Up and Down

Dash has been telling us that there's one species of penguin that can fly. He watched a movie about it at school. (Sigh. Nobody watches videos at school any more.  I suspect nobody listens to tapes in French class either. Remember when your teacher had to bring in a giant boombox and balance it on a stool beside the wall where the outlet was so that they could press play to let you listen to the fuzzy-voiced announcer telling you something impenetrable about le train que départ à quai numéro trois? Now I suppose they just send an mp3 to the kids' iPhones or something.)

But all the knowledge that Dr. Google (that's Dr. Google, PhD in acquatic avians, not Dr. Google, MD) has put at our fingertips tells us that there is definitely no such species. I really hope Dash's teacher didn't inadvertently show them this BBC clip from 2008, which turned out to be an April Fool's Day hoax.

If he comes home talking about the spaghetti harvest next week, I suppose we'll know something's up.

(The title is this adorable book by Oliver Jeffers, which confirmed our suspicions that penguins don't fly unless shot out of a cannon. Then again, it would lead one to believe that they're quite partial to playing backgammon, so I'm not sure this is the ideal resource for those of you looking to find out more.)