In Asia, this sort of thing is fine for animals ONLY
THE SAME-SEX penguin couple at Madrid zoo in Spain adopted an egg last week. The guys have suffered the heartbreak of six years of being childless while all their friends had offspring.
So staff slipped them an egg from donor penguins. The penguins didn’t think this odd. (Sex education among zoo animals is on the low side.)
But you know what? The Europeans are just copying Asia. Remember the lavish same-sex wedding held for two male penguins at Harbin Polar Land in China in 2009? The birds, named 310 and 67, adopted a chick late last year.
While I was writing this, a westerner looked over my shoulder and asked: “How come animal same-sex couples are celebrated in Asia, while humans are more likely to be greeted with calls for their execution?”
I told him people wanting a same-sex wedding in Asia would have to be more cunning.
APPLICANT:
“Dear Sir, we are two male penguins who wish to use your venue for a same-sex wedding. Thanks, Adam and Steve.”
AUTHORITIES:
“Your application has been accepted and the media alerted.”
APPLICANT:
“Thank you. By the way, we made a small typo in our first email, writing ‘penguin’ for ‘human’.”
If that doesn’t work, they’ll have to turn up in tuxedos.
***
ON A RELATED subject, DC Comics has just announced that one of its superheroes is to be revealed as gay. A superhero fan emailed to ask me to guess which one. I replied: “Probably one which wears bikini briefs and a tight, color-coordinated suit over a perfectly muscular body. Wait. They pretty much ALL look like that.”
Isn’t it about time that someone created a superhero who looked a heterosexual guy? With clothes in clashing colors, bad hair and a pot belly?
***
THERE’S A debate raging about whether bankers were right to value Facebook as being worth more than Coca Cola, Disney, McDonalds, etc.
I back the bankers!
Facebook makes a hugely important contribution to humanity. Without it, how would I know what some repulsive dorky friend of a friend had for lunch the previous day? The public has a right to know.
***
THE MOST INFECTIOUS ailment in the world can be transferred from humans to dogs, scientists revealed last week: yawning.
You know how when a person yawns, other people in the room “catch it” and yawn too?
Well, a series of experiments showed that dogs catch yawns from their owners, according to the most recent issue of Science, a journal.
One thing I’ve noticed is that if I write the word “yawn” eight times in an article, the person reading it yawns shortly afterwards.
If you yawn after reading this, please write and tell me.
If you ALWAYS yawn when you read anything I write, please DON’T write and tell me.
***
SCIENTISTS HAVE invented an unprinter. Slip any sheet of printed paper into Cambridge University’s new unprinting machine and it will come out completely blank. I love this idea. Can we start by feeding the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy into the machine, please? Then, every copy of Twilight? And then my parking tickets? I have such a long list.
***
I AM writing this at Hong Kong airport, on my way to Singapore to act as chair of the judges at the Scholastic book prize. I’ll be staying at the Peninsula-Excelsior hotel, but only briefly—checking in tonight, and leaving early on Wednesday morning. If you’re reading this from Singapore, pop in and say hello.
Happy Monday.
PS. Did you yawn?
