Thought I'd stay on the penguin theme...

This adventurous little chap is now in safety.

And here's another one!

Penguins in popular culture

Here's a nice article about these lovable creatures - beginning with none other than Pingu, of course.

Ever wondered where the 'slush fund' came from?

Common sayings with their origins from the sea:

To Know the Ropes
In the old days, there were miles and miles of cordage in the rigging of a square rigged ship. The only way of keeping track of these lines and to know the function of them, was to know where they were located. It took an experienced seaman to know the ropes.

Gone By the Board
Anything seen to have gone overboard or spotted floating past the ship (by the board) was considered lost at sea.

Start Over with a Clean Slate
A slate tablet was kept near the helm on which the watch keeper would record the speeds, distances, headings and tacks during the watch. If there were no problems during the watch, the slate would be wiped clean so that the new watch could start over with a clean slate.

Slush Fund
A slushy slurry of fat was obtained by boiling or scraping the empty salted meat storage barrels. This stuff called "slush" was often sold ashore by the ship's cook for the benefit of himself or the crew. The money so derived became known as a slush fund.

Fascinating Food Facts

* You can walk on custard. Custard is a non-Newtonian fluid. When thickened with starch, custard's physical properties change from those of liquid to those of a solid depending on the amount of pressure applied to it, so much so that a person is able to walk across a swimming pool full of custard.

* "Aioli (garlic mayonnaise) epitomises the heat, the power, and the joy of the Provençal sun, but it has another virtue - it drives away flies."
Frédéric Mistral








Care of the BBC Food newsletter.

Goldfish wanders 2km from pond

A chubby wee goldfish dubbed Nemo was miraculously found 2km from his Mosgiel pond after he was washed away by floodwater last Wednesday.

A neighbour was walking his dog along a road on Sunday morning when he saw a flash of gold in a mud-walled ditch.

As a farmer collected eels stranded by the flood on a nearby paddock, the man and his dog stopped to see the colour in the mess.

He recognised it as his neighbour's 2-year-old goldfish, one of three lost when the devastating Taieri flood rushed through their properties, and all along the road.

"It was just incredible, in the middle of all that destruction was a goldfish everyone thought was dead - that should have been dead," Ab Oskam said yesterday.

"He had been taken away by that horrible brown water, and there he was, about 2km away, swimming in the debris and happy as can be."

Mr Oskam, 66, made the long walk home to tell neighbours Julie and Craig Struthers that a "little surprise" waited down the road.

"We couldn't believe it, it was like a miracle, that such a delicate wee thing could survive the flood and all the rubbish caught in it," said Mrs Struthers.

"All of our other animals managed to survive, but we were sure that our three goldfish would never be back."

The trio returned to the ditch, where the newly named Nemo was scooped to safety and taken to the pond, lined with polythene rescued from the debris, back home.

Mr and Mrs Struthers then fruitlessly searched neighbouring ditches for his two companions - another coloured orange, and one white and blue-black.

The fish remained the only casualties in a menagerie of 12 sheep, nine hens, seven rabbits, two dogs, a cat and a pig - many helped to safety by Mr Oskam on the day of the flood.

Pleased to have added to the collection, Mr Oskam said Nemo seemed as well as he was before the flood; but, even after a 2km swim, he might have put on some weight. "He must have spent all that time eating the worms caught in the flood," Mr Oskam said.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES

Why it's not a great idea to get out of bed in a hurry

That's my kind of headline. Here's the article from the Times.

GETTING up in the morning is the first, and for many people, the most perilous moment of the day. You can sprain an ankle on the stairs, scald a hand while making tea or be floored in an ungainly tussle with your underwear. But according to researchers, grogginess after waking should be treated more seriously for how it impairs thinking and memory skills — and the implications for doctors, firefighters and other staff roused straight into action upon waking.

A study by scientists at the University of Colorado suggests that the performance of people immediately after waking is as bad as, or worse, than if they were drunk.

The research showed that short-term memory, counting skills and cognitive abilities were impaired in the groggy period, known as sleep inertia.

The performance was found to be significantly worse in people who had just woken up after eight hours’ sleep than those who had been awake for more than 24 hours.

