Maybe practice next time?
You have to admire the courage of Gloucester man Kevin Brady, who recently completed a challenge to canoe the length of the Mississippi, from its source in Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of more than 2,000 miles.
Certainly more than you can admire his forward thinking.
Brady, who undertook the challenge for the Pied Piper Appeal at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, gave himself only a weekend’s training on the River Wye before he set off. He did not arrange anywhere to stay for the most part, and slept out in the open, frequently enduring extreme cold. On one occasion he woke up to found himself surrounded by bears.
Still, we can't carp too much; after all, he achieved something impressive, and raised £3,000 for his cause, while Society Diary is sitting here in a nice warm office writing sarky remarks.
Union in hot water over spaghetti
From a row down the river, we move to a row by the river. At London South Bank University (LSBU), to be precise, where a silly spat kicked off between the student union and a group of students called the South Bank Atheists Society (SBAS).
The union, it seems, banned a poster the SBAS used to advertise, featuring the creation of Adam, as painted in the Sistine Chapel, but with God replaced by a big pile of pasta and meatballs with eyes called the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Apparently the union felt this iconic image, known as Touched by his Noodly Appendage, could offend some people.
The FSM, as he’s known to his, um, worshippers, is a mock-deity originally dreamed up during a debate about creationism by an irritated scientist, who argued he was just as plausible as any other deity.
As if thrown at a wall, the idea stuck; atheists have been sticking colanders on their heads and calling themselves Pastafarians ever since.
Following this latest sense of humour failure, the British Humanist Association got involved and wagged its finger, or some other more noodly appendage, at the censorious students. The union has, with some contrition, apologised.
You have no love in your soul
While the students of LSBU have decided to kiss and make up, it looks like a lot of their peers are firmly giving loving gestures the body-swerve today, according to relationship charity OnePlusOne, which has cleverly generated masses of coverage for itself with a snap Valentine’s Day survey.
More than half of couples think the whole day is a load of tosh and would rather stay in with a DVD, the charity found. And fewer than one in three young people – presumably completely skint after years of recession – are even going to send a card.
Kids are weird these days, aren't they? Why wouldn’t you want to mark the death of a 3rd century saint about whom absolutely nothing is known by sending your loved one a cardboard stylisation of a blood-filled internal organ?
