Aurlog

Revamped cow pages on aurochs.org

I have overhauled the cow pages on aurochs.org. They now look nice and cow-like in the same style as the cow games page, which looks a bit like this page too. In particular, there is a new cow jokes page, based largely on the cow Christmas cracker jokes post I did on this weblog just before Christmas, and a revamped cow songs and poems page. The list of cow pages is now as follows:

I am always interested to hear of new entries for any of these pages, but particularly for the latter, which is still quite short, although I am being picky: I would like poems or songs where the mention of cows is not incidental, which are preferably classic or by classic authors, and which are not simply doggerel (cowwerel?) for children. There isn't a lot, as far as I can see.

A.D. IV ID. APR. MMVIII

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Cow Christmas cracker jokes

As an addendum to yesterday's post, here are some cow Christmas cracker jokes, of which there are many. Based on a trawl of the web, I think it is fairly authoritative. I can't guaratee they have actually come from a Christmas cracker: some of them are just clearly short jokes, but I think they are worth including, if nothing else to kickstart the sad barely started list of cow jokes elsewhere on this site. I have given the source of each joke, at least where I first found it. I have, however, performed minor editing on them to standardize the formatting, tidy up punctuation, correct spelling, and so on. I did think about putting them in some kind of meaningful order, but they are instead in the order I came across them. I would, of course, be interested to hear any more you have to offer.

The last joke is a little intellectual: I have put a link to Wikipedia next to it which might help elucidate it for those of us without a head for physics.

Two cows stand in a field.
First cow: Are you worried about this Mad Cow Disease thats going round?
Second cow: Not really, I'm a chicken.
Source: PC Pro Interactive Forums

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side
Q: Why did the cow cross the road?
A: To get to the other side
Q: Why did the sheep cross the road?
A: To get to the other side
Q: Why did the farmer cross the road?
A: To get his animals back
Source: PC Pro Interactive Forums

Q: What do you get when you sit under a cow?
A: A pat on the head. Source: Ice In Space Forums

Q: Why did the cow jump over the moon?
A: Because the farmer had cold hands.
Source: Ice In Space Forums

Q: When do you know it is time for the cows to go to sleep?
A: When it is pasture bedtime.
Source: Ice In Space Forums

Q: Why do cows lie down in the rain?
A: To keep each udder dry.
Source: Pure FM Forums

Q: What goes boo boo boo?
A: cow with a blocked nose.
Source: Digital Spy Forums

Q: What goes 'oooooooooooooooh!'?
A: A cow with no lips.
Source: The CommanderBond.net Forums

Q: What do you get from a pampered cow?
A: Spoiled milk.
Source: JokeEmail.com

Q: What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?
A: Anyone can roast beef.
Source: JokeEmail.com

Q: Why did the cow ring its bell?
A: Because it's horn didn't work!!
Source: Wrexham Today Forums

Q: What do you get when you put a cow on a trampoline?
A: A milk shake.
Source: Some Christmas Cracker Jokes compiled by Owen Williams

Q: Where do cows go for a night out?
A: To the Mooooo-vies
Source: CPFC BBS Forums

Q: How do cows subtract?
A: With a cow-culator
Source: CPFC BBS Forums

Q: Where do cows go on holiday?
A: Moo York!
Source: Gamestyle Forum

Q: What do you get if you cross a cow, sheep, and a goat?
A: The milky baa kid!!!
Source: Natasha Bedingfield Forum

Q: What goes oom oom?
A: A cow walking backwards.
Source: CharlotteChurch.net Forums

Q: What game do cows play at parties?
A: Moosical chairs.
Source: CharlotteChurch.net Forums

Q: What do you get when you cross a cow with a duck?
A: Milk and quackers.
Source: CharlotteChurch.net Forums

Q: How do cows move house?
A: They call the Mooooovers.
Source: Gush Forums

Q: Why did the milking stool have only two legs?
A: Because the cow had the udder one.
Source: Christmas Cracker Jokes compiled by John Dubery.

Man in butcher's shop: I bet you five quid you can't reach the beef of that top shelf.
Butcher: No, the steaks are too high
Source: BBC Radio Lancashire (Google cached version)

Q: Why was the butcher worried?
A: His job was at steak!
Source: Observer Magazine

Q: What did the great explorer eat in the jungle?
A: Steak and pygmy pie.
Source: H2G2

First man: Do you want a game of Darts?
Second man: OK then.
First man:Nearest to bull starts.
Second man: Baa.
First man: Moo.
Second man: You're closest!
Source: Zedge

Q: What do you call a tiny cow?
A: A Moo-on. *
Source: BioWare Forums

Lastly, I forgot to say happy new year yesterday, so merry Christmas and a happy new year!

A.D. XIII KAL. IAN. MMVII

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Queen of cheese

To us it is a glorious theme
To sing of milk and curds and cream

While cataloguing some poetry books I came across a book called Pegasus descending : a book of the best bad verse / edited with notes and an introductory dialogue by James Camp, X.J. Kennedy and Keith Waldrop. In it is a superb poem, written in Canada in the 19th century by James McIntyre, called Queen of cheese. It was written about a prize 4 ton cheese made in Ingersoll, Canada, which later went on a tour of Toronto, New York, and Britain. The third stanza particularly appealed to me:

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees
Or as the leaves upon the trees
It did require to make thee please
And stand unrivaled, queen of cheese.