The most severe effects were seen in participants within the first three minutes of waking and generally appeared to dissipate within the first ten minutes. However, the authors said that the impairments could be detected for up to two hours.

Kenneth Wright, an assistant professor at Colorado university, said that the study had implications for medical, safety and transport workers.

He added that it also illuminated the challenges faced by anyone who was forced to make crucial decisions after an abrupt awakening. “If a person is awakened suddenly, by a fire alarm for example, motivation alone may be insufficient to overcome the effects of sleep inertia,” he said.

Dr Wright added that cognitive deficiencies after 24 hours of sleep deprivation had previously been shown to equate to the effects of alcohol intoxication. The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the first to quantify the effects of sleep inertia. “The cognitive skills of subjects were worse upon awakening than after extended sleep deprivation. For a short period, at least, the effects of sleep inertia may be as bad as or worse than being legally drunk,” Dr Wright said.

A morning alarm they didn't need

ONE memorable image of 1997 was a groggy Cherie Blair in her nightie accepting flowers the morning after Labour had ended 18 years of Conservative rule.

At 6.07am on May 29, 2002, Andrew Gilligan said on the Today programme that the Government “probably” knew that its claim on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was wrong. It led to the Hutton inquiry, the downfall of the Director-General and the Chairman of the BBC and Mr Gilligan’s departure.

Francis Joyon, the French sailor, had set a record last year for fastest solo Atlantic crossing when he nodded off as he neared home. His £500,000 trimaran ploughed into rocks and was destroyed.

In 1992 Pandora Maxwell was angry at two suited men who woke her up at her London home. She threatened to call the police. They were the police and had come to arrest her husband, Kevin, Britain’s biggest bankrupt.

Musical sandwich hits the market

Tired of the same old lunch at your office desk? Help is at hand. A supermarket is launching the ultimate life-enhancing snack -- the musical sandwich.

In a trial certain to be welcomed by the estimated one million Britons who eat their lunch at their desks each day, Tesco will use technology similar to that used in singing greetings cards to sell musical sandwiches.

Opening the top of the sandwich box will activate a tiny sound module that plays a selection of music. This season's offering will be a medley of Christmas tunes including Jingle Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

Tesco Spokesman Jonathan Church said the potential of the melodic munch was enormous.

"It's designed to provide busy office workers with relaxing music to make eating lunch at their desks more enjoyable than ever before," he said, adding that the concept could be easily adapted for Easter, Valentine's Day or Mother's Day.

While it's not certain how your true love would react to being given a tuneful tuna lunch on February 14, Church said the idea could also be used in conjunction with record companies to launch songs by new artists clamouring for the kudos.

The first offering will have no such ambitions, and will consist of a turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich with pork and cranberry stuffing. The new musical sandwiches will go on sale this week.

But further out, flavour/song combinations under consideration include Prawn To Be Wild, Let It Brie and that old Julio Iglesias favourite, Fillings, Tesco said.

- REUTERS

Business Class Kitty Home For Christmas

A cat that ran away from its Wisconsin home in September was found in France recently, and was due to fly back home this week flying Continental Airlines business class.

It's believed the cat had wandered onto a sea container in Wisconsin destined for Belgium, before eventually being found in Nancy in France.

Source - Reuters.

Bra-covered fence owner won't back down

The article below is from the Herald.

I'm in two minds about this: first of all, if the guy wants to have bras on his fence, on his land, who's to stop him? It does all seem to be PC nonsense and a sad symptom of the mess our country is in. On the other hand, isn't it a bit sad that a bunch of underwear is referred to as a celebration of our Kiwi culture? Can't we do any better than that? I've seen the fence - it is a novelty, I'll give it that. This whole issue sounds like a fuss being made about nothing.

****

The owner of a bra-covered fence in Central Otago's Cardrona Valley has said he has no plans to take it down following claims it needs a resource consent.

The bra fence started in 1999 when four bras appeared on the fence between Christmas and New Year. The fence now has more than 800 bras, some with names, addresses and phone numbers attached.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council sought a legal opinion after a Cardrona Valley resident complained about the fence.

The council was advised that the fence required a resource consent.

John Lee, who owns the fence, said tourists from all over the world stopped in the Cardrona Valley to photograph the fence and it regularly featured in overseas media.

"It's given us our identity," he said.

