And There Goes September. Grumpy's Alternative News.

Another daft month. So what's new! Where do we start.
Animals are always interesting.
I read that you are more likely to see a fox in an urban garden than in the country.(Almost 40 per cent as against 23.)I'm not really surprised, we have no guns in the town.Well, not many!
I see the villagers in Carhampton, Somerset are fed up because pigs keep digging up the graveyard.Lucky pigs, certainly luckier than Ben, a labrador from Beaumaris who weighed seventy kilos. Rescued by the RSPCA, he has already lost four and a half kilos. Equally fortunate Clyde the cat that travelled 2000 miles from his home in Tasmania to Cloncurry in the Outback.(Including 185 miles across the Bass Strait.)
I often think animals are preferable to humans. Certainly not as stupid. I can forgive the lady in Wythenshawe who took a hand grenade she found in her loft to the police station, causing it to be evacuated. For the ladies are often not as cowardly as we men. But the fugitive in Kansas who took two hostages was not the brightest. He dozed off after they gave him a pillow and blankets. And did the man growing cannabis on the central reservation of the Athens-Salonika motorway really expect to get away with it? They were nearly six feet tall prior to harvesting. Plus Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the freed Lockerbie bomber had his first visitors in hospital. a delegation of 150 African MP's. It is said he looked very ill. No wonder, I know how I felt when three came at once to see me in The Derby Royal Infirmary.
I see The Prince of Wale's organic biscuits are to be marketed by Waitrose as 'Duchy Originals from Waitrose'. (General opinion, expensive and rather naff.) The Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell announced to the nation that if Jesus were alive today he would shop at Asda or Aldi. Though Neil Stanfield, the boss of Onefood-the One, also called Swaddles Organic, suppliers of so called organic food to the likes of Fortnum and Mason might not agree. He bought his produce, non organic from Waitrose and Tesco and repackaged it. Simple when you know how!
I have, like many of you no doubt a complete mistrust of those in power at all levels. Not surprising when a government decides that people who walk other people's children to school need police checks.(The government will no doubt drop such nannying interference in the light of public disbelief and mirth.)
Is it any wonder when the Scout Association in its infinite wisdom decrees that Boy Scouts must no longer take a penknife to their scout camp. Give people power, put them on a committee and sense seems to vanish.
McDonalds spend millions fighting a Malayan restaurant because they dared to call their establishment McCurry. Despite their size and mighty lawyers, McDonald's lost.Power seems for some to suggest importance and immunity from good sense.
The Forest of Dean Council falsifies photographs as evidence in a parking dispute. They are caught out but no one loses their job. Rochdale Council in its wisdom allows five minutes 'lift time' as a 'perk', amounting to twenty hours a year for some in high rise offices.
Now to confess a personal interest in the 'power and authority' stakes. In the summer we, my wife and I received a parking ticket on a car park in Wales. My appeals have been, in my opinion, dealt with in an arrogant, dismissive manner. (More later, I am now in the hands of the Welsh Ombudsman.)
One final comment on stupid misuse of power, funny but pathetic. A certain authority, concerned that children's reaction in their canteens to that evergreen favourite 'Spotted Dick' was not acceptable (they're children for goodness sake) has solemnly declared that hence forth the dish will now be known as, wait for it, 'Spotted Richard'. You couldn't make it up! It was, of course a Welsh authority. (Lest anyone think I have it in for the Welsh, the people not in authority were kindness personified.)
One last titbit from the month of September that I couldn't resist. Please excuse the bad taste.
A Turkish woman accused of cutting off her lover's penis must wait eighteen months for verdict and sentence until a court determines whether the reattached organ still functions.
The mind boggles. They're lucky not to be at the mercy of petty British officials.

Comments welcome, please keep them clean!

April Showers (Grumpy's Alternative News.)

