Oh those tres silly French
Today brings word of the death of Alain Bombard who purposely drifted across the Atlantic claiming to subsided on raw fish, plankton and sea water. Fat chance. Sea water
has about a third more salt than does blood. When you drink it, the concentration of salt in your blood goes up, and this sucks water out of your cells. This leads to no end of problems, including kidney failure, brain damage, and death. Next time you’re at the beach, drink down a big glass of sea water and enjoy puking your guts out. (Well there is some good news re. sea water. It turns out that reports that a whale ejaculates 400 gallons of sperm is just another Urban Legend.
) Bombard’s rival in doing the semi-absurd was a German doctor, Hans Lindemann,
who crossed the Atlantic in a folding kayak , but in proper Teutonic fashion, Lindemann did not claim to drink sea water, he drank beer.
Then again, Bombard joined the legion (semi-pun) of Frenchman who did inane things, such as Silvain Dornon
, a baker who walked on stilts from Paris to Moscow in 58 days in the spring of 1891, Benoit Lecomte
who swam across the Atlantic in 1998 (and now wants to swim around the world—he does live in Texas now), and Francois Gravelot
who walked a tightrope stretched across Niagara Falls multiple times (once carrying his manager on his back, and another stopping to cook an omelet mid-way). Here are some pictures
. Gravelot, aka “Charles Blondin” also walked across Niagara Falls on stilts
. But, in the name of definite gender equality if nothing else, you have to recognize Anne Quemere
who rowed solo across the Atlantic—both directions. (Quemere’s current plan is to surf across the Atlantic
.) On Deck?
Ironically, we recently received the following message from an ODDfan:
“The AP and UPI reported that after the London bombings the French Government announced it raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide. The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The raise was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.”
Oh boy are we going to get the e-mails.
Just remember, “pate”
is French for “goose guts,” and we ODDones would rather ride horses than eat them
