Bat's All Folks!


Andrew Macdonald

17 July 2002 22:00

Rare Breeds

Good to see you doing your bit for biodiversity by recruiting two red spotted calves to The Reporting Team [see 'Bury My Knees At Wounded Heart' in the Aged Antelopes Section].  I'm sure they will prove a valuable addition to the sheep, hedgehogs, dragons, snakes, erics and Mrs Mortimer's gerbil Francis.
 
I saw this in The Guardian today, so it must be true.  The lawyer representing the Saudi royal family's interests in Liechtenstein is called Herbert Batliner.  The spirit of Beachcomber is abroad in the land.

Reporting Team

19 July 2002 10:38

Mrs Mortimer's gerbil? Of what do you speak?
 
And haven't you heard of a batliner before? How do you thing bats travel on long-haul flights to Australia, USA, etc?
 
Anyway, if it was in the Grauniad it was probably a misprint. His name is probably really something more sensible ..... like Rainbelt.

Andrew Macdonald

19 July 2002 12:28

Mrs Mortimer's gerbil, Francis, is in fact a mole, sent by the D***y E*****s to infiltrate the Reporting Team and pass all their best scoops back to Desmond Towers.  Best you detain it vigorously forthwith and ask Trevor for a suitable recipe.
 
Of course I know what a batliner is.  I've just never heard of an accountant called Batliner before.  I thought they were all called Monday and things like that.
 
That was a totally uncalled for calumny on the Guardian.  They never make any speeling mistaks.
 
By the way, why do Amanda's pictures of the piskies always seem to turn into Word documents which take half an hour to open?
 
Just asking.

Vile Jelly

19 July 2002 14:47

A gerbil that is a mole? Sounds intriguing. How does it change shape and colour without anyone noticing?
 
As for Herr Batliner (or should that be a receding Herr Batliner), I thought you had to take a weird name when you joined the mob. In my (working) youth they were all called things like 'Myrtle, Coelacanth and Kratzenjammer' (or, in deed, PricewaterhouseCoopers)!
 
Please don't slag off Amanda's pictures as the poor gal spent hours trying to e-mail them to me without noticeable success. I felt like I was working for the Samaritans when I had to try and talk her down from the computing window ledge!*
 
She's dead good at pottery, though! Seriously. Hewhoshallbenameless has a lot of time for her (as do I, although I know stuff all about pottery) and, having witnessed his apoplectic reaction to the latest Tate opening last Friday I can assure you that he doesn't waste time on losers!
 
*The technical reason is that I received them (via the medium of electric mail) in that format. I have a handy and cunning program that reduces the file size of graphic files (eg. jpg, bmp, gif) and thus reduces download time. But it can't do anything with Word, etc. files so they have to stay at their large and tediously down-loading uncompressed size. I was tempted to ask Amanda to e-mail me just the image files but it was all supposed to be a surprise for me and I didn't want to ruin it.
 
So there!

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