Weekend oddities

A couple of stories caught my eye this week:

The first was the news that archaeologists will be searching for the Tregaron Elephant. Not a mythical being such as the Loch Ness Monster or a sky fairy but a real elephant from a circus that died in 1848 after drinking the local beer. Ha joking aside it supposedly died after drinking water contaminated with lead but since lead is a cumulative poison it would not have killed it immediately. The mystery of who killed the elephant may be discovered, whatever next? Who killed the bear in the Forest of Dean? Anyway according to legend the remains of the beast were chopped and buried in what some sources say 4 different burial pits behind the historic Talbot Hotel. Or they could have ended up on the menu?

The second story was news that Cardiff Council have drawn up plans for a bar in the old Victorian barracks on Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel. The island is the extreme edge of the Mendip Hills and has seen a hotel, bar and even a skittle alley in the last few years of Queen Victoria's reign but that reverted to a farmhouse and is now the bunkhouse. Should be an interesting pub crawl with the only other island bar in the Bristol Channel being the Marisco Tavern on Lundy.