Silly stories from now and then

YO-DE-LAY-HEE-MOO!

Sleepless in Switzerland

Switzerland takes its cowbells very seriously. According to Saveur.com, cowbells have been used for more than 900 years, and today the country has just six artisans still making them. Wrought of iron, brass, or copper, Swiss cowbells are designed so that the sound of each cowbell conveys information about the animal wearing it. Sometimes a farmer will honour their favourite animal with their most prized bell! In short, cowbell culture has a unique charm.

…a charm which outsiders, naturally, do not get right away. In the rural village of Aarwangen, at least two families—relative newcomers—complained that they were being disturbed all night by noisy bells.

The thing is, Aarwangen cows have a very cushy free-range arrangement. They don’t necessarily get rounded up into a barn for the night. According to the town’s president, at any given time the cows could be chilling out just 10 or 20 metres from residents’ homes.

I have no idea how active cows are overnight, or if these cows are just trolling the newbies. Anyway, the scenario did not make for peaceful sleep. So these families made the UNFORGIVABLE mistake of requesting that farmers take the bells off the cows at night.

This did not go over well. As BBC reports, one farmer called it a "personal insult to him and his cows." Other farmers hastened to circulate a petition, which around a quarter of the villagers signed, affirming that "we, the Swiss, [want to] preserve and maintain our lived traditions in the future.” Pretty aggressive words coming from Switzerland! I guess “in the future” implies “all night, every night, SO THERE!” 

How will this cowbell curfew controversy be concluded? A municipal vote is scheduled for next month. But, tbh, it seems like a moo(t) point: one of the sleepless families already up-and-left, and the other has withdrawn their complaint. For the ones that stayed, we wish them many heavy-duty earplugs. - AT

IT'S MEEEE!

Squeak For Yourself!

It’s 1:30 in the morning, and the Ramsay family are sound asleep. Little do they know, just outside their home, someone is trying to get in…

Petty burglar? Tolerant burglar? Dracula selling vacuums? Nope, just a mouse.

Not that most people are laying out the welcome mat for wild rodents. Still, I’d consider making an exception for this polite little guy! (Preston Mulligan at CBC identifies it as a “country mouse.” Unclear whether Preston means the species of mouse found exclusively in Australia, or that this mouse doesn’t get up to Halifax much.) Anyway, the mouse climbs up the exterior wall, to a ledge next to the front door. It sniffs around, gets up on its hind legs…and uses its front legs to hit the doorbell.

Sure, not the best timing, but all the same we have to commend its good manners! Although the Ramsays would disagree. Having a very sensitive doorbell, they’re jolted out of slumber by the bell, which conveniently blares through a speaker in their bedroom.

Another thing: their bell tone is not your average bing-bong—it’s the Hockey Night in Canada song. So this energetic anthem keeps going for a while. And then for a while longer, because the mouse rings the doorbell A SECOND TIME. Big fan of Dolores Claman.

Good thing there’s a dad to protect this family! Oh, JK. “I actually ignored it,” classic guy Steve Ramsay later admits. Meanwhile, his wife gets up after the second “Hockey Theme” rendition to check their security footage, but doesn’t see anything. They both go back to sleep.

Next day, they review the footage and finally spot their nocturnal visitor. Reassured about the lack of a real threat, Steve (now fully awake) nevertheless dutifully uploads the footage to social media, alerting neighbours (and bored CBC reporters) that at least one local rodent might be up to some new tricks. - AT

YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP!!

That’s Just BizAARO

Spotting aliens is a pastime as American as apple pie. Yet, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was only established in July 2022. Just a year later, a whistleblower accused ‘Murrika of covering up “a longstanding government program to recover extraterrestrials from an unidentified craft” (per Politico). AARO’s big boss, physicist, and military bigwig Sean Kirkpatrick admitted (on Hallowe’en) this whistleblower was not totally off-base. Oh, and Kirkpatrick’s now about to retire! Coincidence??

