Fantastic Mr Fox

I recently read about how a wiley fox made a miraculous escape from a hunter...by shooting his would-be killer in the leg! The stricken creature had already been shot and wounded, but somehow managed to pull the trigger of the hunter's gun with its paw... as the man tried to finish off the fox with the butt of the rifle. The incident happened in the Grodno region of Belarus (close to the border with Poland), where the hunter remains in hospital. It was not reported whether doctors are treating the man for the leg injury...or for his wounded pride.

This real life story of Fox versus Man is somewhat akin to one of my all-time favourite childhood books, “Fantastic Mr Fox” by Roald Dahl.... I still have a copy of it on my bookshelf today. It tells the story of a very cunning fox that has to use all his wits to foil the plans of three very horrible farmers, who are trying to exterminate him.....

"Boggis and Bunce and Bean
One fat, one short, one lean.

These horrible crooks

So different in looks

Were nonetheless equally mean."

As with all Roald Dahl books, you find yourself rooting for the most unlikely character....in this case, for a fox who steals chickens, ducks and geese to feed his family. Meanwhile, the farmers come out smelling like ... well, something with a whiff of farmyard to it.

I have included some scenes from the animated film adaption of the book that was directed by Wes Anderson (2009). Featuring the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox and Bill Murray as Badger, the film used classic, handmade, stop-motion animation to bring the characters to life.

I haven’t seen the film yet, but it is definitely on my list of Must-See DVDs this year.

Another Fantastic Fox - I snapped this one in my parents' back garden on Christmas Day

I Just Called To Say....

Recent telephone conversations that I could have happily lived without.....

AAVR*: Welcome to the Bright Spark Electricity Supply Company Helpline. If you’re phoning to report a power failure, please press 1.

Nat: £%^$! [Trying to get my mobile phone** to realise I am indeed tapping the digit 1 on its stupid little touch screen]

AAVR: I’m sorry. I do not recognise that number. Please try again.

Nat: £%^$ing *%^$! [Still trying to get my mobile phone to realise that I am still tapping the digit 1 on its stupid little touch screen]

AAVR: I’m sorry. I do not recognise that number. Please try again.

Repeat this cycle of stupidity a few more times, until finally.....

AAVR: I notice that you are calling from a mobile phone. Please enter the landline number from which you would usually be calling.

Nat: Are you a bit slow or what? Yes, I am indeed calling you from a mobile phone...that's because my cordless landline telephone runs off  e l e c t r i c i t y....you know, the stuff you guys charge us astronomical sums of money for?

AAVR: I’m sorry. I do not recognise that number. Please try again. Alternatively, you can email us or visit our website on www.no we don’t see the irony of getting you to contact us via electricity driven devices when you are reporting a powercut.com
................................................................
*Annoying Automated Voice Responder

** UK speak for cell phone



AMPSP*: Hello...is that Nat?

Nat: Speaking. Who is calling, please?

AMPSP: This is your AMPSP. For security purposes I need you to give me the first line of your address and postal code.

Nat: Why? If I’m your customer and you’re phoning me on the number you provided me with, why don’t you have those details on file?

AMPSP: Madam, it’s for security purposes.

Nat: Yes, I can appreciate that...I’m very concerned about security myself. Which is why I’d prefer not to give those details to you, as I have no proof that you are who you say you are.

AMPSP: I can give you a phone number that you can call and they will verify that this is indeed your AMPSP calling...

Nat: No thanks. For all I know, you’ve got your mate sitting on the other end, just waiting to get hold of my details.

AMPSP: Madam, I must inform you that these calls are recorded for training purposes.

Nat: Good. Because I think you could do with some retraining in how not to wind your customers up when they are having a really bad week. [And another thing, please do not call me madam – it makes me feel like a very old woman... and one that is in charge of a house of disrepute.]

