How not to catch 'Swine flu'

While this particular strain of influenza may be the descendant of the strain that killed millions back in 1919-20, it is worth noting that many of the current generation of humanity are descended from the survivors of that outbreak. Like Avian flu, the widespread fatalities promised probably won't happen.

Points to remember;

Q: How do humans catch 'Swine flu'
A: While people do not normally contract this virus, they can if they have been in close contact with pigs. Soooo, don't snog the pigs. No tongue hockey with your prize porkers. Just say no to bestiality.

Rather like the best advice I ever heard to avoid catching Avian flu; "Don't kiss the chickens"

Although Kal's take on this over at Trauma Queen is quite amusing.

Also on the upside; Painted surgical masks in Mexico.

Death by climate change hype

In my daily visit to the very worthwhile Watts up with that blog, I note that the slow motion suicide of the Catlin expedition (On a 1000 calories a day in sub zero conditions!? - anorexics eat more) is still ongoing and that according to this guest essay at the site the World Health Organisation had come up with a study that 'proved' climate change was responsible for 166,000 deaths in the year 2000, and that according to the Secretary General of the UN "Climate change is the greatest challenge of our age". Even with the fudged figures such premises rest upon and stretching credulity so hard it's a wonder that their elastic logic hasn't snapped, this still means that the climate doom of the world is about as far away as ever. It's like the Jehovah's Witnesses used to be, a joke with their constant revisions of the end of days vote

I'm sorry. No one with a functioning brain cell is taken in by this stuff any more. The only people who talk it up are the activists, politicians and sloppy cut and paste journalists. The rest of humanity hears the fine speeches and sees the ever more entertaining protests to 'save the planet' and goes "WTF" when the warmer weather we're continually promised on our road to climate hell fails to materialise. It's become like a comedy checklist;
Polar bears dying out, nope.
Ocean acidification killing reefs, erm, pollution and overfishing might, but the ph is going to have to shift a lot more than that to bother reef ecosystems. It's worth noting that people regularly swallow concentrations of Carbonic acid in soft drinks without much ill effect.
Global temperature rising out of control, nope (I'm currently wrapping up warm).
More hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes. Nope. (Bored now.)
Bad stuff happening and it's all our fault! Mosquitoes! Bird flu! Swine flu! Brain sucking aliens will try to sell you life insurance! You're all doooomed unless you buy carbon credits from that fat man at the podium! (Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Yeah, right.)

There is a distinct possibility that I will die sometime. I may get killed crossing the road. I may die of cancer caused by long ago exposure to toxic industrial chemicals. I may die of heart disease, or any of the other sins that all flesh is heir to. However, I don't think I'm going to peg out because of a little less or more sunshine / rain (Although I might freeze to death if the winters get significantly colder). Yawn.

Grrrrrr.......

Today has been a very mixed bag of a day, mixing extreme frustration punctuated by small pleasures.

The small pleasures have been finally making inroads on one of my day job projects, coffee and some 'me' time out in the sunshine, and several virtual pats on the back from various people.

The frustration comes from one anticipated source, which nonetheless set my teeth on edge and put a crimp in an otherwise pleasing day. I shall relate as follows;

Mrs S had dropped me off, taking command of our much cherished old battle bus for the day, making arrangements to for me to wait at at Sister in laws apartment from around half past four, where Mother in Law is now ensconced for the next few weeks. Having finished work for the day, I took a leisurely amble after a modestly successful day, justifiably enjoying a minor degree of smug satisfaction. Pausing for a while to read a little, I amused myself by quietly ear wigging on some of the unabashedly loud conversations of passers by. One twenty something guy was ranting on at his buddy for the amount of child maintenance he had to pay, to which my thought was; "Well, if you didn't want children, why the hell didn't you take a couple of precautions? It's not Quantum Mechanics for crying out loud." Although chummy was probably not in the mood for such after the fact advice, and neither was it my business to offer such solicitudes. Two women were complaining loudly about the cost of bottled water, and were gently ribbed for their public vociferousness by a passing retiree (Person of pensionable age, elderly, pick your own euphemism). I simply sat on the waterfront reading, watching Seaplanes take off and land, observing how the local Herring Gulls open clams (Pull clam out of mud, fly to rocky part of foreshore and drop clam onto convenient rock) then feeding upon the smashed remains while nervously eyeing a Bald Eagle wheeling effortlessly overhead.

