Man bites dog: China's dog-meat festival challenged

It's good to see Chinese people challenging the culinary habits of the Yulin dog meat festival and rescuing animals destined for the pot. Not only brutal but a health hazard, most of the estimated 10,000 animals killed in appalling conditions are strays and abductees, so who knows what diseases they're carrying?

Apart from concern about the fate of man's best friend in Guanxi province, we should also worry about the state of the human beings doing the killing and consuming. Dogs are not as intelligent as pigs (so there goes our bacon sandwich) but their sociability is a lot more obvious ... unless you own a cute Vietnamese pot-bellied pig or raised a Babe from piglethood.

Personally, I wouldn't eat any animal that ate other animals, especially considering what we know about kuru or bovine spongeiform encephalitis (BSE) which Britain gifted to the world.

It requires a heart of stone to ignore their pain, so what damage are people doing to themselves? It's not quite as mad as the bloodfest of the Faroe Islands, where pilot whales are slaughtered in huge numbers by men, women and children apparently in the grip of some sort of blood-lust trance, but the degree of insensitivity towards sensate creatures — whether it be fox hunting, hare coursing or skinning dogs, sometimes alive — makes you wonder what's happening to their inner health.

The (very) few people I've met who happily eat dog and cat have invariably been cold fish themselves.

Dining on dogs is better than humans starving. Back in the bad old days when entire communities died from hunger, eating dogs and other furry creatures including cats and rats was understandable. But famine is no longer a threat and dogmeat is an expensive luxury, considerably dearer than chicken, pork, beef, fish and duck.

The consumption of tiger penis, rhino horn, monkey brains or shark fins are wasteful destructive barbarities we can do without. But before you comfort yourself that we're more civilised, how about the super-wealthy devouring people's lives while enriching themselves? Or US Republican candidate Charlie Fuqua calling for rebellious children to be executed? Or killing innocents by drone attack in order to get at one alleged terrorist, at the rate of fifty to 1?

Barbarism is everywhere — it just manifests differently.

Fin for all the family

David Attenborough would have loved my gay dog

Another photo of my beloved pooch, Scruffy. Here he is seal clubbing in this ancient pic ... almost as old as that joke. (What do you mean, "What joke?")

He was a canine refutation of the claim that homosexuality doesn't exixt in the animal kingdom. And I didn't care - he loved his mummy.

So remember this. Dr Brett Mills of the University of East Anglia, intimating that national treasure David Attenborough is some sort of horrible homophobe with a nuclear family agenda to promote in his wildlife documentaries. All that telly animal porn and not one paw up the posterior, not one Brokeback mounting, not even the odd instance of rimming when a cursory observation of pets in the park tells us that goes on around us all the time.

My beloved Scruffy the Wonder Dog, a rough-haired dachshund, struck up a friendship with the Yorkshire terrier belonging to the ex-wife of a boyfriend.

The Yorkshire was an aggressive little mutt, even shorter than Scruffy, but he was intent on having his doggy delight with my baby who, in the absence of flowers, wine or even a juicy steak, wasn't interested. But the Yorkie would not take no for an answer and would wear him down until Scruffy stood still for it.

And so it came to pass that the ex-wife's dog came to put the girlfriend's dog under heavy manners and assert dominance through the act of animal lurve. It was like watching a canine Joe Pesci inflict himself on Leonardo de Caprio.

Reminded of Platoon where the bullying officer accuses one grunt of being "the sort of of person who'd take another person up the ass and wouldn't even have the manners to give him a reacharound", when the Yorkie was spent (after about thirty seconds) and it came to Scruffy's turn, the Yorkie would swagger off, yapping and snapping when Scruffy tried to mount. Poor Scruffy!

Boyz, boyz! A little more consideration, please.

So I can attest to the truth in the good doctor's claim that the animal kingdom contains all sorts of sexual expression — sea-horses being an interesting case in point. Can the BBC now please give us the gay animal porn for which we all secretly hanker? We pay our TV license fee as well, you know.

