The missus was on vacation last week, so I spent a lot of time with her and thus didn’t have time for this blog. So stuff has been piling up on my “virtual desk”. Here are two random stories I found on the BBC’s site that might be of interest to some people:
When you think of sharks, you probably think of lots of teeth, then dying in the worst way possible. After that, however, you probably think of documentaries. After all, “Shark Week” is one of the most popular weeks in the Discovery Channel’s programming schedule. But believe it or not, even with hours upon hours of shark footage in the can, no one had ever filmed a whale shark pooing… until now. Apparently whale shark poo is “as thick as your arm, gungy and smells disgusting”. No surprises there, I suppose. Scientists apparently collected the poo, so as to learn more about the diet of said sharks.
Ever heard of the Cavern Club? It’s a nightclub in Liverpool made famous by the fact that the Beatles played there. It’s still open after all these years – partly as a functioning club, and partly as a tourist attraction. The club apparently has bunch of bricks in the wall with the names of artists that played there over the years chiseled in. Only now, there’s one less brick, as the club has removed the brick bearing Gary Glitter’s name. Glitter, who initially gained infamy for taking a computer containing thousands of images of child pornography to a British computer repair shop, spent three years in a Vietnamese prison for sex crimes against young girls. The club’s owner, Bill Heckle, is a former history teacher, and although he does not condone what Glitter has done, he nevertheless felt so bad about taking the brick down that he put up a plaque describing what happened (record producer Jonathan King, who was also convicted of sex crimes, had his brick removed as well).