Where are all our Boneless Banquets? Why is the Grey Squirrel nature’s great problem solver? And who suffered a Winter Olympics meltdown? Welcome to the AngloFiles, a weekly rundown of the weird, wonderful and inspirational, bringing you the best bits and bobs that British news, culture, science, sport and entertainment has to offer.
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#3: A Champion’s Defeat
The stereotype says that Britain loves a gallant underdog (who doesn’t?), but the Short Track Speed Skating at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics threw us into uncharted territory this week – with Team GB actually expected to win. So, naturally, disaster struck – not once, but three times.
Elise Christie had been GB’s massive medal hope in the Games. But her ambitions were ended when she crashed out in the 500m final, crashed out and injured herself in the 1,500m semi-final, and – despite gallantly taking to the start line for the 1,000m – she was DQ’ed from her heat. And that’s all after three successive failures in the Sochi Games, four years ago. Christie’s already committed to Beijing in 2022, though. They’ll make a movie about this woman one day!
#2: Survival of the Smartest
As far as the animal kingdom goes, squirrels rarely get the limelight that they so clearly deserve. We Brits share a particular fondness for the Red Squirrel – which is native to our lands. But the Grey Squirrel has also grown on us, since it was introduced from North America during the 1800s. And even if you don’t like the Grey Squirrel (But they’re so cute…), there’s not a great deal you can do about it now – because Greys outnumber Reds by more than fifteen to one.
And, researchers from Exeter and Edinburgh reckon they’ve uncovered why that is – because Grey Squirrels are far superior problem solvers. The scientists set up a kind of squirrel Olympics, with two tasks based on retrieving hazelnuts – an easy one, and a difficult one. Long story short, the Greys easily outperformed the Reds during the harder of the two tasks – which involved a complex lever release mechanism. Clever, eh?
Before we get to our final entry, let’s remember what else happened during this week in history:
It’s twenty-one years since the conception of Dolly the Sheep was announced to the public, on 22nd February 1997. Dolly was the first mammal ever to be successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell. She was actually born seven months earlier, in July 1996, and she had three mothers. Dolly’s creation took place at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, in an experiment presided over by British scientists Sir Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell.
#1: Kentucky Fried Crisis
You can take away our tea rooms. You can close down our cafes. But never, ever, tamper with our takeaways. The UK has been up in arms this week, because KFC literally ran out of chicken. The firm favourite American import was forced to close up to 500 stores across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all because of a botched switch to the company’s new supplier, DHL.
While most stores reopened after a couple of days, some were left chicken-less for close to a week – leaving customers suitably peckish. KFC reckoned its staff were working round the clock (or should that be ‘cluck’?) trying to fix the problem. The restaurant found the funny side when issuing an apology though, by rearranging their initials into simply ‘FCK’. Finger Lickin’ Fantastic!
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