Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[DonB]

As has been posted on RMweb before (probably more than once)  "Cats were worshipped as Gods by the Egyptians ... Cats have never forgotten this"

[Nearholmer]

Indeed. Whenever one comes into our garden and starts preparing to leave a deposit, I fling open the door and call out affectionately “Oy! Gerrout you little Bastet!”.

[DonB]

n 

11 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Indeed. Whenever one comes into our garden and starts preparing to leave a deposit, I fling open the door and call out affectionately “Oy! Gerrout you little Bastet!”.

Our next door cat is rather more sly that,  Rarely seen entering sometimes noted leaving,

Doesn't seem too bothered where to leave "deposits" .. even on the top of a 15 inch high box hedge !  GRRRR.....

Neighbours have long since stopped asking me to feed said animal while they are on holiday!

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, DonB said:

As has been posted on RMweb before (probably more than once)  "Cats were worshipped as Gods by the Egyptians ... Cats have never forgotten this"

As I also have said before, dogs have masters, cats have staff (and pretty low ranking ones at that) . 

 

Jim 

[Regularity]

54 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

As I also have said before, dogs have masters, cats have staff (and pretty low ranking ones at that) . 

 

Jim 

“Pigs treat us as equals” - WS Churchill

[Ian Simpson]

22 minutes ago, Regularity said:

“Pigs treat us as equals” - WS Churchill

And in Winston's case, they were undoubtedly right.

[rocor]

4 hours ago, Regularity said:

“Pigs treat us as equals” - WS Churchill

 

 

[alastairq]

Hmmm, next door's squadroon of once-feral cats [and hens, and a sheep or two] don't bother doing a dump in my garden any more.

Not that i have done anything to dissuade them...far from it...but local villagers have noticed how varieties of pooh have been seen doing airborne acrobatics across the road into the grass verge opposite.

They have refrained from dumping as they consider my garden, sheds, old cars, as their own now.

The only pooh I have found recently probably belongs to things like hedgehogs, and maybe the odd wandering fox or two?

Major problem now is, next door's hens are adept at defeating next door's increased security measures, and rock up at my back door every now & then.

Sometimes I scoop them up & return them over their back gate....often I give up, and find that they seek company when I'm outside sitting having  a coffee break...them, the cats, and lordy knows who else.   Once or twice I have looked up to see one sitting on my hearth rug...which is unnerving if one has no pets oneself. I do try to remember to close the back door when I'm not in the vicinity nowadays.  But when the weather is warm [I haven't noticed it being ''hot'' here..but then I don't live anywhere near anything that resembles a town, or housing estate..and there's plenty of greenery to absorb the heat ...] I tend to leave the back door open for that cooling breeze [it being northerly-facing]

As far as I'm concerned, we all share this planet, and have as much in the way of 'rights' as any other creature, to come & go as they please. It really is only us humans who seem to get so precious about ''their'' so-called ''property?'' As well as blackbirds, robins, pheasants, , etc etc etc, I suppose?

 

To that end, i have ceases to become uptight about hoovering up spiders & their webs as well....What's the point, they're only back there the next day anyway, so I find I have better things to do with my time these days...and leave them alone.  There is a very large one [who doesn't 'do' webs, I find?] that marches out across the living room carpet on patrol, around half ten every night. I frequently spot him [her? Not being able to tell with my eyesight].. as I stretch out o the sofa for a late evening film or somesuch...

I don't have pets [now]....but then, I don't have horrendous pets bills either....or the sad demeanour as they pass from this life, one after the other, leaving me behind to grieve a little bit. Can do without that!!

[Nearholmer]

Hmmm ……. I seem to the trapped in exactly the opposite place, pet-wise.

 

This is my young daughter’s dog, which was madly expensive to buy, seems to have high maintenance costs, and, when it’s had a haircut and summer makeover, is faintly embarrassing to take for a walk on my own. It usually looks like the head of a mop that has been used to clean a cow byre, which is fine by me.

 

 

It is actually quite a characterful dog, so I shouldn’t really moan about being the one who gets to walk it when it’s raining/a bit windy/too hot/too cold/dark/too foggy etc, but sometimes do.