He said most of the community supported the fence and he would not take it down unless they objected. He was taking legal advice on the issue of resource consent.

National Party local government spokesman John Carter said the suggestion a resource consent was needed was "PC rubbish".

He said yesterday that the incident highlighted the need to reform the Resource Management Act.

"My advice to the council is to ignore the advice and the objectors and see if anyone is stupid enough to take it to the Environment Court," he said.

"It's these quirky little things that make us New Zealanders."

Council chief executive Duncan Field said the situation was unfortunate, calling it "an unintended consequence of the way the District Plan was drafted", but said the council was obliged to resolve the issue between the complainant and the fence owner.

"Both parties have rights here," he said.

New White Tiger Cubs!

Must get up to Whangarei at some stage to see them!!



The birth of three white tiger cubs in Whangarei has boosted the animal's fragile numbers worldwide - and helped save a fellow feline in the process.

The latest litter of royal white Bengal tigers at the Zion Wildlife Gardens run by "Lion Man" Craig Busch is crucial because the cats have been extinct in the wild since 1958, and only 120 survive in captivity worldwide.

With the three latest additions, Mr Busch now has seven in his Northland sanctuary.

He said two of the as-yet-unnamed cubs would be sent to a reserve at the Cradle of Humankind, a world heritage site in South Africa. The other cub would be kept at Zion for its breeding programme.

Sending the cubs will complete an agreement Mr Busch had with the South African reserve to exchange four white tigers with four white lions, which are a similarly endangered species.

Tigress Rewa's first litter of two are already in Africa, and her second litter of two males and a female, born on October 2, are doing well.

The cubs now weigh an average of 5.5kg, up from a birth weight of just 1.2kg. They are suckled and bottle-fed at the moment, but Mr Busch expects them to graduate to solids such as chicken in a fortnight.

Unlike the first birth, where Rewa rejected her cubs - quite common among first litters - "this time she was the best mother in the park".

Royal whites are a subspecies of India's Bengal tiger. A double recessive gene causes the animal's striking coloration of cinnamon stripes, blue eyes and pink noses.

Mr Busch said the public would be able to see the litter in a week's time, and the cubs would also have names by then.

The Whangarei big cat sanctuary is now home to the southernmost pride of white tigers and lions. The four white lions will play a vital role in the sanctuary's breeding programme, and for breeding programmes worldwide.

The lions originate in Southern Africa's Timbavati region, although, like white tigers, none exist any more in the wild.

The animal is not an albino nor a subspecies, but an African tawny lion with a recessive gene. Mr Busch said its origins were shrouded in mystery.

"It's always been a legend or myth - no one ever thought they were real. It's quite a big thing, really. In the African eye, the white lion is the most spiritual of all of Africa - a sacred animal, I should say."

Mr Busch said many people worldwide were trying to preserve these endangered creatures.

"The biggest thing is to teach people what's going wrong in the world. It's what we're here for."

From the Herald.

Just Grab Your Pistenflitzer

Combine a boogie board with an air mattress, throw in some fresh snow and a fast slope, add a lot of fun and you've got airboarding, the new snow sensation from Switzerland.

Airboarding is being introduced to New Zealand by Snowplanet, the country's first indoor snow resort, on November 7. Later in the month, Snowplanet will add Pistenflitzers, a toboggan-style slide aimed at families, to its new summer season.

Airboarding is one of the fastest growing snow activities in Europe and the US, attracting people of all ages and ability.

"Airboarding is a great way to have fun in the snow without the skills required for skiing and snowboarding," explained Snowplanet spokesman, Eduard Ebbinge.

"You don't need to have lessons or equipment. You can just turn up, hop on your airboard or pistenflitzer and zoom down the slope."

Airboard users simply lie or sit on the air-filled boards in much the same way as a boogie board and propel themselves down the slope.

In keeping with their policy of catering to the entire family, Snowplanet has also introduced Pistenflitzers, easy to use toboggans that will appeal to the young and old.

"'Pistenflitzers' will be hard for kids to say, but really easy to ride," Ebbinge predicted.

The toboggans have a central control stick which allow the users to steer and manage their speed.

The two new activities will complement Snowplanet's existing skiing and snowboarding programmes.

From Xtra.

