If I was a rich man (diddle diddle diddle diddle dum)...

If I was a rich man (apologies to you if you now have the song from Fiddler on the Roof  in your head) I'd be able to build a chicken coop like this:

This Palladian eggs-travangance is the proposed 130,000 UK Pound new home of City of London tycoon Crispin Odey's chickens, at his country estate.  Commentators are calling it a fowl waste of money. 

It's also reminding UK commentators of this cracking duck palace, claimed by MP Peter Viggers as an expense to the House of Commons:

 Although at only 1,645 UK Pounds, this seems like rather a bargain, and of course, I'm sure Sir Peter was able to worker harder for his constituents knowing that his ducks were safe from predators.  

Sometimes chickens can be bad for you

This is from the UK Guardian online.

Improbable research: chicken bone injury leaves a fowl smell

Baffling medical mystery of the poultry worker who stank for five years

• Marc Abrahams
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 October 2011 16.29 BST

A man who dressed chickens for a living cut his finger on a chicken bone and carried the stink with him for half a decade. Photograph: Orlando Kissner/AFP/Getty Images

Four doctors in Wales rose to fame because of a man who pricked his finger and smelled putrid for five years.
The doctors were hit nose-on with one of the most baffling medical mysteries on record. It all started with a chicken. The case ended happily – yet mysteriously – half a decade later, the stink having vanished. The Lancet published an account of this called, accurately, A Man Who Pricked His Finger and Smelled Putrid for 5 Years.
The report, written by the relieved but puzzled physicians, ends with a plea: "We ask assistance from colleagues who may have encountered a similar case or for suggestions to relieve this patient's odour."
Here's what happened. In September 1991, a 29-year-old man who dressed chickens for a living cut his finger with a chicken bone. This fateful prick cause his finger to soon become reddish and smelly. The man got himself to the Royal Gwent Hospital, in Newport, Wales, where Drs Caroline Mills, Meirion Llewelyn, David Kelly and Peter Holt took him under their care.
The doctors treated the man with the antibiotic flucloxacillin. His hand still smelled.
Then they tried a different antibiotic, ciprofloxacin. His hand still smelled.
Next came erythromycin. Still his hand smelled.
Next up: metronidazole. The smell persisted.
The doctors delved into the hand surgically, but found nothing there of interest. They did a skin biopsy and cultured the microorganisms from it, hoping to discover some noxious bug. Here, too, they found nothing of interest.
Meanwhile, the man continued to stink.
The doctors took stool cultures. These stank, too, but only in the ordinary way.
The doctors tried everything they could think of: isotretinoin, psoralen, ultraviolet light treatment, colpermin, probanthene, chlorophyll, and even antibiotic withdrawal to allow restoration of normal flora. All to no avail.
As they put it: "Although the clinical appearance improved, the most disabling consequence of the infection was a putrid smell emanating from the affected arm, which could be detected across a large room, and when confined to a smaller examination room became almost intolerable."
After five years the man still stank. The doctors wrote up a description of this curious case, and published it in hopes that some physician somewhere had encountered a similar problem and could suggest a way to relieve the patient's distress.
For treating, and of necessity smelling, the unfortunate man who pricked his finger and smelled putrid for five years, the doctors – together with their unnamed patient – won the 1998 Ig Nobel prize in the field of medicine.
Their acceptance speech spoke of their hope to advance medical knowledge: "We published this case to seek help. Despite enormous amounts of correspondence, nobody had ever seen anything like this before, and no suggestions were effective. Our story, however, does have a happy ending.
Our patient no longer smells putrid. Thank you very much."
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize

Lunchtime FAIL - with amusing results!

Mental note to self - when you put cans of soft drink in the freezer to chill them fast because someone is coming round for lunch in 15 minutes, PUT THE TIMER ON TO REMEMBER TO GET THEM BACK OUT AGAIN!

Because otherwise, this is what happens:

Boom!

 

 

And let me tell you, frozen Coke is a bugger to get out of your freezer - the devastation spread across 3 shelves and down into the drawers at the bottom.    I won't be freezing cans again any time soon!

25 random things about me

Inspired by this post at The Virginia House, I remembered I did this on Facebook a couple of years ago.

Funnily enough, most of them are still accurate today - except for the Krispy Kreme donuts, because they're not yet available in Adelaide (although coming soon, apparently).  I think I must have got given a box when DH went to Melbourne for work!

