Shrubbery tomfoolery at Neville Towers

Shrubbery tomfoolery at Neville Towers

England football star Gary Neville has had his new shrubbery vandalised only days after having it fashioned into the letters 'MUFC' to represent his club side Manchester United Football Club.

The Man U captain will have been dismayed this morning to find his pride and joy shrubbery has been defaced to read 'MOFO' - derogatory ghetto slang - in what would appear to be a guerrilla gardening incident, rumoured to have been perpetrated by anonymous rival fans in the grounds of his £7m converted farmhouse mansion.

Local involvement has not been ruled out, since it has been reported that his neighbours were less than impressed by the topiary in the first place.

One local resident who declined to be named said "The property is somewhat imposing as it is, and the addition of the shrubbery spelling out the football club was just over the top."

The new look shrubbery has caused amusement amongst the diminutive rural Greater Manchester community.

"Besides, it looked a bit rubbish anyway.", he continued, "The alteration is a bit uncalled for, but I must confess to a smirk of amusement when I heard about it."

He dismissed the gravity of the incident.

"I don't think you can really call it vandalism though: planting shrubs? That's like saving the environment!"

Survival of the preparedest

Survival of the preparedest

'They' (you know...'them'!) accuse Bear Grylls of cheating for 'surviving' by sleeping in hotels and having a support team, so they make a big deal about putting Les Stroud in a desert with no support team and carrying his own cameras and stuff....except he's got a crashed truck with a load of water in it, next to a tree containing berries which he researched beforehand, and found that he could eat. The other day (on TV), they put him in a life raft and ditched him in the ocean, but it's in the ocean under a sticky out bit of land where there were a multitude of little islands with coconut trees. And because he had to carry his cameras, they gave him a little dinghy, which he slept in because his life raft was filling with water. And he had a support team which towed him to shore when it got stormy. It's not like I want to watch the guy die on screen or anything, and I have to say, I'm in awe of his skills, and I don't claim that it's easy or that I could do it....but, if you're the best, and you're going to show us how to survive adverse scenarios, strap a single camera to your head, and get out in the middle of the Pacific on a plank.
He was in the canyons in America the other day - again, on TV, obviously...Nevada way I think - and lit a fire with scrapings from a chunk of magnesium he had in his pocket. How very convenient!...that you had a block of readily combustible magnesium in your pocket! Fancy that...what good fortune! Thanks Les, I've learned.
I've learned that you can survive in the middle of nowhere with a tent, a coconut tree, some berries, something to light a fire with, and gallons of water.
No shit! That's called camping!
Might as well take bog roll too
...and a car.
...and a house.

Cow punching

So...it's like this. I figure if Rex Hunt can do it, then I've got a bloody ripper on me hands: Cow Punching.
Discovery is going to snatch this up....

Cow Punching

Fishing.
It's the most popular sport on the planet, right? Catching a fish by it's mouth on a barbed hook, then dragging it against it's will to the surface, yanking it from the water which it requires for breath, watching it gulping at impossible air and flapping around in distress, claiming that it doesn't hurt and they're too dumb to get stressed. Chuckling at how it wriggles, saying stuff like "Ha! you're a feisty little feller ain'tcha?!" and kissing it, bellowing "Yabbadabbadoo", or similar, and throwing it back so it can experience the same hell again and again.
With that in mind, picture this scene:
So, you've got this bearded (optional) chap who chases a cow around a field with a lasso. He catches it by the neck and snaps the loop suffocation-tight with a flick of the wrist. As he pulls it close, he punches his bovine quarry to the ground and holds it's head in a bucket of water. It struggles for breath while our hero - laughing - compliments it on being a "spirited feller". As the body goes limp - and herein lies the art, like fanning a fading flame - he pulls it's head from the bucket, kisses it full on the nose, smacks it on the backside with his palm..and off it runs, bucking and snorting, for the process to happen time and time again. Now, that's sport!
In subsequent weeks, we introduce celebrities, or a local specialist with distinguished honours in the field of cow punching...with, perhaps, a story of how his (or her) father punched forty cows to the ground in a single afternoon back in the heady '20s.
...I televise it, and broadcast it to millions.
It's a winner!

Catbat legend rekindled in remote India

New Delhi, India

The Indian Catbat, largely considered to be a fictional entity, has staged a surprise comeback in rural Indian folklore following an absence of 150 years. Sightings, and subsequent reports of a roadkill specimen has led to skeptical representatives of the international scientific community making the four day pilgrimage from New Delhi to the densely forested district of Arunachal Pradesh in the East.
Locally coined 'BAgha Machchhara' - literally translated to 'Flying Tiger' - the leathery winged catlike species was generally considered to be purely mythological, a physical specimen of which has never been captured. Only one obscure and far from convincing plaster casting of skeletal remains exists in the vaults of the New Delhi Natural History Museum and those who have examined it have regarded this as an elaborate hoax.
Legend dictates that the nocturnal creature preys on swine and
last provoked international intrigue in the mid 19th century when
domesticated dogs were targeted by the beast as a result of local wild boar populations being decimated by a ruthless parasitic infestation.

Sightings were reported but unsubstantiated by British colonial explorers at the time. The plaster cast of remains was thought to be counterfeit. The specimen was found in the possession of the unidentified, dismembered body of a Brit, who appeared to have met his ironic end as the victim of a large tiger attack. (Picture: "Catbat strikes" - artists impression)