A Little Light Weirdness - 5

They say news travels fast, but in the speed stakes it can’t hold a candle to dumb. Circling the blogosphere like an angry Superman is news that security guard Jason Cooke has managed to sight the Loch Ness monster on Google Earth. The object, which Cooke claims exactly matches the descriptions of Nessie, is clearly visible as a quadrupedal, long-necked plesiosaur-like creature, and in no way could be the wake behind a boat or anything mundane like that. This latest find comes as a relief to many cryptozoologists, who had expressed concerns that the dearth of recent sightings might mean Nessie had fallen victim to Global Warming (Telegraph).

Or perhaps this is simply proof that Scottish universities have got the jump on their transatlantic counterparts? In a move nearly, but not quite, totally unlike Jurassic Park, Professor Hans Larsson of McGill University in Montreal has announced that he hopes to de-evolve chickens back into their dinosaur ancestors. Larsson stressed that he is not aiming to recreate whole dinosaurs at this time, but by switching on or off certain genes in chick embryos he hopes to induce atavistic dinosaur anatomy in the full grown animals (AFP).

On the subject of making one animal look like another, photographer Ren Netherland has made it his mission to document the extreme(ly weird) competition of “creative grooming”. Starting, usually, with a poodle, creative groomers will clip, colour and accessorize their charges into anything from a peacock to a film character. Some of the, frankly unsettling, results can be found by following the link (Guardian).

Parents will soon have no excuse not to accompany their kids onto the rides if one UK theme park’s plan works out. Chessington Park has hired a hypnotherapist to help parents overcome their fear and join in the fun after seeing a rise in the number of parents volunteering to “look after the bags” for their more adventurous scions. Of course, they could always just leave off the deodorant (News Lite).

Sometimes though, you can have too much fun. Like the lesbian couple whose very un-civil ceremony ended with both brides in tears and one in the cells. Sharon Verallo is alleged to have attacked the bouncer at a wine bar in Swansea in the UK after he tried to get the post-ceremony reception to wind up at the end of their booking so that the bar could open to the public as scheduled. When staff at the Champers bar tried to move the guests on, the situation escalated to the point Verallo is said to have hit one of the Champers’ security personnel with a red stiletto shoe, requiring him to be taken to hospital with head injuries (Telegraph).

(Photo by Robert Wilson. Source: Wikipedia.)