Category: Chester Press

Uber-Lice ain’t Uber-Hip

Lousy at it sounds, a new breed of lice has been discovered living almost exclusively in the beards of Hipsters.

The new breed, tentatively named “Pediculus hipsterus” after the place of its discovery, has larger claws, a thicker shell and is ideally suited to long, shaggy chin hair.

“It may well be that this louse has been around for a while, adapted to the facial hair of humans, and that we have only seen a resurgence in its population since the proliferation of the hipster lifestyle,” says Robert Deakin, Curator of the National Louse, Mite and Tick Association, “We have seen this before with fleas and mites, where a given species was thought to be extinct, only to reappear as society’s habits changed.”

This case is different, he goes on to say, in that the louse under question has never been catalogued before, and shows a particular predilection for long, shaggy beards, a favourite of the hipster movement. Not only this, the louse have shown a strong resilience to conventional treatments, requiring nothing less than physical removal to treat the problem.

“The usual anti-lice shampoos only slow them down. Eggs are attached more strongly. The correlation between the adoption of the hipster lifestyle and the discovery of these lice is too strong to ignore.”

When asked why other periods of high beard usage would not have seen such a creature, Robert replies, “It’s a myth that lice like dirty hair. In fact, the cleaner and more well groomed, the better. In the past, beards would have been hostile, dirty places to live. Hipsters are unique, in that they regularly clean their beards and have access to conditioners designed to soften the normally wiry hair. It is my theory that the shampoos, conditioners and perfumes used to maintain hipster beards is breeding this uber-lice.”ChesterLogoSmall

Whale Ranch

Agriculture experts have teamed up with scientists and engineers to develop the first ‘whale farm’, an enterprise that seeks to increase the population of whales with breeding programs, protected migration, controlled slaughter and even milking.

“The husbandry is similar to land-cattle. We are enlisting the help of engineers that specialise in aquatic environments to help design the equipment and machinery required,” says Brennan Horswich, head of the program based on the Ivory Coast ‘Ranch’, “It is a real team effort. [The venture] is expensive, yes, but worth it. Just think of the benefits such a program would bring!”

Logistics is not the biggest hurdle, he says, even though tracking and driving a pod of whales across the expanse of the ocean is a feat in itself. Problems lie in how to artificially inseminate whales, or, if this proves too difficult, to encourage the right bull to mate. Further issues arise in predator control, health checkups, birthing and ensuring that the whales are happy.

“There are three main economic benefits that will come of this. First, there is the tourism for eco-watchers. Secondly, we aim to be able to harvest the milk of the cows (female whales) in the same way as we do cattle. Thirdly, the meat, bones, skin and especially the blubber is amazingly valuable,” says Brennan Horswich, “Tourism is easy. For milking, we are creating launches that will act similar to a suckling whale and float gently underneath. The milk is very rich, very nutritious.”

Once the milk is harvested, it goes into great, cooled vats to be pasteurised and processed. While the taste is not to everyone’s palate, efforts are underway to provide cooking techniques and examine ways to filter unwanted flavours.

He goes on to say that until a painless and reliable slaughtering technique is devised, his team will concentrate on the tourism and milking aspects.

“In any case, with proper breeding and farming practices, we will end up with more whales, and healthier whales, than what we started with and this, we can all agree, is the greatest benefit of all.”ChesterLogoSmall