The Idler, Friday, June 28, 2019

It's the

great seals

singalong

 

SCIENTISTS in Scotland have taught seals to sing songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and to copy human voice patterns. It's happening at St Andrew's University, where three grey seals have been coached as songsters since birth.

And the three little fellers have done pretty well, according to the journal, Current Biology. Researcher Vincent Janik says they wanted to find out whether seals could be taught to copy melodies and the sounds made in human speech. They took to it with enthusiasm.

"It takes hundreds of trials to teach the seal what we want it to do, but once they get the idea they can copy a new sound pretty well at the first attempt," Janik says.

One seal, named Zola, has learned to bark out both Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and the theme music to Star Wars.

Science progresses by leaps and bounds. How long before we have the Seals Singalong on TV? An entirely new genre is waiting to burst upon us.

But caution is advised. It's all very well teaching Scottish seals to sing, but care must be taken to immerse them in wholesome music, not the kind of stuff you can encounter in Scotland, such as Robbie Burns's The Ball of Kirriemuir. It would not do to have innocent young seals like Zola describing Mrs MacGinty diving off the mantlepiece and bouncing on her, er, protuberances.

Yes, it's progress. Let nobody suggest that teaching seals to sing is a pointless exercise. Why, my scouts tell me our own Ushaka Marine World are very much on to it and are planning to launch a duet of a seal and a porpoise singing Girls Were Made To Hug And Kiss. That would be a hit world-wide. Watch this space!

 

 

Scary bird

 

A BIRD in hair curlers can be pretty scary, to be sure. But does it call for an arrest?

 

Er, perhaps I'm misreading this item from Sky News. It's 34 birds. Guyanese finches to be exact. Each one was hidden inside a plastic hair curler in the hand luggage of a fellow named Francis Gurahoo who had flown into JFK Airport, New York, from Guyana.

 

He planned to sell them for $3 000 each (R42 600) to be used in bird-singing contests in Brooklyn and Queens.

 

Hey, that's big money. Apparently these bird-singing contests are the Big Thing in Brooklyn and Queens and Guyanese finches are far superior as songsters to their American counterparts. The Brooklyn and Queens bird-fanciers are prepared to pay. And if a finch wins a competition, the price tag immediately goes up to $5 000.

 

But unfortunately for Gurahoo he got busted at Customs. Drat! Did the 34 finches start singing in unison to celebrate getting to America?

 

 

Oxymorons

 

THE oxymoron – a concise paradox of seemingly opposing meaning – is one of English literature's clever tricks. Shakespeare used it often, as here in Romeo and Juliet:

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate…

 

Reader Nick Gray sends in a collection of amusing oxymorons: found missing; open secret; small crowd; act naturally; clearly misunderstood; fully empty; pretty ugly; seriously funny; only choice; original copies; exact estimate; tragic comedy; foolish wisdom; liquid gas; happily married.

 

Tailpiece

 

WHAT'S the difference between a lawnmower and the bagpipes?

You can tune a lawnmower.

 

Last word

 

Of those who say nothing, few are silent. - Thomas Neill