Friday 24 September 2010

Teach A Leopard To Fish...

Man, it's been a busy week in US politics. Try as I might, though, I can't generate a post on any of it. Sure, it's great that medical insurance companies are as of now legally prevented from refusing people on the grounds of pre-existing conditions, but that's somewhat tempered by the latest round of Republican gay-bashing (once again demonstrating their commitment to the troops by blocking a military funding bill because it might potentially allow DADT to be repealed) and Virginia deciding it's time to get back into the hilarious fun-time world of executing the borderline retarded.

So let's ignore all of that, and talk about tigers instead? The Other Half and I spent an hour last night watching a nature documentary in which two men and a beardless Scottish yeti entered the mountains of Bhutan to see whether there were any tigers kicking about. The idea is to form a 5 000 mile tiger highway through the lower Himalayas, so that the tigers are no longer confined to multiple small pockets of habitation, which encourages inbreeding (much like Norfolk).

It sounds like a good idea in theory, but I have to admit that the whole way through the program all I could see in my head was this:


Nothin' the last, like, eight snow leopards want to see more than a bunch of drunken, loud-mouth tigers walking in and eating all the juiciest sheep. That's just adding insult to injury.

Of course, there might be a way to keep the tigers and snow leopards happy at the same time, and that's to get rid of then Indian leopards. Sure, they're "near threatened", but who cares? Tigers and snow leopards are straight up endangered, right? Who gives a shit about "near threatened"? I'm near threatened (by which I mean I'm never more than two hours away from The Other Half threatening to punch me for being mean).

Besides, leopards are dicks. Sneaking up on people's camps; eyeing up their horses. Total jerks. Even so, though, it's important not to sink to their level. We need to ensure that the leopards we move from the tiger corridor can be gainfully employed elsewhere.

So what can we do with them. I've come up with five ideas so far:
  1. Force gymkhana entrants to choose their horses at random. Secretly replace one horse with a leopard;
  2. Instill a much needed sense of discipline on Just A Minute by swapping out the buzzers for remote opening mechanisms for leopard cages. Also, replace standard warm-up act with ten minute wrestling match between leopard and Nicholas Parsons;
  3. Replace the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment with four hundred ill-tempered leopards. Not only do they come pre-camouflaged, but they're guaranteed to land on their feet!
  4. Use instead of foxes in fox hunts, to give the toffs a real challenge. Or; use instead of hounds in fox hunts, and the fox with genetically-engineered allosaurus;
  5. Leopard synchronised swimming.
Anyone got any more ideas?

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