Ten Monkeys and a Beetle

Recently I saw a pavement board outside a cafe in a busy street in the city. The words chalked on it were:  Do you think it's air you're breathing?

It has come to light that 10 Javanese monkeys spent 4 hours each in a sealed container during which time exhaust fumes from a new VW Beetle Diesel and for comparison an old Ford Pickup were pumped into it for them to breathe.

The monkeys were reported to be "stressed".

The experiment was part of the infamous VW emissions scandal project.

Ain't life a gas!

A senior official from VW has now been given leave of absence.

VW's diabolical experiment was hushed up and the result hidden away because the results didn't fit the script.


By the way, does anybody know what happened to the monkeys?




For the record, the German newspaper Bild reports that the emissions from the new VW Beetle even with its doctored emissions software exceeded those of the old Ford pickup.

Beware the Freebie

Yesterday at a railway station kiosk  I bought a German running magazine for the simple reason that there was a freebie, a flashed booklet "containing details of more than 3,000 running events during 2018 in Germany and Europe" in the transparent bag together with the magazine.

Could I resist such an offer? The short answer is, I couldn't. I'm always looking for details of races in European countries. In 2017 I ran in a couple of very nice races, a half marathon in a spa resort in the Czech Republic and a race in the snow in the Italian Dolomites. And in 2016 I ran in an amazing race in Snowdonia.

So this fixture booklet would be just the job. My mouth was almost watering at the thought of this year's European races!

Imagine my reaction when I arrived home with my purchase and looked within the pages of the freebie. There were only 10 races in all Europe in it. One was in Belgium. One was in Lichtenstein. One was  in Italy. Four were in Switzerland and three in Austria. That was it. Ten in all.

All the other "more than 3,000" were of course in Germany.

Well, we all live and learn. The motto is: Beware the Freebie!  I certainly won't be buying any future editions of this particular German running magazine.

Who would you like to see cloned?

Two monkey clones have been created in China. They are about 8 weeks old and appear to be thriving.

We've come a long way since the days of Dolly the Sheep.

Next logical step can only be a human being.

Is there anyone famous, or even not so famous, that you'd wish to see cloned?