I had a gay dog: if only David Attenborough knew

WHERE ARE ALL THE GAY ANIMALS???!!! shrieks Dr Brett Mills of the University of East Anglia, intimating that national treasure David Attenborough is some sort of horrible homophobe with a nuclear family agenda to promote in his wildlife documentaries. All that telly animal porn and not one paw up the posterior, not one Brokeback mounting, not even the odd instance of rimming when a cursory observation of pets in the park tells us that goes on around us all the time.

Where are they? Well, I had one for a starters. My beloved Scruffy the Wonder Dog, a rough-haired dachshund, who struck up a friendship with the Yorkshire terrier belonging to the ex-wife of a boyfriend.

The Yorkshire was an aggressive little mutt, even shorter than Scruffy, but he was intent on having his doggy delight with my baby who, in the absence of flowers, wine or even a juicy steak, wasn't interested. But the Yorkie would not take no for an answer and would wear him down until Scruffy stood still for it.

And so it came to pass that the ex-wife's dog came to put the girlfriend's dog under heavy manners and assert dominance through the act of animal lurve. It was like watching a canine Joe Pesci inflict himself on Leonardo de Caprio.

Reminded of Platoon where the bullying officer accuses one grunt of being "the sort of of person who'd take another person up the ass and wouldn't even have the manners to give him a reacharound", when the Yorkie was spent (after about thirty seconds) and it came to Scruffy's turn, the Yorkie would swagger off, yapping and snapping when Scruffy tried to mount. Poor Scruffy!

Boyz, boyz! A little more consideration, please.

So I can attest to the truth in the good doctor's claim that the animal kingdom contains all sorts of sexual expression — sea-horses being an interesting case in point. Can the BBC now please give us the gay animal porn for which we all secretly hanker? We pay our TV license fee as well, you know.

Killer whale tries to drown her keeper

Scary footage of killer whale trying to drown one of her keepers.

Never mind Tiger Mom, I want a buffalo minder

A pride of not so proud lions and crocodiles seen off by a herd of horny-headed critters when a baby buffalo finds itself on the menu.

For more cute furry animals being decidedly uncute, try this. Aaargh!

News round-up for Sky: escaping lab monkeys, Prince's free 20Ten CD, Apple and Ridley Scott

Photo: ALPHA PRESS via Daily Telegraph

I did another Sky News internet stories round-up last night, which is nerve-wrackingly exciting. While at the Sky studio I saw a couple of women walking ahead of me who were dressed in Charlie Chaplin hats and shorts. Funny, I thought. Women are already copying Shabby, the beautiful lesbian tantrum-queen from this last series of Big Brother who walked out the other night. Then I realised, hey, this WAS Shabby and friend doing the media rounds for the five minutes that she's still hot. She's unique and very, very bright so I expect we haven't seen the last of her. She's also much taller and leaner than she looks on the telly. O crikey! What's it doing to me, then?

My round-up stories in no particular order:

Ridley Scott, a brit who's huge in Hollywood, has a million films in development but still has time for an interesting new one. He's joined forces with YouTube for a mass global film experiment. On July 24th — 24/7 in Americanese — they want you and me to film ourselves doing something ordinary and everyday. It could be brushing your teeth, washing up, putting out the rubbish, just a moment from a normal day. Then upload it to YouTube where clips will be selected from submissions from around the world to typify the global day. Developing countries are included and NGOs are handing out cameras and equipment in preparation for the world event. I wonder if walking miles for a container of water or mopping up oil spills from your front yard will feature.

Napoleon said we were a nation of shopkeepers but that may change. Move over Sainsbury and Tesco. You are about to get a taste of your own medicine as Amazon launches its UK online grocery service. For a fee of £49 per year, you can get one-day delivery of groceries just as you do books, household goods, fashion, beauty and, from last week, musical instruments. This directly challenges Ocado at the very moment it is looking for shareholders to invest. As you can bulk buy, too, I doubt Costco will be pleased. You can buy online via a computer or a smart phone, and Apple has an application so you can shop through your iPhone or iPod.