[CKPR]

4 hours ago, alastairq said:

To that end, i have ceases to become uptight about hoovering up spiders & their webs as well....What's the point, they're only back there the next day anyway

Out here in the Welsh Marches, we are plagued by what we term the crap spiders, technically cellar spiders (NB we don't have a cellar) but utterly useless as spiders go.  We are forever hoovering up dead ones. although it can hard to tell when they are nominally alive and when they've died of starvation, and we have yet to see any evidence that one of them have ever caught a fly despite the abundance of the latter  as they swarm in from the neighbouring farms and fields. We too have a couple of giant house spiders but far fewer than in when we lived in towns. Apparently, these beasties are a European genus of arachnid  -  a friend from California (ex-paramedic and fire-fighter) recoiled and screamed in terror on first seeing a large house spider inside her house in Chester and then explained that in the US, tarantulas are found outside in the high altitude deserts and that black widows are akin to orb spiders, live in sheds & garages and are not in themselves very scary. 

Edited July 23, 2021 by CKPR

[Edwardian]

Umm.  Hate to say it, but don't live under thatch unless you really like spiders. Lots of spiders. 

 

It's not, in my experience, cosy either; coldest house I've lived in so far is a thatched house. 

[Annie]

From the Radio NZ website.

 

Quote

The head of the [English] Rugby Football League has slammed the New Zealand and Australian teams for pulling out of this year's tournament, calling it a "cowardly" and "selfish" decision.  

Both teams are pointing to the UK's increasing virus cases, bubble protocols and quarantine challenges, as their reasons not to travel.   

 

Not that I've ever been particularly keen on thugby in any of its forms or varieties, but I do find it perplexing that being unwilling to expose oneself to a dangerous and deadly virus has suddenly become a cowardly act.  With the Tokyo Olympics presently heading for superspreader status I think it was a very wise decision for the NZ and Australian teams to stay at home. 

[alastairq]

I like the fact the Aussies and Kiwis have told the brits [note, no capital B, brits don't deserve it from me!] where to get off.  Good for them!

 

Especially when such ego-driven bullshyte gets spouted!

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

28 minutes ago, Annie said:

think it was a very wise decision for the NZ and Australian teams to stay at home. 

Definitely.

 

I don’t know whether the ruggerists in question, and all their bag-carriers, are fully vaccinated, but if not then they would find it nigh-on impossible to avoid catching the bug here at present, and even if they are, they still might catch it.

 

About 1:70 people have it right now, and my observation is that 90% of people out and about in public places have effectively abandoned all precautions - a few days on from the lifting of legal restrictions, people really are behaving as if the thing has magically gone away. TBH, I don’t think anyone much <50yo really cares about catching it from a personal

perspective, and they now don’t care about the possibility of passing it on, because the vast majority of older or otherwise vulnerable people are now ‘double-jabbed’. 
 

One can only hope that this doesn’t all end in a lot of tears - it’s either a triumph of vaccination deployment, or a disaster invisibly unfolding, one just can’t tell yet.

[Edwardian]

Rugby League has a "World Cup"?!? 

 

I didn't know it was played outside about half a dozen town in the North-West of England.  

 

I wouldn't blame anyone for not wishing to partake in Boris's "unethical experiment", where they have a choice not to. Mind you, I heard that the Aussie quarantine on return rules were actually the problem, rather than any real danger of infection over here; they don't want to miss out on matches once they're back. 

 

If only people wouldn't keep trying to organise all these events when we're still very much in the midst of a global pandemic. What do they expect is going to happen?

 

 

[Caley Jim]

7 hours ago, alastairq said:

Especially when such ego-driven bullshyte gets spouted!

I think you'll find the bulk of the ego driven is coming from south of Hadrian's Wall!

 

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

One can only hope that this doesn’t all end in a lot of tears - it’s either a triumph of vaccination deployment, or a disaster invisibly unfolding, one just can’t tell yet.

I fear it all will and that the proverbial will hit the fan in England fairly soon.

 

Up here mask wearing and social distancing are still legal requirements, albeit with the latter down to 1m, which I understand is WHO advice.  The vast majority are still complying from what I can see.  We were at a farm shop today and felt comfortable.  I was helping to clean our church this evening and all four of us were wearing our masks, even though we are all double jagged.

 

Jim

[Andy Hayter]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Rugby League has a "World Cup"?!? 

