Any day now

I suppose it will not be too long before the global warming Gestapo give their attention to this sort of thing.

Rivalry

Looks as if I have a rival!

Avian married life

Drove up to our local farm shop yesterday. Fine sunny day as I parked nose in to the building. This is a low structure and the roof is tiled with those semi-rounded tiles with no bargeboard so that entry to the eaves is easy. All along the guttering were sparrows (anything smaller than a crow is a sparrow to me) busily forming nests under the roof tiles. Some five or so feet awat from me were a typical couple. One with fluffed up feathers as wind protection - this I took as mum-to-be - and a sleeker model which had to be dad. He would fly off and come back with various bits and pieces which he offered to mum who took the materials into the eaves. My dad figure came back with a small piece of paper and this was accepted. He then flew off and came back with a piece of wheat straw. This was about six inches long and diameter of a drinking straw. He put his head forward to offer it to his mate. She did not take it immediately but looked with her head first tilted one way and then the other. After a short pause, she chirruped sharply, snatched the straw and quite deliberately spat it out to fall onto the ground. More chattering and dad flew off to do better.

I am not given to attributing human emotions to animals but this I recognised as typical husband and wife behaviour.

Wounded Knee

I spend a fair bit of my computer time cruising (in the nicer sense of that word!) on American sites that relate to military matters. One of the very clear features was the much higher support their troops got when compared to our British soldiers, airmen etc.

We have had problems with medical facilities for our guys. These were shrugged aside by the politicians, very few had even bothered themselves to visit the injured and all hid behind the facade that the NHS was wonderful and this included soldiers. So, it came as a bit of a revelation to discover what was going on at the main veterans facility at Walter Reed. What was comforting was the fast and draconian reforms that came from the revelations. This has opened a bit of a floodgate as to what is happening elsewhere.

What we do not see

I think we have heard so many reports about suicide bombers around the world that we are innured to fresh reports. Here, for once, the ITV network shows what is normally cut out.

Another example

Here is a recent image from an article on African privation. Black and white can still do the business.

I think it is the influence of digital. A cameraman can have 2000 potential images loaded and can afford to risk a lot more than the man who had just 36 exposures and had to see the image before he made the exposure. That is not to distract from the chap that took this very powerful image.

My wish list

All I need is to be 50 years younger.

Barbaric tradition

This really has to stop. I first came across it some fifty years ago. I thought it was wrong then. I think it is wrong now - even more so seeing that the world has moved a few steps towards sensible.

DIY Opticians shop

Even if you can see it first time, do the eye pulling thing and it gets much clearer.

Snap

I never cease to be amazed at the photography that comes back from war zones. Don McCullin's black and white from Vietnam were the standard that had to be aimed at. This is one taken in Afghanistan and shows Royal Marines in the middle of being ambushed. One for my study wall I think.

Old masters

I suppose that the history of the present government has immured me to the cheating, lies and dishonesty of the morally corrupt MPs and Ministers.

Reading of the virtuoso performance of a former leader of the Labour party brought home the fact that it is nothing new.

Special ringtone - it's for you

Every day, in every way, this gubmint gets more and more stupid. The guy in charge at the Home Office is supposed to be a tough, no nonsense, cookie. He talks hard except when he is apologising for the myriad disasters by his staff. What he has decided upon to check the massive inflow of illegal immigrants is truly Alice in Wonderland stuff. Visitors will have text messages sent to their mobile phones reminding them that they must leave the country. Yep - the Home Office will be the biggest user of spam mail in the whole world. Never mind penis enlargement, stand aside dodgy drugs, move over Nigerian scammers; technology will prevail.

I have to restrain myself lest I get silly in pointing out the bits left unconsidered. I suppose that we will provide mobile phones for those who had already spent large sums of money bribing traffickers to get them here. After the troubles of hiding themselves away, they are expected to be driven to distraction by some damned text message. Oh - I give up.

An idle life

I recently bought myself a new watch. I chose it because it is automatic and does not use those fiddly batteries that always seem to die at the most inopportune moments. The power comes from a rotor that is displaced by the natural movements of the wrist. The watch is sufficiently rugged that I do not take it off at all except when washing.
It says something about my current life style that last night the watch ran down whilst I was asleep. Not enough to jog the rotor – my God, that is relaxed.

Happy thoughts

I suppose that any woman weighing 420 pounds (30 stone or nearly four Posh Becks) can be forgiven for not knowing she was pregnant until the very final stages when birth was imminent. After all, at that size, she is unlikely to feel anything behind the insulation of 10 or more inches of flab.

What does intrigue me though is just how she got pregnant? Seems there is hope for us all.

So - what izit?

This must surely be the definitive gift for the man who has everything.

I release the information that it is a condom applicator. Exact details of how to load and use it, I will leave to your imagination.

An NO. I am not looking for one as a Christmas present.

Get down music

Little snatch of '>music that gets feet tapping.

Something in the air except radioactivity?

I can imagine women wanting to get out of Russia. I just wonder if that justifies this lady claiming to be 75 years of age. What did I do wrong?

And, just as a postscript, the picture is of a ballet troop made up from BIG Russian ladies.