h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some ballet dancers do. Or is it that they spin really fast...

Removal of the products of sexual intercourse by centrifugal force....?

Didn't Guy the Gorilla used to do that?

Or rather, something similar?

If you're curious, I *will* tell you.

Course I'm curious! The last one didn't kill me after all, though the laughter damaged a rib, I think.

a called Ben

Guy was a very old gorilla who lived in london zoo. Whne he got fed up with gawking crowds he would excrete into his hand, spin wildy on the spot, and then hurl it a the bars, spraying the crowds.
Call me immature, but I laugh every time I think about it.

So the s**t hit Guy's fans?

Pick up the handset on your phone - the sound you can hear is not the modem, it is me laughing!

Thanks for that one too.

I once went to a zoo in north Wales where the creche and adventure playground was just opposite the chimp enclosure.... The only difference that I could see was that when the baby chimps stood up in the trees and peed on their relations on the ground below their mothers did not tell them not to do it.

I would have been tempted to emulate them if I had been male and two years old.

Ben

Ormy -

It often amazes me that adults think zoos are appropriate places to take children.

I went to a zoo near my home when I was about fourteen, with school. The group, including a teacher who was only about eight years older than the class, stopped for while by the monkey enclosure. There was a young male marmoset who obviously loved an audience, performing all sorts of acrobatics. Every twenty seconds or so he would come to the front of the cage to check we were still watching, then go back to doing somersaults or whatever.

This went on for about five to ten minutes, and was quite entertaining. Nothing quite prepared us for the next bit, though. He went to the back of the enclosure about, about four metres away, and turned his back on us and stopped running around. There was a keeper nearby, and the teacher, Bod bless her, made the fatal mistake of asking this guy what the monkey was doing.

The keeper, who was obviously very used to this particular character's behaviour, glanced over at the monkey, looked the young teacher in the eye, and said "Isn't it obvious? He's had a good time, and now he's having a w**k." I don't remember the rest of the day very clearly because I couldn't see through the tears and couldn't speak, and it's probable that oxygen starvation may have damaged my brain. It was quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen.

On the subject of urination...

The LAST time I went to a zoo, other half and I were gawking at the orang utans. There was a large school group in front of us. Said group were vocally disgusted when one of the orangs, high up on the climbing frame in the indoor enclosure, started to pee. There cries were multiplied, however, when one of their fellow captives on a lower rung stuck out his lower lip and began drinking the stream of golden liquid. The teachers hustled the kids out at that point, probably wishing they'd either chosen a different zoo, or possibly a different profession, from the looks on their faces...

H.

See what you started Hoovooloo?



B

Ben,
It also refers to stuffing animals into one of the venus temples.

Suddenly I feel very mainstream...

and then the papers always report it if you cant get the animal back out again......


well, they do if you are famous.

FABT

I'm told that the 'classic' meaning of felch is actually 'to steal', though I'm not sure of the exact time period. Hence a board game that I played when I was young and innocent - the aim was to brew all kinds of potions. One of them was called the 'Fluid of Felching', which allowed you to steal potions from your rivals. There was also an NPC thief called 'Phil the Felch', IIRC.

I always thought that was filch

Probably. It was a long time ago.
-myre

Elixir TSR 1990 - fluid of filching card.

Alji

'Filch' is definitely an old word for 'steal'. http://www.dictionary.com provides an example of its usage taken from Shakespeare: 'But he that filches from me my good name/ Robs me of that which not enriches him/ And makes me poor indeed.'

With regard to the, er, animal passions alluded to by Mina: the popular duo Pet Shop Boys were, at one time, strongly rumoured to have been named in honour of the gay male variant of the practice Mina describes. However, I must add quickly that the PSBs themselves have firmly denied these rumours.

Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant once observed: 'It's pretty strange to walk down the street knowing that people are looking at you and thinking: "There goes a man who puts hamsters up his bottom."'

Given that there is nothing new under the sun - with the possible exception of condoms - I wonder if 'felch' is derived from 'filch'.

There is a certain similarity of meaning. And if it DOES derive from filch it is interesting to speculate on how old the word actually is.

The problem is that words which are not written down are historically invisible. And I can honestly say that I had never come across the word before yesterday. And I collect the damn things, as y'all well know.

Hmmmm.

Of course it needn't atually be an old word in order to be derived from Filch.

Ben

PS - isn't one of Terry Pratchetts beggers called 'Filch'?

Blimey - Ormy's post vanished before my eyes!

Hope it comes back soon!

Must check to see how much of last nights mayhem survived.

B