Owls are spooks.

Did you not read the bit about the large ears acting to provide lift?

Nominative determinism.

The average home range of a tortoise in the wild is 20 hectares. That isn’t corrected for the size of the tortoise; I’ve heard that the big Galapagos jobs wander from the lowlands of their islands right up to the tops of the mountains in their middles. But yes, they like to have a lot of space. You’d never think it to…

Well, that takes me back. I wonder if it wasn’t a hobby for the old guys doing it back when I was a kid. Gets them out of the house and gives their wives a bit of peace.

And on really cold days, if you didn’t open the milkshute right away, the mild would freeze in the bottles and you’d wind up with a plug of frozen milk pusing the caps off the bottles. I seem to recall that the milk tended to separate before it froze, too, so that would actually be a plug of frozen cream.

They still have wandering knife-sharpeners in TO? Ringing their bells? God, I remember that from the 60s. Would have thought that the last one hung up his kit years ago - they always seemed like older men to me then (mind you, just about everyone seemed older to me in the 60s).

You don’t call the Thought Police. They know when to show up.

Perpetuals “states” of war? How can this be true? We have always been at war with EastAsia.

We only have one that would be appropriate - the National Musuem of History (or whatever the Tories changed its name to - used to be Canadian National Museum of Civilization).

Ah, yes. The Soylent Green. The future, for sure, then.

As long as we’re not in it.

Yes. There should be. There should.

Johnson pilfered that simile from Fred Hoyle, who was smart and well-educated enough to know better. A pox on both of them - well, Hoyle’s dead, but the wish is sincere.

It comes from the late Fred Hoyle, who was a brilliant astrophysicist but an abysmal idiot about everything else that he had an opinion on. He went emeritus very early in life and was constantly handing out gratuitous opinions on subjects that he never took the trouble to acquaint himself with. Evolution seemed to be…

Actually “salary” derives from the Latin salarium, which was the legionnaire’s payment in salt (L. sal). Or possibly renumeration specifically intended for buying salt; my dictionary’s a bit abrupt on the matter. But I think back in the early days of the Republic, soldiers were paid partially in salt, which after all…

Well, somebody came as Buddha.

...To date, hominid remains discovered in Africa have all resembled modern humans....

I really have to wonder what sort of cat would sit on the bristles of a witch’s broomstick in flight without any sort of fuss beyond the spooky back-arched thing. Ours had to be drugged to the nines just for short car rides.