Sounds like fun - just hope they don't get in the way of us skiers!

It's official - Musicians are wired differently

Don’t be offended if musicians ignore what you’re saying while music is playing - the language part of their brains could be already fully engaged, research from the University of Auckland shows.

PhD student Lucy Patston from the faculty of science has discovered that musicians hear music as a language.

"Past research has shown that musicians process music on the left side of their brain as opposed to non-musicians who process music on the right side," said Ms Patston, who is doing her research through the faculty’s department of psychology.

"The left hemisphere is predominantly used to process language, so my research has been trying to find out if musicians actually process music as language."

Ms Patston tested 36 expert musicians and 36 non-musicians, using a battery of cognitive tests.

Each participant had to do two visual and two language tasks under three different testing conditions to see if their performance was enhanced or impeded.

"They had to do the tests with no music, while listening to music played with the right notes and while listening to music played with the wrong notes."

When the musicians did the language tests in silence, they scored better than the non-musicians. However, under the two music conditions their performance significantly dropped.

The performance of non-musicians was not significantly different in any of the conditions, suggesting they were not affected by the presence of music.

"The evidence from these initial tests suggests that musicians hear music as language because they have difficulty processing both language and music at the same time. The brain is competing for the same resources," Ms Patston said.

An unexpected finding of the research was that musicians scored higher in the test in silent conditions.

This might have repercussions for the way children are taught, she suggested.

Ms Patston recently received top prize in the faculty of science’s Postgraduate Society Poster Competition for her current research work.

The competition provided an opportunity for students to display their research in a manner that non-scientists could easily understand.

She said the competition was a good way of developing skills to explain the technical aspect of her study to non-specialist audiences.

In the next phase of her research Ms Patston hopes to put candidates through the university’s functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, which will show the specific parts of the brain working.

Using similar testing methods the machine will be able to further explore her findings.

- NZPA

Music and language

* Most people use the left side of their brain for analytical tasks such as language.
* The right side is used for more creative experiences, such as appreciating music.
* Musicians process music with the left side of their brains, suggesting they hear the notes as language.

Canned wine... what next?

This could only have been thought of by an Australian. Canned wine. And they're openly targetting it at young people, who have no clue that wine is supposed to be sipped from a glass, let alone a can. Surely this can't be a positive development?

Full story here

Test Rat Outsmarts Scientists

A cunning rat released on a deserted island off New Zealand outsmarted scientists and evaded traps, baits and sniffer dogs before being captured four months later on a neighbouring island, researchers said.

Scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand released the Norway rat on the 9.5-hectare (23.5-acre) island of Motuhoropapa to find out why rats are so difficult to eradicate.

They got more than they bargained for.

"Our findings confirm that eliminating a single invading rat is disproportionately difficult," James Russell and his colleagues said in a report in the science journal Nature.

Despite all their efforts, including fitting the rat with a radio collar, they couldn't catch the crafty creature.

After 10 weeks on the island the rodent decided it had had enough. It swam 400 metres, the longest distance recorded for a rat across open sea, to another rat-free island where it was eventually captured in a trap baited with penguin meat several weeks later.

The Norway rat, which is also called the brown or sewer rat, is a husky rodent that weighs about 11 ounces (312 gram) and has a long tail.

Invading rats on remote islands off the coast of New Zealand have been a recurring problem. Norway rats have invaded the uninhabited Noises Islands at least six times between 1981 and 2002.

"Our results may help in the design of conservation strategies to keep islands free of invasive rodents," Russell and team added.

From XtraMSN

'Piano Man' discharged

The so-called "Piano Man" has been discharged from the care of a National Health Service Trust.

British social workers spent months trying to help the man, who had been silent since being found wandering near a Kent beach in April wearing a dripping wet suit and tie.

The Daily Mirror reported yesterday that the man finally broke his silence last week, and revealed he was from Germany but had travelled to Britain after losing a job in Paris.

No further details were released due to confidentiality laws.

* From the Herald

Bear Essentials

In travel news:

* A German travel agent is offering something for the traveller that has everything - teddy bear holiday packages, away from their owners. The teddies spend an action-packed week sightseeing, playing games, and visiting a traditional teddy bears' picnic, followed by a visit to a Munich beer house. Activities can also include fishing, golf, painting and bungee jumping, from GBP68-100... what next?!