 

I didn't know it was played outside about half a dozen town in the North-West of England.  

 

 

 

Naughty you.

 

Hull, Hull Kingstone Rovers, Castleford. Wakefield, Leeds - all now migrated to the North-West!  That puts Barney in the Irish Sea.  

 

It also has strongholds here in France as well as other lands.

 

But I do agree now is not the time for international - perhaps even national sports.  

[Regularity]

11 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

I think you'll find the bulk of the ego driven is coming from south of Hadrian's Wall!

Mostly from outside the walls of Windsor: The scions of Eton.

(Upperclass twit of the year is cancelled for 2021, due to a surplus of candidates sitting in the cabinet.)

[Edwardian]

45 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

 

I fear it all will and that the proverbial will hit the fan in England fairly soon.

 

Brace for impact!

 

 

45 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Up here mask wearing and social distancing are still legal requirements, albeit with the latter down to 1m, which I understand is WHO advice.  The vast majority are still complying from what I can see.  We were at a farm shop today and felt comfortable.  I was helping to clean our church this evening and all four of us were wearing our masks, even though we are all double jagged.

 

Jim

 

Had to go the Darlington t'other day to buy trainers for Miss T. A minority of D1psh1ts in Sports Direct not wearing masks.  Back in Barney, mask wearing still seems to be holding in shops.

 

The Pingdemic, however, has started to thin the shelves in the local supermarket, emptying some sections. 

 

The increase in self-isolation was entirely predictable given the rising infection rate, well established as a trend before restrictions in England were lifted.

 

The only way, it seems to avert the Pingdemic is to test more, but there are not enough tests.

 

So, really, this is a situation unnecessarily created by lifting the restrictions too soon.

 

The ill-thought out ad hoc response is to remove the need to isolate for some in the supply chain but not all. The clue, Boris, is in the name ''supply chain''. It's a chain, so if only some links are strong ...  

 

This government 's ability to make stupid decisions never fails to amaze me.  Why? Because each time it f-cks up I ask myself ''could these people be more stupid?'' The answer is always ''yes''! 

[Nearholmer]

54 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

I fear it all will and that the proverbial will hit the fan in England fairly soon.

 

Thats my instinct too, because it feels to me as if we are leaning far too heavily on our one protection, vaccination. But, many people will be content to turn blind eyes to a lot of bad outcomes, things like hospitals cancelling elective care because they are swamped with covid patients, in return for "not being bossed about".

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Naughty you.

 

Hull, Hull Kingstone Rovers, Castleford. Wakefield, Leeds - all now migrated to the North-West!  That puts Barney in the Irish Sea.  

 

It also has strongholds here in France as well as other lands.

 

But I do agree now is not the time for international - perhaps even national sports.

 

Its also the winter sport of choice in NSW and Queensland.

 

 

Earlier this month Victoria announced that the 2021 Gran Prix which had been moved from March to the coming November wouldn't be happening, making us now apparently  one of the only countries to still think big international sporting events aren't important enough to risk the health of the rest of us.

 

Plus our vaccine rollout is crap.

Edited July 23, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[Edwardian]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Its also the winter sport of choice in NSW and Queensland.

 

 

Earlier this month Victoria announced that the 2021 Gran Prix which had been moved from March to the coming November wouldn't be happening, making us now apparently  one of the only countries to still think big international sporting events aren't important enough to risk the health of the rest of us.

 

Plus our vaccine rollout is crap.

 

To be fair, you have had other things to worry about.  Reports here seem to suggest that what little of Australia was not consumed by fire was eaten alive by mice, of all things.  You have the most dangerous wildlife in the world and then you get eaten by mice.

 

Of course, that might all have eased off, but our media can never conclude a story, so, so far as we know, you've all been more or less wiped out by now.

 

 

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

To be fair, you have had other things to worry about.  Reports here seem to suggest that what little of Australia was not consumed by fire was eaten alive by mice, of all things.  You have the most dangerous wildlife in the world and then you get eaten by mice.

 

Of course, that might all have eased off, but our media can never conclude a story, so, so far as we know, you've all been more or less wiped out by now.

 

 

 

Yep....

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Two insect-like punctures to the jugular vein …,…

[monkeysarefun]

 

Others have enough  cuteness in them to kill several hundred adults