In which I know Nothing about Birds*

*this is a terrible post, the one below it is much better, maybe you should read that instead

Today my mother went to a lecture about Large Flightless Birds. Here are some things she told me when she got home.

Did you know the Dodo was a pigeon? A big fat flightless pigeon? No, me neither. Also penguins were originally over 6ft tall! 6ft tall! No idea how tall they are now but 6ft is pretty big.

More importantly, birds do not have lungs. NO LUNGS HOW DO THEY BREATHE? THROUGH THEIR ARSE LIKE A TURTLE? Well, no. They do have lungs, sort of, but they also have tons of air sacs throughout the body and also some of the air they breathe in goes straight into their bones. I am a little sketchy on the details, but basically it takes birds 2 breaths for air to go right round their system. Also they are descended from dinosaurs but everyone knows that! Breath 1 in: air comes in through beak-mounted nostrils, is taken straight to an air sac. Breath 1 out: same air goes into the 'bird-lungs.' Breath 2 in: new air into air sac, old air into different air sac (and bones?) Breath 2 out: new air goes into the bird-lungs, old air goes out, um, bird mouth? Beak end. Bottom of bill. I know pretty much fuck all about birds, in case you hadn't come to that rather obvious conclusion on your own, but I was interested by the whole birds-don't-have-lungs thing. Got over-excited and asked with some concern if the dog has lungs - if I'd stopped to think about it I would've realised I knew the answer, but I was all panicked by the birds-no-lungs revelation. He does. Thank God. If he didn't have lungs either my entire world would have been turned on its head. Do you have lungs?

Moving away from birds - their flu was so last year - there is swine flu in my city. Not only does this mean that David Bain/Swine Flu situation is even more likely (whee), it also means that if there is a zombie apocalypse we're going to need to be prepared. The old plan (steal boat, live on boat/oil rig, fish) has been supplanted by the much more sophisticated New Plan (steal cruise liner, sail across indian ocean, join Somalian pirates using cruise liner as bargaining tool, shoot zombies with extensive pirate ammo supplies, fish). It is a good plan apart from two What Ifs. 1) What If... there is no cruise liner in port when the zompocalypse comes? Steal the next boat down, I guess. Note to self: in case of zompocalypse, find someone who can drive a boat, or buy manual in advance (when am buying water purifier and small still.) Must also remember which way the Indian Ocean is. Left at Stewart Island? 2) What If...Somalian pirates are zombies by the time we get there? This is pretty unlikely because they seem fairly badass. Is much more likely that they'll think we are zombies & start shooting but hey if that happens it'll be ok, we'll just ram them with our cruise liner (which no-one has prevented us stealing because the armed forces are busy dealing with the zompocalypse & the general populace are doing silly things like holing up in a supermarket.) The New Plan is the Plan of Andrea and I. You're welcome to join - meet us at the Carlton Corner pub when the zompocalypse - I simply cannot use this word enough - befalls us.

EDIT: The Somalian Pirates Cruise Ship idea was Andrea's. I did not give credit where it was due and I am very sorry.

Date on Sunday with NRT, who is fine with me blogging about it* (what a good sport! he's going to regret that) except that he wants a more mysterious alias. Personally I think he should be grateful that I'm blogging about him at all NRT is kind of catchy, but I'd be open to suggestions. The comments field is your oyster.

I realise I did the two-post-in-one-day thing again, but god damn it zombies are important. Birds maybe not so much.


*What he actually said was "I don't mind you blogging about anything to do with me in which we are clothed"