AMPSP: -Click-
................................................................
*Annoying Mobile Phone Service Provider (or so they claim)

Monkey Business

You may have noticed that I have this “thing” for monkeys...you probably don’t know (unless you’re an old faithful reader from way back when) that this stems from being told quite early on in my career that “Any monkey can be a medical writer”. Needless to say, the Dumb Ass who uttered this provocative statement was not himself a medical writer (nor a gym manager aka that other Dumb Ass that I have been slagging off of late)....who wouldn’t know the first thing about writing a clinical report if it printed itself out (two pages a side), then yanked his trousers+pants down, and gave him the mother of all paper cuts across his naked butt.

Monkeys are indeed fascinating animals, and didn’t fall too far from us when the evolutionary tree shook all creatures great and small out of its amble boughs. Just like us shiny apes, some monkeys have to put in a hard day’s work. I recently learnt that, in southern Thailand, pigtailed macaque monkeys are trained to harvest ripe coconuts, which, after tourism, are the region’s largest economic resource. Depending on the extent of his training, a monkey can pick between 600 and 1000 coconuts a day—a human can only manage at most 100.

To learn their trade, the monkeys go to school for three to six months, and only male monkeys attend, since (apparently) females do not have the temperament to be trained. One of the most famous monkey training schools in Thailand was founded in 1993 by the late Somporn Saekow. As a young boy on a coconut farm in the Surat Thani province, Somporn was shocked by the inhumane treatment the animals were given.... monkeys were often beaten by their owners when they did not perform as expected. Following the advice of a Buddhist monk, he developed techniques to teach his fellow primates coconut harvesting through love and compassion, and began training monkeys in 1957. Somporn offered his course to owners who wanted their monkeys trained, and later opened his school to give demonstrations of monkey training to tourists. If you’re interested, you can read about the training of monkeys at Somporn’s School HERE.

Today, there are monkey training schools across Thailand, and many are open to visitors. It was on a visit at one such school that one of the more colourful characters that I’ve met through Aikido classes had an unexpectedly close encounter of the Simian kind. Tattoo Man is not the sort of bloke you would pick a fight with in a dark alley...small and wiry, he can pack a punch that comes with over 20 years of Muay Thai (amongst various other martial arts) training behind it. He’s travelled widely and found himself in some tricky situations, where a bit of self-defence know-how has come in handy. None so strange, though, as that day at the monkey school.

According to Tattoo Man, he was watching the monkeys nimbly scale the coconut palm trees, twist the coconuts with both hands until they fall to the ground and then scuttle back down to gather up their harvests, when one of the hardworking primates suddenly scampered over to him....and slapped him, hard. Taken aback, Tattoo Man first thought this was part of the ‘act’....but when the monkey then became clearly agitated and came at him again, this time with teeth barred...Tattoo Man instinctively stuck out his arm, blocking the monkey’s powerful oncoming jaw with a swift sideward push, simultaneously grappling the punch-hungry primate's arms into a lock that restrained him until the monkey trainer arrived to talk soothingly to the highly strung animal.

No one was sure what provoked the usually placid monkey to attack Tattoo Man that day. Perhaps he bore a resemblance to someone who had treated him cruelly in the past....or maybe the stress of the job (those high coconut harvest targets, the non-stop chattering of his colleagues) finally sent the poor monkey over the edge. Maybe he needs a career change, something less physical... perhaps a desk job? I heard the Original Dumb Ass is still trying to recruit medical writers....

Savage Chickens found HERE

Weekend Snippets

Savage Chickens found HERE

It was another exciting weekend in the Life of Nat...

Starting with a buckled wheel rim and flat tyre, courtesy of the plague of potholes left by the ice and freezing temperatures of recent weeks. Travelling on some of the UK’s roads at the moment brings back memories of the good ol’ Zim days of driving with the constant fear of suddenly vanishing into a bottomless pit of conjoined potholes (of course minus the added potential dangers of being shot at by the presidential guards for passing too slowly past one of his palaces, or running over a warthog).

Having a damaged wheel and flat tyre is never a good experience...certainly not one enhanced by the rude discovery that the brand new tyre on your spare wheel has at some point been deviously replaced by an old, worn tyre. Not sure who the dastardly criminal was, but it could have happened at the service garage, MOT test centre or long-term airport parking (moral of the story: check your spare every time you’ve had your car worked on and only choose parking where you don’t hand over your keys).

