Glob-a-log

It is always nice to see justice done.

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – A lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died at a hospital soon after she was moved to make room for Michael Jackson cannot continue as filed, a judge has ruled.

The family of Manuela Gomez Ruiz had sued Jackson and Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, claiming she was kept from critical care after she had a heart attack on the same day Jackson was brought in with flu-like symptoms during his 2005 child-molestation trial. Jackson was acquitted in the case.

The 73-year-old Ruiz was on life-support after a massive heart attack and was moved from a two-bed room so Jackson could occupy it by himself.

She was kept alive in an exam room using hand-pumped oxygen until she could be reconnected to a life-support machine, court papers said and claimed the woman then had another heart attack but that the crowd milling around the pop star delayed her arrival at the critical-care unit. Ruiz died later that night.

As I said, always nice to see justice done.

Pity we so seldom get the chance.

Right, four-and-half years in, after God knows how many deaths on all sides, uncountable suffering and Armageddon style destruction and mayhem, George Bush has finally found a metaphor for his woefully ill-advised, neo-con trick adventure in Iraq.

It had started upbeat, of course, in 2003 – solemn but with the optimism befitting a man who thinks the world is his own born-again, Boys’ Own adventure book:

“My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”

Then, it turned darker – and things were mostly described by what they were not. With the word ‘Vietnam’ becoming the White House’s personal ‘Voldemort’:

So, when asked, in 2004, by some pet hack if a comparison could be made between Iraq and the War-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, the answer was, of course:

I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy.

Same in 2005:

“This is, in many ways, religious in nature, and I don’t see the parallels.”

Or 2006…:

White House aides argue that the analogies between these two wars, conducted in different parts of the world, facing very different enemies, are mostly false ones.

“Historical parallels of that kind are not very helpful, and I don’t think they happen to be right,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters the other day, in a tone she might have used for a Stanford graduate student whose thesis was not holding together. “This is a different set of circumstances, with different stakes for the United States.”

Anyway, That was then and this is now!, as that most irritating of all political clichés go - and now the prez has found his own personal metaphor for the war; something that doesn’t hide behind mere negatives. Something, standing tall and proud:

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Aug. 22 — President Bush defended his ongoing military commitment in Iraq by linking the conflict there to the Vietnam War, arguing Wednesday that withdrawing U.S. troops would lead to widespread death and suffering as it did in Southeast Asia three decades ago.

“One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like boat people, reeducation camps and killing fields,” Bush told a receptive audience at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention.

Ah well, things haven’t changed since this joke was told for the first time, so, for old times’ sake - and because it still is so hilariously and deplorably true:

While suturing a laceration on the hand of a
70-year-old Texas rancher (whose hand had caught in a
gate while working cattle), a doctor and the old man
were talking about George W. Bush being in the White
House. The old Texan said, “Well, ya know, Bush is a
‘post turtle’.”

Not knowing what the old man meant, the doctor asked
him what a post turtle was. The old man said, “When
you’re driving down a country road,and you come across
a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a
post turtle.

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face,
so he continued to explain, “You know he didn’t get
there by himself, he doesn’t belong there, he can’t
get anything done while he’s up there, and you just
want to help the poor dumb thing get down.

Camel has launched a new advertisement campaign, aimed at women.

With the slogan “Light and Luscious,” the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco company launched its new cigarette in February, this one squarely aimed at women, with pretty magazine ads on thick, shiny paper and marketing evenings offering makeovers and free cigarettes.

Marketing consultant Mary Lou Quinlan says the Camel No. 9 ads seem designed with younger women in mind — from the magazines they’re placed in to the visuals they use to that “No. 9,” with its air of exclusivity.

And just to prove that there is a God – be it one with a decidedly sick sense of humour: in a serendipitiously related story, an actual camel launched itself at a woman…:

A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her.

The woman was found dead at the family’s sheep and cattle ranch near the town of Mitchell in Queensland.

