Just add water
ACROSS Asia and beyond, there is a persistent belief in the extraordinary restorative power of remedies ground from rare animals. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that a sample of powdered tiger has been blasted into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China, “for backup storage of this endangered species”, according to the China Daily newspaper.
As conservation strategies go, it is a puzzling one. Even if powdered tiger could be turned back into the real thing, like some sort of ecological stock cube, putting your larder 1000 kilometres up in orbit seems inconvenient.
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Hiding elements of endangered animals in exotic locations does lay the groundwork for an enjoyable scavenger hunt for some 23rd century conservationist, traversing the denuded Earth in search of the DNA needed to reboot it all again.
Feedback thinks tiger DNA would be much better preserved in, er, tigers. Sadly, the last echo of the species is likely to be found circulating in the bodies of wealthy impotent men, which might at least give them pause for thought, lest an enterprising bioengineer decides to poach them for the valuable biological material they contain. How the tables could turn!
“”During the drone fiasco, passengers were told to avoid Gatwick airport ‘for the foreseeable future including tomorrow’,” says Brian Reffin Smith. “Nice to know they had everything covered”.”
Hairy situation
IN A scene straight from a body hair removal advert, a man in Montana says he was shot at after being mistaken for Bigfoot. Sheriffs in Lewis and Clark county told reporters that the unnamed man came under fire while carrying out target practice in the woods.
After taking cover, a presumably animated exchange took place between the two men, in which the shooter revealed that he was hunting for Bigfoot, and castigated his target for not wearing the orange safety bib one is apparently required to wear if one goes about in the woods while not being Bigfoot.
If ever there was a moment to question your appearance, it must have been this. But we also ponder the ethics of shooting a notoriously camera shy cryptid. Perhaps the hunter is planning to send samples of powdered bigfoot into space for safekeeping?
Socks appeal
VARIOUS outlets report that a man in China has been hospitalised with a lung infection thanks to his penchant for smelling his own dirty socks. Further details are hard to sniff out: the unnamed resident of Zhangzhou reportedly contracted a fungal infection due to his “unusual” habit.
Clearly, evolution put our feet as far from our noses as possible for olfactory comfort, although other people’s feet are a different matter. Despite the vaporous providence of the story, we are relating it to you if only so you can wave your copy of 91av at the person in your train carriage who has unwisely removed their trainers.
Oh deer
A JUDGE in Missouri has ordered a poacher to repeatedly watch Bambi while in jail. The sentence requires David Berry Jr to watch the animated Disney film at least once per month during his year-long term for illegally killing hundreds of deer.
Repeated viewings of the 1942 tear-jerker might classify as cruel and unusual punishment. Yet Feedback wonders, what other crimes might benefit from cinematic punishments? Rogue researchers could be made to watch Frankenstein for a course in professional ethics, or indeed any of Michael Crichton’s cautionary tales committed to celluloid, from Jurassic Park to Westworld.
Graffiti vandals could be sentenced to sit down with the 2016 sleeper hit Paint Drying, a 10-hour-long feature of, uh, paint drying on a wall.
Notoriously bad films could ease the burden on overcrowded prisons, allowing prisoners to complete their sentences much faster. As anyone who sat through all 121 minutes of infamous 2003 turkey Gigli will attest: it feels much, much longer than that.
Change sought
LAST year witnessed the feverish rise – and equally spectacular collapse – of bitcoin, everyone’s favourite cryptocurrency/decentralised payment system/drain on the world’s electrical grid. While promises that the blockchain can solve the world’s problems are ten a cryptopenny, explanations for how exactly it will achieve that are harder to come by.
The latest “modest proposal”, as US congressman Warren Davidson unwisely calls his pitch, is to fund President Donald Trump’s beloved border wall between Texas and Mexico via direct donations from the public. In an interview with NPR, Davidson suggested sponsors could receive “Wall Coins” in return, though what you would be able to spend them on remains unclear (walls in other places, perhaps?).
It isn’t for Feedback to point out that Wall Coins seem to be nothing but government bonds garnished with technobabble. Perhaps there is a sound logic to how such a scheme can make you rich; to find out what it is, and receive some of our newly minted Fraud Coins into the bargain, just send us £100 in a stamped addressed envelope and await no reply.
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