This morning, I was listening to the World Service, pretending to be awake when a story came on about the discovery of a rat. I mostly started paying attention because of the Australian voice talking about the rat. He spoke of how they have sniffer dogs specifically trained to find the droppings of this particular rat, which even in my addled, morning brain, I thought remarkably specialized.
The Victorian scientist explained how a young, sniffer dog was out and sniffing when he found a virulent patch of broad toothed rat scat. The thing is, the dog was there as a sort of negative test run, because the rats were not supposed to be there. So, when the dog became all excited, the scientists were confused then really, really pleased.
What I enjoyed most about the story, however, was the way the guy kept saying ‘broad toothed rat scat’ as if he was an actor warming up before a performance with a tongue twister. He managed to say it perfectly each time but had, presumably, been working on it for a while before the interview. His delivery was very studied.
Anyway, as the announcer on the World Service said, the broad toothed rat looks more like a hamster than a rat. You be the judge. Here’s a story from the ABC about it.
12 days to go
In the meanwhilst, we managed to book a removalist to take everything in our house to Trosa today. Now we just need to get rid of all the rubbish. Cue Freecycle.