In a month when politicians yet again disgraced themselves with their greed, lies and e-mail shenanigans, stories from the animal kingdom brought welcome respite. Animals are more interesting than politicians anyway.
Take the politician in Poland who criticised his local zoo for acquiring a gay elephant. 'We didn't pay 37 million zlotys building the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there' he is quoted as saying. There is so much you could say on this story, for once I am speechless!
Did you notice the building of three hundred houses in Bristol has been delayed by a colony of slowworms. (A protected legless lizard) A real go slow I reckon. Go slow, get it. Oh, please yourself!
I also noticed scientists in Dubai have created the first cloned camel. The obvious question is why? Named Injaz, evidently its mother was slaughtered for meat in 2005. Its enough to give you the hump! Mind you, not everyone has kind feelings towards our four legged friends. A French bus driver in Berlin, Christina Pommerel was suspended for stopping to save a frog from getting squashed by her double decker bus. Irate passengers said her actions made them late. What miserable people. I hope the next bus drives straight past their queue!
Luckier was a giant lobster in Oxford University named Don, (weight 7lbs 7ounces, almost the same as my new grandson, Ted, but not half as handsome.) He, Don, not Ted was rehoused in the Blue Reef Aquarium, Southsea after outgrowing his tank. Presumably after six years in Oxford he is now a PHD. (Perfectly Happy Don.) I know, I know, it gets worse!
Plus Peta, the animal rights group showed us its heart is in the right place. They urged the Pet Shop Boys to change their names to the Rescue Shelter Boys to help in the fight against animal cruelty. They, Peta suggested it might encourage fans to consider giving a home to an abandoned animal from an animal shelter. The Pet Shop Boys were not unsympathetic but suggested they leave them alone and go and bother the Artic Monkeys instead.
I noticed Courtney Love was in the news and I must confess I had to look up exactly who she is. Evidently removal men packing her belongings threw out a dead bird in a matchbox. Which was a pity as it was an £8,000 work by the artist Polly Morgan. A replacement had to be sent (presumably at the same price), good business for the artist.
Notice how the moment humans are involved things tend to go wrong. A life size statue of a reclining horse, value £200,000 by Dame Elizabeth Frink is an object of rare beauty. Unfortunately one has gone missing from a gated property in Surrey. Stolen almost certainly by men in a Land Rover, its scrap value will, alas, be far short of £200,000. The police spokesman's comments that the vehicle 'caused a substantial amount of damage to the lawn' suggests he was more of a gardener than an art connoisseur.
Finally a real treat. Richard Lavelle, aged eighty has trained visiting foxes to beg for food on their nightly visits. Well done Mr Lavelle, you brightened a somewhat dour month. The gentleman in question lives approximately half a mile from where I am typing this blog. I have no doubt his foxes visit my garden (there are at least seven foxes.) The RSPCA put a dampener on events, pontificating, 'They could easily become dependent on you, then what happens when you move away?' Oh for goodness sake, lighten up, RSPCA. I reckon if all else fails these foxes (video) will form a group and go busking in town.

Respect All Creatures Great and Small

This week internationally has been dominated by the gun toting would be American Vice President Sarah Palin, evidently 'a pitbull with lipstick.' I personally cannot grasp as to whether she is typical of American women. If she is so God help America.

Much more interesting was a story concerning a bunch of bananas in a Co-op store in Chatham, Kent. A large spider was discovered, eventually identified as a dangerous arachnid from South America, Phoneutria nigriventer. Aggressive, not unlike our friend Sarah, it was coaxed into a separate box to await the RSPCA.

The incident reminded me of my years as a young trainee with F W Woolworth 's. Insect life was also of interest to Woolworth’s on the fruit and vegetable scene. We trainees were shown examples of exotic and often dangerous creatures likely to hitch a ride in bananas and other fruit from their tropical abodes. My education enhanced on learning they were in fact called arthropods. I was therefore delighted, early in my Woolworths education when I espied a large, ginger, numerous legged, lively arthropod in a box of newly arrived bananas. I coaxed him, for I had decided he was male into a matchbox with the aid of a stick, not an easy task due to his size and aggression. I transported my prize to the store manager’s office. Surely to be awarded praise indeed for initiative and dedication to duty. I burst into the office without ceremony, retrieved the box from my pocket and with a triumphant “Have you seen this!” placed the box on the boss’s desk and opened it carefully, a little at a time, until, fully opened, it revealed, absolutely nothing! Just an empty box a and a panic stricken trainee who spent the next fifteen minutes stripped off, completely and utterly engaged in a frantic search for an unhappy myriapod that was never to be seen again!

Strangely enough the Chatham incident made me think of the, to me, scary Sarah. The spider reminded me of her, aggressive to the core. But the attitude of some customers was interesting too. No "What a fabulous creature." No "Isn't nature wonderful." No, the customers retort was "We'll kill it for you." How brave of them, but not very British, lads.

The connection to Sarah Palin? I saw in the paper a picture of Sarah's parents in their cosy little abode. Present were more animals than in the local forest. On the sofa cum settee the largest bear skin imaginable; on the walls at least two more; plus animal skulls, horns and what looked suspiciously like a sheep. The latter not exactly the most dangerous species in the world. Definitely not, for the most dangerous species ever born would be at the other end of the gun.

If I see one more picture of the woman posing, proudly grinning over any animal corpse whatsoever I promise you my screams will be heard the other side of the Atlantic. With the right, no wrong luck this woman could be the most powerful person on planet earth. Hand me my gun, only I've never owned one since I grew up; some of us do.