Here’s a few other tidbits from AARO’s brief, secretive existence:

1. It’s ready for a big ol’ space fight. A body dedicated to monitoring and investigating the possibility of life from other planets must be made up of dedicated scientists, right? Yeah…in part. Also, lots of Air Force people. Interesting choice, but why? David Jewitt, a UCLA professor of astronomy, puts it plainly: “The Air Force is very good at bombing things, but as far as their research on UFOs, I think I’d trust them about as far as I can throw them.”
   
   

2. The outgoing boss writes sci-fi fanfiction. In March, Sean Kirkpatrick co-wrote a five-page doc that was subsequently leaked, about possible interstellar objects seen in 2017. He speculated that the objects might be “a parent craft that releases many small probes” which, like “dandelion seeds,” detach from the mothership and travel down to Earth. How would they move through the galaxy? By converting starlight and Earth-water into stored energy, DUH! But hey, he did also acknowledge that his scenario would break most of the laws of physics, and that there’s no evidence so far to back up that this is what happened.
   What taxpayers should be asking is, does he write his alien fanfiction on the clock? If so…I can respect that.
   
   

3. AARO started an alien hotline! Or, it’s trying to start one! This shit is hard! Americans demand a direct way to report potential UFO sightings, but getting it up and running takes longer than expected because of reasons. An online tool is now available for reporting, but only current/former military and government employees can access it!                     
   If I’ve learned anything from the film industry, it’s that the most skilled alien-spotters are young children, so I’m thinking they should integrate the hotline into public schools and advertise it on Peppa Pig.
   

4. Kirkpatrick said, “The best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens.” He figures the alternative would be a way bigger YIKES: “If we don’t prove it’s aliens, then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard. And that’s not good.”
   Hmmm. I don’t know... An entirely unknown species, potentially from a different galaxy, that we can’t communicate with, has murky intentions for being here, and HAS MASTERED BREAKING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS? Sounds just a wee bit more concerning to ME than, say, a repeat of the Chinese spy balloons. (Which in any case probably collected less private data than the average Roomba.) - AT

CATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES!

Ahoy Me Hearties!

Calico Jack enters historical record as a quartermaster on the pirate ship Ranger in 1718, attacking ships as far north up the coast as New York. When confronted by a ship twice their size, the captain of the Ranger said “Let’s GTFO back to the Bahamas,” but CJ said, “But if we fight them and win, we’ll get a boat twice the size of ours!” In the tradition of calm, well-thought-out piratical moves, they fled to safety and had an election where Jack was made captain and the former captain was sent to Davey Jones’s LOCKER! Just kidding, they gave him and his supporters a different (presumably, less cool) ship. Really, your opinion of pirates is SO low.

I mean, not unwarranted-ly low, they DID spend another couple years plundering merchants in and around the Caribbean.

After that the Ranger’s crew made their way to Governor Rogers in Nassau and requested a royal pardon claiming their old captain made them be pirates (despite the man, at this point, having not been their captain for quite some time)! The good governor apparently HATED their old captain and said, “that tracks, you are hereby pardoned!” Calico Jack was once more an honest man!

It even lasted for a few days!

But what’s a Calico man to do when he sees a beautiful woman? Even if her husband is a sailor employed by that very same governor? Pirate’s gonna pirate!

So CJ had an affair with Anne Bonny, which her husband found out about and took HER to the Governor (misogyny) who ordered HER whipped (misogyny!) and then CJ offered to BUY her from her husband (MISOGYNY) but when her husband refused, Jack and Anne stole a ship and escaped (VICTORY!!) and went back to being pirates (or in Anne’s case, for the first time, and passing herself off as a man).

It’s at this time that Mary Read, who had a long history of posing as a man to do things like inherit family wealth, joined the British military, and no doubt to just avoid the ever-present misogyny, joined their crew. At one point CJ was concerned that he may be losing his lover to this new member of the crew, at which point both women confided in the other that they were, in fact, women. Did this end CJ’s jealousy? Or just add some spice? A pirate never tells!

Either way the situation didn’t last long. The crew were captured and taken to trial on November 15, 1720 and it did not end well for any of them. - SC