Calling the Pirates

He dialled the number. A pirate answered. "I'm sorry," he barked in Somali, "the boss pirate is sleeping. He was very busy last night keeping watch for possible attackers, night time, you know, is the busiest time for us. Call back in two hours."

From the Beeb.

Florence Nightingale Graphing Deaths from the Crimean War

So as to explain the horror to Queen Victoria. Article here.

A Recipe During the Seige of Leningrad

Soup from pets and domesticated animals
Meat is ranked by taste in the following order: dog, guinea pig, cat, rat. Gut the carcass, wash well and place in cold water. Add salt. Cook for one to three hours. For aroma: bay leaf, pepper, any sort of herbs, and, if available, grain.


Harper's story here, but you gotta pay.

Retro-Decrypting

Here's a modern take on the decryption of a World War II coded transmission that just happened to have sprung from the Time Life picture archive. The internet, really, is an amazing thing, and not just for porn.

From Today's Onion????

WASHINGTON—President Bush collapsed in the Oval Office after spontaneously expelling a 3-pound kidney stone from his bladder, sources reported Tuesday. According to witnesses, the president was attending his daily Iraq War briefing when he suddenly began shrieking loudly and clutching his abdomen, a mixture of blood and urine pooling rapidly around his feet. Bush was able to maintain consciousness through more than 20 minutes of excruciating pain, even after the jagged, grapefruit-sized crystal aggregation shredded his urethra and dropped from his left pant leg, finally rolling to a stop on the presidential seal in the middle of the Oval Office carpet. Bush is resting comfortably at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Real Estate Downfall

This is the fourth time I have seen this clip with 4 different set of subtitles. The first was from the German, the second was in regard to Hitler losing his Xbox live privileges, the next concerned Hilary, and now this. Bloody brilliant!!!

Watch out for Bug Eyed Monsters

BBC ARCHIVE
WRITTEN DOCUMENT 1962

Page 3 of 3

[Continued from previous page]


Title: Pictures Don't Lie
by Datherine Maclean [sic - this should be Kathleen Maclean]
Published Best SF by Faber & Faber Copyright 1951 by World Editions Inc.

Synopsis: Contact has been established with intelligent beings from another
world, who are kindly disposed towards the inhabitants of Earth and are about
to make a landing in a space ship. All communications have been achieved by
means of speeding up video and audio signals currently in existence on Earth
and transmitting them as very short pulses. (This is quite possible and
logical). Using this communication plus a translating machine, the space ship
is guided to its destination, reports a landing on the airfield, and then
immediately runs into trouble. It is clearly landing in a swamp full of
fantastic monsters, the atmosphere of the Earth is to the inhabitants of the
space ship, opaque; furthermore, despite messages and the assistance of
direction finding equipment, it would appear impossible for the ship to have
landed since it is nowhere in sight. Only then does the realisation dawn upon
Earth that the speeded up messages which are decodable by the aliens, do in
fact represent their natural pace of living. It means therefore that their size
is microscopic. They have indeed landed on the airfield and at the moment they
are sinking through and dying in the rapidly drying puddle out on the tarmac.

The whole thing is absolutely possible and logical.


Title: No Woman Born
by C.I Moore
Copyright 1944 Street & itnith, Publications Inc.
Pub. Best SF


Synopsis: This is an exception to our rule about robots. The central character
is a humanoid robot, but it is inhabited by a live human brain, salvaged from
the body of a world famous entertainer and ballet dancer. Her personality is
still intact, she is a woman of great determination and she decides to make a
comeback in the world of entertainment. This she does with riotous success — the
success is heightened by the realisation of the audience that she is indeed more
than human. With this however, comes the psychological problem. "I'm afraid it
isn't unhappiness, Maltzer, it's fear, I don't want to draw away from the human
race, I wish I needn't, that's why I'm going back on the stage, to keep in touch
with them while I can. But I wish there could be others like me — I'm — I'm
lonely, Maltzer".




ABOUT THE BBC ARCHIVE
The BBC Archive - sharing pictures, documents and programmes from the last
75 years of the BBC's broadcasting history. To find out more visit the
BBC Archive portal.
www.bbc.co.uk/archive

I Know I Have Been Neglecting My 3 or 4 Readers. I Will Endeavour to do Better