Tuesday 14 December 2010

Pigs on the run

From The Metro:

A herd of 100 pigs escaped being turned into Christmas crackling when their truck overturned on the way to the slaughterhouse. The porkers fled into woods at Ostroda na Mazurach* and kept police and wildlife experts at bay for six hours.

Firemen finally rounded up less [sic] than 50 of the beasts who were taken back to their farm. The driver, say police, is facing an un-merry Christmas on drink drive charges.


We used to do this on the school bus. Coming up to a certain roundabout, everybody upstairs would go over to the right hand side and once we picked up speed going round, we'd all dive over to the left. It does require a bit of co-ordination though.

On one particularly hair-raising occasion, when we got the 'bus to a 45 degree angle, the driver actually stopped and came upstairs to give us a bollocking. It was difficult to take him seriously because one wing of his glasses had snapped off and so they were balanced diagonally across his nose. Happy days.

* For unknown reasons, this story of pigs escaping in Poland is accompanied by a photo' of escaped pigs in Germany.

7 comments:

James Higham said...

Well done to the porkers - a blow for freedom.

Bayard said...

I remember talking to an old man of my grandfather's generation who, as a lad, had derailed a railway carriage along with the other boys in the carriage by synchronised jumping. They managed to hit the resonant frequency of the springs.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, that was my thought. Half the pigs made it!

B, derailing a railway carriage is hardcore. Was he not injured or anything?

View from the Solent said...

Aah but in those days, Bayard, schools taught proper physics. So that old man's band of ruffians would have known of the existence of resonant frequencies. (Unlike, apparently, the designers of the infamous wobbly bridge across the Thames)

Lola said...

I lived in Davos for 16 months as a lad of 11.

We used to go up an Alp called Strela in a little two seater egg shaped cableway thingy called a 'Gondelbahn'. Best bit was where the cable crossed a wide ravine meaning that several Gondelbahns were suspended between pylons. If a recalcitrant child (me and a mate) decided to start swaying their Gondelbahn, every other Gondelbahn on the span started to swing as well. Looking back you'd see the other passengers hanging on for grim death. (I am laughing at the memory as I type this - there really is no hope for me is there?)

Mark Wadsworth said...

VFTS, I wanted to go across the wobbly bridge but the buggers shut it down two minutes before I got there.

L, that is also hardcore. Those things scare me silly.

Bayard said...

Mark, apparently the carriage was stationary at the time, in the way of trains still today. The occupants were bored as a result, hence the jumping. Presumable the derailment was discovered before the train moved off, but history does not relate.