In 2013 UK-based video game retailer Game invented the easy peasy Christmas Tinner. And this year the company finally realised that vegan and vegetarian gamers were wasting away at their keyboards and released animal-free varieties of its table-for-one in a can.
What were Kiwis Googling in 2019?
The number onesearch in New Zealand was "Rugby World Cup" — in Australia that came second to the search "fires near me". And the second most searched subject was that nail-biting game of cricket between New Zealand v England in the ICC World Cup in July. Our most popular Kiwis were mixed-martial artist Israel Adesanya followed by the charismatic entertainer William Waiirua. And oddly, our nation's round-up of Top Searched Recipes for 2019 made the cut: 1. Spaghetti bolognese 2. Guacamole 3. Hot cross buns 4. Apple crumble 5. Pikelet
Noel saw this sign on the road between Te Awamutu and Cambridge and agreed ... Way too fast.
Me: Time for bed. Brain: OK. Me: Night. Brain: Night. Me: Brain: Is tiramisu short for tiramisusan? (Via @cluedont)
Man's best friend 12,000 years ago
In 1978, archaeologists excavating a late Paleolithic tomb in northern Israel uncovered the skeletons of an elderly human and a 5-month-old puppy. They had lain there together for 12,000 years. "The most striking thing about these remains was the fact that whoever presided over the original burial had carefully arranged the dead person's left hand so that it rested, in a timeless and eloquent gesture of attachment, on the puppy's shoulder," writes James Serpell in In the Company of Animals (1996). "The contents of this tomb not only provide us with some of the earliest solid evidence of animal domestication, they also strongly imply that man's primordial relationship with this particular species was an affectionate one ... prehistoric man may have loved his dogs and his other domestic animals as pets long before he made use of them for any other purpose."
