"Gulls are intelligent like crows. They can recognise individual faces and respond very well to kindness. I had two tame gulls breed in my garden for 10 years until I moved house. In return for a little bit of food they would keep the other gulls away. They never dive-bombed me when they had chicks and would even bring the chicks to see me if I was sitting in the garden chair. While the neighbours were unable to go out I could use my garden quite happily. They only attacked me once, when I went out with a towel turban. They didn't recognise me. I swear when I took the towel off they looked embarrassed." (Via Mumsnet Madness)
Waste Not, Want Not
In 1871 an American man bequeathed his body to Harvard University. He requested that his skin be made into two drumheads to become the property of his life-long friend, Warren Simpson, leader of a drum corps, on condition that on a certain hill at sunrise, on June 17 each year, he should beat on the said drum the tune of Yankee Doodle. He asked that the rest of his body, unless it was used for anatomical purposes, "be composted for a fertiliser to contribute to the growth of an American elm, to be planted in some rural thoroughfare, that the weary wayfarer may rest, and innocent children play beneath its umbrageous branches rendered luxuriant by my remains."