Now that's poetry! McIntyre became known as the Cheese Poet. Wikipedia quotes one of his other poems about cheese in Canada called Oxford Cheese Ode:

The ancient poets ne'er did dream
That Canada was land of cream,
They ne'er imagined it could flow
In this cold land of ice and snow,
Where everything did solid freeze
They ne'er hoped or looked for cheese.

Interestingly, the last stanza of the Oxford Cheese Ode also re-uses the comparison of many cows to a swarm of bees:

Cows numerous as swarm of bees
Are milked in Oxford to make cheese.

If you want to read more, which I am sure you do, Poemhunter has the full text of James McIntyre's poems, including the two above, although beware of pop-ups, even with Firefox with the pop-up blocker on.

A.D. IV KAL. DEC. MMVII

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New cow games

A couple of people have suggested some new games for my list of cow games, which is, incidentally, by far my the most popular page on this site:

Thank you to those who suggested games! Further suggestions are always welcome.

I have also checked the existing links and removed a couple of games that no longer exist. Fling the cow will be particularly missed. I now need to go on a general trawl of the web to see if there is anything else I have missed.

A.D. VIII ID. MAI. MMVII

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And that wants to be called for a Javascript program something

Cowthello is getting a reasonable number of referrals from Liste von Reversi/Othello-Spielen online, a list, in German, of 146 othello/reversi games available online. The write up for Cowthello- listed under Tom, not under Cowthello, number 12 last time I checked- says the following:

Eine lustige Variante mit Kühen als Spielsteinen und dazu gar nicht so schlecht. Ich konnte sie nicht auf Anhieb schlagen und laut einer mitgelieferten Tabelle hat sich das Programm auch ganz wacker gegen andere Programme behauptet. Und das will für ein Javascript-Programm etwas heißen.

I used Babelfish to translate this and was going to edit it slightly to make the English more natural. It is, however, so charming as it stands that I left it:

A merry variant with cows as Spielsteinen and in addition not at all so badly. I could not strike it at first attempt and according to a provided table the program also completely more wacker against other programs maintained myself. And that wants to be called for a Javascript program something.

As sil has pointed out before, this does need updating and the alpha-beta nettle needs to be grasped. Just not today. See if you can strike it.

A.D. XV KAL. NOV. MMVI

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Cow Solitaire on the radio

Cow Solitaire has been mentioned on national radio! I think. In any case, it appears on the website for Miles Mendoza's Website of the Day, which is part of Steve Wright in the Afternoon's no doubt excellent show on BBC Radio 2. It was apparently mentioned on Friday A.D. XVII KAL. OCT. MMVI, quote:

Thanks to Emma Mason for her email challenging me to find "a good cattle or livestock-related game for the weekend". Cow Solitaire does what it says on the tin - It's Solitaire with cows instead of marbles. Milk the Cow challenges you to click on as many cows as possible in order to fill your virtual bucket with milk.

If anyone can confirm this 10 seconds of fame I would be most grateful.

I tried to comment on Mr Mendoza's site to suggest that Cowthello might have been a more satisfying and interactive example, although he is no doubt too busy searching the web for similar gems to have time to approve my comment. Moreover, a link to http://www.aurochs.org/cows/games/ would have provided Ms Mason with far more choice. Anyway, it explains why this weblog started getting quite a few referrals from the Cow Solitaire page.

The research for the this article also threw up a more disturbing development. The rather unobvious idea of a cow-themed solitaire has now surfaced in physical format with the Haba Cow Solitaire board game, retailing at $12.39. Don't pay that kind of money: play for free!

A.D. XIII KAL. OCT. MMVI

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Cows probably don't have accents

Mark Liberman at* Language Log takes the scientific props away from the story that cows have accents, including quoting a testimony from John Wells, the linguist in question (and one of ours).

I particularly like Professor Wells's complaint about a PR company who issued the original press release on behalf of a Somerset cheese company:

They showed it to me only after they had sent it out, which meant that it was too late for me to protest that they had put into my mouth the solecism "This phenomena is...". Of course I would always say only "This phenomenon is..." or "These phenomena are".

*I refuse to use over at to refer to another weblog.

Update: More from Language Log and Professor Wells.

A.D. IX KAL. SEPT. MMVI

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Cows have accents

The BBC reports that researchers have found that cows have regional accents. Apparently birds do as well, although some farmers suggest a human cause that wouldn't be appropriate for birds:

Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said: "I spend a lot of time with my ones and they definitely moo with a Somerset drawl."

Logically, then, French cows should have French accents, German cows should have German accents, etc. I would love to hear a Geordie moo.

A.D. X KAL. SEPT. MMVI

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New cow game: Cow Tipping

John Phethean of Pave Graphics recently emailed me about a whack-a-rat style Flash game he has written for the A-Coo-Stik site. The game is Cow Tipping and is very hard, so far as I've tried it.

I've added it to the canonical list of cow games.

A.D. IV NON. AUG. MMVI

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Tom