Things That Bug Us (In a Good Way)
I saw this beauty on my Buddleia this week... Who
knows its name?
Carl Bovis
Carl
Bovis, bird photographer extraordinaire, lives in Somerset. Along with the
quote above he posted an excellent photo of a Jersey Tiger Moth. I knew I
recognised it – Robbie Stamp had one land on his clothing in the London
Underground a few years back, I remember. But I couldn't remember the name for
it. So I scrolled down.
I sort of wished
I hadn't.
Oh, I
got the name, all right. I also saw the reply that went, 'His name is George.
George Walter Theodore Propter-Ffellows III to be precise.'
Ha, ha,
and also, ha. This is exactly why I have forbidden the phrases 'Can you name
this?'' and 'What is it called?' from appearing on picture quizzes in the h2g2
Post. Because otherwise The English Joke will rear its repetitious head.
As
Superfrenchie has remarked, they can't help themselves, the English. If you ask
for a bird or insect ID they will be drawn ineluctably to The Joke. You would
have to shackle their hands and put duct tape [gaffer tape] over their mouths
to prevent it. And then they might explode.
As Concerned Foreigners, the half of the Hexagon staff who are not English have decided to
give the rest of Youse a break.
Today's
your chance.
Name this
bug. We dare you.
Featured
Insect of the Weekend
Paigetheoracle found this on a footbridge in Alness,
Scotland.
Deprecated
Expression of the Day
Deep
dive: Stop it. Just stop it. You aren't diving. Most of you are skimming
the surface in a leaky kayak, but you can't help it. You're babbling and you
can't stop. A patchwork of factoids you copied from all the other websites does
not constitute a Gesamtkunstwerk. My advice: more discriminating
reading, less talking. Engage brain before opening mouth.
(I have
heard or read this phrase a dozen times today. This level of cliché is
unprecedented in the annals of modern writing. It can only be matched by a bad
skop reciting a late-medieval Viking saga and putting in way too many 'whale-roads'.)
Featured
Cartoon
Bluebottle's Increasingly Fruitless Soap Operetta:
An Unfortunate Curse
Video
of the Day
Moorhen with Chick
By SashaQ,
(Our resident
waterbird expert)
CU l8ter, 
, Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor
Chest trousers as a concept is old, tubby men, who no longer have a waistline. You see it in old movies on either side of the Atlantic but mostly America. Usually it's highlighted by braces, dragging the trousers up higher than the waist. These appeared in black and white films, involving courtroom scenes etc (Spencer Tracey wore them in a film where he played Clarence Darrow I believe called Inherit The Wind (that's the film title, not the trousers)). Yes, I had to put that in being English
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