Thus it was I made my way to Sister in laws condo, where I expected Brother in law to let me in. I punched the code for their apartment into the intercom and waited while it buzzed five or six times.
"Hello?" Came the distinctive wavery tones of my Mother in law.
"Hello Ma, it's Bill." I said, being very careful to enunciate and speak slowly, knowing the state of Mother in law's hearing.
"He's not here." Came the reply.
"I know. It's me. I'm at the front door." I said, a slight prescience of impending frustration knocking politely at the side entrance of my conscious mind.
"He's not here." She's deaf as a post, poor old thing, but we thought her hearing aids had been beefed up to compensate. Oh well. I persevered.
"Yes Ma. I know. Is Jeff there?"
"No. Can I take a message?" Is she taking the piss? I know she can hear me.
"No. It's me, Bill. Punch key number one to let me in."
"He's not here either."
"I'm Bill. Come on Ma." At this point the connection cuts, leaving me feeling a little put out to say the least.

Now there's an old shaggy dog story like this which involves a closed door, a parrot and an increasingly irate tradesman. All the parrot can say is "Who is it?" and the tradesman keeps repeating himself until nature takes it's toll on his abused arteries and he drops down dead. The punchline is when the Parrot's owner returns to the house, he / she is alarmed to find the corpse of a tradesman on their doorstep and asks the parrot "Who is it?" To which the parrot replies, "It's the effing stuffing plumber come to fix your effing blinding leak!" (This is the polite version - I think I'm catching being Canadian).

I thought about this old tale as I heard the connection click off, and in a fit of unwarranted optimism elected to try again. I punched the code for their apartment again. I double checked to ensure I had the right one and waited.......and waited..... and waited...... She picked up the intercom. "Hello Ma!" I boomed, loud enough to draw a semi hostile glance from a passing iPod driven jogger.
"Who is it?"
"It's me ma, Bill." I said confidently.
"He's not here yet."
"I know. I'm at the front door." The connection clicked off leaving me wrinkle mouthed with displeasure. Bugger this for an armed militia, went the thoughts in my head, so I wandered off to a nearby coffee shop and enjoyed a pleasing quarter hour with a mug of very nice coffee and a read.

An hour and a half later I am sitting on the doorstep of the apartment block when my Brother in law appears. Concrete is very hard on the old bun muscles, and I got to my feet in not as lithe a manner as I'm used to. We shared a look between relatives who have a shared burden before Jeff asked a little too causally. "Been here long?"
"Just over an hour and a half." I said, adding with a brightness I didn't really feel. "I've been reading. Good book."
"Didn't Ma let you in?" He looked at my forced cheerfulness as if I were mildly unhinged.
"No, she says she can't hear me." I shrugged, trying to make light of the situation. "What the hell, it's been a nice afternoon."
"This isn't good." He frowned, and punched his code into the intercom. "Hello Ma, it's Jeff!" He said loudly after ten rings.
"He's not here." Came the wavery reply. I could hear his teeth grinding from six feet away.
"I've got Bill with me."
"He's not here either."
"No. It's us. Press number one to open the front door." Jeff said in concise and ringing tones. We exchanged looks of disappointed surmise.
"They're not here."
"We know. We're at the front door." Jeff insisted. "Press number one."
"What was that?"
"Press number one!" Jeff's tone took on an air of mild desperation. There was a bleep, but the door did not buzz open. "This won't do." He said in an aside to me.
"I know." I sighed. Mother in law has been shown how to do this several times so far, but still has not grasped the simple procedure. Fortunately Brother in law has a key, so we entered that way. "The whole point of this was so she could let friends in." He vouchsafed in exasperated tones as we got into the elevator.
"I know." I sympathised, but I couldn't keep the annoyance out of my voice.
"This isn't going to work is it?"
"No."
"Bugger." The rest of the elevator ride was made in frustrated silence.

