British Expat Newsletter

22 March 2006

Hello, and welcome to those who have joined up since our last newsletter.

In this issue

This week: Snakes
On the website
Virtual Snacks
Sponsor
Bizarre Searches
Quotation and joke

This week

Those of you who've been receiving these newsletters for the last eighteen months may remember that we had a close encounter with a snake shortly after we moved to our beach hut in Thailand. We've seen precious little of snakes ever since. Perhaps all the more surprisingly as they're one of the most cosmopolitan groups of animals in the world – the only major land masses where you won't find them in the wild are Antarctica (fancy that!), Iceland, Ireland (according to legend, St Patrick drove them all out), Newfoundland and New Zealand.

Then again, maybe it's not such a surprise. Most people will tell you they're uneasy about snakes at least, and many people are downright scared of them, to the point of phobia. After all, they're not exactly fluffy bunnies. (In fact, they're likely to eat fluffy bunnies.) They don't have arms and legs, they slither across the ground, many of them are poisonous or can kill by crushing their prey. And we all remember Kaa hypnotising Mowgli in The Jungle Book, don't we? (For those that don't, how about the Parselmouths – speakers of snake language – in the Harry Potter books?) So if a snake appears in the home, many householders' gut reaction is to kill first and find out whether it's poisonous afterwards.

This is a bit tough on the snake. OK, some are poisonous. But many aren't, or have a bite no more dangerous than a wasp sting. (Please ignore this if you're in Australia. The ten most deadly snake species in the world all live there, including the inland taipan or fierce snake, whose average bite of just 44 milligrams of venom contains enough to kill up to 200 humans or 250,000 mice, if Wikipedia's to be believed. Hmm...) And most species aren't particularly aggressive towards humans anyway – given the chance, they'll flee rather than fight. (Despite its name, the fierce snake isn't, though you wouldn't want to provoke it.) Even on snake farms, where the snakes undergo regular handling by humans to extract their venom – and that can't be a very pleasant experience – bites are rare and are apparently usually due to carelessness on the part of the handler. More people are killed by lightning than by snakes each year.

Besides, they're fascinating creatures. They have no ears as such, but are sensitive to vibrations such as footsteps. They don't see particularly well, but better at night than in daylight (which again goes to explain why they're not seen more often). Although they have many of the same internal organs that other vertebrates do, they're arranged very differently – in a ribcage far longer than that of other vertebrates of similar size. They have that amazing sense of smell which helps them navigate through their surroundings. And, of course, they keep the vermin down.

By the way, we're now moving out of the beach hut – the estate owners are knocking them all down, presumably to redevelop the land with something more profitable. But a couple of days ago as we were clearing some stuff out, a passing member of the estate staff told us she'd seen a snake going into one of the upstairs windows. We searched (very carefully!) but couldn't find one.

Well, it started with a snake and it's ended with a snake...!

Do you have anything to say about this topic, or do you have some suggestions for other issues we might discuss in our weekly email? Why not tell us about it on the forum?
British Expat Forum: BE Newsletter discussion

On the Website

Not much new on the main site this week as we've been busy with the house move (and with creating the dedicated Spain and Australia fora). But we've still managed to find time to add a new Pic of the Week – this time round it's a photo of the violent and frantically-paced sport of Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province, buzkashi.

All the new articles and features are listed on our What's New page:
What's New on BE?

If you're looking for travel features on the site, a good place to start is our Expat World page.
Expat World

Virtual Snacks

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have a wonderful set of pages about snakes in the Texas Junior Naturalists section of their website. As the name implies, the pages are aimed at younger readers – but they're very informative, going into quite technical detail without losing clarity or without patronising. Well worth a look.
Texas Junior Naturalists: Snakes alive!

The Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute (the Science Division of the Thai Red Cross Society) houses the world's second oldest snake farm. Unfortunately there's not very much information on the Institute's own website, but you can see pictures and read about it on the Thailand Guidebook.com website:
Thailandguidebook.com: Snake farm

Sponsor

Offshore Companies House offer fast online registration of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, Belize, Dominica and other tax havens, as well as quick and easy setting up of multicurrrency bank accounts. OCH, through their offshore services, will provide you with the full necessary support at each stage and will always try to offer the best possible prices. They offer attractive and inexpensive offshore packages, and their reliability and quality of offshore service say even more for them than their prices. Most of their new clients – over 15,000 in the last ten years – are referred by previous satisfied customers. However, if you can get the same service, or an offshore package which is a genuinely cheaper offer, they promise to match it!
Offshore Companies House

Bizarre Searches

Some strange search terms which have led people to visit British Expat recently:

britany spears maze
silk and satin sex
ringophone heights
rabbit being pulled
what to say about having weird lunch
fun navy
my ex girlfriends picture on bed
ecards for your enemies
carrot amini british
british electric sex chastity belt show
warner brothers vulture
people who sing techno [That's almost an oxymoron]

Till next time...
Happy surfing!

Kay
Editor
British Expat Magazine

Quotation

"Once bitten by a snake, a person is scared all their life at the mere sight of a rope."

– Chinese proverb

Joke

It was St Patrick's Day last Friday. (Hope you all had a very happy one, wherever you were!) To mark the occasion, here's a news flash...

Archaeologists excavating in County Meath in Ireland have recovered what they think is an original manuscript by St. Patrick dating back to 455 AD. It was found near the famous Stone of Fal on Tara Hill, the spot where St. Patrick was welcomed back to Ireland by one of the great Celtic kings.

The ancient parchment manuscript is believed to be the oldest written Christian text ever recovered in Ireland. It is estimated to be the most valuable find in the 20-year research project since the discovery of the Tara Brooch in the same area. There is speculation that it may be in St. Patrick's own hand.

Celtic scholars, historians, and religious scholars are excited by information translated from the original Old Celtic that purports to support what up to now has been considered a religious myth: St. Patrick's driving the serpents out of Ireland.

Celtic language experts say St. Patrick writes that God revealed how to drive the serpents from the land in a vision. St. Patrick ends his narrative by quoting what God said to him in the vision:

"Pat! Trust me, it tastes just like chicken."