Did I hear someone wonder aloud of the nature of an arab strap....? According to Michael Harris, guitar player and Economics PHD candidate extraordinare: It's actually an "Arab's Trap", used for the capture and subsequent domestication of camels in the Mid-East and Northern Africa. It's a large wooden device, sort of cylindrical, with a single opening that tapers inwards. These traps are laid around the Bedouin tents for when the camels come out at night, with large chunks of cheese at the centre of the trap. The hungry camel will push its way into the funnel opening in order to get at the cheese, but will not be able to get back out of the trap because on the inside, the entrance/exit is way too narrow. "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave" was actually a line from an old Arab camel-droving song, appropriated by a stodgy old West Coast US soft-rock group in the 1970s. (Furthermore, on the same stodgy soft rock album is a song called "New Kid In Town" which adapts the old Saharan oasis-shanty "The Boy With The Arab's Trap", about a young nomad who gets separated from his tribe and it is only through his clever use of the trap that he gains acceptance amongst a new tribe. In the original song, he goes on to become leader of his tribe, and eventually becomes ruler of the desert by slaughtering all the folks in his old tribe who had lost him in the first place. I don't think this part is included in the Eagles' updated version. More's the pity.) More little-known camel trivia. The Arabs were the first to invent ice-cream, but were unable to gain fame and wealth from this because of the difficulties of transporting it through the hot deserts. Not that they didn't try. Camels were heavily involved in the early transportation attempts, hence their famous but usually misunderstood label "ships of the dessert". +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+