When we entered the apartment Mother in law was all apologies, of course. I just clammed up in case I said what I really wanted to. She wanted to come over here, and assured everyone that she could handle simple tasks. Although on a ferry ride between Islands, Jeff had already briefed me on her increasing tendency to make mountain ranges out of dustspecks. It's almost as though she's forgotten how to leave well enough alone. She does fuss over little things so.

Mrs S arrived and saw by my expression that I was about as far from being a happy camper as the closest Quantum singularity. She was quite apologetic for her Mother's lapse, and made a point of keeping herself between her Mother and me. Let me explain; my family seem to have the impression that I am quick to anger and no stranger to violence, which could not be further from the truth (Well, mostly). I get miffed of course, but I am quite capable of keeping a lid on my feelings, although the object of my ire is always left in no doubt whatsoever that I would rather they were elsewhere. Despite serial temptation, I have always tried to ensure that raising my hands in anger does not occur.

Mrs S and I left for home, I opened my book and began working through the final chapters of 'Atlas Shrugged'. Opinion so far? A bit dated, and although it makes a few valid points, the premise of a few key individuals being able to 'stop the motor of the world' leaves my credulity feeling more than a little stretched.

Hey ho. We've six more weeks of Mother in law, and I've got an awful feeling we'll need all the help we can get. Pass the bottle dear, don't worry about giving me a glass.

Update 29th April: It is reported the Mother in law has finally got the hang of the door controls, and that we have a key to get in and check up on her while Brother in law heads back into US for a few weeks before the gathering of the clan in early June. I am spending today filling in forms to try and find some of my many school and college certificates earned throughout my serried and chequered career. It's going to be a long six weeks folks, I can feel it in me water.

Odd stuff

Today is going to be mildly fraught. Today mother in law comes to stay for two or three months. She's a nice old stick but doesn't seem to understand that yours truly has stuff to do, then bursts into tears when I just get on and do instead of hanging on her every word 24/7. This afternoon we have to go through the whole emotional scene of soggy greetings at the airport, heartfelt sigh. Fortunately Brother in law is in tow to keep an eye on things, so perhaps not. Dog is staying with friends for today and tomorrow until the dust settles, and all my work commitments will have to wait until Wednesday. She's not exactly the most mobile of people and I have the oddest of prescient feelings that my consumption of Jameson's will increase.

Computer time has been pretty restricted recently as Mrs S has been Skyping all over the world looking for old college, work related and school certificates to back up our permanent residency application. The only way I can get a look in on the 'pooter at present is by getting out of bed at 5 in the morning for some uninterrupted thinking and keyboard time.

In the Sticker household recently there have been some odd goings on; for example, coming in from a very pleasant afternoons fishing on Sunday, I walked in the door to be confronted by one of my dear lady wife's brassiere's hanging up where I normally hang my hat. I stared for a moment, wondering if I was hallucinating, then caught my wife's amused sidelong glance. "They're just hanging up to dry Bill."
"Thank God for that, you had me wondering." I said, looking rather nonplussed. There's something mildly unsettling about seeing empty lingerie hanging around the place where it shouldn't normally be.
"I just ran out of places to hang them up."
"The tumble dryer okay?" Why hang stuff up to dry when you have a perfectly good machine for the job?
"I'm not developing Alzheimer's." Mrs S cocked an eyebrow at me before returning to the keyboard. So what's a man to do under these circumstances? "Errrrrr..... Cup of tea love?"
"Oo, gorgeous." Came the response. So I put the kettle on (It's a nice one that doesn't clash with my eyeshadow - oh dear).

Another odd occurrence has been the Dutch Ministry of Justice showing up on my reader stats. I put it down to bored tech support,but apparently there's something a little more sinister. Via the Devils Kitchen, I came across the news that there is an unpleasant little troll who keeps on complaining about people's web sites and trying to get the Dutch authorities to shut down those he doesn't agree with. The dipstick concerned (No, I'm not going to dignify the nasty little slaphead with a link) appears to be an extreme lefty with one of the dullest blogs on the planet (Even duller than mine). He doesn't appear to think that freedom of speech is a good thing, and compares those of us with even a mildly Libertarian bent to kiddy pron pushers. Should the gentleman in question ever visit these pages again I have a little message for him; "Go 'way son. Come back when yer all growed up. Now push off, I'm a busy man."

