Makes my turducken look sick

From Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine.....

Roast a l'Imperatrice

The Trojan roast pig , stuffed with figpeckers, oysters, and thrushes, and the whole basted with good wine and fine meat broth - which the Roman Senate felt itself obliged to forbid by sumptuary law because of its extravagance - must yield to the luxury of this recipe.
Take the pit out of an olive and replace it by an anchovy. Put the olive into a lark, the lark into a quail, the quail into a partridge, the partridge into a pheasant. The pheasant in its turn disappears inside a turkey, and the turkey is stuffed into a sucking pig. Roasted, this will present the quintessence of the culinary art, the masterpiece of gastronomy. But don't make the mistake of serving it whole, just like that. The gourmand eats only the olive and the anchovy.

The Case of the Twelve Red-Bearded Dwarves, part 31

Cocklecarrot suggested that this ludicrous case, which need never have come into court, could easily be settled if the dwarfs (in the person of the hydraulic laundry) would apologise to themselves (in the person of the rocking-horse firm) for having destroyed a twill covering for a non-existent tail. The dwarfs lined up, six a side, and apologised in chorus. They then left the court singing Moonlight and Mrs. Mason.

Cocklecarrot said afterwards, 'I am hoping that my next case will not include these tiresome little gentlemen. I think I am about due for a bit of straightforward stuff, without all these distractions and fooleries.'

Significant figures

"Stewie, a Maine Coon who lives in Reno, Nevada, is the world’s longest domesticated cat. He measures 48 and 1/2 inches.... "

That's the original report.
As it comes into the Odd Spot in The Age, it's

Robin Hendrickson and Erik Brandsness of Reno, Nevada, knew their pet cat, Stewie, was big but were surprised to find the five-year-old Maine Coon is a world-beater. Measuring 123.2 centimetres, he is now in the Guinness World Records as the world’s longest domestic cat.

That is, a measurement to the nearest half inch has become a measurement to the nearest tenth of a centimetre, an increase in claimed accuracy of about twelve times. Which is silly, because cat length measurements just aren't that accurate, particularly if your cat doesn't want to be measured, as mine didn't. Was Stewie measured with claws retracted or claws extended?

Retribution

Reading Max Hasting's book on the fall of Japan. Some impresssive statistics.

* For every 4 tons of supplies the Americans delivered to their troops in 1944, the Japanese could manage two pounds.
* The Japanese had as many carrier planes in the Leyte theatre as the Americans had destroyers.

Australians would have surrendered. Quite rightly, of course.

Practically perfect in every way

Hearing that McKillop was to be called St. Mary of the Cross I thought that was odd, that surely that name would have been taken by now: but no, there appear to be comparatively few St. Marys - only nine, with another eight blesseds. When did the name first become popular?

St. Mary
Bl. Mary Bartholomea of Florence
Bl. Mary Angela Truszkowska
Bl. Mary Tokuan & Mary Choun
St. Mary Cleophas
St. Mary Di Rosa
Bl. Mary Guengoro
Bl. Mary MacKillop
St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi
Bl. Mary Magdalen Kiota
St. Mary Magdalen Postel
St. Mary Magdelene
St. Mary Salome
Bl. Mary Tanaura
St. Mary the Consoler
St. Mary the Slave
Bl. Mary Tokuan & Mary Choun

Oh, of course, they would have been Marias, or Maries - but no:

Bl. Maria Candida of the Eucharist
Bl. Maria Christina Brando
Bl. Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala
Bl. Maria Ludovica de Angelis
Bl. Maria Repetto
Bl. Maria Teresa Ferragud Roig
Bl. Maria Jesus
Bl. Maria Veronica
Bl. Maria Felicidad Masia
St. Maria Crocifissa Di Rosa
St. Maria de Cerevellon
St. Maria Dominic Mazzarello
St. Maria Francesca Gallo
St. Maria Giuseppe Rossello
St. Maria Goretti
Bl. Maria Liberata Pallota
St. Maria Magdalen Dei Pazzi
St. Maria Magdalen of Canossa
St. Maria Michaela Desmaisieres
Bl. Maria Pilar Martinez Garcia & Companions
St. Maria Soledad
Bl. Marie Rivier
St. Marie Claude Brard
St. Marie Croissy
St. Marie Dufour
St. Marie Hanisset
St. Marie Magdalen Desjardin
St. Marie Magdalen Fontaine
St. Marie Magdalen Postel
St. Marie Meunier
Bl. Marie of the Incarnation
Bl. Marie Rose Durocher
St. Marie St. Henry
St. Marie Teresa Couderc
St. Marie Trezelle

Only another 22 saints and 14 blesseds. 31 and 22 in all. I suppose that's fifty. Still less than I would have expected considering that Catholic women have for so many generations been given the name. I would have thought that one in two catholics were women and one in what, twenty of them were called Mary in some form or another; about 2 1/2 percent of all saints should be Maries. With about 10,000 saints in all, that would be 250. They're underrepresented.

Age Bin - Afghanistan

James Brown suggests in The Age that “The Taliban has waged a propaganda war…. Successful spin … has taken a mix of ragtag local fighters, criminal networks, and ideological extremists and linked them to the mythology of the Soviet-destroying mujahideen.”

Oh, come on. The people who puffed a handful of sandaled malcontents into a world-defying juggernaut of global terrorism were George Bush, Tony Blair, and John Howard, and they did this for the obvious reason that in their uninflated state tribesmen alternating seasonally between the hoe and the AK-47 make lousy bogeymen.

Even if you feel that Australia should have a permanent hate on for ragtag local fighters, criminal networks, and ideological extremists it should be noted that we can find them in, inter alia, Serbia, Setzuan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Syria, and the Solomon Islands, and the only one of those we have any business turning up in is, at a pinch, the Solomons. The Taliban are a nasty lot, but they are not the Devil, and even if they were Australia is not the Archangel Michael.

Headlines that mean different things in Australia and America

BRISBANE STRIKES OUT ON BROADBAND