Received five minutes ago
Subject: “A report on radiation contamination of Canada”
Body of email: “On Internet forums there appeared messages of a powerful explosion at a Canada nuclear power station located in the suburbs of Ontario..”
“According to witnesses’ statements the explosion happened at about 3 pm on the 9th of September.
In particular, one resident of this town has made a call and had time to inform her relatives that connection in the town was being cut off in order not to let people phone somebody.
She insists that the explosion really took place at the nuclear power station, and that it was a really powerful one, and now the radiation cloud is moving. This information is being unofficially confirmed in public agents’ private conversations.
Besides, local residents place pictures of the explosion consequences and victims’ bodies in their blogs.
The photo’s attached to this email!
Send this email to your friends!”
Nah, I don’t think I’ll pass your “quarantined attachment” on to my friends. I’ll just post your ridiculous email on the internet for general mockery.
Starting with: where are “the suburbs of Ontario”? I didn’t know that provinces can have suburbs. Maybe no-one else did either, which is why no-one’s noticed that a large part of the country has been missing for over 24 hours…
…which begs the question of whether anyone would notice part of Canada is missing.
runs away
You can run, but you can’t hide. I’ll send some of Vancouver’s
orcsorcas down there to get you.Anyway. America would get cold without its hat.
Apparently, in 1993 the US Senate was concerned that someone had been setting off nuclear bombs in Austrialia without anyone noticing…
No one could tell the difference between most of Australia and a nuclear wasteland anyway. At least, no one important.
“…which begs the question of whether anyone would notice part of Canada is missing.”
No, it raises the question of whether anyone would n-HEY!!!
no, I think it does beg. Cath had already raised it.
Ooh. How did I miss the tyop in the first line of this psot?
ha! I’ve got so used to Firefox’s integrated spell checker that when I wrote this at work (IE6) I didn’t even think to check.
Now fixed – on miPhone.
BTW I think Eva is right!
I don’t.
xx
Oi,
ref!editor! Over here!Thx!
How about an arm-wrestle to settle matters?
Do Eva and I get to combine our strength?
ménage à trois?
OK.
REF!!!
No comment! (You’ll have to wait for Graham to wave one of his cards.)
Back to the topic ;-), it is just as well they sent the message by email and not the Canadian postal service, or else the locals would have had to wait a few weeks to find out about this event.
bq. No comment!
First time for everything.
ducks and runs
Yeah, the mail system here is bizarre. Airmail to the UK takes either 3 days or 3 weeks, rarely any intermediate length of time. And things get from Vancouver to Toronto faster than they get a hundred miles up the coast…
Richard, I pick my battles!
Now I’m worried, Maxine.
Be afraid, be really afraid.
At the same time, be careful out there.
Stop it Maxine.
You’re scaring me.
Sorry! The battles I pick aren’t with you, Richard, or anyone else on Nature Network.
I am now (honestly) off to post a parcel to Canada. I’m setting the time clock.
Heh. Dashboard has a load of World clocks, but where the hell is Canada anyway?
It’s not there any more, it got blown up last week, remember?
oh that’s right. And nobody noticed.
(This is me catching up on Nature Network) “Let’s see what people have said in comment threads I recently commented in…” clicketyclick click scroll “…ménage à trois?… I see, it’s just another day on the internet.”
Eva, you owe me a fresh cup of tea. The last one got snorted onto my keyboard.
nobody noticed
the dashboard people apparently did. I bet they miss us. And, and, just you wait for the great maple syrup shortage of 2009. And where else are you gonna put the 2010 Winter Olympics?
bq. And where else are you gonna put the 2010 Winter Olympics?
Don’t tempt me.
Canadians are such nice people, aren’t they?
Just because we reject your, um, invitations doesn’t mean we’re not nice.
Thank goodness someone at Nature realises that Canada not only exists, but is having a rather important election soon…
I am finding it rather difficult to believe that I missed this entire discussion.
Most of the suburban parts of Ontario that I live in are still extant, although I confess our federal government pretty much isn’t. But, as everyone’s said, nobody will notice.
*back to reading more current things
Richard, it is quite possible that you are suffering from amnesia brought on by post traumatic stress disorder, and have in fact been wandering around in a daze with your hair on fire for the last few months.
Look out of the window. Do you see any of the following?
smoking craters
dead fish washed up on river banks
government agents in radiation suits
cockroaches with two heads
If so, you may wish to seek medical help.
Suburban Ontario, last autumn. Allegedly.
Hahaha! I forgot about this thread!
Awesome.
(I still think I’m right about the grammar issue, though.)
Me too. Damn that Richard Grant, distracting us from our pedantry!
Cath – email me and I’ll send you my recipe for dead fish with two-headed cockroaches, lovingly poached in a still-steaming crater.
Southern Ontario ain’t what it used to be, although I hear that the federal government is still somewhat functional, which is sort of a relief I guess.
I don’t find that very reassuring, personally