Famine in 2009 ?

[TimberWolf]

You can find out quite easily by holding a cigarette lighter to your bum and then blowing off. If the flame is blue your fart contains methane. Seeing as not all farts produced by methane farters are methane farts, you'll need to repeat the test a number of times over the course of a few weeks, while sticking to your normal diet, to ascertain whether you are a methane farter. Make your own credit crunch entertainment by inviting some friends around for a methane testing party.

It would probably be safer to do this in the bath.
Equipment: Bath, water, cup, splint/matches, gas spectrometer.

[Doggy Styles]

Hmmm, this has given me an idea. We could use taxpayers’ money to fire a massive canister of compressed oxygen at jupiter and watch the bang as it hits. No real economic benefit, but it would be laugh and provide a good night’s telly.

Wouldn't it be better to fire a grappling hook at it and tug it closer so we could harness all that methane as fuel? People have won Nobel prizes for less.

[Mich the Tester]

Wouldn't it be better to fire a grappling hook at it and tug it closer so we could harness all that methane as fuel? People have won Nobel prizes for less.

Hmmm, that's getting a bit over ambitious and expensive. Remember, budgets are limited by Mr Brown's credit rating. Once he's rescued another bank, built another big databasey thingummyjig and paid out all those public sector pensions, there won't be much more than 50p to pay for the jupiter mission.

[Moscow Mule]

Wouldn't it be better to fire a grappling hook at it and tug it closer so we could harness all that methane as fuel? People have won Nobel prizes for less.

That's all very well, but where are we going to borrow the money to buy a rope that goes around the equator 14,600 times and has a breaking strains of 1898x10^25 Kg?

Not to mention a grappling hook that can attach to a gas?

[Mich the Tester]

That's all very well, but where are we going to borrow the money to buy a rope that goes around the equator 14,600 times and has a breaking strains of 1898x10^25 Kg?

The same place as we borrowed the money to invade two large countries, pay huge numbers of government personel, bail out some badly run banks, build a big database for the NHS and the national ID card and provide Mr Prescott with 2 Jags.

The Bank of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

[Doggy Styles]

That's all very well, but where are we going to borrow the money to buy a rope that goes around the equator 14,600 times and has a breaking strains of 1898x10^25 Kg?

Not to mention a grappling hook that can attach to a gas?

All right, make it a tough garden hose instead of a rope, attach an industrial-size vacuum cleaner to this end, and attach a funnel to the other.

[Cheshire Cat]

I don't expect famine to affect me too badly, as I've got a very small appetite.

[Archangel]

Not to mention a grappling hook that can attach to a gas?

I was sent to the stores as a young apprentice for just such an object. Ended up with a long stand instead.

[minestrone]

I was sent to the stores as a young apprentice for just such an object. Ended up with a long stand instead.

We used to send folk for fallopian tubes.