The woman had been given the camel as a 60th birthday present earlier this year because of her love of exotic pets.

Still, this might mean that the Camel crowd will have to turn its back on trying to sex up their product and return to an older campaign instead - using that old, familiar slogan, but with a kind of inbuilt health & safety warning:

“I’d walk a mile from a Camel.”

Every now and then something comes along which is so bonkers and so unhinged that it unmoors itself from all cultural anchoring points, and floats off into a baffling universe all of its own. I am a connoisseur of freaky ideas, but nothing prepared me for this gem from the academic journal Medical Hypotheses: an article called “Down subjects and Oriental population share several specific attitudes and characteristics”.

That was Ben Goldacre, a science writer for the online Guardian, commenting on said, sad article.

I suppose one could find it an almost liberating idea that, these days, scientists can be as idiotic and morally repulsive as your average politician, priest or celebrity.

Anyway, the least one can say is that the Dumbing Down Movement has a broad, international appeal and, as such, can be seen as proof that George Bush and the neo-cons were right when they claimed that the whole world was aching for democracy.

It is somewhat of a pity, of course, that this proves to be a Democracy of Dunces but you can’t win them all.

Back to the science writer though, who’s not quite finished with his victims: the two Italian doctors responsible for this piece of ‘research.’:

The two offer their theory that the parallels between Down syndrome and “oriental” people go beyond a fleeting facial similarity. What is the evidence they have amassed? I offer it almost in its totality.

One aspect, they say, is alimentary characteristics. “Down subjects adore having several dishes displayed on the table, and have a propensity for food which is rich in monosodium glutamate.”

Yes, you were reading correctly and that was their case: Asians are like Down syndrome patients, because the latter also enjoy Chinese food… Back to our irate journalist:

The academic journal continues with: “The tendencies of Down subjects to carry out recreative-rehabilitative activities, such as embroidery, wicker-working, ceramics, book-binding, etc., that is renowned, remind [us of] the Chinese hand-crafts, which need a notable ability, such as Chinese vases, or the use of chopsticks employed for eating by Asiatic populations.

Yup, same logic. Asians are like Down syndrome patients, because the latter can weave a mean basket as well.

Well, enough of these Italian clowns. It isn’t as if they are the only morons on the block. The following happened in England, where a young NHS psychiatrist describes how she was enjoying the sunshine in the grounds of her new hospital, when suddenly the flowerbed started to speak to her…

In her own words:

‘No, I’m not neuroleptic-deficient. Other people heard it too. One moment, all was quiet and the next a disembodied voice was bellowing from somewhere in the vicinity of the begonias.

“This is a no-smoking area. Please put your cigarette out. A member of staff has been informed.”

The smokers looked understandably alarmed, glanced furtively around and then scarpered. I can’t help questioning the wisdom of installing a talking flowerbed to tell people off in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, of all places.‘

Indeed.

Still, when you want truly burlesque madness and bureaucratic meanness, the medical profession is but a babe in the woods, compared to your average City Council type, especially when it comes to those good folks dealing with parking offences.

A guy called Barrie Segal wrote a book about them, called ‘The Parking Ticket Awards: Crazy Councils, Meter Madness and Traffic Warden Hell.‘ Not the catchiest of titles, perhaps, but he did manage to gather some lovely info – like this top five of ridiculous parking tickets in 2007:

1) Peter Stapleton a disabled driver, was hopping mad when his leg fell off mid journey forcing him to pull over to reattach it – and got a ticket
2) When a tree fell on Nicky Clegg’s car while driving near Pershore she thought she had had a lucky escape. But when she returned to the wreck with police the following day a traffic warden had got there first to pin a ticket to the shattered windscreen
3) Fred Holt, a pensioner who was held hostage in his local bank during a robbery, received a ticket despite wardens being told not to issue any by police at the scene
4) A young mother who pulled into a motorcycle bay when her baby started choking assumed the approaching traffic warden was to offer assistance. Instead he gave her an £80 ticket
5) A hearse was given a ticket while parked outside the funeral directors. When challenged Edinburgh city council claimed the ticket was correct because the coffin was not yet in the car.

