It saddens me when other countries have a more progressive attitude to disease.
Over here the first ever case of MRSA was found in turkeys. I don't know how it got it. I assume the standard of cleanliness in turkey hospitals has gone downhill. (Damn you George Osborne!) What is the UK response to their suffering? "Burn them! Burn the witches!"
Well, the actual advice was "make sure the meat is cooked properly" but that's pretty much the same thing.
Meanwhile in America, it's that time of year again when the President pardoned a turkey, sparing it from forming part of someone's Thanksgiving meal. This is a country that in some states still kills humans with their death penalty but the President uses his powers to spare a bird. That's got to annoy you if you're on death row.
This time they ran it slightly differently from the age-old tradition. They held a competition where people could vote to save one of two turkeys, Popcorn or Caramel. Popcorn won, thereby showing that sadly racism is still an issue in America.
Don't worry, in the end both Popcorn and Caramel were spared, because Obama is clearly abusing his presidential privileges. Both bird will go on to lead a rich full life. Unless they get treated in a UK turkey hospital that is.
David Lammy is in the news for telling some school kids not to use slang in job interviews. He told them that using 'innit' and 'izzit' won't help them impress prospective employers.
I love that this is news, as if it is an affront on some culture. It's not because it's not new. I grew up in the East Midlands and we were told not to use slang in interviews too. I didn't consider myself oppressed when we were advised to not address the interviewer with, "Ay up yoth..." I didn't think the rich heritage of my culture would be lost if I held back from saying, 'Ya rate mi'duck?'
The point is, we all pretend to be different in interviews. Not saying 'innit' is no different to me pretending I'm actually a 'team player who can also work individually.' You put on your posh voice, you try not to swear and you claim that your biggest weakness is that sometimes you work too hard. Basically, an interview is all an act, so don't get offended about it.
But when not in an interview setting, I have nothing against the vocal tick of ending every sentence with question like 'innit' but that's because of my partial Welsh heritage and we invented it. So there's lovely, isn't it?
An man in Russia protested against the Government... by nailing his own testicles to the ground.
Yep. That'll show 'em. I bet the Russian Government are smarting now. They'll rue the day you ever bought nails.
It's not your everyday protest like a march or picket line. In fact, if there's one thing he couldn't do, it's march. And if there's one thing the doctors will tell him not to do it's pick it. It was the work of an artist, Pyotr Pavlensky. So as an artist his protest needed to be more than just holding a sign and doing a chant, "What do we want? A claw hammer. When do we want it? Soon as you can, please."
The protest took place in Moscow's Red Square, which was probably slightly redder during the protest. He stripped totally naked, sat down and hammered a nail through his scrotum into the cobbles. Ooooh, right in the cobbles?
He was then arrested, which I thought was strange. I'd heard they'd nick anything that wasn't nailed down.
In a statement posted on the grani.ru website prior to the demonstration, Mr Pavlensky had written: "A naked artist, looking at his balls nailed to the Kremlin pavement, is a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of contemporary Russian society."
It's interesting how art can be interpreted differently by the viewer. While this piece of art, to its creator, is a metaphor for political indifference, for me it looks like someone who is really really bad at putting up shelves.
I don't want to scare you but WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!
OK, maybe I did want to scare you. That's literally the only reason to shout "we're all going to die". If it were a thoughtful reminder of the nature of mortality it wouldn't have been in caps.
The UK is under attack from scary animals. The Daily Star ran several front pages about the "killer false widow spider" - recognisable by its cream markings, its large body and its claims that its husband went out to sea in a canoe.
The false widow, or, at the risk of appearing too clever, to give it its Latin name Steatoda nobilis (LOL - "nob" - OK, I didn't have to worry about looking too clever) has been growing in number across the UK. And do you know how many hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by these monsters every year? Well, it's zero. No one has been. But these spiders could kill, and that's the point. According to one expert their bite could kill someone... if that person was allergic to it. Yes, the false widow's venom is up there with the venom of the peanut.
If you're one of the lucky few who belong to the 99.9% of society that's not allergic to the false widow bite you're still not safe. The Daily Star also told us about the killer mutant rats in the UK. I'm not as worried about those rats as I am about the ninja turtles they have been training.
These "super rats" cannot be killed by regular poisons. It's a simple concept. If you try to kill something the ones that survive and get to breed are the ones who can beat what you tried to do. The next generation are better at resisting your attempts to kill them. It's the same effect that gives us things like MRSA.
Yes, by trying to kill things off we have ended up with antibiotic-resistant bacterial, poison-resistant rats, and if no one stops the cull, bullet-proof badgers.