News just in

Hello McKinney watchers!

There has been a fresh twist in the ever bizarre tale of Joyce the "manacled Mormon kidnapper" McKinney.

Turns out it's not just Mormons that she's obsessed with, she's got a freaky thing for animals too.

First it was the South Korean puppy cloning, now it's - actually I'll let The Times, who have followed the story so faithfully, take over:

The “manacled Mormon” kidnapper who was exposed after cloning her pet pitbull terrier in South Korea is wanted on burglary charges involving a three-legged horse in the United States.

Joyce McKinney is accused of telling a 15-year-old boy to break into a house in Tennessee so that she could get money to buy a false leg for her beloved horse, her lawyer said.

Prosthethics for ponies - who knew it was so lucrative?

On other business, it has been brough to my attention that there is another possible explanation for the linguistic conundrum that is the phrase "to get caned".

Captain Mac said: "I think caned comes from when drinks like rum were brewed from fermented sugar cane."

I like it.

Meanwhile, the latest news on the future of Cains is that PWC are talking up their chances of finding a buyer "to take control within just a few days" according to the oft over-looked publication The Publican.

PWC said: “We are advertising for interested parties in the Financial Times at the end of the week and that should help us set a timescale for positive offers as early as the week beginning August 18."

Consider yourselves updated.

Phrase and fable, caned and able

********* http://tinyurl.com/5kfwcz *********
Is the soundtrack to this post - there's a reason.

On the way home from work today I was thinking about a pint of beer.

Which is no unusual state of affairs, but this time I was pondering the etymology of the pint in question.

"Does," I wondered, "the verb 'to cane' (most common usage 'we were caned' or 'he's a caner') derive from Liverpool's very own 'Cains' beer?"

Caners are a breed of their own according to The Sun, and just like that other incomprehensible, monosyllabic, dribbling group - premiership footballers - they have their own league. See: http://tinyurl.com/66nnpj

Chugging through Birkdale and Sandhills I tried to get to the bottom of the question: To get caned do you need to be drinking Cains?

Because if that's the case we're all going to be sobering up very soon. Last week the tax man called time, RBS handed the beleaguered brewery over to the receivers and the long hangover began.

Now, there is another school of thought that argues the root of the verb is cocaine, or 'caine if you're really cool.

Which makes me wonder, has the government really thought this thing through? Do they want good sup-standing Cains drinkers to become coke fiends whose nostrils harbour half of Columbia just because there's a £4.2m financing shortfall?

How much did bankrolling Northern Rock cost?

Surely it's time for a private members bill in parliament calling for the nationalisation of Cains before we all end up in a worse state than Ms Winehouse because we've had to swap a nice pint for class A substance abuse in order to carry on getting caned?