Segal also tells us about the first parking ticket ever written in England:

Britain’s first parking ticket was issued to Dr Thomas Creighton on September 19 1960 when he parked his Ford Popular outside a London hotel to attend a patient suffering a heart attack.

In other words, nothing much has changed since those early days. Which, to be honest, does not come as a huge surprise. Yes, verily, it’s as the good Book says:

“Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet man is born unto stupidity, as the sparks fly upward.”

Or, for those who haven’t given up completely yet on the words and wisdom of scientists:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.

Amen - or: That’s all, folks (if you must…)

You all know the story of Job: a pious man, ignored and left to his sorry fate by a God with gambling issues and a deeply uncaring world.

Well, some stories have legs – and even if they don’t, there’s always that good old remake market:

A 72-year-old Kansas minister with medical problems is recovering in a hospital Friday after he was apparently left sitting in a wheelchair on a curb outside Orlando International Airport for three days.

Kenneth Davis was reported missing this week when family members in Wichita lost contact with him after an AirTran flight to Orlando. Davis was scheduled to attend a Florida gospel conference this week, the family said.

Mind you, most of the time God and His people are not so easily ignored - and it’s not just Him and His followers, doing the proselytizing. These days even the bloody eggplants are at it:

A woman in Camden County says she found images of three angels, inside a white eggplant.

Martino says she sliced the eggplant into thin pieces, and towards the end she saw the angels formed out of seeds.

Do I hear indifferent mutters…? Shoulders being raised and shrugged, in that old ’so what’ shuffle. Ha! Read and weep. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. They really are out to get us:

Felicia Teske of Boothwyn, Delaware County says she was preparing fried eggplant for dinner Sunday evening and noticed that the seeds in one slice seemed to spell out the word “GOD”.

Worse, if at eggplants He does not succeed, God is always ready to hit us with another one of His plague specials. Never mind, if people are no longer terribly impressed with locusts, or rivers running with blood, the slaughter of the first-born or other happy house calls: God can always be trusted to come up with something much, much nastier.

Like Jehovah’s witnesses.

Yes, and you may think you have found ways to deter them but that’s an illusion. Block one of these pests’ points of entrance and they will just find other ways to bug you…

Worse, God’s clowns are truly everywhere and they are no longer happy to merely preach from pulpits, do their house to house acts of terror, infest our radios and TV screens or go out and convert a few heathens, armed with Bible and, well, arms.

No, they are now also heavily involved in the entertainment business. They make games, Jesus toys, and movies – and recently they have added an honest-to-God, amusement park type museum to their divert & convert spiel.

From their own brochure:

Walk through the Garden of Eden. The Tree of Life, central to the garden, stretches out its branches, laden with ripened fruits. Come face-to-face with a sauropod, a dinosaur of incredible dimensions. His monstrous frame moves through the low-lying thicket as he grazes on plants. Introduce yourself to our chameleons. Examine bones, a clutch of eggs from a dinosaur, an exceptional fossil collection, and a mineral collection. Walk through the Cave of Sorrows and see the horrific effects of the Fall of man. Sounds of a sin-ravaged world echo through the room. Finally, see the sacrificial Lamb on the cross, and the hope of redemption.

You know, when you read stuff like that you can’t help but almost wish that one of these creatures of ‘incredible dimensions and monstrous frame’ would have stuck into Adam before Adam could have stuck into that piece of fruit.

In a weird way, it would have saved us a Hell of a lot of aggro in the long run.

Most marketing people will be happy to tell you, over some stupid designer lunch, that image is all. Never mind the product: if it doesn’t look like something Paris Hilton would want to wear, drink, snort or fuck, just forget about it.

