Duncan achieves his dream lookalike.

The Judas Goat

Apparently rogue packs of wild goats have been destroying the rare flora of the Galapagos Islands. Conservationists have decided that the best way to deal with this is by culling the feral goats, in a manner worthy of Brasseye. A spokesman on NPR yesterday morning explained that three methods will be used to deal with the goats: i) helicopters will fly above them, picking off stragglers; ii) a team of specially trained dogs will round up the goats like sheep, allowing them to be taken out en masse; or iii) (my favourite), use will be made of what the radio spokesman calls a "Judas Goat." The Judas Goat is a sterile female goat pumped full of oestrogen to make her appear permanently attractive to male goats, and trained to lead said male goats to the mass-slaughter area.

In fact, it seems such Machiavellian schemes are par for the course when dealing with maverick goats. Who'd have thought it?

PS I am back in England!

Foreigner: As good as Derrida?

I came across a fine book at work today entitled What to Listen For in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis, a work arguing for the place of rock studies as an academic discipline. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the book's key example of what the author (one Ken Stephenson) names the "First-Downbeat Model" of rock song was Foreigner's "Luanne." Gramm and Jones must be feeling honoured right now.

Obama-watch, pt 2

I can't seem to keep away from Illinois' most famous man, Barack Obama.

The junior senator (and U of C law professor) appeared as a guest on National Public Radio's version of The News Quiz, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, to the taping of which a small group of us went last night. It was like Monster Truck for liberals. Obama received two standing ovations, a cake (apparently it was his birthday) and an NPR mug. And it turns out he knew a lot about obsessive-combulsive baseball hall-of-famer Wade Boggs, so he won the round of the quiz he was playing as well. Is there nothing the man can't do?

Duncan.

While having lunch in Rajun Cajun, our local combination Indian–Soul Food restaurant, I was treated to the sound of some Indian rap on the stereo. This is a musical form I had not heard before. You get a Bollywood bit, followed by a rap bit (in English) followed by another Bollywood bit and so on. Curiously, Indian rappers refer to one another as "nigger."

We just wanted to get him coffined…

I saw an extraordinary Columbo last night. I've never seen it on in England, I hope because the BBC is keeping it from the British people for their own good. Entitled "A Dagger of the Mind," the episode features Columbo in England (on a visit to Scotland Yard) becoming entangled in a murder perpetrated by two awful actors (one of whom is Honor Blackman). The actors are married and are also playing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. See where this is going? 95% of both the actors and the locations are not British, leading to some really really terrible accents and bizarre sentence construction (e.g. "We found the fellow at the foot of the stairs, fully clad. We just wanted to get him coffined as fast as possible," and "In times of trial, sir, I often find a nice cold beer is the best thing.")

On his way around London, Columbo photographs two separate marching bands and walks under Tower Bridge about five times. This, however, is not as extraordinary as the denoument, which involves a wax dummy of the murder victim (a not-very-famous theatre producer) being put on display at "The London Wax Museum" wearing the very clothes in which he was murdered. And, of course, the male actor goes mad at the end and believes he is Macbeth, intoning "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" in a voice worthy of Jeremy Brett. However, Columbo does not stay around to see this, preferring to go and get a last look at Tower Bridge.

Incidentally, I do do things other than watch Columbo occasionally.

Duncan controversy.

Oh, and Alex has a nice new website here -- you can also get to it from the sidebar. Look, it's got The Erl King in it!

Gah, no posts for a week. Again. Something to do with this heat. Heat is the new cold in terms of Chicago extreme weather. We had a record heatwave of 104˚ the other day, so I have been confining myself to my air-conditioned room with rented DVDs of Columbo, only venturing out to paint Elizabeth's room "Celery Sprig" green.