Although I considered London a vile place and fled it for Downe as soon as possible, the existence and writings of its current mayor Boris Johnson are always a delight.
In today’s Daily Telegraph, he writes charmingly of his suppressing his impulse to slay a bee with a copy of book about Marcus Aurelius. Swatting a bee would be one fewer Apis or Bombus to pollinate the world’s flowers and that would be a bad thing.
It would also be an inappropriate use of the tome in question. Surely a book on Aurelius should be used to thrash only jellyfish to death.
Unfortunately, the honeybees that tend to invade houses here in Texas are often “weaponized” bees, i.e. they have hybridized with belligerent, aggressive,
roadhive rage introduced varieties. Such bees definitely hold a grudge, and no heavy tome about Marcus Aurelius would provide sufficient defense. Nay, not even a provocative book by Hitchens or HWMNBN would protect against such a determined and grumpy foe.Am I the only person who finds the Lyle’s Golden Syrup “out of the strong came forth sweetness” lion and bees logo to be weird and gruesome? I know it comes from a Bible story about Samson, but it’s still teh creepeez.
Seconds after reading this post I spotted some ants in my kitchen. What’s the best tome for squishing formicidae?
@ Mr Darwin: it is a fact universally acknowledged that posterity will view the current Mayor of London as the greatest statesman of this or any other age. His broadsides in the broadsheets often have a heavy science content, as I have documented before.
@Kristi: it is a bit creepy, especially as the lion in the Bible story is definitely much deader than the one on the syrup label.
M– Something by E. O. Wilson, for that touch of irony.Any of these books should do the trick, for both formicidae and anthophila.
Dr Gee, if you start a subscription for a suitable monument I will dob in a fiver. In his book “The Dream of Rome” Mr Johnson is very struck by the 27 metre high state of Arminius, router of the Romans in the Teutoberg forest. Perhaps for his splendid scientific prose alone, we should consider such a monument (complete with miniskirt) when Mr Johnson expires. Politically.
Kristi: ‘Unfortunately, the honeybees that tend to invade houses here in Texas are often “weaponized” bees’.
So you can truly say ‘those bees bomb us.’
I do apologise for that strange weaponized graphic that invaded my comment above. I meant to say ‘@ Matt’ using Mr Brown’s abbreviation, but something about @, followed by M, followed by another @, does odd things to the coding.
In Have I Got Views For You Mr Johnson writes to the effect that the Left, having discovered that socialism was a complete failure as a system of government, invented political correctness as a form of revenge.
Matt, try a kettle full of boiling water.
I think I'll try that weaponized graphic againWell, lawdy hush mah mouth!
So it WAS there. What a relief. I thought Emma had been spiking the sherry with laudanum again.
Death to the jellyfish – or Death by jellyfish?
p.s. I want to try this tooGood fun, isn't it. I wonder if they can change the colour?I love how the font is also different.Sorry, Mr. Darwin – I’ll stop and go home now…
Hey folks, check in the comments here for lots of this formatting malarkey.
I give you: subscript, and also superscript. Let’s see if it works inside one of those weird boxes:
apparently, ^it^ ~doesn't~I love how everyone seems to have been ignoring your formatting experiments in that string, Richard…
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IT MAKES ME ANGRY!!!!!!!not~really~
*I’ll*_get_^my^~coat~now.
And now it doesn’t work. Typical.
Let it out, Richard.
(By the way, I think you just forgot the spaces.)
I think you need to give it more space.
not really
I’ll get my coat now.
Frank, people will think we’re twins or something.
Have we ever been seen in the same room together?
No, otherwise they wouldn’t think it – duh.
From the first moment I wrote here, I thought ‘what I need is a large beige box’.
.Last time I thought I needed one of those they buried me in it.
bugger
By the time I figure this all out,
they'll have switched to MT4Charles – that was funny, thank you. :)
Thanks. That’s all I can say – you made an old misery laugh, you lot.
no problem
Maxine