Idler Monday, December 27, 2010

More bug for your buck

A DUTCH professor wants us to include insects in our diet. Arnold Van Huis, Professor of Entomology at Wageningen University, says bugs are nutritious and full of goodness and if people in the West could override their culturally indoctrinated sense of disgust, the environment would benefit.

He believes a population explosion and rising living standards have caused a "meat crisis".

"Twenty years ago people ate just 20kg of meat, now it is 50kg. In 20 years from now it will be even more and we will soon run out of planet."

He says insects taste good and are packed full of vitamins. They are often eaten to bulk out the diet in Asia, where a hot climate means they are a bountiful foodstuff.

But if they were farmed on an industrial scale they would be an environmentally friendly alternative to meat.

Insects are cold blooded so they do not need to convert food energy into heat; consequently you get more bug for your buck.

To prove his point, Prof Van Huis gobbled up a couple of freeze-dried crickets for the television cameras.

Van Huis is a man with a large, beak-like nose. In fact he looks very much like a hadedah.

 

Dark Ages

"IT'S LIKE the Dark Ages," a woman whined for the TV cameras at Heathrow airport, where thousands of people were camping in the terminal as flights were cancelled due to heavy snow.

Er, not quite the Dark Ages, dear. The roof wasn't leaking, the central heating was working and there were restaurants and cafeterias all over the place. All right, an airport terminal floor isn't the most comfortable place to sleep but in the Dark Ages they'd have been more than happy with it.

Your discomfort was temporary. In a matter of days you would be on your flight to Ibiza, or wherever you were headed for your holiday in the sun. In the Dark Ages they stayed put.

It's extraordinary how today's Brits have to blame somebody - the airport company, the airline, anybody – for what is quite obviously a natural phenomenon beyond human intervention.

They say you can always tell when an aircraft carrying British package tourists has landed. The whine continues after the engines switch off.

Yes, just like the Dark Ages.

 

Snowquake

AS IF SNOW weren't enough, the Lake District in England has been shaken by an earth tremor registering 3.5 on the Richter scale. The epicentre was 30 miles south-southwest of Carlisle.

However, the effect was slight, not even enough to dislodge Christmas decorations.

All the same, nature is asserting itself. I can't recall Wordsworth writing anything about earthquakes.

Fundraiser

NEWSFLASH - Sir Bob Geldof has announced that a fundraising concert for Ireland is to be held in Ethiopia in the New Year.

Street crime

A DWARF got pickpocketed in the CBD last week. How could anyone stoop so low?

Bad trip

Two heroin addicts have injected themselves with curry powder by mistake Both are in intensive care. One has a dodgy tikka and the other is in a korma.

Uncracked safe

MORE from Bill Bryson's Bizarre World (Warner Books):

AFTER he was unable to open a safe he had stolen, Wiener Bryan of Rochester, New York, spent $31 in cab fares taking it around town in a futile effort to get it open before finally giving up and dumping it in the Seneca River. Wiener's reaction when he learned, after being arrested and sentenced to 20 years in jail, that the safe contained only 44 pencils and some postage stamps, was not recorded.

 

Tailpiece

THE TELEPHONE rings and the lady of the house answers: "Hello." "Mrs Smith please." "Speaking." "Mrs Smith, this is DrJones at St Agnes laboratory. When your husband's doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr Smith arrived as well.We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good." "What do you mean?" "Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other tested positive for HIV.We can't tell which is which." "That's dreadful! What am I supposed to do now?"

"We recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

Last word

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

Euripides

GRAHAM LINSCOTT