Fri 1 Jan 2010

Psychic Pickle

Posted by anaglyph under Poetry, Rasputin, True Fiction
[124] Comments

Well Dear Acowlytes, the clocking over of the New Year is virtually guaranteed to bring out the loonies. Above is the cover from the new issue of some rag called Psychic Reader which I swiped off a stand at the local railway station this morning. In it, a ‘spirit medium’ alleges to have been channeling our old friend Rasputin. According to her, the Mad Monk is not just mad – he’s completely furious!

I’ll spare you the interminable claptrap that makes up the majority of the article and just give you the bare bones. Madame Zora, a clairvoyant of dubious credentials (she claims to be the reincarnation of Gilbert Einstein, Albert’s lesser-known brother) believes that she has become the chosen vehicle for Rasputin’s beyond-the-grave communications:

Rasputin came to me in a dream and told me that I was to bring his message to The Earthly Plane. He said that his penis is to be returned to him or he will visit his wrath on all those who have participated in its defilement!

Yeah, right. And I suppose Madam Zora speaks fluent Russian. Oh, wait – she doesn’t need to:

He sort of talks inside my head. It’s not in language – I hear his thoughts.

How entirely convenient.

Rasputin’s penis was removed from his corpse shortly after he was murdered on December 16, 1916, and has gone on to enjoy notoriety in its own right. According to Madame Zora, Rasputin’s spirit has been tagging along with it on its corporeal adventures and is far from impressed:

He is offended that it was put in a museum for all to see, and that it has now been cloned by Chinese scientists and is sold all over the world.

Madame Zora claims that in her dream Rasputin appeared wielding a huge knife and vowed to cut off the member of any man who has offended his name. She doesn’t specify what will happen to women who have crossed the Mad Monk.

Rasputin says, according to Madame Zora, that with her help he will find his penis wherever it may go. I guess it’s a good partnership – you obviously can’t hide the salami from a clairvoyant.

Seriously – how do people believe this stuff? It’s so implausible I couldn’t make it up if I tried.

With 2009 being as chock full of cretins and swindlers as it was, I’m really nervous as we head into 2010. Could this be the year that Scientology claims a US President and Shoo!TAG™ makes a cool billion on the NYSE? Could this be the year where homeopathy gets accorded WHO approval and Jasmuheen is granted credibility as a bona fide religious leader? Could this be the year when the followers of Catholicism exceed 1 billion in number? (Oh wait, that already happened…) As the world becomes more and more stupid, the possibilities are grim. But remember – when things look the very blackest, when the churning storms of the preposterous threaten to overturn your little boat of commonsense, Tetherd Cow Ahead will always be a lighthouse of rationality, reason and logic. And the lighthouse keeper will always have whisky. I hope 2010 brings each of you fulfillment, wisdom and contentment – all with a minimum of cash imparted to crackpots and mountebanks.

Oh, and in case it needs to be said… let the games commence!

 

Thu 31 Dec 2009

He’s Back…

Posted by anaglyph under Rasputin
[6] Comments








…and he’s MAD!







 

Tue 29 Dec 2009

Is That a Jesus in Your Pocket, or…

Posted by anaglyph under Family Observations, Hmmm..., Pocket Jesus, Religion
[18] Comments



This was a Christmas present for me from Viridian. Do you think my stepdaughters know me well?



And with a bumper sticker like that, well, how could you be anything but the coolest dude in town?

 

Sun 27 Dec 2009

We Won’t Go Until We Get Some!

Posted by anaglyph under Australiana, Food & Drink
[9] Comments

Mine!

An Australian friend of mine who now resides permanently in northern California was bemoaning to me yesterday that Americans don’t really seem to get the concept of the Christmas plum pudding. So for the education of my US readers, and for the nostalgia for my Australian readers, some reminiscences on the subject.