It was “Dumbbells at Dawn” in the gym as the competition for places in the Sunday morning aerobics class showed no signs of taking a weekend off...Dumb Ass is still in charge and is still a Dumb Ass. I almost fainted halfway through the class from the stress...although that may have been the lack of breakfast as I was too lazy to get out of bed in time to eat before the “Eat Now, Puke Later” threshold.

Aikido is getting...er...interesting...we’re learning to roll/somersault, forwards and backwards over our shoulders. Considering I haven’t been caught doing head-over-heels since I was about six, I fear shoulder dislocation at best, a smashed spine at worst. Last night, I finally plucked up the courage to do a “bended knee starting stance” roll...I managed three before the waves of motion sickness took over.

Finally, my cheeky friend is now one up on me in our ongoing “Give Each Other Rude Birthday Presents” competition, with this delightful gift...

Happy doodling!

Funny Business

I am not a business person. In fact, an ex-boss once told me that I completely lacked any sense of business acumen (note, I said ex-boss). I did not take this as an insult....after all, I spent nine years of my life studying medical science, with the express purpose of avoiding spending my working life conversing with a bunch of suits in their uniquely irritating BS (Business Speak), 24/7. With all due respect to those who are actually in the business world, and who like to be pro-active...those who thrive on brainstorming, on getting their ducks in a row and then touching base to get a heads up on whether they’re singing from the same hymn sheet, before going forward and pushing the envelope out...at the end of the day, business is not rocket science (even if it does involve some blue sky thinking).

Nonetheless, I do still like to think outside the box....and even I can spot a really bad business decision when it’s going on under my nose (or rather feet). I’ve mentioned that I’ve started taking gym classes.... as, along with half the population, my rather unoriginal New Year resolution is to lose weight by the ‘Move-more-but-eat-the-same’ principle (I’m realistic enough to know that I’ll never eat less). The popularity of this theme, however, has resulted in some rather stiff competition for the limited number of places available on the aerobics studio floor. Luckily, I’d done my market research, discovered that demand was high and supply low, and have been cleverly phoning ahead to book one of those highly coveted 20 places.

At this point you may be forgiven for mistakenly thinking (as I did) that the reason for the upper limit of 20 per class is simple: the studio can only handle that number of generously proportioned ladies flinging their limbs about, in a desperate attempt to follow the nifty moves of the sprightly instructor, while not kicking their sweaty comrades in the head. Last night, 27 wannadoaerobicans pitched up...only 20 places, so 7 unlucky ones get turned away....7 regular aerobicandos, who were caught napping, didn’t judge the bullish market correctly and therefore did not expect their ranks to suddenly swell from around 7 to 27 (it’s January ladies!)

What you wouldn’t know (as I didn’t until much later in the game) is that there is in fact a larger studio available at the gym...one that is reserved for classes of 21+. So, given that said larger studio was not booked for any other activity last night and had in fact not been used for quite some time (tumbleweed was skimming across it’s once highly polished floor), anyone with even the most minute, invisible-to-the-naked eye quantity of common sense would see there is an easy solution to this dilemma, and that is....

*Drum roll*

Switch the class to the bigger (vacant) studio!

So, is that what the gym manager in fact decided to do? Hell no! Despite the valiant attempts of the instructor to convince him otherwise, the Dumb Ass was not budging...

Instructor: “But the larger studio is standing empty and you’re turning away 7 ladies.....at £4 a head, that’s 28 quid!”
Dumb Ass: “No. We need to keep the larger one available for a long-term let.”
Instructor: “I can see your point...but it’s not actually booked for tonight! Let us use it in the meantime...then when you do rent it out, we’ll make alternative arrangements.” (She knows the market....by February the numbers of wannadoaerobicans will have dropped back to around the 10 mark)
Dumb Ass: “No. Rules is rules.”