The south end of Vancouver Island beckons today. I'm going out for a drive. I may be some little time.....

Earth Day. Then and now.

Oh my. Just been reminded how stupid all the prophets of impending doom must think we mere mortals are; just pay this link a visit.

I had ignored all the "We're doomed!" hoopla until I read it. Any news outlet that prints unsubstantiated end of the world guff should hang their heads in shame. Then the thought occurs that maybe we're seeing the mainstream media slowly but surely self destruct? God knows there are quite a number in financial difficulty. New York Times, Guardian, etcetera, etcetera......

Sheriff Joe rides again

H/T Theo Spark
C/O Bob C

Worth reading carefully.

Atlas is busy shrugging

About half way through Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'. It's a tremedously frustrating experience because I keep wanting to scream at certain characters "Grow up you dumbass!" Normally speaking I can read for three to four hours at a stretch without coming up for air, but although I'm enjoying the prose, I have to stop reading every half hour. My anger reaction at the stupidity of certain characters is that strong.

From the UK I see news that the latest budget is all about the economic seppuku of the current administration. Oh dearie me. Denis Healey tried 'soaking the rich' back in the mid to late 1970's. Didn't work then. Won't work now. Why don't people learn from the mistakes of the past? Are they brain dead or something?

Normal service

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. This blog will resume sarcasm levels as soon as certain current issues are resolved.

Issue 1: Illness in family causing many alarums and diversions due to running about on errands and keeping concerned family members up to date with invalid's progress.

Issue 2: New development on the immigration front which will require many transatlantic phone calls and much old paperwork retrieval. I mean, who in the 40+ age group still has their old High School certificates for goodness sake?

This looks amusing

Totally impractical of course, politicians being who they are, but fun to contemplate.

More at The Ministry of Truth
H/T An Englishmans Castle

The fun has just begun

On both sides of the pond, there are minor signs of real insurrection. The 'Tea Party' protests (All over the USA) about the Democrat tax regime and Guido Fawkes gunpowder bullseye on the UK political establishment and compliant media who now appear to be turning on the hands that fed them. I think some of my relatives in the USA are attending one protest, while I and my siblings gleefully watch the UK media apologising for toeing the party line instead of doing some proper journalism.

Sidebar addition to new section 'Canada'; Small Dead Animals.

This is just the beginning.

Update: I watched Glen Becks performance at the San Antonio Tea Party. Now while I don't totally agree with what Glenn has to say on issues like immigration and abortion, his closing words are a gauntlet flung in the face of the Mainstream Media. See for yourself.

My thoughts? The mainstream media constantly needs to be challenged because many media outlets (TV, Newspapers etc) still seem to think in the age of the Internet that they can get away with telling ordinary folks what to think.

P.S. Posting may get a bit sporadic because Bill Sticker is currently reading 'Freakonomics' and has a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged' on his desk awaiting perusal because he wants to see what all the fuss is about for himself.

Two simple questions

I note that 'eco-activists' are staging protests which threaten to shut down coal fired power stations both in the UK and possibly the USA. Urging the 'climate activists' on are voices such as James Hansen, NASA's chief advocate of the 'CO2 causes runaway man made climate change' faction. With no real current evidence to prove that the doomsayers predictions are in any way justified, I can only shake my grizzled head in mute astonishment at the activists ever crazier antics. However, being a fair minded chap I would like anyone to give me an answer to the following two simple questions;

My first question is this; should the activists succeed in shutting down a power station, which runs the risk of shutting down electricity supplies not only to industry and commerce, but also to hospitals and other vital services, with the attendant risk of death to innocent people. Does this count as terrorism not 'activism'?