Talking of Apple, fans are going nuts for the new iPhone 4 despite reports of reception problems that can only be remedied by the application of nail polish or sticky-tape. Owners of iPhones are trading in their older new models for cash sums up to £170, making the Apple 3G the most recycled phone last month. Even the third generation 3S is being offloaded in favour of the 4th gen. Me, I'm sticking to my Nokia 5800 until Apple sort out the reception problem or else make the nail polish application downloadable.

The internet is dead. Long live the internet. Prince has declared the net to be so over "like MTV. MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Prince may be a bit of a King Canute in his attempt to hold back the tide of technology but this may be explained by his run-in with iTunes who refuse to pay artists upfront. He is again releasing an album — the latest is called 20Ten — for free via a newspaper: in this Saturday's Daily Mirror and its sister paper in Scotland, The Daily Record. I will be getting mine.

Bong! We leave you with an inspiring animal story: The Great Escape but with monkeys. A group of monkeys escaped from their forest enclosure at a laboratory in Kyoto University by catapulting themselves over a 17 foot electrified fence using branches of a tree ten feet away. How smart is that? Unfortunately, once they were out, they didn't know what to do and hung around the gates like bored kids until lured back by food. Just like us: we want to escape the system but will come back for peanuts. Hey, monkey, don'tcha know you have to change the world not describe it? Oh no, that's philosophers, not baboons. Close but no peanut.

News round-up for Sky: escaping lab monkeys, Prince's free 20Ten CD, Apple and Ridley Scott

Photo: ALPHA PRESS via Daily Telegraph

I did another Sky News internet stories round-up last night, which is nerve-wrackingly exciting. While at the Sky studio I saw a couple of women walking ahead of me who were dressed in Charlie Chaplin hats and shorts. Funny, I thought. Women are already copying Shabby, the beautiful lesbian tantrum-queen from this last series of Big Brother who walked out the other night. Then I realised, hey, this WAS Shabby and friend doing the media rounds for the five minutes that she's still hot. She's unique and very, very bright so I expect we haven't seen the last of her. She's also much taller and leaner than she looks on the telly. O crikey! What's it doing to me, then?

My round-up stories in no particular order:

Ridley Scott, a brit who's huge in Hollywood, has a million films in development but still has time for an interesting new one. He's joined forces with YouTube for a mass global film experiment. On July 24th — 24/7 in Americanese — they want you and me to film ourselves doing something ordinary and everyday. It could be brushing your teeth, washing up, putting out the rubbish, just a moment from a normal day. Then upload it to YouTube where clips will be selected from submissions from around the world to typify the global day. Developing countries are included and NGOs are handing out cameras and equipment in preparation for the world event. I wonder if walking miles for a container of water or mopping up oil spills from your front yard will feature.

Napoleon said we were a nation of shopkeepers but that may change. Move over Sainsbury and Tesco. You are about to get a taste of your own medicine as Amazon launches its UK online grocery service. For a fee of £49 per year, you can get one-day delivery of groceries just as you do books, household goods, fashion, beauty and, from last week, musical instruments. This directly challenges Ocado at the very moment it is looking for shareholders to invest. As you can bulk buy, too, I doubt Costco will be pleased. You can buy online via a computer or a smart phone, and Apple has an application so you can shop through your iPhone or iPod.

Talking of Apple, fans are going nuts for the new iPhone 4 despite reports of reception problems that can only be remedied by the application of nail polish or sticky-tape. Owners of iPhones are trading in their older new models for cash sums up to £170, making the Apple 3G the most recycled phone last month. Even the third generation 3S is being offloaded in favour of the 4th gen. Me, I'm sticking to my Nokia 5800 until Apple sort out the reception problem or else make the nail polish application downloadable.

