Pope in particular, should not be allowed even close to matters of the Actual Real World. To further emphasize the tenuous grip on reality that the Catholic Church is demonstrating with their release of the Asphalt Tablets, I note that they also suggest that ‘praying while driving’ is to be encouraged. I’d like to suggest that concentrating while driving would be far more useful, having experienced my fair share of drivers who have evidently substituted prayer for road knowledge.

Well, if the Vatican can get in on the act, I see no reason at all why I shouldn’t have a say. I submit for your delectation:

The Church of the Holy Cow Ten Commandments of Motoring.

#1: Thou shalt not drive big gas-guzzling SUVs nor Hummers nor those stupid trucks with unnaturally big wheels.

#2: Thou shalt not sit in thy motionless car for hours with thine engine running for absolutely no reason.

#3: Thou shalt not install in thy vehicle a music system that has more power than thine engine.

#4: Thou shalt not display ‘wobbly head’ dogs on thy dashboard.

#5: Thou shalt not display ‘clever’ number plates like CUL8R or S810*

#6: Thou shalt not have a horn that plays ‘krazy’ tunes like Yankee Doodle Dandy.

#7: Thou shalt not drive around gratuitously burning fossil fuel in a convoy of stupid little vehicles towing advertising signs.

#8: Thou shalt not be a seller nor a buyer of a vehicle with a stupid brand name.

#9: Thou shalt not make “motoring-related” music video clips such as this.

#10: That last one contains enough sin for two Commandments.

Here endeth today’s Lesson.

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*I feel very pleased with myself that I just made that up!

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Since the last post seemed to cause so much puzzlement, and numerous alternative suggestions for the mad scientist’s comment, I’ve decided that you guys need a chance.

OK Acowlytes – have at it!