If you should let sleeping dogs lie then I'd imagine you should certainly not disturb snoozing swans, given how grumpy and bad tempered they can be even when fully awake, let alone being roused from a pleasant nap. This was as close as I dared get to a couple of slumbering swans basking in the last golden rays of the setting sun by the Union Canal not far from my home, contentedly snoozing just a couple of feet from all the walkers, joggers, cyclists and canoeists. Lovely to have this so close by in the middle of a heavily populated part of a major city. If you click on the pic you can go to my Flickr stream and click the 'all sizes' buttons to see the much larger version; it was worth edging slowly closer to the animal as I managed to get some details of the feathers into the bigger version.
The new artwork on the side of Saint John's church in Edinburgh makes a nice comment on the greedy pigs-in-the-trough mentality of so many of the right dishonourable Members of Parliament who've been caught with their sticky trotters in the cookie jar, grabbing every bit of tax payer's money they could rip off.
Sadly it hasn't taken too long for Obama and his second coming to start disappointing me - his stance a few weeks ago that state-sanctioned torture was immoral and illegal seemed good except for the fact he followed it up by saying that those who carried out such illegal torture (and by extension those in power who sanctioned it) shouldn't be prosecuted. Because you know, it was awful, illegal and immoral, but hey, no point in making a fuss over it, eh? And anyway, they were only following orders (I believe that's the standard excuse of such bastards in any regime who happily carry out illegal orders). So much for Obama and his moral compass. Now, after lambasting Bush's dreadful trampling all over the very principles Western democractic free societies are built on by adjusting laws that should never be adjusted or altered or removed Arsehole Obama's setting up to do exactly the bloody same. Change you can believe in? What change? Change of face, same immoral, illegal shit from the sounds of it. What a surprise. (link via Boing Boing)
Bear Grylls has become the new Chief Scout for the UK. Presumably he will be able to instruct kids on how to fake television shows and pretend you're sleeping the night in that desert you've been crossing with only a rattlesnake for a pillow while actually you and the crew are straight off to an air conditioned motel as soon as the camera's off. And is a man who kills animals just for the sake of making a TV programme really a good role model for kids? Seriously, the fact that he kills animals as part of this show disgusts me. You want to show survival skills, stop biting the heads off live frogs, you bastard, drop your white ass down into Compton and live on the street there for a week without being shot or knived. Oh well, the kids can at least enjoy making fun of his name, I suppose. Distract them from how silly their uniform looks.
After much consideration of the problems created by the Speaker of the House of Commons (is he being scapegoated? Yes, a bit. Was he a useless numpty who blocked Freedom of Information requests and ignoring public outrage instead of sorting the problem? Yes. So he should go) being forced out in this almost unprecedented manner I believe I have come up with a solution. Working with professors from the University of Woolamaloo's Faculty of Political Cobblers we've come up with a new system: we have weekly rotating guest speakers. Its based on the fairly successful and usually entertaining system of guest presenters on Have I Got News For You.
Since I floated it on FaceBook and Twitter a little earlier I've had five suggestions for who should be the first guest Speaker, ranging from Eddie Izzard to Gordon Ramsay. Can you imagine Ramsay in the post? When those noisy, nose in the troughs pigs of MPs star their usual extremely rude shouting and noise making during a debate (the sort of behaviour that would get you kicked out of a real debating society but which appears acceptable in the House of Shame) would he shout 'order, order' feebly in a whiny voice like the outgoing Speaker? Or would he more like bellow 'would the right honourable member shut the f**k up, shut your f**king mouth you f**king windbag'. And Izzard would doubtless make fun of them. You know, I think it's a workable system and as an added benefit it would make watching proceedings from the House more interesting and so encourage an active interest in politics.
Meantime let's hope that some of the fat pigs of MPs are also dragged squealing from the trough and forced to resign at the very least, or preferably be charged with fraud at most (amazing how many made 'accounting error' like oops, claiming thousands on a mortgage they had paid off months before, gosh how simple and common a mistake that is that we could all make). And for those who are feeling sorry for Michael Martin being forced from his post as Speaker in such a humiliating manner (the first such case in three centuries), remember this is a man who has been happy to spend thousands of pounds of public money doing up his already posh Speaker's chambers and has been a road block to Freedom of Information requests, hardly acts of great democracy or of the working man of the people. And his performance in the House yesterday was, frankly, embarassing and left him with no authority.
Walking home from work this evening - number of car drivers who ignored the red lights and drove through the green man on crossings: 3. Number of cyclists who ignored them and cycled right through a crossing when green man is on and people crossing: 2. Number of arsehole motorists who bump car up onto pavement instead of parking properly and so blocking half the way to pedestrians: 4. Number of ignorant cyclists weaving in and out among people cycling on the pavements: 3. Wilful ignorance, lack of consideration and stupidity unfortunately fairly common.
Had dad through for the day over the weekend and we went wandering around some parts of the New Town taking pictures, including the home of one of my favourite writers, Robert Louis Stevenson:
In case you are wondering the old fashioned bell-pull on the bottom left, instead of stating the family name as usual simple says " private house, not a museum".
