Ragtag Giggagon

Dublin Zoo welcomed a new arrival last weekend Where are them Syrians? Hassan Aboud - himself a zookeeper at Syria's Aleppo Zoo until 2011 - started at the zoo while awaiting the decision from the Department of Justice over his asylum application. Hassan and his family hold the world record for the longest period at sea in a rubber dinghy for a full biological family. The two adults and three children also hold the same record for a family of five accompanied by a third generation. Hassan's dehydrated father-in-law was forced to drop out of the dinghy halfway through the voyage, due to exhaustion and death at the age of 73. He is survived by his daughter Faiza, her husband Hassan, and three grandchildren. The family will be on display all day every day between the Chimpanzee enclosure and the Rang'Utan* exhibit, where you can see a profound sadness, and a deep intelligence, in their eyes. The popular meerkats, located some distance from the Syrians' enclosure, have no i

Nowhere’s Child by Kari Rosvall is about a woman’s valiant struggle to ascertain and accept her birth identity. Inter alia, the Lebensborn policy of the Nazis involved turning Norwegian women into breeders, with children fathered by SS and German soldiers. Kari, born in 1944, was one such baby. The Nazis also snatched blond-haired, blue eyed children off streets in Eastern Europe for ad option by German families. You can imagine the credits fading out and a title: Norway 1944, as a bunch of evil black-uniformed Nazis ship containers of babies off towards the Fatherland, by train or by truck or by ship. The beginnings of a Marvel movie, it seems, the first of a franchise, featuring the origins of a superhero? No! This actually happened. Kari claims in the buke that the Lebensborn kids were regarded as unsalvageable human beings, the postwar Norwegian leaders of the time viewing any effort to raise them in Norwegian society as being akin to house-training cellar rats as pets. This is t

When he's writing about cops and murder, Jan Arnald's pseudonym is Arne Dahl . He's an award-winning writer and critic from Scanda-Sfaaden, in the mould of Jon Lesbo with the funny O, the erudite Herring Mackerel and the late great Stieg "Glen" "A" Larsson. While his books are lauded, Dahl's adaptations are also "as seen on the BBC4", alongside The Bridge and The Tunnel and The Chunnel and Ken Branagh and the Italian fella, and whoever else.  And he's coming to Ireland for a chat with crime fiction writer Sam Blake, aka Vanessa O'Loughlin. In the guise beyond her Sam Blake moniker, Vanessa is a literary scout at Inkwell Group , and is generally acknowledged as knowing her stuff when it comes to book edits, and cover letters to agencies, and everything else. She also has an incredible resource for all things authorly at her Writing.IE presence. Who are the enablers of this Crime Fiction Banter Session? The Malahide-based Something W

Answer: Noam Chomsky

This is the first map to pop up when you're looking for the Azores. I have no idea where it is in relation to the rest of the world. Google Maps, I know there's probably a button or an icon I can click, and within ten seconds I can see it's in the middle of the Atlantic, but, like, why do I have to even do that? Couldn't you do a little thumbnail map alongside, and tiny red dot? Or a choice of two maps, each one taking up half the screen, one of the world or the region, and one, like, fully zoomed in? Like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like...[SPLUTTERS IN FRUSTRATION.]

Ongoing heartbreak for one of Hollywood's A-List couples, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, as their break-up remains in the spotlight. Worse still, here are images of the tiger shark which Affleck (42) is rumored to have had the affair with. Images of the shark - seen earlier on a private jet with Patriots' Quarterback Tom Brady and the Oscar-winning actor-screenwriter - give the impression that the big fish was spoiled by Affleck. "It seemed very well fed at the time of its capture," claimed a blogger. Affleck denies the affair, saying that he and the shark were "just friends". His now estranged wife, Jennifer Garner (Alias the beauty pageant contestant in Catch Me If You Can), 34-B, has not yet passed any comment on the most recent revelations. With the inappropriate gossip now focused on the reason for the latest conscious uncoupling of two famous people, there's good reason to continue to fill column inches! The six meter shark - recently caught a

Everybody, meet the coolest cat on the planet. This guy has a purr that sounds like a Maserati at a Stop sign. His constant cuteness is undermined by the time required to satisfy his need for attention. He's a diva and he knows it. Bambam, or just Bam, is also mad as a bag of spanners. If you've read the previous post in our series, you're aware of his sister Alice . Alice suffers from a dose of the squirts on occasion. Bam's acknowledgement of his sister's irritable bowel manifests itself in consistent efforts to make her c**p herself through biting and grabbing of her flatulating ar**.  An instance of same at one point resulted in Bambam's arrival into the bathroom, having clearly had some kind of an altercation with his sister in which he came out worse for it, one side of his coat, from neck to tail, covered in liquid brown. Purring like a total ****pot, the throbbing ****-covered feline **** of a thing was expecting affection, and looked - for once in his l

Yes, it's more cat profiles with the cursewords deleted! Now for a brother and sister team of nasty ****ing fraudsters who will come into your home all needy and diva-like and cuckoo ****ing bananas. They've already played guest-starring roles in this blog . First up is Alice, or the Windy Sh**ty. Alice likes nothing more than to cause disgusting ****ing stinks. She enjoys the miasma of her own ***ty f*rts and insists on sharing same by jumping up onto any free lap with her grippy, grippy ****ing claws, and sinking them into your legs, an eye-wateringly mind-boggling **** of a stench rising up as she tries to rub her face in yours. Try going through the pain of those fine paw-nails gripping your thigh, inhaling sharply at the grip into your flesh, and then getting a blast of some of the most noxious flatulence you could ever hope to experience. Add that masochism to the bucket list! She trusts her own judgment in her grippy treatment of your flesh, and is gentle enough with

Ben Carson looks like the most reasonable chap among the morons running for the Leader of the Dicks, so named after former Dick Head, Vice-President Cheney, in whose dark heart the real power lied. This is only just going back about eight years previous. But listen to what Ben has to say, and he seems the least worst of the morons. It's not brain surgery. Haha: "We have weakened ourselves militarily...the sequester [reduction in military spending] is cutting the heart out of our personnel, our generals are retiring because they don't want to be part of this, and at the same time..." "Our enemies are increasing and our friends can't trust us any more." 1. So stop bugging the German Chancellor's phone. Angle-a is already paranoid as beejeebers, having grown up behind the Ireddeddon Curtain, where you couldn't say boo to a doppel-gander* before being hauled away by the equivalent of the CIA or whatever. 2. End the Shoot First policy of the US Armed

Here is a list of dating website tips! A HIS-N-HERS CUPCAKES SPECIAL!!!!! For Boys: 1.  Wake up and smell the coffee, gentlemen: Girls don't like toilet humor. They are, however, very fond of cupcakes. 2. Replace your profile photos with photos of cupcakes. Don't show off any guns, unless you are showing off guns. Not the guns from hunting. No game is fair game in dating photos. 3. Remember, girls are very nice! So, save your willy pics until you get to know the girl. Then, send willy pics until she complains that she has no mobile data remaining on her credit. For Girls: 1. Ladies: Nobody wants to see photos of your cupcakes. Guys would, however, appreciate it if you showed off your cupcakes a little, in some of your pictures. 2. Images of elephants on the African savannah might show that you're well-travelled, but don't include them unless they show you fleeing a stampede, with your cupcakes jiggling. And don't shoot any lions. So let's recap:  Boys = Cupcake