Category: General

Good God

After getting all of Pope Benedict’s luggage loaded into the limo, (and
he doesn’t travel light), the driver notices the Pope is still standing
on the curb.

‘Excuse me, Your Holiness,’ says the driver, ‘Would you please take your
seat so we can leave?’

‘Well, to tell you the truth,’ says the Pope, ‘they never let me drive
at the Vatican when I was a cardinal, and I’d really like to drive
today.’

‘I’m sorry, Your Holiness, but I cannot let you do that. I’d lose my
job! What if something should happen’ protests the driver, wishing he’d
never gone to work that morning.

‘Who’s going to tell’ says the Pope with a smile. Continue reading “Good God”

Unnatural Selection

I was in the supermarket the other day buying toothpaste, it’s not something I do very often, it’s not that I don’t use much, I probably would consider myself an average user, but toothpaste is one of those things that is always there. The tube can always be found, even on the bleariest of mornings waiting on its shelf, and when it gets to the point where mechanical devices are needed to extract the last helping, another fresh tube can be found in the second drawer down. Toothpaste is clearly the responsibility of someone else, someone organized, in this household it falls in the same category as clean laundry, some is always available when needed.
Continue reading “Unnatural Selection”

Was Hitler Left Wing?

Was Hitler left wing and were the Nazis Fascists?

When I was taught history at school, I vaguely remember that Hitler was most definitely right wing. Now I know that the party Hitler first joined was the popular German Social Democrat Party, which was then renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party, or the Nazi Party, which shifted the balance from Socialist to Nationalist. The appeal in the first instance was most definitely to the workers and the unions, but Hitler engineered the split eventually from the GSD socialists because he abhorred socialism and communism.

Continue reading “Was Hitler Left Wing?”

May Poetry Competition – Summertime

It’s easy this time, just a theme,
any length or rhyming scheme.
Even Janus with x-a, y-a
will have his chance to claim the day

It’s early here to call it Summer
and very late for it down unn’er.
But I’m the judge and that’s the rule
and lots of  entries would be cool.

Let loose the polymetric muse
all honest poets to confuse
but get your entry in real soon
the closing date’s the first of June.

Poetry Result (at last!)

For those of you who missed my previous apology, I am sorry that I am arriving so tardily with news of the winner. I was in Puglia on holiday last week and had intended to do some desultory judging. lazing by the side of the pool and sipping a substantial G&T. No pool because the owner of the villa had not filled it yet, the temperature being only a spartan 27C. More and, as it happens, better, no wifi which had been promised as part of the hire of the villa. The G&T’s were indeed substantial (Bombay Sapphire, Schweppes, lime and ice, for the avoidance of doubt). I regret to say that I felt little regret in leaving you all in suspense about the result.
Continue reading “Poetry Result (at last!)”

Worlds Apart

There was orange peel all along the mantelpiece. Not so much ‘S’-shaped orange peel, more ‘C’ shape as if Auntie hadn’t the strength to peel a whole orange in one strip. Her hands were arthritic and she was in her eighties at that time, though still fairly tough and resourceful, making her own envelopes and birthday cards and chopping her own firewood. But the orange peel was something else. When we questioned her she said it was for the fire. I guess it was some kind of fuel. Besides the orange peel, there were two or three candles on the mantelpiece. Auntie didn’t like to waste electricity. In fact, auntie didn’t like to waste anything.

Her nephews would visit her two or three times a year and would usually find old food in the refrigerator, food long past its sell by date. Auntie used to treat her nephews to dinner and tea but that was before she began to get dementia.

Continue reading “Worlds Apart”

You won’t believe this but…….

Given that the Anthropogenic Global Warming scammers are retreating rapidly on all fronts, there is still a group of scientists trying to convince the world that animals greatly affect the climate. This time we are not talking recent history, but prehistory and then some.

Some scientists are claiming that during the Mesozoic Era, there was a period of global warming on Earth caused by dinosaurs farting!!! What about that big shiny thing in the sky, then?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17953792

The Cuckoo

An interesting article in today’s Telegraph about the cuckoo. The bird is not native to this country it originates in Africa and flies here in the spring and returns to the African continent for most of the year.

As the missus and I were having our elevenses she said “I wonder why the cuckoo flies from Africa to here just to lay it’s eggs, what is so special about the British Isles”. This set me thinking in my normal warped way.

Now let’s look at this from a human perspective.

The bird does not live here and is an immigrant.

It comes here and finds a ready FREE nest to lay it’s eggs in; resulting in the native bird population to raise the cuckoos brood.

The bird gets free food while it is here.

The cuckoo’s only contribution to the economy of the bird population is that it is very vociferous and you can hear its cuckoo for miles as it rants about something or other.

The nestling destroys the native bird chicks and takes everything free from its host.

My how humans from other countries have copied that model here in the UK.

See we can learn from nature.