Since masses of people simply love this dumb type of ‘can do’ manager speak, they will buy the message and get with the program.

At times, this makes for some very strange results - and even weirder make-overs:

A small religious group that worships the grim reaper and is fighting for government recognition unveiled a softer image of their Death Saint today: a woman with a porcelain face, brown, shoulder-length hair and long thin fingers.

Hundreds of worshippers filed into the Santa Muerte sanctuary in central Mexico City to see the statue in a flowing golden dress and veil, clutching a rose. She offers another option to followers who have traditionally prayed to figures of a skeleton dressed in a black cloak and carrying a scythe, or in a long flowing white gown.

So, same death – but now sporting tits.

Still, image is important. If you want to be taken seriously you need to look the part. ‘Cute’ will only get you so far in certain circumstances.

There’s a good reason Darwin didn’t coin the phrase, ‘Survival of the cuddliest.’ A few species now are slowly getting the message that, if they don’t want to turn into some kind of sixties’ motto like ‘Live fast, die young and leave a cute-looking corpse’, they’d better change their image fast.

One of the big problems with image – and looks in general – is that they can be quite deceptive. Mistakes can and will be made. Some you can shrug off, claiming, with some right, that anyone would have taken this person for some kind of children’s book character or that guy for a comedian.

Sometimes though, things can become highly embarrassing, very fast. You know, there is a very good reason that there are many sayings like ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’ The reason is that people tend to make these mistakes all the bloody time…

and talking of books and covers…:

Bestselling author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal as he horrified an Australian outback bookstore.

A customer at the store in remote Alice Springs raised the alarm after noticing a man walk in off the street and begin writing in several books, manager Bev Ellis told national radio.

“As the owner of a bookshop, when you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit touchy. So we immediately ran to the books and lo-and-behold here was the signature in several books. We sort of spun around on our heels, saying ‘Where did he go, where did he go’?”

Meanwhile, on another continent, a woman walks into a hotel…

She was wearing a Mayan dress, the traditional attire of indigenous people in central America, and the hotel’s response was also traditional: throw her out.

Staff at Cancun’s five-star Hotel Coral Beach appear to have assumed this was another street vendor or beggar, so without asking questions they ordered her to leave. Except the woman was Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel peace prizewinner, Unesco goodwill ambassador, Guatemalan presidential candidate and figurehead for indigenous rights.

So, when you, like those idiot marketing people, do insist on judging things by looks & image alone, better get it right at first sight. Otherwise, you might be the one who ends up looking ridiculous - or ends up getting fired:

District officials plan to fire three corrections officers who failed to realize a woman was being held in the male detention unit at the D.C. jail last month even after she had been strip-searched and allowed to shower with male inmates.

Virginia Grace Soto, 47, was arrested on July 14 and thought to be a man despite her repeated protests otherwise, according to two internal reports by D.C. police and the Department of Corrections.

The reports reveal that Soto was arrested twice since April and that both times officials classified her as a man.

An important aspect of growing up is to learn that the sun doesn’t rise just to shine on you each day. That there’s more in life than your own concerns – and that there are others, who want to do things their own way, which might, on occasion, not directly serve your own interests and might not even be strictly to your liking. Some of the people you have to deal with might even disagree with you about things you hold dear, or sacred.

So, what happens is, ideally, that you learn to deal with that kind of stuff. In other words, you grow up.

Most people try to do this, and do manage, to a degree – on certain days with more success and grace than at other times but most of us give it a shot.

The majority of countries though are like small children, with most of them not even trying – or pretending to give a good Goddamn. They want things to go their own way – and if they can, they will make sure things will. Like all small children, they are ego-driven, monomaniac dictators at heart – and they do love to throw the odd tantrum:

The BBC World Service said it had been told it could no longer broadcast on the FM frequency in Russia. All broadcasts ceased at 5pm local time yesterday. On Thursday the Russian licensing authorities ordered the BBC World Service’s Russian partner, Bolshoye Radio, to drop the BBC from its programming or lose its licence.

