Laughing rat

Anyone else find the idea of rats laughing when they play on this morning's Life Scientific on Radio 4 rather enchanting?

Guardian - All Ears 26th September

Exploring the art of rodent contraception this week...


(Article by Michael Holden)
I was having dinner in my local Chinese when a couple sat down. They seemed cheerful but uncommonly convivial and eager to please. I pinned them as a first date till the man said, “you’ve seen the floorboards in my bedroom?” and the woman clearly had. Oh well.
Man “There are big spaces between them. I think this is where the mice get in. Sometimes I’m lying there at night and I can hear, like, mouse sounds, getting louder. And then they stop and I think, well perhaps they’ve gone. But then it starts again.”
Woman “Don’t put your heating on. They’ll go next door, where it’s warmer. They don’t care.”
Man (reassessing his fellow diner in light of this new nonsense) “Actually, they are quite selective about…”
Woman (not listening) “I put down traps. ‘The Little Nipper,’ one was called. It breaks their spines.”
Man : “I find all that a bit…”
Woman: “ In the end it’s less mice and rats on the planet and that’s what it’s all about. That’s the objective.”
Man (losing it somewhat) “It’s not though, is it? Mice are highly organized. They’re just seeking food and shelter. If you were a farmer-storing grain then you might have a point. Anyway, you’ve got a cat, that’s why cats are domesticated. We fed them to kill mice. So without the mouse there is no cat. Rodents are real survivors, we should admire them. Spontaneous ovulation, short gestation, large litters. We can’t manage any of that.”
She looked at him with clear contempt now. In a world where opinion is valued over knowledge he had just talked himself and his seed out of the evolutionary process, at least with this woman. She wouldn’t be looking at the hole in his floorboards again, that much was clear.

Guardian All Ears 22nd November

If I were to renounce the world of illustration & go into catering I'd like to think my emporium would be called Kebabylon - definitely with an interior like 'The Stone Cave' in Dalston

http://www.stonecave.net/


(article by Michael Holden)

I live nearby a kebab shop of such repute that people actually go there and eat at tables on purpose when sober. In was waiting for a takeaway when a man limped in and joined another at a table.

Man 1 “What happened to you?”

Man 2 (slightly ashamed) “I tripped over the cat as I was coming out. Fell down the stairs.”

Man 1 “You alright.”

Man 2 “I will be in a bit. Done some painkillers.”

Man 1 “Similar thing happened to me. Went to my sister’s the other day and they’ve painted all the doors the same colour, so I end up going to the wrong flat. I’ve realised and jumped down the stairs to go next door but before I hit the ground I see this-thing-come into my vision moving the other way. And I realise I’m gonna land on it.”

Man 2 “What?”

Man 1 “A rat. “

Man 2 “What did you do?”

Man 1 “Well, I’m mid-air, so there’s not much I can do. I try and take my weight off the foot, but I hit it anyway. You should have heard it. Horrible sound. I don’t like rats at the best of times, so I’ve screamed too.”

Man 2 “Did you burst it?”

Man 1 “No, it wasn’t that bad. It ran off, but I was scared so I ran too. For a while we were both running in the same direction, side by side. It was mental. It peeled off in the end. But, I tell you, I can hear it screaming still.”