OK, it’s a bit far-fetched and the ‘crime spree’ is spread a bit thin - I don’t think a parrot trained to swear really counts as a crime spree (and as Joan Rivers said on Twitter this week, anyone who hasn’t trained their parrot to shout, ‘Help! They’ve turned me into a parrot! Get me out of here! is seriously missing a trick) but the pictures are good..
Main story here.
Bits ‘n’ pieces here.
The Vervet Monkeys and Their Alcoholic Tendencies
The vervet monkeys of the island of St. Kitts developed a fondness for alcohol soon after being brought there by rum industry slave traders, 300 years ago. After escaping captivity, the monkeys started feeding from the fermented sugar cane left in the field, which meant that the traders’ plan to train them into rum-serving butlers had backfired horribly.
These days, however, they get their free alcohol fix from a different source:
Tourists. You literally cannot turn your back on St. Kitts without a monkey sneaking up and stealing your drink. And if you don’t have a drink, they will give you one just so they can take it. There are a variety of methods employed by the monkeys in swiping drinks, from the nervous grab and run:
# 5 Oscar the Fetishist Kleptomaniac Cat
Oscar, a cat in Southampton in the UK, began his life of crime at an early age stealing unimportant items that were unlikely to be missed — a random sock, a garden glove, a late-period Picasso. But as he progressed into adulthood, his tastes became more refined. He now specializes almost exclusively in lingerie.
# 1 (my favourite) Kanellos, the Legendary Riot Dog
Photographers who had been taking shots of the riots in Greece were surprised to notice that one individual could be spotted in all of them. In fact, he has shown up at every protest in the capital for the last two years and many before that. Since the country is on the brink of bankruptcy, that’s a lot of protests — meaning the rioter is either really committed to the cause or really, really bored.
The reason for the photographers’ surprise: The rioter was a dog.
