Saturday, November 3, 2012

Whale of a tale


"In 1952, a 70-foot whale was caught off Norway and preserved on a 100-foot lorry which toured Europe, Africa and Japan, appearing in such unlikely places as Barnsley, Yorkshire, before ending up in Belgium permanently."

Or perhaps not permanently; haven't checked lately. And besides...

Did you know Gregory Peck almost drowned filming the last throes of Moby Dick as Ahab? Well he did. 1956. Several years before he was Atticus Finch.

Barnsley, you know, is famous for cricket umpire Dickie Bird and chat show legend Michael Parkinson, two facts I have lived many years in the wilds of America without knowing. I was not blissfully ignorant, simply ignorant. I wish I could tell you more about Barnsley, but the only other fact Google could come up with had something to do with Christmas and right royal knees, and I don't really want to learn about royal knees today.

The dictionary says "cattle" is a plural noun, but doesn't say what the singular is. I have always wanted to know this. I mean, you can't say the singular is "cow" right? Adullamite knows things like this, just short of expert, sometimes, so perhaps I will get his opinion on the subject. Remind me.

3 days past Halloween and sneaking up on GF day and bonfires, I reckon.


4 comments:

  1. The Royal Scottish Museum used to have a huge whale skeleton hanging across the main hall. Sensitive people decided this was not nice in later years and removed it. Most likely selling it to the Japs for lunch I suspect.

    On yonder hill
    There stands a coo
    If it's not there
    It's awa noo!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's not much of a limerick. I like it though.

      Delete
  2. Many people held their bonfires last night, official day being monday. Fireworks around here were fierce, I'll be Syrian cities are quieter.

    ReplyDelete

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