HUMOUR
Religion, politics, athletics, guns, the English language and doctors are all targeted in this month's irreverent column - no offence intended!
NOAH'S ARK UPDATE
In the year 2007 the Lord came unto Noah, who was now living in England and said, “Once again, the people of the earth have become wicked and over-populated, and I see the end of all flesh before me. Build another Ark , Noah, and save two of every living creature along with your family and a few good humans. I am going to flood the earth and drown everyone else: all six billion of ‘em.”
He gave Noah the CAD drawings, saying, “You have six months to build the Ark before I will start the unending rain for forty days and forty nights. Get on with it!”
Six months later, the Lord looked down and saw Noah weeping in his backyard – where no Ark was even in the process of being built.
“Noah!” He roared, ‘I'm just about to start the rain! Where is the Ark that I asked you to build?”
“Forgive me, Lord,” begged Noah, “but things have changed. I needed Building Regulations Approval from the local council and I have been arguing with the Fire Brigade about the need for a sprinkler system. My neighbours claim that I should have obtained planning permission for building the Ark in my garden because it is a development of the site, even though in my view it is only a temporary structure. We had to go to appeal to the Secretary of State for a decision over that.
“Then the Department of Transport demanded a bond be posted for the future costs of moving power lines and other overhead obstructions to clear the passage for the Ark 's move to the sea. I assured them that the sea would be coming to us, but they refused to believe me.
“Getting the wood was another problem. All the decent trees have Tree Preservation Orders on them and we live in a site of special scientific interest set up in order to protect the spotted owl, an endangered species. I tried to convince the environmentalists that I needed the wood to save the owls – but no go!
“Then when I started gathering the animals, the RSPCA sued me. They insisted that I was confining wild animals against their will and argued that the accommodation was too restrictive, and that it was ‘cruel and inhumane' to put so many animals in such a confined space.
“Then the local County Council, the Environment Agency and the Rivers Authority ruled that I couldn't build the Ark until they had conducted an environmental impact study on your proposed flooding of the world. Also, I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Commission on how many workers I'm supposed to hire for my building team. The trades unions say that I can't use my sons. They insist that I have to hire only CSCS accredited workers with Ark-building experience.
“To make matters worse, Customs and Excise authorities have seized all my assets, claiming that I am planning to leave the country illegally, taking endangered species with me. So forgive me, Lord, but I estimate that it will take at least ten years for me to finish this Ark and get it loaded with all the animals that you want saved.”
Suddenly the skies cleared, the sun began to shine and a beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky. Noah looked up in wonder and said, “You mean that you are not going to destroy the world after all?”
“No”, said the Lord. “The British Government has beaten me to it.”
FIREARM DEATHS
An Australian magazine points out the following: If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the past 26 months, and a total (at January) of 2,112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.
Now the firearm death rate in Washington DC is 80.6 per 100,000 people for the same period. That means that a person is about 25 per cent more likely to be shot and killed in the capital of the USA (which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country) than he or she is likely to be shot and killed currently in Iraq . Conclusion? The USA should pull out of Washington .
FROM GEORGE TO GERROUJ
ON 1 January 1900, the fastest mile yet run was 4:12.8 (the official time was 4 minutes 12 and 4/5ths of a second) by the professional athlete Walter Goodall George at Lille Bridge, London, way back on 23 August 1886. He clocked that time in a two-man race against Scotland 's William Cummings, who did not finish. George's time was never recognised by the pedantic Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) who sneered at all marks made by professionals. But George was a superbly gifted runner, and years ahead of his time. He won the first-ever AAA Mile Championship in 1880 before he turned professional, and amateur runners took more than 25 years to better his professional world record. The world record progression for the men's mile at the start of each decade from 1900 goes like this:
1 Jan. 1900 = 4:12.8 W. George (GBR)
1 Jan. 1910 = 4:12.8 W. George
1 Jan. 1920 = 4:12.6 N. Taber ( USA )
1 Jan. 1930 = 4:10.4 Paavo Nurmi (FIN)
1 Jan. 1940 = 4:06.4 Sydney Wooderson (GBR)
1 Jan. 1950 = 4:01.3 Gunder Haegg (SWE) (rounded up to 4:01.4)
1 Jan. 1960 = 3:54.5 Herb Elliott (AUS)
1 Jan. 1970 = 3:51.1 Jim Ryun ( USA )
1 Jan. 1980 = 3:48.95 S. Coe (GBR) (rounded up to 3:49.0)
1 Jan. 1990 = 3:46.32 S. Cram (GBR)
1 Jan. 2000 = 3:43.13 Hicham El Guerrouj (MOR)
No one has since approached the record set by El Gerrouj at Rome in 1999 and it may stand for a few years yet. Just how much faster can a man run the very English distance of one mile (1,760 yards or 1,609 metres)? No one can say for sure; but I suspect someone may run just inside 3 minutes and 40 seconds by the end of this century, and our grandchildren may be around to witness it.
