Oh. My. God.

You gotta watch the video!

The Herald Sun: THE contemplative poems of William Wordsworth have drawn lovers of literature to England's peaceful Lake District for two centuries. Even without a hip hop beat.

But in an effort to make the region's most famous poet more relevant to a younger audience, local tourism officials have released a rap version of Wordsworth's 200-year-old classic of Romantic verse: I wandered lonely as a cloud.

The reworking manages to "stay true to the original sentiment with some slight variation of the lyrics", Cumbria Tourism insisted.

Accompanying the hip-hop theme on its website is a video featuring "MC Nuts" - a giant dancing red squirrel.

Have a look at the new video, or read the original poem.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Cheeta!

Nice pic of chimp in birthday hat at link.

Zee News - Tarzan’s chimp ‘Cheeta’ celebrates his 75th birthday: "London, April 11: Cheeta, the celebrity chimp noted for appearing in numerous movies and television shows, celebrated his 75th birthday on April 9, and had the day named after him.

Cheeta, who was born in 1932, shot to fame after appearing in many Hollywood Tarzan movies of 1930’s and 40’s in which he portrayed a fictional chimp of the same name.

The chimp’s first appearance as Cheeta was in the 1936 Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie ‘Tarzan Escapes’.

With the normal lifespan of chimps being 50 years, Cheeta, at 75, is the oldest chimpanzee in the world, reports The Sun.

Cheeta celebrated his special day in Palm Springs, California, where he has lived for 16 years after retiring from the movie business. "

Gator Update

There's probably a moral here. Or maybe not.

Alligator bites off vet's forearm in Taiwan zoo - Asia-Pacific: "Taipei - An alligator in a Taiwan zoo bit off a veterinarian's forearm Wednesday when the vet was trying to treat the sick animal.

The incident occurred at the Shoushan Zoo in Kaohsiung, south Taiwan, when zoo vet Chang Po-yu was giving the alligator three anaesthesia shots, so that he could treat the alligator's illness."

Anna Nicole Smith Update

Thanks to Vince Keenan for the link.

Variety.com - Ford to star in 'Anna Nicole' film: "Dancer-singer Willa Ford has signed to star as Anna Nicole Smith in an indie biopic that will begin shooting next week.

The previously announced film, 'Anna Nicole,' is produced by Jack Nasser and Joseph Nasser with Elie Samaha exec producing. Keoni Waxman directs.

Movie will cover Smith's life from age 17 until her death in February at 39, including her success as a Playboy centerfold, Guess model and actress, her marriage to billionaire oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II, the death of her son and her own death five months after giving birth to a baby girl, Dannielynn. The dispute that erupted over who was the baby's father was settled Tuesday when a judge in the Bahamas ruled, based on DNA tests, in favor of California photographer and former Smith boyfriend Larry Birkhead."

Thanks, but No Thanks

Eaten alive | Health and wellbeing | Life and Health: "Exfoliation is a key part of any skin beautifying treatment. But forget salt scrubs, rubs and foot files. Why not try something far more efficient: the toothless mouths of hundreds of tiny, voraciously feeding fish?"

Click the link, provided by Todd Mason, for a photo.

Anna Nicole Smith Update

Breaking News: Anna Nicole Smith Paternity Battle: Ruling Will Not Be Made Public - The Post Chronicle

Update: Gag Order Lifted Birkhead Is the Daddy!

Anna Nicole Smith Paternity Case - A Bahamian court is expected to rule today in the paternity case of Anna Nicole Smith's infant daughter. Under Bahamian legal rules however, the results cannot be made public by either of the parties involved in the paternity and custody battle.

They can however, be revealed. The judge in the case will have to lift the gag order in order to do so.

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Catch It While You Can

TV Week: "NBC has pulled 'Andy Barker, P.I.' after four episodes, replacing the Thursday night series with 'Scrubs' starting this week. The program averaged a 2.1 rating among adults 18 to 49, according to Nielsen. The most recent episode was down to a 1.7.

Two more episodes of the series will be run off this Saturday. "

Thanks to Todd Mason for the link.

Porky's is 25: a Celebration of The Teen Sex Comedies of the '80s

Virgin Territory | Porky's | The Way We Were | Movies | Entertainment Weekly | 1: "On the 25th anniversary of ''Porky's,'' EW's Chris Nashawaty recalls his own age of innocence — and the explosion of teen sex comedies that helped him survive it. Forget school. All you really needed was a private tutor."

Say It Ain't So!

Thanks to Scott Cupp for the link.

Arts & Entertainment | Garage-rock anthem "Louie Louie" turns 50 | Seattle Times Newspaper: "Turning 50. It's a daunting prospect for anyone (and I should know). But for a pop song? Most fade away long before they reach that mark. One exception: the legendary 'Louie Louie' — that eternally youthful 1960s garage-rock anthem first recorded exactly 50 years ago this month. Far from shuffling off to a quiet retirement, evidence indicates that 'Louie Louie' may actually prove to be immortal."

