Are you a programmer with "coder's block"? An IT sales person tired of hearing, "We're going open source from now on"? A technology writer lamenting a slow news day with nothing to blog about?

Luxury.

Try training squirrels. Try being Steve Vedmore, the man who trained 40 squirrels and their associated stand-ins for the new "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory" film.

Apparently, squirrels are one-trick ponies. Err...rodents. There are acting squirrels, posing squirrels, good nut-crackers, good hoppers and supermodel diva squirrels. (Do they throw nuts in their trailers when their Evian doesn't arrive on time?)

Says Vedmore, "The placid ones are good to handle and other ones are aggressive, so we use them as runner animals if we can run them from [point] A to [point] B because they're not good for human contact. They bite."

You don't say.

The full article from BBC News (with photos) can be viewed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4702653.stm

TES