Early Monday morning on the way back from the vet (after Panjo had his final innoculation), Panjo managed to escape from the enclosed canopy of his owner’s bakkie.

The search is on, but so far Panjo has not been found.

Choppers have been brought in, two way radios have been donated, shops are donating food to those helping with the search.  Hundreds of people have volunteered to help.

Wildlife agencies have promised not to shoot Panjo if he is found but to dart him so they can catch him safely.  His owner has not slept, and is desperately searching everywhere with trackers.

If you happen to stumble across Panjo, his owners say you must just point a stick at him and say “NO” (I think this is their ‘speak’ for please don’t eat me).  And, they ask as well, if you do see him, please offer him a chicken … it’s his favourite.

Anyway, let’s hope this ends well and Panjo is found safe … he was spotted in Middelburg by two separate people this morning … hold thumbs everyone!!

Updates to follow ……

The nice little whale is liable to jump out the water and go “boo” in an attempt to scare you!

The problem is, if he lands on your nice expensive little yacht, he’s going to damage it a tad!

Oh, and another little thing boys … the Cape Town authorities are wanting to have a word with you!  (Teasing whales doesn’t go down very well with them, and they may want some of your bank account!). 

It cracked me up, and I reckon it deserves sharing with a wider audience.

So, if there are any chubby buggers around who reckon they’re wide enough, have a giggle at this….

Please contact your line manager for a stock of PRAT forms.

The incident referred to above has been identified as a clear case of operator error, in that due process was not observed during the assembly stage, leading to a vital part of the trouser support mechanism being left curled up in a bedroom drawer. Any liability that may have been originally perceived as lying with the equipment supplier or their manufacturing subcontractor (in this case, Primark and the Shenzen Trouser Corporation, respectively) can now be considerd to lie with the operator of the trousers.

In order to prevent further incidents of this type, and without in any way admitting liability for the above incident, Leicester City Council are running optional ‘Belt Awareness Seminars’ on Tuesday mornings in the staff canteen. [Please note - Trousers are mandatory for these sessions, but belts will be provided]

Suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far failed to produce an agreement.
The unrest began last Tuesday when Al – Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 54. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.
The suicide bombers’ union, the British Organisation of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action.
General secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, “Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of jihad. We don’t ask for much in return but to be treated like this by management is a kick in the teeth.”
Mr Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins but pointed out that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce and not by management. “Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an annual bonus of 25,000 virgins,” complains Amir. “And you can be sure they’ll all be pretty ones too. How can Al – Qaeda afford that for members of the management but not 72 for the people who do the real work?”
Speaking from a shed somewhere in the West Midlands, where he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained,
“We sympathise with our workers’ concerns but Al – Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern day jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It’s a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don’t like cutting wages but I’d hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won’t be able to blow themselves up.”
He defended management bonuses by claiming these were necessary to attract good fanatical clerics. “How am I supposed to attract the best people if I can’t compete with the private sector?” asked Mr.Bin Laden.
Talks broke down this morning after management’s last ditch proposal of a virgin sharing scheme was rejected outright after a failure to agree on orifice allocation quotas. One virgin, who refused to be named, was quoted as saying “I’ll be buggered if I’m agreeing to anything like that…it’s too much to swallow”.
Unless some sort of agreement is reached over the weekend, suicide bombers will put down explosives at midday on Monday. Most branches are supporting the strike. Only the North London branch, which has a different union, is likely to continue working. However, some members of that branch will only be using explosives from the waist down, in order to express solidarity with their striking brethren.

Earlier this afternoon, I received an email from DaveH, kindly enquiring about my absence, whilst (him being a trick cyclist and all….) covertly and skilfully digging into the state of my mental health.

I started to respond to Dave by email, then out of courtesy included the other 4 MadHatters admins, then though “Bollocks to it – I’ll post it on the blog for all to see” – so here it is, starting with Dave’s email.
Oh, and by the way, if I’ve inadvertently offended anybody by either mentioning them, or not mentioning them, then I apologise in advance.

To: MicN
Subject: Nobbly and CBA

–
Dave Hambidge

Hi Dave (and Hazel, and everybody else),

I hope that it hasn’t come to that, but at the moment the whole blogging thing just leaves me a bit cold.