This being the case my second question is as follows; does the attempt to shut down coal, or any other type of fuel fired power plants therefore make Hansen the Bin Laden of eco-terrorism?

Wind

Fishing wasn't so wonderful yesterday, and I spent a couple of non productive hours clambering over rocks trying to find a stable spot where the wind wouldn't blow my lures back at me at every cast. Distinctly breezy. In the end I packed in and went home after re-organising my tackle box.

Having paid my daily visit to Guido Fawkes blog, I see that someone else is getting the wind up back in the UK now that a massive online smear campaign has been unearthed. Slanderous e-mails, dodgy domain name registration. Senior UK government advisers fired. Tsk, tsk, someone was going to be naughty weren't they? Pity it's all public domain now, eh?. Not that it ever could be anything else.

That's the thing with the Internet, if it can be read, there's an electronic paper trail that leads right to your doorstep if you don't take a few precautions. Nowadays I don't bother; even a visit from these guys (even if it's only bored tech support) doesn't concern me.

The Telegraph and Times appear to have 'banned' my current IP address so I cannot comment on their stories. Odd that. It's not as though I ever posted anything abusive, at least I can't recall doing so. Any old road up, that's purely academic now.

I've noted that a number of media commentators have been asking things like "Who controls these blogs", to which the answer is; the creators and readers, no one else. It's the politics of the market place. If people (the readership) like your stuff, they will keep coming back. Try to lecture them and they all drift away to watch the footie. Other commentators were bemoaning the lack of readership of, say a left leaning blog in comparison to top blogger Guido Fawkes. The answer is simple; left leaning politics is boring, dull, massively yawn inspiring, somnolence inducing pomposity in its studied earnestness. A few years ago I recall seeing a couple of Marxist 'comedians', and on both occasions they were so jaw crackingly awful that the audience started telling gags amongst themselves and ignored the guy on stage.

Lets face it, if Karl Marx had put a few decent jokes in Das Kapital or written it in a lighter style, maybe we'd all be Socialists, but there is nothing funny about Socialism at all, Socialists yes, but not Socialism and that area of politics. They all know what's best for the rest of us and will not shut the fuck up without having a baseball bat buried between their ears. Nasty, tedious little people with all their half baked canting hypocrisy. All they want is power without responsibility, and the smug satisfaction of having everyone else do as they say.

As far as I'm concerned, the only Marx worth anything was Groucho.

Freak show

Dropping over to the famous wattsupwithat web site, I have been disturbed to watch the facts and figures coming back from the Catlin expedition, which is one of those 'expeditions' seeking to 'prove' that the Arctic Ice cap is disappearing because humanity will not voluntarily return to a semi-neolithic existance. Lewis Pughs ill fated Kayaking expedition from last year springs to mind.

The reported body telemetry of the three expedition members indicates physiological problems, but this data seems unreliable as the web feeds to the Catlin expeditions web site have on occasion appeared to be repeating loops. The more I watch, the more I think the whole business is some bizarre narcissistic media circus. A kind of slow motion human sacrifice, and in a number of respects distastefully messianic. Urgh!

All of the aforementioned appears not to be bothering the Polar Bear population, which far from decreasing seems to be doing the exact opposite.

This morning I'm off to enjoy the great outdoors, and maybe go shopping for a new Kayak later on this afternoon if the fish aren't biting. Mrs S has control of the technology until then.

Looking on the bright side

Looks like a good day to go fishing.....

A series of unfortunate incidents

The left hand side of the blogosphere seems to be rather angry about the death of an 'uninvolved' person at the G20 riot last week. There seems to currently be a lot of low level ranting on the subject, so I thought I'd have a good long dispassionate look at the situation and make as objective a personal assessment as I can, knowing how easily people can froth at the keyboard over incidents like these.

Firstly, one has to take a step back and see how charged the situation was. Nervous inexperienced Copper togged up in riot gear, which I am told gets hot and sweaty very easily, thus temporarily reducing officer in questions decision making ability; add a soon-to-be-dead man with a bit of a chip on his shoulder who has had negative experience with the Police before. Man with chip on shoulder also has heart condition which nobody seems to know about, least of all him. Uptight people all over the place looking for a casus belli. Inexperienced people all over the place in key positions which naturally leads to the rapid implementation of the universal law of cock up a.k.a. Murphy's law.