Running a mile in under four minutes is still a pretty formidable feat. In the 52 years since Roger Bannister first managed to do it on a windy May evening at Oxford ; only 1,031 men have clocked inside four minutes for the distance (as at 31 December 2006). In a world population of 6 billion, that is a really small number, making these guys members of a pretty exclusive club. But note that the number would be much greater if you include several hundred more men who have run inside 3:42.0 (3 minutes, 42 seconds) for the Olympic distance of 1500 metres, roughly the metric equivalent of a sub four minute mile.
The mile is the only Imperial distance still recognised by the world governing body of the sport; the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) for world record ratification. The world record for the women's Mile is 4:12.56 by Svetlana Masterkova (RUS) in 1996. That means that women athletes are 110 years behind the men over this distance. The current women's world records are 24.46 seconds slower than the men's for 1500 metres, and 29.43 seconds slower for the mile.
CUSTODY COURT CASE
A seven-year-old boy was at the centre of a courtroom debate at Parramatta , NSW, Australia , recently. The young lad challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him.
The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody of the child to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained as much as possible. But the boy surprised the judge when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more severely than his parents and adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they beat him also.
After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody over him.
The boy gave his choice, and after two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the ENGLISH CRICKET TEAM, whom the boy firmly believes is not capable of beating anyone. Judging by recent results at the World Cup in Cricket, he may just be right.
ENGLISH LESSON & ODD FACTS
No word in the English language rhymes with ‘month', ‘orange', ‘silver' or ‘purple'.
‘Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters ‘mt'
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
‘Racecar', ‘Kayak' and ‘Level' are palindromes (they read the same from left to right or right to left).
There are only four words in the English language that end in ‘dous'. These are ‘tremendous', ‘stupendous' and ‘hazardous'.
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order. These are ‘abstemious' and ‘facetious'.
‘Typewriter' is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row (the top one) of a standard QWERTY keyboard. Go ahead, try it.
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds (and yes, we all know people like that, also, and none of them are rarely sober).
A ‘jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
The eye of an ostrich is bigger than its brain.
A snail can sleep for three years.
Human babies are born without kneecaps. These do not develop until the child reaches from two to six years of age.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history in which a full moon did not appear.
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
The inventor of scissors was Leonardo Da Vinci.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
The cruise liner QE2 moves only six inches for each gallon of fuel that its engines burn.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Winston Spencer Churchill was born on 20 November 1874 in a ladies room during a dance
The Burge Al Arab Hotel in Dubai is the largest sail structure in the world. It's a seven-star hotel, and room rates start at 7,500 US dollars a night. Just to visit the place will set you back US $60. That's right: sixty greenbacks to look around.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
DOCTOR STORIES
- A man rushed into the ER and yelled out, “My wife is going to have our baby in the cab parked outside!” I grabbed my bag of instruments, rushed to the cab, lifted the lady's dress and began to remove her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs parked there, and I was in the wrong one. (Dr Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, Texas)
- One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later I heard her informing the rest of the family that he had died of a “massive internal fart.” (Dr Susan Steinberg, Manitoba, Canada)
- I was caring for a female patient and asked her, “So how was your breakfast this morning?”
She replied, “It was good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the strange taste.”
I then asked to see the jelly and the patient produced a foil packet labelled, ‘KY Jelly'. (Dr Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit, Michigan)
- A nurse was on duty in the ER when a young woman entered. This female sported purple hair styled into a punk-style Mohawk; wore a black leather blouse and mini skirt and was heavily tattooed all over her body.
We quickly determined that this patient had acute appendicitis, so she was prepared for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green and above it there was a tattoo that read, ‘Keep off the grass'.
Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing, ‘Sorry, had to mow the lawn'. (No name submitted)
davidcox@loxinfo.co.th
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