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Monkey business
The car-vandalising baboons of Knowsley Safari Park in Merseyside, UK, appear to have spent lockdown musing on how best to cause havoc.
Visitors tour the 220-hectare site watching wild animals from the comfort of their cars 鈥� if they still have any car left after they have been through the baboon enclosure, that is. Normally, the pilfering primates use their hands to wrench off windscreen wipers and car aerials. But after the park reopened post-lockdown, baboons have apparently been sighted clutching tools such as screwdrivers and knives to aid their crimes.
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Three explanations have been proposed. One is that the animals looted the tools from the back of a truck. Another is that some practical joker deliberately armed the animals for the lols. The third is that the whole thing is an urban myth. While The Sunday Times newspaper report quoted several unnamed Knowsley ground staff as sources, the official park spokesperson denied everything, saying the stories had 鈥済rown in exaggeration鈥�. But at least one commenter on the newspaper鈥檚 website knew exactly what the animals鈥� favoured tool was: a monkey wrench.
Jiggery hokery
In the Before Times, when everyone was allowed to work in rooms with other people, Feedback used to relish the regular animated office debates over linguistic differences between people from different English-speaking countries. Of course, Feedback鈥檚 desk was in the stationery cupboard for logistical reasons, but we enjoyed listening in through the keyhole.
One lesson learned the hard way is that Brits should on no account debate Americans over whether spaghetti is a form of noodle. But those disagreements pale into insignificance next to the horror generated when UK speech scientist announced on Twitter that people in the US sing a different version of that musical classic beloved at birthday parties and weddings: the Hokey Cokey.
People east of the Atlantic were shocked to find out that not only do Americans refer to this song by a different name 鈥� Hokey Pokey 鈥� but they omit the entire chorus. That鈥檚 right: in the land of the free, no sooner have singers finished the first verse, describing left arm jiggery pokery, they move without pause to the second, about right arm shenanigans. As Scott put it: 鈥淣o knees bend, no arms stretch, no rah rah rah.鈥�
If you are reading this in the US, you may have no idea what we are on about. All Feedback can say is that omitting the chorus means missing out on the best and least covid-19-secure part of the dance, where participants hold hands and charge headlong into the middle, causing a pile of bodies.
Scott鈥檚 tweet unleashed a Twitterstorm of people wanting to know when the linguistic divergence occurred and whether other English-speaking nations follow Hokey Cokey / Hokey Pokey [delete as appropriate] canon.
She has learned so far that Australians sing the Hokey Pokey but retain the chorus, which raises more questions than it answers.
Eyes rear
Speaking of questions that need answers, what would happen if cows had eyes on their鈥� well鈥� rear ends?
Lions often launch surprise attacks against cattle, so researchers wondered if posteriorly painted peepers might act as a deterrent, making the big cats think they have been spotted.
Happily, after four years of arse artistry, the researchers found that their strategy 鈥� which they call iCow 鈥� worked: cows with eye spots were indeed less likely to be killed by lions. It is a success story for the farmers as well as lion conservation, but it also raises questions about how the post-doc who had to decorate roughly 700 cows鈥� rear ends felt.
Feedback has done some unpleasant jobs in our past, and would like to know who among New 杏吧原创 readers has carried out less glamorous duties than this. Answers to the usual email address, please.
Hot stuff
These are tricky times for the medical profession, but a primary care centre in Gloucester, UK, appears to have found itself in a unique quandary. For impenetrable IT reasons, ever since Aspen Medical Centre switched telephone line providers, it has started showing up on caller ID displays as 鈥淟iaisons Sauna Club鈥�. According to the Metro, this is a provider of adult-oriented sauna services in Rochdale, England.
The centre has tried to alert the public to the mix-up on Twitter, as at the moment, many of its calls to patients go unanswered. The problem hasn鈥檛 led to any divorce writs being issued so far, the clinic says, just 鈥減eriodic embarrassment and few laughs at our expense鈥�.
Referring to stretched healthcare resources, one Twitter user cheekily wondered if their phone calls would get answered more quickly if they ring the Rochdale sauna club instead of their local GP. But the Aspen Medical Centre鈥檚 social media manager took it all in their stride, bantering back with: 鈥淭his is precisely the question that occurred to us. Several of our GPs were starting to wonder why some patients sounded so disappointed when we returned their calls.鈥�
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