The Kremlin was last year accused of jamming broadcasts by foreign radio stations - a tactic of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It has also been accused of pressuring Russian stations to end rebroadcasting agreements with other foreign broadcasters, including the US-government funded Voice of America and Radio Liberty.

So, if you don’t like bad news, just ban it. Jam foreign radio stations, kill the odd local journalist – and if you are a totalitarian, one party dictatorship to begin with, things really could not be easier:

China has ordered its media to report only positive news and has imprisoned a pro-democracy dissident amid a clampdown on dissent ahead of the most important meeting of the communist party in five years.

Media controls have been tightened, Aids activists detained and NGOs shut down as president Hu Jintao prepares for the 17th party congress, when the next generation of national leaders will be unveiled in a politburo reshuffle.

Chen Shuqing, who is a founder member of the banned China Democracy party, suffered the toughest punishment meted out so far when he was found guilty on Thursday of “inciting people to overthrow the government”.

Of course, it’s not just states that act like spoilt pre-teens. Religions are extremely good at it as well. The bulk of Christianity’s most disgusting acts of childish egocentricity are in the past: Crusades, witch & heretics burnings and all those other things that happen when you give small children enough wriggle room and matches to seriously misbehave.

Islam, on the other hand, has recently come into its own, when it comes to the tantrum throwing stages of what would seem to be a serious case of arrested development. We’ve had Rushdie; we’ve had those damn cartoons. We even got ourselves a new, true, Islamist icon: Rage Boy.

And now we have this:

The poet and novelist Taslima Nasrin has been attacked at the launch of her book Shodh (Getting Even) in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Reports suggest that a crowd of between 20 and 100 protesters, led by three local politicians (MLAs) belonging to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party, burst into the Hyderabad press club shouting slogans describing Nasrin as “anti-Muslim” and “anti-Islam”. They ransacked the venue, throwing chairs and overturning tables, as well as reportedly slapping the writer in the ensuing melee.

Of course, whenever things like this happen, some moronic, so-called religious ‘leaders’ will be quick to make a name for themselves as well:

Ms Taslima Nasreen’s worries are far from over. Barely two kilometres from the Writers’ Buildings, Muslim religious leaders issued an ultimatum to the government: to deport the Bangladeshi writer from the country within a month, after which they will offer “unlimited amount” of money to anyone who beheads her for “defaming Islam and the Prophet” in her books.

“Whoever speaks against our Prophet with malicious intention should be eliminated. Protecting Taslima is equal to state terrorism. I will be the first person to shoot her. Letting her go free and air her views may lead to a carnage”

And what’s the Bangladeshi government’s response been to this, so far?

So glad you asked…:

Legal proceedings have been launched from all sides as the case of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, attacked last week at the launch of her book in southern India, takes on a political dimension.

The author herself faces up to two years in jail if found guilty on a charge of inciting religious tensions, launched by local police at the weekend.

So, with most states and a good deal of the world’s major religions behaving like spoilt and insufferable brats, sometimes one feels that if there is a God, someone should sue His or Her ass for being an absent Parent.

Denial is the spice of life. It can be more enduring than friendship, more stubborn than love – and more fun than a chainsaw factory in Texas.

It can also be – almost – gallant. Insane, of course but close to admirable:

Estonian police had asked a court to seize a car owned by a blind man who was caught driving drunk twice in a single week, saying it was a “dangerous repeat offence”.

On the first occasion Kristjan, who owns the vehicle but has no driving licence, was guided at the wheel by a 16-year-old boy who also lacks a driving permit.

Kristjan, who is facing 30 days behind bars, reportedly told police that he likes driving and regularly gets behind the wheel.

