Ineluctable progress in the domain of procrastinatory baguette making

I have no idea why the human wanted to make muffin-shaped rolls either.

L'aubergine espagnole

pour vous rassurer que Hugo sait toujours faire des mauvais jeux de mots dans plus qu'une seule langue...

Greenwash

Time was when Nero fiddled while Rome burned -- a pursuit whose merits can be debated, perhaps, but rendered obsolete (in urban areas at least) by the advent of modern firefighting.
We do self-destruction differently here on the driest continent on earth. If you're going to go in for Oxbridge pastiches then you might as well do it properly -- no point watering the grass unless it's already raining!

Barking inspectors

Move over Charlie Chaplin, it's the hounds' turn:

Railing against incompetence

It must be tough being a transport planner in the service of the rum corps -- not only do they have some of the silliest liquor licensing laws in the country, but coming up with imaginative new cock-ups day after day must be a real challenge.

Witness the latest plan -- a metro line designed to solve the city's problems by taking people from one point already well serviced by public transport to another, the latter of which has the distinction of having nowhere to put or send the expected influx of passengers once arrived.

But wait, there's more -- we now learn that doing so would require already existing trains to terminate at the old country platforms, then get out of the way before the next ones come in, a feat that even the eternal optimists acknowledge to be impossible.

The French also seem to have encountered this problem. Witness what happened in 1895, five years before their own metro system finally opened, when a steam train slightly overshot the conventional stopping point at the Gare Montparnasse:
On this basis, I fell confident in declaring that public transport in Sydney is precisely 115 years begind its equivalent in Paris, although more precise estimates will depend on budgetary projections for the Broken Hill hydroelectric scheme...

Nuclear disarmament, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the eggplant

"Perhaps not in my lifetime," says the master of sartorial understatement, but it's comforting to think that this time the guy in charge might actually want there to be less nuclear weapons floating around the place. Nearly as comforting, in fact, as seeing eggplants start to ripen even past the date where it gets dark far, far too early in the afternoon.

The following exhibits support this hypothesis:

(a) with apologies to the person, place or thing it was ripped off:(b) with apologies for the amateur camerawork:

Q. E. D.

Can vacuity be prosecuted as a war crime?

or someone please, please tell me this is an April Fool's joke!

I'm not sure what I was thinking, clicking during an unusually protracted bout of procrastination on this article about somebody called Miss Universe visiting Guantánamo Bay. A well-meaning protest attempt, perhaps, like the people they get to do anti-fur demonstrations at fashion shows, or former heart-throbs willing to place the rights of cute animals several pegs above those of immigrants?

It would appear not.

"We also met the military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills. All the guys from the army were amazing with us."

Waterboarding is the hip new way to lose weight. You read it here first.

Bossnapping!

As a member of Africa's most dangerous mammal species, and one of the most aggressive creatures in the world, I can only applaud these latest efforts at bringing the law of the jungle to the workplace.

It goes to show how industrial action can be improved with just a little imagination -- and really, holding bosses against their will really just seems a good way of evening the usual state of affairs.

Any thoughts on whether it was justified to bring them croissants for breakfast?