The internet is dead. Long live the internet. Prince has declared the net to be so over "like MTV. MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Prince may be a bit of a King Canute in his attempt to hold back the tide of technology but this may be explained by his run-in with iTunes who refuse to pay artists upfront. He is again releasing an album — the latest is called 20Ten — for free via a newspaper: in this Saturday's Daily Mirror and its sister paper in Scotland, The Daily Record. I will be getting mine.

Bong! We leave you with an inspiring animal story: The Great Escape but with monkeys. A group of monkeys escaped from their forest enclosure at a laboratory in Kyoto University by catapulting themselves over a 17 foot electrified fence using branches of a tree ten feet away. How smart is that? Unfortunately, once they were out, they didn't know what to do and hung around the gates like bored kids until lured back by food. Just like us: we want to escape the system but will come back for peanuts. Hey, monkey, don'tcha know you have to change the world not describe it? Oh no, that's philosophers, not baboons. Close but no peanut.

Desperate Squirrel video: big nuts get him nowhere

So there I was, minding my own business, working in the garden, when I was suddenly surrounded by mayhem as the squirrels went crazy ape bonkers around me. It's summer and the wildlife is in rut.

I missed videoing the dizzying keystone cops chase around the garden, along the fences and through the trees as my little furry friends raced to procreate. The mother squirrel I'd been feeding very sweetly brought her brood to visit me a few weeks ago but now her sons are all growed up, if you know what I mean.

When I say they have big nuts, I'm not kidding. I did some scientific research (Googled a bit) and discovered that the male gonads of the squirrel drop in the horny season. Well, well. You learn something new every day.

Sad but very funny if you are a female and recognise the symptoms.

Desperate Squirrel video: big nuts get him nowhere

So there I was, minding my own business, working in the garden, when I was suddenly surrounded by mayhem as the squirrels went crazy ape bonkers around me. It's summer and the wildlife is in rut.

I missed videoing the dizzying keystone cops chase around the garden, along the fences and through the trees as my little furry friends raced to procreate. The mother squirrel I'd been feeding very sweetly brought her brood to visit me a few weeks ago but now her sons are all growed up, if you know what I mean.

When I say they have big nuts, I'm not kidding. I did some scientific research (Googled a bit) and discovered that the male gonads of the squirrel drop in the horny season. Well, well. You learn something new every day.

Sad but very funny if you are a female and recognise the symptoms.

SWP implosion: alpha female goes crazy ape bonkers

I was going to write about the implosion of everyone's favourite left cult, the SWP. But then I thought, nah! Fuckit! Let's just watch baboons shagging.

More on the exciting goings on in the British left here at SU and at Splintered Sunrise

Cassandra Miaow wrote this

SWP implosion: alpha female goes crazy ape bonkers

I was going to write about the implosion of everyone's favourite left cult, the SWP. But then I thought, nah! Fuckit! Let's just watch baboons shagging.

More on the exciting goings on in the British left here at SU and at Splintered Sunrise

Cassandra Miaow wrote this

Serial Killer Cat Fools Everyone: Tony Blair takes tips

Oscar the cat has his pawprints all over 50 deaths at an old people's home in America. He chooses his victims, curls up with them overnight and secretly dispatches them. Oddly, the authorities have mixed up cause and effect and credited the murdering moggy with a supernatural ability to detect imminent doom, comforting the dying in their final hours, when it's obvious to the rest of us that he's been bumping off persistent bed-blockers.

And now he has been given a book deal: "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat." (Hyperion, $23.99). JP Morgan want to sign him, he stands to make a fortune on the lecture circuit, and world-class villains want to stroke him. Except for Tony Blair who is watching developments and has complained, "It's not fair. How come Oscar gets away with it? I want to see how well he'd do in front of the Chillcat Inquiry".

Oscar says, "No more Kit-E-Kat and the odd mouse for me. I'm hob-nobbing with the big guys, now. Where's my beluga?"