Let's have a look at the timeline of events; Dead man is on his way somewhere and runs into a tactical riot squad section (or whatever), all hot sweaty and nervous, with strict orders to 'let no one pass' their line in order to contain all the rioters and demonstrators in one place. He tries to pass their line. He is refused. Sharp words are exchanged and soon-to-be-dead man feels hard done by. He wants to get to his destination and no bloody copper is going to get in the way.

Having watched the video carefully, and basing my judgement on three years on-street experience observed the soon-to-be-dead man's body language, I was forced to the following conclusion; the soon-to-be-dead man was not best pleased at being baulked by a line of riot police that are nothing to do with him and is 'having an arse' or sulk. Passive-aggressively showing his disapproval. Note the posture, the expression on his face, the hunched shoulders and hands deeply stuffed in pockets. All danger signals that someone is going to try and be an immovable object. He wants to go and shows his disapproval by patently looking for a break in the line of Police in riot gear. Nearby officer (The one who made the baton strike) picks up on this and becomes more alert and nervous. Is soon to be dead man a threat or not? Briefing says let no one pass. Does soon-to-be-dead man's behaviour mean that he's about to kick off? Nervous officer tightens grip on baton, just in case.

Riot police get word to move from tactical based on rioters behaviour in another street, and soon-to-be-dead man either refuses to be shepherded out of his way or just doesn't move fast enough. Nervous Copper in line thinks he (Soon-to-be-dead man) is a threat to the line-which-must-not-be-broken's integrity, overreacts and makes baton strike, throwing man to the ground. Man may still feel 23 in his head, but his body says otherwise and loosened atheroma blocks blood flow to the heart muscle and bingo, one massive and fatal heart attack.

Now I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone, but based upon my own experience, I tend to think my précis version of events has the highest chance of being true. If confronted by Coppers in riot gear and with orders to 'contain' a situation, you might as well just find a nice quiet place to sit down out of their way and grab a quick coffee and read of the papers, or 'comfort break' and watch the fun from the sidelines. Trying to confront riot police in any way shape or form just makes them ready to kick off. Lose-lose all round.

A man died, and it was very probably for the reasons outlined above. The man should not have played his face, and the officer in question should not have used his baton. It was all an accident waiting to happen. It is worth noting that the man's resultant heart attack was in all probability only a few days away, whether the incident had occurred or not. Something else would have triggered it sooner or later. An argument with a family member, or anything else that would have sent pulse and blood pressure through the roof. What can you say? Wrong place, wrong time.

I feel sad for the man and his family, but also for the officer concerned. One is dead leaving an yawning emotional chasm where his presence once was, the other may have the rest of his career tainted. There are no winners here.

Drugs

On the way back from a happy working afternoon, we heard on the car radio that there had been a major cocaine bust by the RCMP not far from town. According to the report a machine gun, grenades, and several sidearms had been found along with several kilo's of cocaine. Well done to the boys in grey. Nice result; but I can't help thinking all this 'war on drugs' is going about things the wrong way. The cost of the undercover Police operations needed to keep on top of the problem must be pretty astronomical.

I posted a precis of my thoughts on Tim Worstalls blog as follows;

Try this on for size; Buy the entire Afghan opium crop. Give away free to addicts via medicare, NHS, etc at point of distribution, with the one proviso that the dose has to be taken there and then, working on a reducing scale as the number of addicts reduces through the natural wastage of overdosing and assorted drug related mortality. Wean Afghan farmers off Opium farming as it becomes progressively less profitable. Apply similar policy to Columbian Cocaine crop. Free trade agreements to make other crops more financially attractive.

Pro’s; Cuts down on the money supply known to subsidise wars and terrorism. Petty crime level drops as addicts no longer have to resort to theft to subsidise their habit as they do now. Removes incentive for pushers in lower life quality areas, thus removing or significantly reducing the source of new addicts. Fewer pushers means Heroin gets less commonplace. Fewer addicts and pushers mean eventually less Heroin etc on streets. Fewer lives screwed up long term. Low relative cost.

