Nothing to crow about

I read a news report today headlined 'Clever New Caledonian crows can use three tools.' It was all about the way in which crows have been studied for their apparent intelligence and how scientists in New Zealand have observed crows using three tools in succession to reach some food.

Well, I don't find that especially clever at all. I can use four, sometimes five tools in succession to reach food, and on occasions I can actually use two tools - namely a knife and fork - simultaneously. Beat that, Mr Crow.

The article then goes on to describe how one of the birds, named Casper - quite how the scientists knew his name was not explained - completed a task involving food on a string on his first try, although he was 'initially puzzled by the string.' Well excuse me scientists, but I've seen a lot of string in my time and not once have I ever been puzzled or even remotely perplexed. And do you hear me bragging about it? No you do not.

In all honesty, I don't think these crows sound particularly clever at all.

Simpleton birds.

Here in my car

A recent edition of the excellent CBC news programme As It Happens included a report on the Russian car manufacturer Dartz and their proposed new luxury car. I say 'car' but, in the words of Chris Howden, the show's presenter, it's more of a "steroidal Humvee-slash-Transformer," and would come with diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhaust pipes and three gold flasks containing some unbelievably expensive vodka. Oh, and the seats would be made of whale penis leather.

The seats would be made of whale penis leather.

There has been an understandable backlash since Dartz's announcement in October - why would anyone want gold plated windows after all? - and consequently the company issued a press release from which I present an excerpt here:

One month ago DARTZ presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior. As the world's resonance was very huge and DARTZ got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, DARTZ make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior.

We just looking for most expensive products for this car -- and that's why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all. We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: 'Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales - we will keep You live! We don't Earth fall down to Ocean!

One of my students' current assignments is to correct the grammar and spelling of this press release, an exercise that should keep them busy for a while, and in the meantime I'm sure that our "Sea Brothers" will, to quote Chris Howden again, appreciate the company's circum...spection!

Czech mate

I've just been watching Ghost Hunters, which I must admit is a show I frequently tune in to, not because I necessarily believe in ghosts and the paranormal but simply because it's often just good entertainment. The use of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) on the show always makes me smile; they will make tape recordings in the buildings that they investigate, play them back later in the hope of finding disembodied voices or unexplained noises amongst the static, and then present their findings to the owner of the building in question.

On the show we see night vision footage of the team moving around the building and making their recordings - it's always at night, with all the lights switched off - and asking questions like "if you are here, make a sign," "are you trapped in this place?" or "do you resent these people living in your house?" Most editions of the show are set in the USA - once they visited Ireland but they found no ghosts, only spirits - but today the team was investigating an old castle in the Czech Republic. They wandered around the castle - at night, of course - shooting copious amounts of video footage and posing the usual questions to the ghosts for their EVP work, and then we were shown their analysis of the footage which, to their frustration and disappointment, revealed far fewer anomalies than normal.

A thought then struck me. They were in the Czech Republic, trying to converse with ghosts...in English.

Do you want me to tell them or will you?