Update: By special request you can click here to hear 1000 guitarists attempt to play "Louie Louie." Frequent commenter Cap'n Bob is wearing sunglasses and a red shirt. Check it out.

Macavity Is a Mystery Cat

Mystery cat takes regular bus to the shops | the Daily Mail: "Bus drivers have nicknamed a white cat Macavity after it has started using the No 331 several mornings a week.

The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop."

Today's Baseball Card

Gator Update, Milwaukee Style

Police: Alligator Stolen From Milwaukee Barbershop - News Story - WISN Milwaukee: "MILWAUKEE -- Thieves broke into a Milwaukee barbershop, but it wasn't money they were after, according to Milwaukee police.

Police said the burglars took an alligator from the 13th street Barbershop on 12th and Burleigh streets early Monday morning."

Line of Fire -- Donald Hamilton

After reading Murderers' Row I moved on to Line of Fire, which is just as good as I remembered. If not better. It seems to me that there's a direct line from this book to Stephen Hunter's Point of Impact. Even the titles have a certain similarity and fit the stories the same way. Both feature an assassination that's not what it appears to be. Both are full of talk about different kinds of guns and bullets and what they can do, and both have a lot about shooting at a distance.

But I digress. I want to talk about Hamilton's book, which is so well done that even though I'd read it before and knew where it was going, it held me right from the first page. (One great thing about those old paperbacks was that you could read them in a couple of hours.) The story's just packed with stuff: a damaged hero (think Jake Barnes), a crooked politician, a thug with ambition, sex, violence, a couple of neat twists, and just plain good writing. If you haven't read anything by Hamilton except the Matt Helm books, you really should read this one. You won't regret it.

Robert Heinlein at One Hundred

Robert Heinlein at One Hundred @ Blogcritics.org: "The centennial of Robert Heinlein’s birth is coming up in July, and tempers are still worked up over this pulp fiction writer who turned into a consciousness-raising guru during the 1960s. Only a few weeks ago, a writer in the New York Times Book Review attacked Heinlein’s Starship Troopers as “an endorsement of fascism.” Heinlein’s defenders rushed in with letters to the editor to counter these charges, and a mini-controversy was soon brewing over a book for youngsters first published in 1959, by an author who died in 1988."

Jogging in Alvin. . .

. . . you never know what you'll find.

Murderers' Row -- Donald Hamilton

Donald Hamilton's recent death prompted me to re-read a couple of his books. First up was this Matt Helm novel, grabbed at random from a stack of reading copies. In this one, Helm's about to go on a much-needed vacation when Mac sends him out on an assignment. Helm is to beat up a woman (one of Mac's agents), and make it look good to the opposition. Typically, he's being sent because the woman's partner is too squeamish to do the job. Helm, of course, isn't. But there's a problem, and to tell what it is would spoil some of the fun. So I won't tell. Let's just say that Helm's is forced to do a little more than he expected. In fact, because of further complications, Helm has to become a bit of a rogue agent, and there's some question about his psychological stability. Even Helm has his doubts, though of course the reader probably doesn't.

This is a Cold War story, but the time period and the McGuffin don't really matter. The real subject it Helm's toughness and professionalism. Helm scorns amateurs, women who wear pants, sentimentalists (not that Helm is entirely free of sentiment, however), and incompetence. Maybe not the best of the series, but a good one that packs a heck of a lot of story into its 144 pages. Check it out.

Donald Hamilton Update

Be sure to check out Steve Lewis's always excellent Mystery*File for this post, and don't miss the link at the bottom for even more.

Anna Nicole Smith Update

ANNA NICOLE IS ... UM ... WAS DEEP - What Would Tyler Durden Do: "Two diaries kept by Anna Nicole Smith in the early 1990s were made available to the Associated Press yesterday, just a few samples among several pieces of personal items belonging to Smith that will be auctioned off later this month in Dallas. All of which sounds boring and is only noteworthy because of the awesome samples, . . ."

Samples in ANS's own handwriting at the link.

Honored Again

I'm honored that "Cranked" has been nominated for a Derringer Award by the Short Mystery Fiction Society. First the Edgar nom, and now this. It really is an honor just to be nominated. Thanks to Duane Swierczynski and David Thompson for including the story in Damn Near Dead and to Dave White and Byron Quatermous, whose blog project was the impetus for the first story about one of the characters.

Easter in Texas, 2007

My brother, who lives in our hometown, sent this photo, taken yesterday afternoon, of his backyard. This is the first time it's snowed in that part of Texas in April in my lifetime.