Cons; short term surge in addict mortality. Resultant emotional cost to families with who have an addicted family member. Near permanent moral outrage from professional busybodies (but what’s new).

Harsh, but I still think it's the only real way to 'win' the 'war on drugs'. Failing that; do a Mao on them and shoot all the addicts, that worked didn't it?

We don't know we're born....

Louis CK has it spot on in this clip. When I recall the stories from my own parents about when they were growing up in the 1920's and 30's, about the large families many people used to have because child mortality was so high, of kids going to school in threadbare clothes and rags wrapped around their feet. We know little or nothing of real poverty, and the technology that underpins our day to day lives is little short of miraculous, yet I see people get all aerated because there's the occasional glitch. We have it far better than ever before, yet all we do is bitch about the trivia in life, while our freedom of thought, speech and movement that helped bring out our technological success is salami sliced away by politicians who only seem to care about their own expense accounts and have only half an idea about what they're doing.

Innovation comes from people. Politicians know nothing.

Nothing going on.......

But the same old same old. Looks like all my seditious e-mails between me and the remnants of my family in the UK can now be read by the powers that be there (How are you, shops closing, bollocks on the news, most UK politicians are idiots, all that jazz). Spent quite a bit of this weekend standing on my rocks with my rod in my hand, and the weather of late has been quite mild. We've even switched the heating off and had all the doors and windows open to give our place a spring airing.

Odd recurring dream of going to some kind of fair (Full of kids running around, happy smiling faces), a gun fair at that; but the guns people were shooting at the targets only shot arrows; full length cedar shafted arrows with steel tips and plastic flights, not unlike spear guns. Don't remember much more. I don't usually remember my dreams, and rarely if ever do I get one that recurs, but for some reason this particular one is sticking in my subconscious, making a thorough nuisance of itself. Perhaps the act of writing it down in précis will purge it. Who knows? Who cares?

Life is currently busy but quite pleasant. Nothing to be sarcastic about at all. Well, only about the antics of politicians who think that they are somehow competent enough to control everything (Like hell), but to tell you the truth their incompetance is so obvious even the most blinkered are starting to sit up and say "Erm, do we really want to do this?" I feel as though my input is quite superfluous.

Anyway, sunlight is currently flooding through my kitchen windows (I sometimes have to wear polarised shades while cooking), and I am dining on honey smeared pancakes, bacon and coffee this morning. Sigh. Life is so hard. Smirk.

Gone

This afternoon, after quite a busy and dare I say it, successful day. I took a walk down to the seas very edge for an hours fishing. Didn't catch anything; but I watched all sorts of water borne life on a surface as calm as a lazy summer river.

To my South and East, a couple of hundred metres away, Bald Eagles dive bombed a number of feeding Sea Lions, causing much honking and splashing; to my East, less than fifty metres away, two female Sea Lions lolled lazily, holding flippers out of the water as though sunbathing. Over the other side of the channel the shore was white with feeding gulls. An Otter brought it's kill ashore to eat less than fifteen metres from where I stood, then spooked when I made a noisy miscast. I looked up the deserted channel to see the first signs of the flooding tide along a view lined with Douglas Fir, Arbutus and Black Birch. For a few precious seconds my very soul held it's breath. Magical.

God bless British Columbia. Best place on the planet. I'm gone baby, solid gone.

Dear Santa..

I know it's not Christmas, but one of these would be just the ticket. A few minor modifications, and it would be good to go. Just the thing for winning those little kerbside arguments about parking tickets and dealing with aggressive cyclists.

There is one cyclist in particular around town that I would like to see get his come uppance, nasty person. Bombs through intersections, shouting and snarling at pedestrians, I see him coming, out comes the video camera, and the output will get handed to the local RCMP detachment.

Sidebar addition

Have been reading a UK blog callled 'And there was me thinking' by the erudite mummylonglegs. Sterling stuff. Well worth reading.