The MH was always a bit of a transient thing – evolving as it went along, in terms of style, presentation and contributors. At the moment it just doesn’t grab me at all; merely a collection of obscure news articles from around the world, that are of no real interest to me.

Sorry Duncan, this isn’t meant as a swipe at you, and hopefully you know me well enough for you not to take it that way. I know that you are the only person keeping it afloat at the moment, and that you have been for some considerable time, in the face of a stiffer test of resolve and personality that I could ever stand up to. If I were given to wearing a hat, I’d take it off to you.

There have been two phases of the MH/Carmen’s Café that I have really enjoyed, and taken an active role in – one was when CC first formed, and we had daily active banter that at times evolved into what was almost a situation comedy script centred around ‘The Café’. The other was when we first picked up the Erskine-Kellie brothers, Jill, Walker, Woman In Black, Bruce Hood, and a bunch of other strangers too numerous to mention, and there was good lively interaction between a whole range of blogs. Since then, however, I have struggled to maintain an interest, and can’t really get into the spirit of what was once infamously described as the ‘Is it Friday yet?’ style of posting and commenting. I know it seems petty, but anything laced with LOLs, ROFLs, PMSLs and smilies really gets under my skin, and unfortunately for me, that’s what the MH has become.

I know that it’s still open to me to post stuff that is more to my taste and in line with my bizarre sense of humour, but that’s where the CBA kicks in…. I just genuinely Can’t Be Arsed.

Hopefully, (as I said to Duncan the other week) this will pass, and I can get back to being me, and carry on as before.

Meantime, I’ll continue to stick in the odd comment here and there whilst taking the Auld Cynic’s Fukkum Powders in liberal doses, and try to recapture the old me.

Thanks for listening.

it was a bit like this - only darker

Years ago, when I lived in Edinburgh, a group of us decided to celebrate a work colleague’s birthday by going out for the night. The plan was to meet up for a few drinks, go to a restaurant for a meal, have some more drinks, and then hit the night life. It was a good plan (I may have played some part in drawing it up ). Where it fell down was in the execution – some prat allowed the ‘birthday boy’ to choose the restaurant for the meal !!!

He chose an Armenian restaurant he had recently discovered (he wasn’t the first to discover it – but the others had wisely not broadcast it’s whereabouts). The restaurant (and I use that term loosely) was situated at the end of a narrow alleyway smelling of piss. There was nothing to advertise the existence of a restaurant ( I think this was a ploy to avoid a visit from Health and Safety Inspectors) save a child’s blackboard mounted on an easel on the pavement with a chalk-written message directing us to the cellar of a nearby disused shop . . . .

No expense had been spent to recreate an authentic Armenian dining experience. The room was in darkness – apart from the light cast by some spluttering candles. Diners were seated at long rows of tables, the ‘seats’ being planks of untreated wood placed atop empty (I checked ) beer barrels – if you twisted in your seat to speak to the person next to you, you risked getting a splinter in your arse!

The food was freshly prepared and cooked on the night, i.e., there was at least an hour between each course – the interval being filled with traditional Armenian ‘entertainment’ which was as dire as the subsequent food served up.

After 1.1/2 hrs, when all I’d had to eat was the starter, I hit on plan B

I had noticed a pub at the end of the alleyway. So, on the excuse of going to the loo, me and a mate nipped out to the pub, had a few pints, played some pool, munched on some packets of crisps and peanuts, and nipped back every now and again to see if the restaurant was ready to serve the next course. Our frequent absences was noted, however, and we had to confess. Upon which, the whole party joined us in the pub, leaving birthday boy on his own in the restaurant with instructions to let us know when the next course was being served.

By the time the meal was completed – a 6 hour marathon just to eat 5 courses that tasted like shit, we were all – apart from birthday boy – too rat-arsed to be bothered doing any of the night-life I we had planned to take in (i.e., trip down to the docks to visit the pubs with strippers)

Somewhat surprisingly, the birthday boy never spoke to me again at work, claiming I had ruined his birthday celebratory night out. Can you believe it ???

O.K. that was one of the worst meals I experienced. What was yours? Have you had a dining experience that left something to be desired ?