I'm worried about Dobbin. He's right off his cuttlefish.

The BBC have set up a helpful site where experts answer questions about bird flu put to them by idiot members of the public. And the idiot members of the public have risen magnificently to the occasion, with such questions as:


Could my horse be affected?


To which the answer, astoundingly enough, turns out to be... no. Not unless your horse is a bird.
If you’re having difficulty telling whether or not your horse is a bird, here are some handy tests:

1. Run at your horse, shouting, and waving your arms. If your horse flies away, your horse is a bird.

2. Offer your horse some tasty millet. If it pecks daintily at it, emitting little cheeps of pleasure, and ruffling its feathers, your horse is a bird.

3. Ask your horse who is a pretty boy then. If your horse replies that he is a pretty boy, your horse is a bird.

4. Wait until your horse is running towards you, and shout ‘Woah!’ If it fails to stop, your horse is a bird. Or a deaf horse.

5. Sit on your horse. If your horse is now dead, your horse was a bird.

...And 28/10 at weekends.

Heard this week:

'We're expected to work 24/7, five days a week.'

Penguins, however, He didn't get at all.

Sorry for the quietness, it's all got a bit busy round here. I expect you coped, though.

One of the tricks I use to fight my insomnia sometimes is to pick the dryest, dullest book I can find, and tell myself the only way I'm allowed to stop reading it is to go to sleep. Esentially, I'm holding my brain hostage. This plan was entirely foiled last night, however, by the promising sounding 'A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation', which in no way lulled me to sleep with the brilliant sentence:

'It might be argued that one of the most clearly established facts about Jesus is that he found camels funny.'

Might it? Don't get me wrong, I certainly think it should be argued, if at all possible, but... really?

Of course, I shouldn't have doubted the authors - they're absolutely right. The evidence is all there in the Apocrypha, in particular the Gospel of Bob, Chapter 7:

4. And Jesus spake again unto the Pharisee, saying: Doubt not that the Father hath placed in thee- pfffffffff! 5. Sorry about that. Sorry. 6. No, as I was saying, doubt not that the bhahahahaha! Look at his eyelashes! 7. And His disciples, who stood about Him, turned one to another and lamented, saying: 8. Oh, bloody hell, He's off again. He's seen another camel. That'll be it for the day now. 9. And so it came to pass, indeed, that nothing else got done that day , but for Jesus waxing increasing mirthful about the camel, and its stupid hump.