In my family’s celebrations, the plum pudding was an essential finale to the Christmas dinner. Let me set the scene for you so you can imagine the surreal experience of Christmas in Australia:

To begin with, you should understand that, because it is the middle of our summer, it is usually very hot here at Christmas (sometimes VERY hot; I remember one year at my parents’ place where the thermometer was creeping above 38ºC (100ºF) – and that wasn’t the one in the turkey). ((On that particular day, bushfires raged on three sides of us and the air was black with smoke and soot.)) But because of the English & European ancestry of most Australians, at Christmas we still surround ourselves with the icons of a Northern Hemisphere festival: decorated pine trees ((In our case the ubiquitous pinus radiata)), images of snow and snowmen, songs about chestnuts and open fires and big servings of totally inappropriate food, like roast turkey with potatoes and baked ham. Some years we attempt to escape from the shackles of a heritage that has well and truly outlived its welcome. This year it was our turn to host the Christmas lunch and we suggested that a barbecue & salads might be a nice idea but the looks of dismay and betrayal on the faces of relatives was so great that we caved in and did the turkey and potatoes. It’s mighty hard work flying in the face of tradition.

And I have to confess, even though I could forego most of the other stuff, I would really miss the plum pudding.

When I was a kid, the plum pudding was brought to the table aglow with blue brandy-fuelled flames. We were served generous slices smothered in custard and icecream. But the best part by far was that some fortunate person would get the ‘lucky’ sixpence or threepence hidden somewhere inside. Even though the the tradition of the plum pudding probably comes from the early nineteenth century, the notion of ‘lucky coins’ or ‘touch pieces’ probably reaches back as far as medieval times. In our case, the coin was always a pre-war minted sixpence, which was suitable to be cooked in a pudding owing to its high silver content (about 98%). After the war the coins were minted with about 50% copper, and could no longer be used. ((I remember that if we got the sixpence in the pudding, we had to ‘trade’ it with mum & dad, or our grandparents, ‘for luck’. Thinking back on it, the probability is that they kept a pre-war sixpence for the pudding, and traded it with a coin of recent minting that the lucky finder could go and spend))

When decimal currency was introduced in Australia in 1966, the copper content went to above 75% and so they were right out. ((Interesting tidbit from Wikipedi: “In May 2007, owing to the high market value of copper and nickel, the bullion value of the Australian 5c coin was about 6.5 cents, though there were no reported cases of hoarding or melting down of the coins despite the apparent 30% gross profit to be made from doing so.”)) Nevertheless, someone still always got a lucky coin – I later found out that it was slipped into the pudding just before serving, to avoid the probable copper contamination.

The plum pudding in the picture above was made by my mother-in-law and is truly excellent. Very fortunately for me, the rest of the family, completely stuffed from the turkey and roast potatoes, hardly ate any of it at Christmas dinner, so most of it is sitting in our fridge being whittled slowly away by moi.

 

Sat 26 Dec 2009

Be Careful Under the Mistletoe…

Posted by anaglyph under Words
[7] Comments

Over-enthusiastic salesman in shop during Xmas madness:

This is a unisex scent, and both men and women can use it too.

 

Wed 23 Dec 2009

All Seated On the Ground

Posted by anaglyph under Cow Matters
[110] Comments

Well then, Merry Acowlytes. It’s the time of year again when visions of sugar plums dance in the heads of dreaming children, little drummer boys go parrum-a-pum-pum, partridges perch in pear trees and countless other similar surreal events unfold.

There’s no way The Cow can begin to compete with the many bizarre spectacles of Christmas, so it remains for me to simply wish you all a Merry Yuletide, and the best of all things as we approach 2010. Thanks for all your wit, wisdom and humour (I use all those words advisedly) in 2009, and make sure you’re here at The Cow to ring in the new on January 1! You know you’ll have to hand in your medals if you’re not. That means you too, Tom.

Hristos se rod!
Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom!
Feliz Natal!
Nollick ghennal as blein vie noa!
Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto!
Gledileg Jol!

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I don’t expect many of you to get the joke in the cartoon above. But for those who remember the tedious long religious carol services of our youth, there should be a laugh. I hope.

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