Saturday, October 07, 2006

I was watching one of my favourite programmes last night called QI (Quite Interesting). It was all more than quite interesting and all the way through I was doing the usual pleading with my brain to remember at least one interesting fact from the show so in the unlikely situation of that subject ever coming up in a conversation, I would have something to say about it and dazzle everyone with my cleverness and as usual my brain was refusing to accept anything.
‘Come on please. They are talking about the real people who Gulliver’s travels and Robinson Crusoe were based on. This is very interesting. Could you try and remember this please?’
‘Sorry, no can do. The disc is full.’
‘But how can that be? I don’t know anything really.’
[Yawn] ‘Well you know this morning when you were trying to memorize your mobile phone number?’
‘Yeah’
‘That took a lot of space.’
‘Oh cool, so did I manage to memorize that at the end then? Huh, I hadn’t realized that I had.’
‘Oh yeah’ [Yawn] ‘077 something, something and all the rest of it.’
‘077?! That’s all you’ve got?’
‘Hey come on, it’s a long number. How many digits? Ten? Eleven? You know I’m not good with numbers.’

But as soon as a picture of a kangaroo came up, for some reason I knew that I was going to remember this interesting fact no matter what. And I did!
‘What is it that kangaroos can not do?’ Asked Stephen Fry.
‘Play the piano.’
‘Oh shut up Brain.’
‘Drive’ Said Alan Davis
‘Vote’ said another guy
‘It’s a bodily function.’ Said Stephen Fry
‘Burp’
‘Fart’
‘Yes’ said Stephen Fry, ‘kangaroos can not fart.’

Interesting! But it gets even better. Apparently, as I write this, cutting edge experiments are being done by scientists who hope that one day those species of bacteria that live in a kangaroos’ guts can be fed to cows and with any luck stop them from farting so much and ultimately end global warming.

Uhum, yes. Sounds like a great plan. But is there a plan B that maybe we could work on before starting this? The thing is I’m just not comfortable with the idea of experimenting with trying to improve cows again. We all remember what happened last time when we tried to do that, don’t we? And who would have thought that something as innocent as feeding some cows to some other cows would start such an appalling chain of events with the cows all going mad and even worse, making some of us go mad too with the terrible thought of not being able to eat burgers for while. Oh those were tough times.
[Yawn] ‘Oh yeah, very tough, very tough. Is it lunchtime yet?’
[sigh] ‘No not yet.’
‘Snack time?’
‘No’
‘Play time?’
'No'
'Sleep time?'

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

dear Shirin, your posts are refreshing, It always brings a smile on my face. Graet satire.
o, by the way would it be alright if I add you to my friend's list?

GazanKhan said...

Very funny shirin, my dear, thank you. And why can't the poor kangaroos fart? What on earth they do when they are ALONE then? As you know the definition of "a lonly person" is: "The one who farts at pleasure." GOOZANDEYE BE FARAAGHAT, poor things.

Anonymous said...

dear Shirin, you are talking about very important matters there. what i dont understand is that none of these scientists has yet understood the importance of their discovery. Instead researching for cows they should feed the bacterias to humans. Not that Ive got the problem myself, but I would like it, if there were anti-fart chewing gums being given to cinema visitors...
m

Shirin said...

Thanks Persianarchitect. And I’ll be honoured if you add me to your friends list. I will add you too.

I don’t really know Gazankhan. I guess they must be extremely sociable creatures, always out and about: dancing or hanging out with friends. They’re on the telly a lot too so I guess that must take up a lot of their time as well.

Great idea M! I really think you should patent that one before someone goes and makes a lot of money from it. Be good if they put some in dog food too, some old dogs are just unbelievable like that.

mezba said...

Lol.. very funny post. I too sometimes remember asinine facts for seemingly no reason at all.

About kangaroos, I don't know if it's true or not but it's said (I heard it from a few people) the Kangaroo got it's name When Captain James Cook asked one of his men in 1770 to inquire of an Aboriginal what was the name of the strange jumping animal, the man replied "Kangaroo" meaning, I can't understand what you are saying.

Anonymous said...

Hi mezba, i like your story, it could be so true, please have look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo
m

Shirin said...

That’s such a funny story Mezba even if it’s not true as M has informed us. The myths surrounding some words are often so much more interesting than the reality ;-)

Thanks for that M. That picture of that Kangaroo looking into the camera is so cute.