Denial can also be quite a handy little tool. One of the most irritating things in life is that, if you have some kind of problem, people actually expect you to do something about it and solve it. Most of the time this involves work, which can be highly annoying. One of the strategies to avoid this problem solving nonsense is to point at other people and claim that they have much bigger problems than you.

That’s the reason that Europeans secretly love the USA. So, you have high unemployment figures, a lagging economy, large groups of immigrants who are – how to say this politely… - not really into integration… but still, who cares when  you can always point at the US and say:

What do you mean, “We’re so fucked. Look at them!”

So, when last week that story hit the news about the bullet proof backpacks for school children, lots of European newspapers commented on this with some righteous, ‘Ye Olde Worlde’ glee.

Those same newspapers though were a lot more subdued when another, similar story broke – but now on their side of the Pond:

Parents concerned about knife crime are getting “slash-proof” school uniforms for their children.

A company is offering to modify blazers and jumpers by lining them with knife-resistant Kevlar.

Still, when it comes to denial, nobody can beat the good folks in the White House. Even a raving madman like Hitler, in the end, accepted that the war was lost. Not with a lot of good grace, I’ll give you that, but he did face reality long enough to bite the bullet, so to speak.

Not much chance of that with the Bush team, of course. The official party line is still that the Iraq war can and will be won.

So, when an old interview was found and broadcast again, in which Cheney clearly stated that it would be total madness to invade Iraq, the White House immediately replied in their usually robust manner, showing that denial is still their default deity of choice:

A spokesperson from the Vice President’s press office reacted to the video by saying:

“He was not Vice President at the time, it was after he was Secretary of Defense. I don’t have any comment.”

Saying that people can be such idiots will obviously not win you the Nobel Prize for Innovative Research. Mind you, it’s still true.

Someone once wrote that there are sound Darwinian reasons for not forcing people on motorbikes to wear helmets. While I’m sure that not all bikers are as useless as a square ball in a game of gene pool, some most definitely are:

A Japanese man continued to drive his motorcycle for over a mile after losing his right leg below the knee. Kazuo Osada, 54, crashed when he failed to negotiate a bend, and was unaware his right leg had been severed below the knee apparently because his attention was focused on the strong pain he felt from the crash, police said.

Mr Osada noticed the loss of his lower leg when he arrived at a junction 2km from the scene of the accident. Another motorcyclist travelling with him returned to pick up the severed limb.

Still, one might say, as long as idiots are solely into self-destruction, who cares? That would be true, of course, but for the regrettable fact that most imbeciles are only happy when they have an audience:

A barrister who exposed himself while giving a best man’s speech at a wedding reception later launched a ferocious attack on a guest who gave him a dressing down, a court was told.

After his speech, Christopher Dunn, 40, was told by David Baird-Dean, a fellow guest, that his actions had been inappropriate given that the audience included a 13-year-old girl.

Mr Dunn then attacked Mr Baird-Dean, 48, pinning him down on the ground and punching him repeatedly in the face, Preston Crown Court was told.

Unfortunately, it’s not just individuals who behave like complete asses. Most companies, these days, seem to be in some kind of existential race to find out, once and for all, what their true driving force is: good old greed or plain stupidity:

A children’s entertainer has been banned by Tesco from using balloons during his act in one of their stores.

Barney Baloney, the clown, usually twists them into animal shapes and hands them to children

A Tesco spokesman said: “This is a health and safety issue. We have banned balloons because latex is used in the manufacture of them and this can trigger an allergic reaction in some children. We always have the welfare of children at heart.”

Truly, if you left it to these corporate bozos, all of our lives would be as interesting and eventful as a politically correct cartoon.

However, when it comes to real ‘I do not believe it!’ stupidity, look no further than the British rail companies:

Britain’s worst-performing train company has hired a poet to soothe the tempers of its frustrated customers.

First Great Western, which operates services from Paddington to South Wales and the West Country, insisted yesterday that its decision to engage Sally Crabtree, a Cornish poet, to perform at selected stations over the next four days had nothing to do with its poor punctuality record.

