Goats, goats, got no goats And stitches don't help at all

New Zealanders are no longer passive consumers of other countries' news. Lately they have been producing all the best news themselves!



1. At the end of last year, a Scary Sea Alien found on Rakaia Huts beach appeared in headlines around the world UK tabloids, although many of them were along the lines of 'HA HA HA just look at these numpties'.



Alas, panic sparked = 0. No actual human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, or even mass hysteria. Great was the disappoint.

Goat being stressed

2. Alternative title:

Left to die by two good friends

Tears of god flow as I bleed

Then there was the goatcitement of the tug-of-love over Zeus. Zeus the poorly goat was either abducted from a loving owner's life-style block, or rescued by a passer-by, concerned by his moribund condition and apparent abandonment, who had not considered the possibility that he was being stressed to increase his rate of Vitamin-C secretion. NZ media woefully neglected the opportunity for "kidnapped" jokes. After nursing him back from moribundance, Zeus' rescuer relinquished him to the SPCA. When last heard of, she was locked in debate with the loving owner as to whose moral claim to his custody was greater.

The dispute calls out for a Solomonic judgement. Ideally ending in goat curry.

3. Invasive wallabies. Feckin wallabies should just feck right off and feck back to where they feckin came from.

4. A large bronze gnome was stolen from outside an Auckland art gallery, in a daring Christmas-eve-midnight heist that was noticed and reported to police three weeks later. The artist, Gregor Kregar (friend of Riddled), is reportedly feeling gnomesick. Police are describing the actions of the visibility-vested robbers as 'brazen'.

Anyone seeing a two-metre bronze gnome posing for photographs to be posted home from tourist attractions and landmarks around Europe should contact the New Zealand authorities.

Arbitrary and capricious punishment

Evidently the only man whom goats respect could not be contacted. Previous installment here.

It would certainly be unacceptable if Constable Pedersen had wasted public money by using more Taser shots than necessary.

This exists

[Not my foteau; stolen from Jon @Flickr]

I can't find an Interwebs photograph of the shop sign in Putaruru that reads

CHEESE TASTING

COFFEE 

so you'll have to take my word that it exists.

Bonus goat lameness

Stolen from BoingBoing:

this product [...] promises all the fun of taking a shower with a goat with none of the usual hassles of renting a shower-goat.

Michael Jackson not included.

I'm on the Lame but I Ain't No Sheep

Science unfetta-ed! From Tim van der Zee:

This study had 600 participants who judged over 80 clips of goats... goat lameness research is better powered than most of psychology!

I am not sure how the researchers accounted for the lameness-inducing effect of men staring at the goats across the Interlattice.

Excitement at fever-pitch in Oamaru #2

Where was the Only Man whom Goats Respect, when we needed him? It must have been his day off.

The level of Vitamin C within the stressed goat's liver was not recorded.

Below: Constable Conrad prepares blowpipes to fire tranquilliser darts for self-defense against rampaging goat / human genetic aberration.

Smoot News

Skip Williamson is showing his oeuvre on DeviantArt! Why was I not previously appraised?

It is as if he knows M. Bouffant in person.