Post #72619 by atomictonytiki on Mon, Jan 26, 2004 12:07 PM

Woops really should look at the story in the link before posting..erm here's a story abot a parrot that swears like churchill

(from the straits times and boing boing)
Is that really Churchill's parrot swearing?

LONDON - Feathers are flying over a claim that that the inner thoughts of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill live on - in the words that come out of the foul mouth of an ancient parrot.

'F... Hitler! F... the Nazis!' are some of the words in the repertoire of Charlie, a female blue and gold macaw living in Surrey that is supposed to be 104 years old.
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Its pet-shop owner, Mr Peter Oram, claims his father-in-law sold the bird to Churchill in 1937 and took it back after his death in 1965.

'Parrots are remarkably adept at mimicking sounds and voices,' said an article about Charlie in next month's issue of Jack, a British men's magazine, which hits the newsstands tomorrow.

'So when Charlie gives her opinion of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, it is rendered with a Churchillian inflection,' it said.

But the Churchill family has questioned the story.

His daughter, Lady Soames, 82, told The Scotsman: 'I'm fed up with this story that my father taught it rude words. He only ever had an African grey parrot and it certainly did not talk.'

[ Edited by: atomictonytiki on 2004-01-26 12:10 ]