The most fascinating thing here is this reassurance that hiring a poet has nothing to do with levels of punctuality.

That does make you wonder how those First Great Western staff meetings go, when certain problems are dicussed:

A bit of bother with non-working railway signs? Why not hire a team of Norwegian midget Gospel singers?

Snow on the rails – or autumn leaves? I know: what we need is a four-year old snow giant who can do Donald Duck imitations!

No wonder the bloody company is the most incompetent organization since a certain travel agency advised Hannibal to go from Tunisia ’s Catharge to Rome, by way of Spain, over the Alps, on a fucking elephant!

Some days you just want to give up and follow the example of this guy:

Andy, a homeless man, shelters under an umbrella as he stands upside down with his head in a bucket to draw attention to his situation in Princes Street in Edinburgh.

It might, in the end, do your cause no bloody good at all but you quite simply can’t beat the view from there.

Time for another, one question quiz.

If I’d ask you to tell me the first thing that sprang to mind when I mentioned the words ‘animal lover’, would your answer be:

a) something annoying with kittens
b) something annoying with kittens
c) something annoying with kittens or
d) something annoying with kittens

What, none of the above? Ah well, never mind.

Still, I’m reasonably sure you didn’t think of this:

A swan who fell in love with a swan-shaped paddle boat now refuses to fly south for winter without his mate.

Hearing about the swan’s plight Allwetter Zoo agreed that both swan and boat could spend the winter on their pond near the elephant enclosure, which is more protected from the elements than the lake. Zoo director Joerg Adler said:

“This arrangement could go on for ever because the animal now firmly believes he has found a partner for life.”

Yes, stupid swan – behaving like some silly, old goose:

At a German farm a donkey is making an ass out of herself after falling in love with a gander. The gander, whose name is Hannibal, met Heidi the donkey when he was put into her enclosure for being too aggressive to be kept with the other birds.

Staff say the couple quickly fell for each other, eating and sleeping together and are now completely inseparable.

Animal lovers indeed.

Some animals that don’t give a fig about other animals are still very passionate about other things:

A Finnish squirrel with a sweet tooth heads to a Finnish grocery shop at least twice a day to steal chocolate-shelled eggs.

The confectionary, which is intended for children, has a toy inside. The squirrel removes the foil carefully, eats the chocolate and leaves the store with the toy.

Anyway, it’s not just animals loving animals – or animals loving chocolate, of course; most people still love animals too.

Some of them not too wholeheartedly, it must be said:

Over-indulging pets can spell disaster for singletons hoping to attract a new partner, according to a nationwide survey of attitudes to pet ownership.

Women were particularly unimpressed with men who owned spiders, with 48% admitting to being repelled at the prospect.

Men were turned off by partners who pampered pets, spending more than £100 a week on accessories and upkeep. One in four men said they would not date a woman with two or more cats.

Still, where some people are, at best, lukewarm about having pets, others have a somewhat extremer view. People who have been on demonstrations against nuclear energy at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant, for instance, can become positively hysterical when certain animals are mentioned:

The nuclear power plant has become the main breeding ground for a giant lizard.

“Like a Godzilla movie,” laughs Kevin O’Hare of Florida Power and Light.

The high ground is so ideal for laying crocodile eggs that Turkey Point has become an enormous crocodile nursery. It’s now home to about 500 full-grown crocodiles — a quarter of the country’s entire adult crocodile population.

Nevertheless, for every sincere animal hater, there’s at least a Wembley stadium full of sentimental animal lovers – and probably a handful of true animal nuts whom you really, really, really do not want to have living in your street, let alone under your own roof:

A 43-year-old man exploded with rage and killed his elderly parents with a number of blows to the head with the back of an axe, after his mother laughed when the man’s pet cat Tootie had died.

In other words, a typical case of ‘loving with a vengeance.‘