[230/366] a legal penguin

[cosmolinguist]

At work today, L was telling his husband J about something I'd read about yesterday: some police in Nottinghamshire found a penguin that had run away from the farm where it lived.

The story L was reading to us, different from this link, also included the fact that it's legal to own a penguin, as long as you didn't acquire it illegally. I marveled at this bit of the story, and we speculated as to how legal penguin ownership can be ascertained. "Do you have a license for that penguin?" J said and we laughed. I said it'd be even funner if it was like a TV licence and had to be renewed every year. This time, J mimed looking at a piece of paper and said "Wait a minute, this is only for a black and white penguin!" which made me laugh so much I honestly went weak in the knees and if it wasn't for a handy nearby countertop might have dropped the milk I had just taken out of the fridge.

It might help a little to know that Britain did, or maybe still does, offer cheaper TV licences to black-and-white TV sets. But I can't really tell you why it was so funny. J laughed himself into breathlessness too. I think it just got me wondering what other colors penguins could come in. Also I the baby penguins, which are grey, wouldn't be allowed in a strict interpretation of the black-and-white penguin license.

Comments

[ludy]

Macaroni Penguins wouldn’t be allowed either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaroni_penguin

[cosmolinguist]

What a good name! I did think there were other kinds of penguin that aren't all black and white but I wasn't in much of a state for proper thought at the time, as the rest of this conversation probably illustrates. :) So thank you for telling me the name!

[pseudomonas]

Little Blue penguins are, whodathunk, little and blue.

[angelofthenorth]

They can have yellow bits - rock hoppers for example

[tarasacon]

What’s the yellow-marks-on-penguins equivalent of pasties to cover nipples?

[otter]

Reminds me of the old Monty Python bit "there's a penguin on the telly". Much overused for laughs in my 20s & 30s. https://vimeo.com/180493607

[kshandra]

I read this to my husband, who now wants to see Jeremy Clarkson trying to get a penguin license. "Right. I have my penguin, and I'm at the Ministry."

[silveradept]

Sometimes it's the delivery that makes it the most fun or funny, and it sounds like the delivery timing on this penguin license joke is perfect.

[tarasacon]

*snort*
:)

[benicek]

Clearly remember loving the Clangers on TV when I was a kid and was indignant to see them again decades later and realise they weren’t the colour of blu-tak, as they had appeared on our black and white TV.

I was surprised to learn that you can own a sugar glider as a pet in Britain but not in their native Australia. My sister in Australia checked it out at my prompting.