Ostriches & Bears

Two things before I get to the meat of tonight's update.

1. First, some actual, genuine, "here's some stuff I did" blogging. Yesterday morning Sarah and I found ourselves up and about with nowhere in particular to be for a couple of hours, so we went into town to get breakfast/brunch and generally mill about. It was really really really nice and I wanted to make sure I mentioned it before I started making jokes about bears. We went to the café in Marks & Spencer's and got various foodstuffs. The guy serving us suggested that it was probably too early for a hot chocolate but nuts to him. Then we went to Boots so that Sarah could get some makeup to keep at home. I found a black eyeliner pencil and felt like a king.
2. Tomorrow we're going to Bristol to a) see Interpol, b) stay in a fancy hotel, and c) go to Fopp. I will do everything in my power to maintain my update schedule - perhaps I'll fire off a quick one in the morning - but don't expect Shakespeare. Not that you should expect that anyway.

Okay. Cliffey and I were looking at WikiHow earlier and stumbled across this article. Anyone who knows me well-ish should be aware of my slight distaste for large birds, and this could easily have been written by a more experienced me. Witness this line:

"An ostrich attack...is straight out of Jurassic Park. Like that movie's velociraptors, ostriches are fast--they can run at up to 45 mph--and they have a sharp nail on each of their feet that is capable of slicing a person open with one kick. Unlike velociraptors, however, an ostrich can reach more than nine feet tall and 350 pounds." 

Get that? Ostriches are worse than velociraptors. Cliffey isn't exactly a huge fan of the birds either and we are seriously considering purchasing an ostrich stick, just to be safe.

"Ma, there's sump'm goin' awn. Fitch mah awstrich stick."

The survival guide comes complete with advice from Teddy Roosevelt - former President of the USA, need I remind you - who apparently had his scrapes with ostriches and recommends playing dead. The guide goes on to explain that the ostrich will "likely stand on you" and may even "sit on you for a while", and while I suppose that's preferable to death, I'm still not about to try playing dead when running away still has a chance.

Elsewhere on WikiHow we came across this handy piece on how to survive a bear attack. To be fair it does include some genuinely useful tips, such as:

"DO NOT FIGHT A BEAR FOR THE SAKE OF FIGHTING A BEAR"

The more you know...

Joel.