>>Remember Dr. Johnson's observation about attempting to teach a pig to sing :-)
>Actually, I always thought it was 'teaching it to tell time'...but either way, yes, it's a waste of time and it irritates said Artiodactyla.

AFAIR it stems way back from the greeks and involved teaching to sing, but a horse, not a pig. Disclaimer: nor idea how exact time measurement was back then, and if telling time was done singing or not ;-)

regards

thomas