That’s impressive, because I can’t
A GROUP OF MONKEYS has learned to understand train platform announcements. This is pretty impressive, since their station is in India, where platform announcements sound like whales gargling in echo chambers on the seabed.
As soon as the voice announces that: “The next train to arrive at Platform Two will be the 2.15 express,” the apes gather for action.
The trains disgorge their passengers at Chittorgarh railway station in Rajasthan and the monkeys grab people’s bags, according to staff at the Indo-Asian News Service, a group which syndicates this column.
Station bosses are offering a cash prize of US$365 to anyone who can think of a way of eradicating the apes.
Why not give them uniforms and call them porters?
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Personally, one of the few things that makes London train travel bearable are the unpredictable announcers. One reader heard a platform announcement which said:
“The Bakerloo line is running normally today, so expect delays to all destinations.”
Then there was the train driver who announced to all passengers:
“This is your captain speaking. We will be departing shortly, cruising at an altitude of zero feet. Our final destination is in the same time zone as our departure, so there will be no need to adjust your watches.”
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IN OTHER NEWS….
JOKE FOR anyone who has been displaced by a water engineering project:
Q: What did the fish say when he slammed into a wall?
A: Dam.
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A WOMAN HAS taken out a lawsuit against an old shave-and-snip type barber shop. Faith McGregor, 35, said the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto violated her human rights when they responded to her request for a haircut by pointing out that they only did men.
Barber Omar Mahrouk said he was a Muslim so was reluctant to touch women outside his family anyway.
The case is set to be heard in the new year. If this sets a legal precedent, all barbershops could eventually be forced to become unisex hairdressers.
Hey, Omar. Next time, just sit her down in a seat by the window, give her a really bad haircut and then spend two hours shaving her chin.
Weird but true: whenever you see an argument involving the word “equality” its often bad news…
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DO YOU HAVE a huge ego? Are you a megalomaniac? Is your name Rupert Murdoch? Then I know you NEED a statue of yourself.
New Yorkers are going crazy this week over the Makerbot 3D Photobooth, a shop where 3D printing machines create a high speed model of your head.
But in Asia, techies can do your whole body. A company called Omote3D in Harajuku, Japan, will make a 20cm statue of you in 15 minutes for 42,000 yen. (See pic above.)
Having said that, 20cm is kind of small to put on a plinth. But everyone who works for a nasty boss: it’s the perfect size for a voodoo doll into which to stick pins.
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A COMPUTER HACKER stole almost an entire country last week. A database of the details of nine million Greek people was downloaded by a 35-year-old programmer, police said.
I say let the guy BE the working population of Greece for a year or two. He might do a better job.
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YOU KILLED my daughter, you inhuman evil monster. You will now marry her sister.”
I just don’t understand the logic of angry dads. A woman named Pushpa hanged herself in Bihar earlier this month, the Gulf News reported.
Her parents turned up at the hospital and threatened to bring charges of murder against the husband and his family.
But they gave the widower an alternative: marry the girl’s younger sister, Rashmirathi.
The man agreed and inter-family happiness broke out. A boy was dispatched to fetch a packet of vermillion (a paint used in rituals) and the wedding took place in the hospital next to the corpse.
Key point: In none of the reports I saw did anyone ask the little sister what she thought. “Aw, gee, THANKS, Dad.”
Talking of marriage, 500 couples just applied for quickie divorces in Guiyang, a town in China’s Guizhou province, Xinhua news agency reported.
This includes a couple in their 90s who have been happily married for 60 years. Thoughtless officials passed a law saying that married couples are entitled to one plot of land, but single people can have one each.
Just five minutes’ research would have shown officials that this wouldn’t work. (The same thing happened in Shanghai a few years ago.) Without democracy or press freedom, unqualified officials are what you get.
Residents of mainland China: it’s your choice.
Every society chooses its leaders.
One way or another.
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ARMPIT FLOWER candy is back. Sweets that make your sweat smell like roses is on sale in China and South Korea, and is spreading to other countries, according to an announcement by Deo Perfume Candy of Bulgaria. It was available on Amazon until recently, but it has sold out.
I can remember when scientists in Japan first developed this product. It was called Otoko Kaoru (Man Scent) and was sold as chewing gum for guys in sweaty jobs. No one bought it. Asian guys would much rather smell of sweat than flowers. If Japanese scientists can make us smell like credit cards, THAT I’d buy.
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NEED TO PEE? Quiet spots behind trees in India may not stay quiet for long. Teams of noisemakers are standing by in 34 villages in Jhunjhunu disrtrict of Rajasthan, India, to "shout, beat drums or blow whistles" if they find anyone answering a call of nature in the open air. The move, reported by the BBC, is intended to encourage people to use indoor toilets, now available in nearly 80 per cent of homes in the district.
That’s all very well for the majority, but I feel really sorry for the 20 per cent without toilets. Imagine living in a place where marauding gangs of drummers devote their lives to preventing you peeing. It sounds like a really bad sci-fi movie. “Put your hands up and move away from that bush. Er, maybe you better lower your hands and pull your zip up first.”
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MICHAEL JACKSON’S brother Jermaine last week filed a court petition to change the spelling of his surname to “Jacksun”. Wacko Jacko is dead but the wackiness lives on.
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THOUGHT for the day: Every time God says: “How stupid can humans be?” humanity takes it as a challenge.
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RAFAN, WHY so shy? We would love to see your handsome face…
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HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND – December starts tomorrow, so that’s the day I put up my Christmas tree and decorations etc. Hope you all have as much fun as we will.
