Dawn Cacophony
taliesin71 on December 12, 2009 in Australia, Wot I Did on My Holidays | 7 Comments »
If you like to sleep in late, then Australia probably isn’t for you, dawn chorus kicks off at around 4am and comparing it to the early morning twitterings back home is like comparing a string quartet with a Kiss concert (albeit without the fireworks)
Foremost amongst the cacophony is the Kookaburra, sitting in the old gum tree, noisiest bastard of the bush is he. His raucous laugh shattering the silence. There’s another bird out here that seems to have learned the first couple of bars of the Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba, but tails off when it realises that it can’t remember what the next bit is.
Small red and green parakeets jockey for position in the sky like a Battle of Britain dogfight, arguing amongst themselves and the harsh call of the Sulphur Cockatoo as it drifts across the sky like a Lancaster Bomber.
We’ve got one bird calling out like a rusty gate, one that sounds like a chicken on helium and another that seems to run out of willpower before it gets too far into it’s call “Wah Wah, Wah, wuh, w…” then occasionally, you have the sci-fi call of the lyre bird adding a surreal note to the proceedings.
Do you come from a land down under??
taliesin71 on December 10, 2009 in Australia, Wot I Did on My Holidays | 2 Comments »Finally landed in Sydney a little later than expected after the plane ran out of electricity at Singapore airport. Had to get someone with a Nissan and some jump leads to get the engines going.
The journey didn’t seem as long this time, I suppose that’s the advantage of a seat that will recline fully allowing some proper sleep.
Top tip for travelling, get a wheelchair (Barbara’s back started playing up), that way the airport staff fall over themselves to get you from one place to another in plenty of time, and then take you past all the queues (even the short ones you get as a priority customer)
Flying business class this time is definately the way to go, as with all international flights, check-in is 3 hours before departure, usually a miserable time sat in the departure lounge on plastic seats that make broken glass seem comfortable.
This time I’m sat in the executive lounge at Manchester Airport, free bar, free food watching the world go by.
Wouldn’t be too much of a hardship if the flight was delayed.
I’ve been expecting a parcel for the last few days, not a big deal but if I could get hold of it before I went away it’d be handy.
Since I’d be gone before the post was due, I thought I’d try the local delivery office see if they could snag my post for me before the postman set off. Unfortunatly the phone number for the office only gives you a voicemail, so I went down in person.
The amorphous blob on the front desk (the eponimous subject of this rant) started going on about having to look through hundreds of lorries to try and find one small parcel and how it was more than his jobs worth!!!
Since he wouldn’t get a manager for me, I left.
Luckily one of the postmen was coming out at the time, so I explained my situation and he nipped back inside to get me a manager.
He looked about 15 (guess I’m getting old), but was more than happy to check the round and get me my parcel. So a big thanks to the two that helped me, but to the the tw*t on the desk – I hope your next shit is an epileptic hedgehog!!!
* Insert your own vowel
With the Copenhagen summit all over the news “man made” climate change is all over the news once again. The issue has reached religious proportions, with any sceptic accused of heresy and the believer’s dogmatic approach to the science even when the results don’t fit.
The truth is that in an age where we can’t predict tomorrow’s weather because we don’t fully understand the causes, how can we accurately predict what will happen next year or in the next decade.
Personal observations show that the weather is getting warmer, but if you look at data over a longer term than the fanatics use, the planet has been both much hotter and much colder than it is now, with dramatic swings between the two extremes.
If these changes in temperature happen anyway, then how much influence has mankind over these changes, nobody is accusing the dinosaurs of using 4x4s on the school run (apart from maybe Jim Henson). There are a million and one factors in the changing weather, some of which we’ve worked out, others we haven’t even thought of. The danger is that by blinkering ourselves to carbon dioxide as the root of all evil, we ignore other factors.
Climate change is always happening and possibly it will be a critical factor in the survival of the human race. There may not be much we can do about it, but in my opinion, the only way forward is to reduce our footprint in as many ways possible, this world has finite resources, so we need to look at making everything renewable or recyclable, we need to look at a wider spread of renewable energies, not just wind turbines (probably the most fickle source available)
Carbon is part of the issue, but there are a whole host of other pollutants that we need to eliminate if we’re to avoid poisoning ourselves.
After 3 days and 2 e-mails, facebook have still not confirmed why they have disabled my account, or replied with any information!
I personally think it is completely unethical to treat customers in this fashion, not giving them the right to respond to any allegations or to give the opportunity to rectify any issues that may have caused the account to be disabled.
After accepting a handout from the treasury to keep them afloat, the idea that bonuses to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s bankers should be increased is ludicrous. Far from receiving profits from their failures they should be glad to still have a job.
Since the bank is now 70% owned by the government, all bonuses should be stopped until such time as the bank can buy itself back and anyone planning to jump ship should be warned that no references will be given.
As for the directors’ threats to quit en-mass, they should be given their marching orders, hopefully no other bank will be willing to employ this bunch of failures.
Tried to log into facebook this morning only to find that my account has been disabled!!!
Since I haven’t been abusing anyone I can only assume it is because they don’t accept Taliesin Seventyone as a real name, despite the fact I’ve been using it for the last 10 years.
Under UK law you can use any name that you wish so long as there is no intention to mislead, since more people now know me by my pen name than my real one, who is being deceived??