* Hikers in Switzerland are being told to sing to avoid being attacked by bears, and they are being given leaflets printed with popular songs. Bears have been extinct in Switzerland for over 100 years, but one was spotted recently, believed to have migrated from Italy. Hikers are being told to continue singing as they go, so the bear is not taken by surprise.

* From Ananova.com.

Undies thief chooses slow getaway vehicle

Whangarei police have arrested a man fleeing a crime on a mobility scooter in the early hours.

Travelling at a top speed of about 7km/h, he was spotted by a patrol car. The suspect abandoned his getaway vehicle and fled on foot but was caught when he fell over.

Police found more than 20 items of clothing on the scooter, including socks and undies.

A 38-year-old Whangarei man has been charged with stealing the scooter and clothing, and possessing burglary instruments.

* From the Herald.

Quite sad, really.

Kitten dials 111

Tabby the cat may be only four months old but he already knows what to do in case of an emergency.

In fact, there was no apparent emergency when he was left home alone on Saturday night, but Tabby dialled 111 anyway - sparking a police callout that saw officers break into the Mt Eden home of the Abhayaratne family.

Arriving home to what appeared to be a break-in, the family were stunned to discover that nothing was missing. The smashed glass door was the only sign that someone had been inside until a note revealed the police were the culprits.

It explained that a 111 call had been received and officers had no choice but to break in after getting no response from inside the house.

"It [the note] said the cat had called 111. We thought we had been burgled at first and couldn't believe it," said 14-year-old Harindu Abhayaratne.

The telephone, which is also a fax machine, sits on a desk in the lounge. Its big buttons would easily be triggered by a kitten strolling over them.

Tabby has been known to turn on the television with the remote, but this was his first phonecall.

Harindu's mother, Mihiri, said she had sometimes scolded the children for not turning off the TV, before realising Tabby was to blame.

She said insurance had paid for replacing the glass, and the family would now be extra careful about where they left the phone.

Police spokeswoman Noreen Hegarty said police were called to the house on Saturday. "We answered the callout and entered the property, but there was only the cat there."

*From the Herald

Something Fishy

An Aussie woman was caught with 51 live tropical fish on her body as she arrived at Melbourne Airport on a flight from Singapore, after customs officials became suspicious of “flipping” noises coming from her skirt. The woman was wearing an apron of plastic water-filled bags containing the fish, under her clothes.

Wow. Imagine how long it would have taken for her to get that outfit ready. Did she really think no-one would notice the flipping?

An interesting read

Who knows if these are true, but I like to think they are, as it explains a few things...

In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs", therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg".

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As incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths only twice a year (May and October)! Women kept their hair covered, while men shaved their heads (because of lice and bugs) and wore wigs. Wealthy men could afford good wigs made from wool. They couldn't wash the wigs, so to clean them they would carve out a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell, and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term "big wig". Today we often use the term "here comes the Big Wig" because someone appears to be or is powerful and wealthy.

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In the late 1700s, many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from the wall, and was used for dining. The "head of the household" always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Occasionally a guest, who was usually a man, would be invited to sit in this chair during a meal. To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. They called the one sitting in the chair the "chair man". Today in business, we use the expression or title "Chairman" or "Chairman of the Board".

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Personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told, "mind your own bee's wax". Should the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a smile". In addition, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt ... therefore, the expression "losing face".

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Ladies wore corsets, which would lace up in the front. A proper and dignified woman, as in "straight laced"... wore a tightly tied lace.

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Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the "Ace of Spades". To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren't "playing with a full deck".

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Early politicians required feedback from the public to determine what the people considered important. Since there were no telephones, TVs or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs, and bars. They were told to "go sip some ale" and listen to people's conversations and political concerns. Many assistants were dispatched at different times. "You go sip here" and "You go sip there". The two words "go sip" were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and, thus we have the term "gossip".

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At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from pint and quart-sized containers. A bar maid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in "pints" and who was
drinking in "quarts," hence the term "minding your "P's and Q's".

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In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. However, how to prevent them from rolling about the deck? The best storage method devised was a square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem...how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a "Monkey" with 16 round indentations. However, if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys". Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannonballs would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey".