The Bluestocking Womens Pub in an Adventure with Pirates!

[Magpiecomplex]

New thread. You know the deal - women's pub, men to the Staunch Ally next door.

Some of us are currently on the trail of an international seed smuggling ring, just for background information.

I do wonder if we should invite a Somali Sengi, or elephant shrew, to join the refereeing team - to make up for the chap who was refused entry to the USA.

An elephant shrew ref.

Full confession - I did ask AI for an elephant crossed with a shrew, dressed as a ref - I thought it would be funnier than an elephant shrew.

It’s brilliant!

All the refs should be elephant shrews.

ChatGPT said, As a referee for the Gerbil World Cup, she’s excellent.

The expression is perfect. She looks like an official who has already issued three yellow cards and is prepared to issue a fourth without hesitation.

The oversized ears give her an advantage because she can allegedly hear dissent from anywhere in the stadium.

The long nose is useful for inspecting disputed goal-line incidents.

Most importantly, she’s not a gerbil.

The gerbils will immediately conclude that this makes her a neutral international official of the highest standing.

Bar gerbils could I please have a Rubric of Ruin, easy on the space dust. It’s been a bit of a day and your mixology skills are exemplary. Thank you.

Idk, have you seen the first elephant shrew photo on the wiki page?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_shrew

I vaguely remember introducing this family to the Bluestocking after meeting one in the zoo in Amsterdam. They are more closely related to elephants than shrews - but not in size.

I’ve been thinking about possible football-related names for her. Couldn’t find any beginning with E, but Score? Sin Bin? Soccer? Skipper?

They are more closely related to elephants than shrews - but not in size.

Hyraxes are also related to elephants. Live mostly in Africa and are very cute in a marmottish fashion.

Hyracoids used to be a much more diverse group in the past which included species considerably larger than modern hyraxes. It's estimated that the largest known extinct hyracoid, Titanohyrax ultimus, was the size of a water buffalo. That's a creature I want resurrected, along with the cow sized guinea pig, Phoberomys pattersoni.

@Chersfrozenface I'd be very keen to see the mini hippos etc of the Mediterranean basin. And a giant elk. And various way-points between the wolf and the dog.

Essentially, I'd like to time-travel, but I wouldn't trust the system to get all of me to the right place at the right time, rather than 80% to Ice Age France as planned, and 20% to the Seige of Stalingrad.

DH and I have discussed that it’d be interesting to time travel, but in a way which avoids disease transmission (either way) and instant return back to the present should medical need arrive.
Though thinking about it, travelling to the future for that would be better. There should be all sorts of diagnostic and treatment breakthroughs even in the relatively near term.

Yes, but the thing about travelling to the future is that you have to be sure there’s a future to travel to. Safest only to go there if someone from that time has come back to your time first & you know it’s ok.

The Black and rufous elephant shrew is gorgeous.

It sounds as though those of us planning to spend the next week (weeks?) in a football-free space will have to expect occasional shouts, screams, imprecations, cheers, groans, and partisan songs from adjacent rooms. I wonder should we set up camp in the gerbils' performance space across the stable yard.

Or will we find as soon as the weather picks up that there's a big screen TV in the yard, all set for visits from blokes from the Staunch Ally, with their dogs and cats and BBQ sets.

Decisions, decisions, all I want is a comfortable room, books, craft equipment, a view of a garden, good catering (as you know, I do rather favour the quokkas' offerings) and some like-minded pals to chat with.

Which reminds me of a friend's comments yesterday wrt a visitor from the USA she was meeting later in the day: 'she's like you, we can just sit down and yap'. What a way to describe erudite conversation.

'she's like you, we can just sit down and yap'.
it was kindly meant, it's quite a nice compliment actually, isn't it?

I recently thought of a word my mam and aunties used for a good long chat - 'a chinwag'.

I think the magic of the Bluestocking will mean, Deano, that the peace and calm required by non-footie-fans will be serenely maintained despite the World Cup frenzy going on chez les gerbilles. 'Chill'

Meanwhile, back in the Fan Zone, thanks to the gerbils I've found a team to support in the absence of my national team: Come on you Tunnel! Tunnel for the Cup! 😄

Or will we find as soon as the weather picks up that there's a big screen TV in the yard, all set for visits from blokes from the Staunch Ally, with their dogs and cats and BBQ sets.

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Let the Staunch Ally host Bluestocking football fans instead. Although I’m happy to cheer on the gerbils.

My brother is a huge football fan & I remember that as a teenager he took a big inflatable banana to matches. No idea why but he seemed to think it was required.

I think the gerbils should factor this in, @MyrtleLion.

And you were absolutely right, Woley, it is very funny and very cute

The big screen TV and BBQ can be hosted by The Staunch Ally, I think.

I have a hypothesis that the rain gods are particularly fond of an offering of burnt meat, so the SA can have the localised downpour that is wont to accompany outdoors cooking in our islands.

I assume that you are much in demand during BBQ season, Errol?

The footie fan gerbils all want big inflatable bananas now. They’re very easily influenced, EK.

Fortunately what is a big inflatable banana to a gerbil is in fact about a banana-sized inflatable banana😁

Yes, although mainly just for lighting. I can do the ‘charred to a crisp’ on the outside but quite hard to achieve the traditional ‘raw in the middle’. Maybe I could try with frozen sausages.🤔

Catnip bananas would be about the right size.

Although I can also imagine rows of gerbils sitting on giant inflatable bananas, or even getting carried away by banana shaped balloons.

Give it a go, @ErrolTheDragon! Luxury Cumberland sausages currently £4 for 10 in Iceland. Sufficiently cheap for an experiment.

As a side note I expect erudite Bluestockingers will already know that the Cumber- in Cumberland is the same word as Cymru. There was a major population of Welsh speakers (old North dialect) there until well into the Middle Ages.

What about those inflatable banana boat ride things at the seaside? Do gerbils like those too?

Re time travel - setting aside bananas either real or inflatable for the moment - anybody else enjoy Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary’s books, or her Time Police series?