7 Reasons

Tag: flamingo

  • 7 Reasons To Play Croquet With A Flamingo

    7 Reasons To Play Croquet With A Flamingo

    The other day a local magazine popped through the door. We get it every month. Usually it takes the small trip from the door mat to the recycling bin. This time though, for a reason I can’t describe, I felt compelled to flick through. It’s just adverts for businesses really. Hardly the stuff of legend. That is until I got to page twelve. When I was confronted by this:

    7 Reasons To Play Croquet With A Flamingo
    Croquet without flamingos?! What?! How on earth can you play croquet without a flamingo? A flamingo makes croquet what it is. Need proof?

    1.  Alice. The first and obvious reason is that the flamingo itself makes a wonderful mallet – as so beautifully demonstrated by the the girl in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts.

    Of course, it could be argued that the hedgehogs and the cards help make a game of it, but the real challenge when using a flamingo as a mallet is making it have an erection. Of the neck obviously. What happens after this is really neither here nor there.

    2.  Smug. You may decide however that instead of playing with a flamingo, you want to play with a flamingo. Which, luckily, is something the RSPCA continually turn a blind eye at. The thing about playing against a flamingo is that they are just so damn smug. They’re so casual. They hit their shot then just stand on one leg watching as you line up your stroke. It’s enough to drive you mad. But, conversely, it makes you more determined. More focused. You will play like a legend. Has anyone ever told you they lost at croquet to a flamingo? Exactly.

    3.  Location. The chances of you borrowing a flamingo in the UK are fairly slim. They are nearly all in zoos or security patrolled wetlands. To check this I did call London Zoo and enquired as to whether it would be possible to borrow a flamingo, but upon telling them I intended to play croquet with it they lost any sort of interest I had earlier piqued. All this leads us to assume that we need to find a freelance flamingo. And our best chance of finding one of those is in South America, the Caribbean or the Galapagos Islands. Hardly bad places to go for a game are they?

    4.  Contacts. Flamingoes are one of the more social birds out there. Think Tara Palmer-Tomknison. They seem to know everyone. Usually when you play croquet you’ll end up being partnered with Dennis. He’s a nice guy, don’t misunderstand us. The thing is, he spent most of his life working in a signal box. It means he’s used to his own company. He has a few friends. You know, enough to keep him happy. But if you mentioned that you needed a plasterer he’d just raise his eyebrows and play his next shot. Tell a flamingo though and he’ll know bloody hundreds of them back at the colony. Your ceiling will be done in no time.

    5.  God. Be honest, who would like to play a round of croquet with God? Well, if you play with a flamingo that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. Sort of. Obviously it’s not actually God. It’s a living representation of Him. Sort of. It’s not actually that God. It’s the God, Ra. And Ancient Egyptians believed a flamingo to be the living representation of Him. But that’s still kind of cool isn’t it?

    6.  Pure Class. According to the Official Flamingo Database*, pink plastic flamingoes are popular lawn ornaments in the USA. And, if my trips through the town are anything to go by, Swindon. How utterly tacky. These people need to be shown up for the cheap, nasty, dirty beings that they are. Play croquet with a real life flamingo. Show these fools that there is more to a flamingo than decoration. I feel sick.

    7.  Entertainment. You just know that if you send out a few hundred Flamingo Croquet day invites, at least one person – probably not even the dyslexic one – will turn up dressed as a Flamenco dancer. Oh how you’ll laugh.

    *Yes, it was wikipedia.

  • 7 Reasons to Replace Chickens With Flamingos

    7 Reasons to Replace Chickens With Flamingos

    1.  Flavour.  We’re all familiar with the expression, you are what you eat.  This is true; diet informs flavour.  The diet of chickens is dull.  Chickens are fed corn and grains and the sort of dreary stuff that we use to bulk-up stews and casseroles.  Flamingos eat shrimp, which are wonderfully flavoursome, and a substantial portion of their flavour comes from these.  Chickens taste dull; flamingos taste of fish, which is much, much better.  Also, as you are what you eat, which would you rather be, a chicken or a flamingo?

    2.  Health.  Most flamingos are wild and are, therefore, game.  They are free to roam and free to eat natural food.  Most chickens are not.  Eating flamingos would, consequently, be healthier than eating chickens.  It would also provide American hunters with exercise as they stalked their dinner by the lake rather than driving their pick-up trucks to the supermarket.  They would also have to camouflage themselves in pink, which would give the rest of us a laugh.

    “Billy-Bob, you’s a sissy.”

    3.  Leg.  Everyone wants the chicken leg because it’s firm:  this is because the leg is one of the few limbs that the sedentary farmed chicken exercises regularly – as a result of this, it is toned.  Flamingos spend most of their lives standing on one leg – they alternate regularly between them.  This means that flamingo legs are firmer and nicer than chicken legs.  They’re also bigger.  This will mean that sharing the leg becomes a possibility, saving mealtime arguments.  Or it will mean that you get a bigger leg, it depends how mean-spirited you are.

    4.  Milk.  You can’t milk a chicken.  You can, however, milk a flamingo.  We all know that the aisles of Waitrose are choc-full of people shopping for organic, Bermuda grass-fed, hand-reared, free-range Angora goat’s milk.  Imagine how much they’ll want the new fad  – flamingo milk.  Waitrose shoppers will be buying so much flamingo milk that they’ll probably have to fold the seats down in their Audi estates to transport it home.  They may even have to buy a second Smeg fridge to put it all in.

    5.  Farming.  Eventually, of course, the new niche popularity of the flamingo will lead to a mass-market demand for it.  This will cause flamingos to become the exotic farmers livestock of choice.  These people are usually found experimenting with farming ostriches, which will be replaced by the new glamorous avian farming fashion – the flamingo.  This is great, as I’m – justifiably – terrified of ostriches, with their cruel, murdererous eyes, their sharp, oversized talons and their menacing, powerful beaks.  I have no fear of flamingos.  They are pink.

    6.  Colour.  There are few sites in the British countryside more breath-taking than vast swathes of bright yellow rapeseed in full bloom.  With the new flamingo farms, it will be possible to stumble across fields full of pink clusters of gangly birds – all year round.  This will brighten up the landscape no end, especially at sunset.  Countryside campsites will become countryside camp sites where you’ll be able to enjoy the countryside camp sight of intense pink colours in tents (pink coloured).

    7.  Feathers.  The best feathers for stuffing pillows are goose and duck feathers.  Chicken feathers aren’t very good so they’re usually ground down and used in textiles and plastics.  Flamingos – like geese and ducks – are water-birds so, presumably, their feathers also make good stuffing for pillows.  Their colourful down would enliven pillow-fights no end.  The abundance of pink feathers would make feather boas cheaper and more commonplace which may lead to a boom in the burlesque industry.  Sadly, it would also lead to an increase in gaudy hen nights.  You don’t have too much to fear from the greater incidence of gaggles of lascivious, portly, bingo-wing-sporting harridans drunkenly cruising your local high street draped in pink feather boas though, because with your new healthier diet of flamingo, you’ll be fitter and able to run away that much faster.