1. I like wine far too much for my own good
2.I just ate 2 Krispy Kreme donuts and want another
3. I wish I'd never shaved my legs as a teenager
4. When I was 18 I had a strapless dress that was purple
5. and my first pair of high heels was white (and I'm from Essex.  It was the 80s, so sue me!)
6. I worry about my elderly parents
7. I worry about my children
8. I worry too much!
9. I'd love a boob job
10. I have many tattoos (21?)
11. I wish I hadn't turned down a really good job when I was 20 to go back to uni (and then drop out)
12. Glad I turned it down as I met my husband afterwards at uni
13. I can drink my DH under the table on vodka (just like Karen Allen in Indiana Jones!)
14. I kissed a girl and I liked it
15. I have a partially un-fused sacrum = 6 lumbar vertebrae
16. I would like to lose 15kg but can't be arsed
17. I like chickens, live ones of course!
18. I served Tom Baker (1970s Dr Who) when I was working in a UK bookshop.  He's really tall
19. My favourite author is Jonathan Carroll, and you've probably never heard of him
20. Favourite perfume is Issy Miyake
21. Favourite smell is my children's hair after a bath
22. Cats are essential to modern life
23. I fell asleep at a party after drinking absinthe
24. I went to a Batman premiere in London in 2005
25. If I had a million dollars I would give most of it away

Mummy FAIL (then win)

Seriously, you couldn't make this up - here's what happened to me today....

The lovely Adelaide City Council guys and little ol' me, dredging Torrens Lake.  As you do...

As per usual, Wednesday is walking group day.  But as it's school holidays here in Australia, I had DS (age 7) with me as well as DD (4).  We're 3/4 of the way around our 4.5kms circuit of Torrens Lake in the centre of Adelaide, I'm carrying a friend's dog (don't ask), DD is running ahead and DS is helpfully pushing the empty stroller (buggy, pushchair, pram, whatever you call it) for me.  All is fine and dandy in the summer sun, it's a beautiful day, 30C, lovely jubbly.

Next thing I know there's a splash and I see my (empty) stroller sinking like a stone into the lake...  with my bag hooked onto it.  My lovely Belgian tapestry chicken bag that's got my car keys, phone, wallet/purse, drivers license, DD's beloved Blankie, etc in it!  Note to self - don't let 7 yr old push stroller vigorously right next to the lake where there's no fence - this is a mummy Fail.

Cue hysteria from the kids, with DD carrying on in an Oscar-worthy way, hands raised to heaven, tears and snot streaming from her, yelling 'Blankie, Blankie, this is a disaster!', and DS crying because his new Swiss Army Knife was also sitting on the stroller seat.  Shouldn't have let it fall in the lake then, mate :-(

What to do in this pickle?  I wasn't going to jump in the lake, it's filthy (and quite deep there), not to mention I had  the kids going bananas with me.  Thankfully, my gorgeous friend B kept a cool head, phoned my hubby, and phoned the City Council, who dispatched a (not very) Rapid Response Team to help.

Hubby took the crying kids away for lunch and B stayed while the guys got a long pole (a remarkably difficult process, they had to go away and come back again twice) and started dredging for the stroller.

But wait, there's more!

Half and hour later, no sign of pram, City guys go away, B drives me to my car and I use hubby's keys to get us all home.  Commiserations, etc with the kids.  Me and B joke about getting dive tanks, as my hubs is a PADI scuba diver.  A couple of hours later, we discuss with B's hubby, who promptly goes down to the lake with a big hook on a rope and within 10 minutes RESCUES MY SHIT!

This is a great chicken bag! 

The only unrecovered item was the Swiss army knife, easily replaced.  Blankie has now been washed and returned to very happy little girl, my car keys are drying out, and we'll see if my phone recovers - at least I've now got the SIM. Thankyou thankyou to M, B, and all concerned!

See, I told you you couldn't make this stuff up - it's never a dull moment here!

My cat is seeing someone else on the side

*sob* What do you do when someone you have lived with and loved for eight years suddenly stops coming home at night? Stops sleeping with you? Treats the house like a hotel, disappears for days on end, and then sneaks in for food at 2am?

This is what is going on between me and my middle cat, Lister! (yes, he's named after a character from Red Dwarf. Google it if you need to)

*wail* The only thing I can think of that set him off on this behaviour is that we went away overnight on Christmas Day. We were only gone for 24 hours, but I think he may still have not forgiven us for going to Europe for 11 weeks earlier this year. Apparently he was veeeeeeeerrrryyy cool towards the cat sitter while we were gone.

*cry* He also may be cross because the hubby has been painting last week too.

*boo hoo*

Who can tell how a puss thinks? He is often a miserable little sod who sprays on things, bites the hand that feeds and gives us the cold shoulder BUT I STILL LOVE HIM ANYWAY!