No Laughing Matter
Well, this seems to be the day for British madness in the news. I found this gem right after putting up the last post on rewarding bad behavior in school with iPods. We're warning our British readers - and we actually have a few - that you must not engage in any humor whatsoever. Gags are right out. Unless you want a visit from the cops.
Colin and Jenny Harrow were visited under suspicion of cruelty to animals after sending a spoof letter to their local paper.
The Cumberland News had published an article claiming that incomers from the South were releasing grey squirrels in the area - which prides itself on being one of the last bastions of the red squirrel population.
The Harrows, who used to live in Devon, sensed an anti-southern bias in the story and decided on a light-hearted response.
Mrs Harrow, 59, wrote: "We would like to inform any interested parties that we (formerly southerners) have just returned to our cottage with a crate full of wild grey squirrels from Epping Forest which we would be happy to supply to any other "outcomers", homesick for the South and in need of the odd grey squirrel to make them feel at home."
Shortly afterwards, there was a knock at the door of the couple's home in the Lake District village of Thackthwaite, near Penrith.
Two officers from Cumbria Police informed them they were investigating claims of squirrel abuse. They had come to check whether hapless rodents were being kept in crates after several complaints from members of the public……
….Mr Harrow, 64, said: "It would be laughable if it were not so sad. How do these people think we got hold of the grey squirrels in the first place - run around with a pocketful of peanuts and a lasso?
Actually, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard always use the peanut and lasso technique whenever we perform a squirrel roundup. How else are we supposed to crate them up to ship them to England? Oh sure, we tried all the new-fangled techniques like the squirrel catapult, the rodent Taser and the titanium 3-iron, but the old methods just work better*. Oh, excuse us a moment, won't you? There are a couple of Bobbies at the door.
(*No squirrels were lassoed, launched, Tasered, chipped, putted or harmed in any way during the writing of this post. Unless they died laughing at the British police. Which is likely.)
By Bleepless, Tuesday, 10 April , 2007 @ 8:15 pm
I find it most significant that you did not say that no squirrel was stomped, shotgunned, forced to listen to Sean Penn speeches or raped by space aliens.
By Gaius, Tuesday, 10 April , 2007 @ 10:29 pm
Sean Penn speeches? Man, that is inhuman! You beast.
By mockinbird, Wednesday, 11 April , 2007 @ 3:30 pm
This sounds verry squirrelly to me!