Sweetie Poo at work

175

In this blogposting...
*Ig Nobel Awards
*Ukraine’s Got Talent
*Six-Word Stories
*Nice Words
*Pariah of the Week
*Er...Amsterdam
*AGM IX

Now, read on, Macduff...

IG NOBEL AWARDS (continued)
You can get background information about the Ig Nobel Awards, citations for the Awards made for Veterinary Medicine, Peace, Public Health, Medicine and Chemistry AND a lot of illuminating - and very funny - additional information in blogposting 174 and the comments attached to it.

In fairness to the other honoured recipients, though, I think it’s only fair that their contributions to research that ‘makes you laugh first and think second’ should be covered, too. Let’s start with the...

BIOLOGY PRIZE
Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Japan share the prize for demonstrating that kitchen waste can be reduced by more than 90% by using bacteria extracted from giant panda excrement. Taguchi suspected panda faeces must contain bacteria capable of breaking down even the hardiest of foods because of the bear's vast consumption of bamboo.

LITERATURE PRIZE
Awarded to the entire police force of Ireland for issuing more than 50 penalties to a man they supposed to be the most persistent driving offender in the country: a Mr Prawo Jazdy, whose name in Polish means "driving licence". An investigation held earlier this year revealed that officers had mistakenly taken down the wrong details from motorists' documents.

ECONOMICS PRIZE
Awarded to the directors, executives and auditors of four Icelandic banks: Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank and Central Bank of Iceland, "for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa – and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy".

Incidentally, the picture above - emailed to me by Sid - is of the 8-year old girl who made sure the acceptance speeches didn’t last longer than the regulation 60 seconds. Her name is Sweetie Poo.

UKRAINE’S GOT TALENT
The format of the regrettable British tv show has now reached Ukraine and Maureen has sent me this link to one of its truly breathtaking contestants.
http://www.giatousfilous.com/2009/09/30/print:page,1,ukraines-got-talent.html
If it doesn’t work by a simple click, cut and paste it into your search bar (at the top of your browser window). Believe me, it’s worth it.

SIX-WORD STORIES
Natasha - ex-producer of the Big Blue Bus programme - has sent me more information about how Six-Word Stories may have originated. Apparently, in the 1920s Ernest Hemingway bet ten dollars that he could write a complete story in just six words. He wrote...

For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

He won the bet.

Here are some more, sent to a now defunct BBC web page.

Trust me, I did my best.
Three sons, eleven cats, and Yvonne.
Pass the bottle before clarity returns
Some no-balls but several boundaries
Unfortunately I didn't buy the t-shirt.
Knight on white charger never showed.
Any chance I could start again?
Lived, loved, laughed liberally and left.
Found it, Lost it, Found it.
Ditched the map, found better route.
Blankets, books, bottles, books, blankets.
If only I had turned left
Age crept up and mugged me
Laughed out loud, cried in silence.

Aren’t they awesome?

EVEN MORE NICE WORDS
We truckshunters seem to have a weakness for nice-sounding words - irrespective of what they actually mean. Matt King Coal (yes, him again) has emailed me with drench, supercilious, cacophony, nerd and cornucopia...and Natasha likes flummox, flabbergasted, chump, chipper, shenanigans, pernicious, blather and pedantic. I wonder if she's trying to tell me something.

AMSTERDAM
Yes, I’ve been there again. Thanks for all the messages I’ve received expressing hopes that I enjoyed it. I did. Immensely.

But you needn’t worry; I’m not going to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on about what a wonderful place it is. Instead, I’ve set myself yet another impossible dream. Namely, that at some time in the future we might somehow contrive to hold an AGM there. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

As a matter of fact, I had a couple of hazily-recalled but nevertheless interesting conversations there with a lady called Juul (‘Yule’) which I’ll bore you with next time.

PARIAH OF THE WEEK
Peter Mandelson.

AND SPEAKING OF PETER...
...please welcome to the truckshunter fold an emailer called Peter, who (bless him) has just discovered this blog and is working his way through all the postings. Wish him well.

Actually, he’s not altogether a complete stranger. You may remember me ranting and raving on The Nightshift about the ludicrous names parents see fit to bestow on their unfortunate offspring these days. Rollo, Denby, Sigourney, Devastra... To back me up, Peter once sent me the Sunderland Echo’s ‘Bonny Baby’ picture spread - not for the pictures but for the names. And there amongst them, as he reminds me in his email, was Pollyanna Pebbles Begg-Trotter. Poor kid.

Incidentally, one of his favourite ‘nice words’ is ragamuffin.

AGM IX
The date and time have been set - Wednesday 4 November at 1100. But where????

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me: truckshunters@googlemail.com

9 comments:

Maureen said...

Why? (Please hurry expenses claim as I am running out of euros here in Corfu!)

Maureen said...

Nice to hear that you are still getting emails from non blogger Truckshunters Ian. I wish that they would join us on here, well most of them, Peter Mandelson, who'd have thought it?
You have more influence than I thought!

Ian Robinson said...

Peter...to answer your question I would have to resort to wholly inappropriate language of the sort which could easily get this blog closed down.

Sid said...

Ian...I don't think you would have enough space either.

Sid said...

The venue for the next agm....can we make it The Heritage Centre (St Marys Church) Gateshead. We met Anthea Lang (in charge of the centre)at the last AGM. She even offered to lay on a coffee for us if we decided to hold an agm there. If the coffee doesn't materialise we could always nip to the Sage for one...

Hildie tells me she is having bother with her internet modem, she should have a replacement in a few days.

Maureen said...

I'd like to see the Heritage Centre but at the moment I'm not sure if I can get there for the AGM, so can I had a half vote to Sid's proposal please? Maybe Peter could make it? Now that would be interesting ...

Val said...

No comments yet on Ukraine's got talent? Never seen anything like it. Amazing skill and realised why it was so moving for the audience when I googled for a bit more about the background & music etc.

Our talent/x-factor shows are lost on me - just from little clips I've seen I feel like I'm watching an alternative universe.

Feeling old this week after a fall due to dodgy pavement last year and resulting knee injury [which still stops me getting on my 'hunkers'] has now brought on the inevitable arthritis. Oh well there goes my chance of doing the Great North Run!
The Great Shirley Bassey obviously has no such trouble as she bent down with ease during her fantastic performance on BBC Electric Proms this weekend. Blimey - still really belting them out at 72!

Ian Robinson said...

Agreed, Val - Dame Shirley's still got it!

Unknown said...

Acculy I sm that girl called Pollyanna pebbles Begg trotter ther is nothing wrong with my name and I'm not a poor kid take this down from the internet and I love my name this is upsetting for me