Beware, if Oscar decides to help you and promises to bring democracy to your sad life, this is the kiss of death and you will be dead by dawn. Tony Blair is taking tips.

Yeah! You may look cute ...

UPDATE: 1st Feb 2010 Iraq inquiry may recall Tony Blair over conflicting evidence

Serial Killer Cat Fools Everyone: Tony Blair takes tips

Oscar the cat has his pawprints all over 50 deaths at an old people's home in America. He chooses his victims, curls up with them overnight and secretly dispatches them. Oddly, the authorities have mixed up cause and effect and credited the murdering moggy with a supernatural ability to detect imminent doom, comforting the dying in their final hours, when it's obvious to the rest of us that he's been bumping off persistent bed-blockers.

And now he has been given a book deal: "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat." (Hyperion, $23.99). JP Morgan want to sign him, he stands to make a fortune on the lecture circuit, and world-class villains want to stroke him. Except for Tony Blair who is watching developments and has complained, "It's not fair. How come Oscar gets away with it? I want to see how well he'd do in front of the Chillcat Inquiry".

Oscar says, "No more Kit-E-Kat and the odd mouse for me. I'm hob-nobbing with the big guys, now. Where's my beluga?"

Beware, if Oscar decides to help you and promises to bring democracy to your sad life, this is the kiss of death and you will be dead by dawn. Tony Blair is taking tips.

Yeah! You may look cute ...

UPDATE: 1st Feb 2010 Iraq inquiry may recall Tony Blair over conflicting evidence

Airbrushing life: HSBC cormorant fishing advertisement

Just a small thing that's been bugging me. That HSBC ad with the old Chinese guy and his cormorant fishing aid.

Note the bird. Its instincts are to dive for fish ... and eat the catch. The ingenious Chinese, when harnessing its fishing skills, realised that you need to find a way to stop it eating the fruits of its own labours. Know how they do it? They sensibly tie a tether around its neck to stop it swallowing.

I know this because I, and every other tourist to Guilin, have marveled at this co-operation between human and nature and observed the nifty neckwear.

And yet, in the ads, the glossed up avian star sports a bare throat. Some smart cutting going on?

HSBC, formerly the Midland. "We brought you opium. Now we bring you respect."

More on animals. Watching scientists dissecting a giraffe on TV and wondering why they're wearing bright orange gitmo suits.

Airbrushing life: HSBC cormorant fishing advertisement

Just a small thing that's been bugging me. That HSBC ad with the old Chinese guy and his cormorant fishing aid.

Note the bird. Its instincts are to dive for fish ... and eat the catch. The ingenious Chinese, when harnessing its fishing skills, realised that you need to find a way to stop it eating the fruits of its own labours. Know how they do it? They sensibly tie a tether around its neck to stop it swallowing.

I know this because I, and every other tourist to Guilin, have marveled at this co-operation between human and nature and observed the nifty neckwear.

And yet, in the ads, the glossed up avian star sports a bare throat. Some smart cutting going on?

HSBC, formerly the Midland. "We brought you opium. Now we bring you respect."

More on animals. Watching scientists dissecting a giraffe on TV and wondering why they're wearing bright orange gitmo suits.

Fingerpainting

I don't even know the artist's name but Claire emailed these pictures and they are so gorgeous and impressive that I wanted to share. The only info that came with them was:

It takes him four hours to do a hand. Then he photographs it for posterity. I cannot imagine how he does the eyes so remarkably lifelike.  It took him 10 hours to do the two-handed Eagle in picture #2.

I'll never attempt my puny shadow puppetry again.

Click on pix for large versions.

Fingerpainting

I don't even know the artist's name but Claire emailed these pictures and they are so gorgeous and impressive that I wanted to share. The only info that came with them was:

It takes him four hours to do a hand. Then he photographs it for posterity. I cannot imagine how he does the eyes so remarkably lifelike.  It took him 10 hours to do the two-handed Eagle in picture #2.

I'll never attempt my puny shadow puppetry again.

Click on pix for large versions.