Hertz van Rental
We're supposed to post photos?
Some of you may remember that on another thread I asked do you ever see fish laughing?
After much research I am now in a position to answer this question categorically.
Fish do indeed laugh.
In fact they have a well developed and rather sophisticated sense of humour - except for the Halibut, who does not have one at all much to the amusement of the other fish. We never see fish laughing purely and simply because they prefer to do it behind our backs.
This is not strictly true. There is a small, largely unknown and mostly forgotten tribe of Indians, the Utopi, whom fish like to laugh at and do so to their faces.
The existence of the Utopi was brought to the attention of an uncaring world by Professor Sladek in the late 1960s. The world immediately forgot all about them which is pretty much what the Utopi have come to expect from life.
That fish should single out the Utopi for special treatment is interesting in that it says a lot about fish and their idea of fun.
This sad and neglected tribe live in the middle of a barren and unproductive desert, at least a hundred miles from the nearest water. How the fish make the journey is a complete mystery*, but make it they do and in quite large numbers solely for the pleasure of laughing at what they consider to be the unhappiest creatures on earth.
Professor Sladek has briefly outlined the history of the Utopi in several of his papers and anyone who has read their sorry tale would have to agree that the fish have a point**.
There is one other factor that makes the Utopi the perfect butt of Piscean humour, and this is that their culture and religion revolve around a species of hallucinogenic mushroom (the only thing that will actually grow where they live a sad irony). The Utopi are normally whacked out of their brains (or, as they call it, worshipping God) which means that any claims by them to have seen laughing fish will not be believed.
All of this was recently imparted to me by the tribes Medicine Man, the oldest - almost the only - member of the tribe.
As an aside I also discovered that, unlike a lot of tribes who live in hostile environments, the Utopi have very few words to describe their surroundings. For example, they only have one word for sand. This word is also used for toilet and for an untranslatable concept approximating to pointless cosmic joke.
Similarly they use the same word to mean fish, bastard and lunch.
*Professor Mott, it is true, had developed a theory of racial memory, based on the fact that the area was a shallow sea millions of years ago. This may explain the why but certainly not the how. Professor Mott has recently revised his thinking on this matter and proposed his revolutionary new Fish on a Bicycle theory. There are already objections to it, however, as it requires the acceptance that Leonard daVinci not only invented the bicycle but also that he was a large flat fish. The idea that daVinci invented the bicycle is, of course, preposterous. Mott has also completely ignored the abrasive effect of sand on the bicycle chain.
**I still insist on this despite the ridicule heaped on me by the so-called Scientific community for my Pointy Fish theory.
After much research I am now in a position to answer this question categorically.
Fish do indeed laugh.
In fact they have a well developed and rather sophisticated sense of humour - except for the Halibut, who does not have one at all much to the amusement of the other fish. We never see fish laughing purely and simply because they prefer to do it behind our backs.
This is not strictly true. There is a small, largely unknown and mostly forgotten tribe of Indians, the Utopi, whom fish like to laugh at and do so to their faces.
The existence of the Utopi was brought to the attention of an uncaring world by Professor Sladek in the late 1960s. The world immediately forgot all about them which is pretty much what the Utopi have come to expect from life.
That fish should single out the Utopi for special treatment is interesting in that it says a lot about fish and their idea of fun.
This sad and neglected tribe live in the middle of a barren and unproductive desert, at least a hundred miles from the nearest water. How the fish make the journey is a complete mystery*, but make it they do and in quite large numbers solely for the pleasure of laughing at what they consider to be the unhappiest creatures on earth.
Professor Sladek has briefly outlined the history of the Utopi in several of his papers and anyone who has read their sorry tale would have to agree that the fish have a point**.
There is one other factor that makes the Utopi the perfect butt of Piscean humour, and this is that their culture and religion revolve around a species of hallucinogenic mushroom (the only thing that will actually grow where they live a sad irony). The Utopi are normally whacked out of their brains (or, as they call it, worshipping God) which means that any claims by them to have seen laughing fish will not be believed.
All of this was recently imparted to me by the tribes Medicine Man, the oldest - almost the only - member of the tribe.
As an aside I also discovered that, unlike a lot of tribes who live in hostile environments, the Utopi have very few words to describe their surroundings. For example, they only have one word for sand. This word is also used for toilet and for an untranslatable concept approximating to pointless cosmic joke.
Similarly they use the same word to mean fish, bastard and lunch.
*Professor Mott, it is true, had developed a theory of racial memory, based on the fact that the area was a shallow sea millions of years ago. This may explain the why but certainly not the how. Professor Mott has recently revised his thinking on this matter and proposed his revolutionary new Fish on a Bicycle theory. There are already objections to it, however, as it requires the acceptance that Leonard daVinci not only invented the bicycle but also that he was a large flat fish. The idea that daVinci invented the bicycle is, of course, preposterous. Mott has also completely ignored the abrasive effect of sand on the bicycle chain.
**I still insist on this despite the ridicule heaped on me by the so-called Scientific community for my Pointy Fish theory.
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/38/38263-ad5e4c9e677626ddb5b1e7cdf9ebe40e.jpg?1619738548)
