Major Tom! Move to Mars!

I don't often get New Scientist any more, although when I was a student I was pretty fond of it. I don't know exactly what put me off it, I do enjoy hearing about current discoveries and theories and despite the occasional derision of snobby educated friends of mine (it's too "pop" science, as if writing something people can understand is somehow a crime) I find it to be well written and informative.
Yesterday I though I'd forgo the usual depressing paper (does nothing good *ever* happen anymore?) and get a New Scientist instead.

First page editorial was gloomy predictions about social collapse. Next page, first boxout - "Will the Tsunami hit?" with a picture of Hong kong. Across the page, endangered species are all gonna die (picture of colombus monkey looking decidedly edgy) and another box out "Sentence of DEATH" about people who have been in prison dying early (no shit Sherlock). Turn the page again and the next thing is a four page article about noise pollution and how they suspect it makes you ill and is killing people.

I was halfway through the articles section of the damn magazine before I found anything that wasn't a portent of doom. I had to go outside just to check that the sun was still shining and the sky was still blue, and there were no Tsunami or Asteroids or Giant Mutant Beavers (GMBs) poised to destroy life as we know it. I though science periodicals were supposed to show me what hope we have for the future, the exciting and cutting edge of human development, not confirm that I should be looking to move to Mars. It seems to me that everything is doom and gloom. Everywhere you look, turn on a TV, open a paper, search on the Internet, we are alternately being told the world is ending! Evil is near! Followed by Buy! Buy! Buy! Only a limited time!

I think we can take it as read that the world will one day end. I think we can take it as proven that the world is warming and we need to do something, that people are dying of poverty and we need to act. Why can't we be given hope instead of fear? Get those Limey Fruit Market Worshipping Capitalist Pig-Dogs (LFMWCPDs)on the case- instead of selling us Laptops and MP3 players and cruises to Egypt get them to sell us carbon neutral cars and fucking sailing boats and bicycling holidays in Wales. Get the fuckers that made Crazy Frog on the case - if they can make that such a success then making Green and Fair-trade stuff should be falling off a log!

Then afterwards we can set the GMBs on the LFMWCPDs and sell tickets!

Assholes!

Mey I feed the animals?

Recently my son and I went on one of these family days out to somewhere exciting, and we decided to go to the (late) Queen mums old "house" which just happens to be down the road from us in Mey. I've lived in the North for over 8 years now and I've never felt the urge while the old coot was alive (I'm no royalist). So now she was safely under 6 feet of sod, and the pre-requisite time has past to ensure she hasn't come back as a vampire or zombie or such, I'd though I'd risk it with the boy.

Hey there were animals to be seen! As it turns out, very similar animals to those in the fields not 100m from my front door, but as I said before, exciting day out. Stay with me here.

So anyway we check out the shop first and sure enough it has the expected overpriced tat, I am mildly shocked to see what seem to be vials of the old dear's pee on a shelf but confirm that this is actually just vials of special whisky. But I visibly have my doubts so am herded by boy and relations to the door and told to go forth and see animals with my son.

So we amble down and are confronted with the mother of all "don't feed the animals" signs, and I'm on the floor laughing. I can see the MIL (Mother In Law) and the FIL (go on, guess) are less than impressed until they clock it too.

I wonder what was going through the mind of the person who wrote this- I mean as far as they were concerned this sign was perfectly fit for purpose. The first thing they though anyone would be driven to do to the collection of mangy sheep and odd looking goats that were uncomfortably milling about in the middle of what could generously be described as a paddock is kiss them. It doesn't specify the status of tongues but I have a working theory on that. Skip down a couple more and the though has penetrated that if people want to kiss the animals, and cant (they are not allowed over the fence after all) , maybe their pent up frustration will lead to teasing and chasing them! Gadzooks!

I'm not sure why, if you can't get near them, that you should refrain from touching your face. Maybe they have a morbid fear of face touching or something so I poke at my nose and rub my chin but the gently ruminating beasts don't seem to be much more perturbed than when I arrived. Indeed they seem to be more worried about my son who is shouting "bacon!" at the pigs after being led astray by.....well, me.

There does seem to be a theme here, and I begin to wonder if maybe this sort of thing is common in Mey or whether maybe the old bat herself (God love her) wrote the sign. Someone who has lived for over ninety years with her lifestyle is going to have some seriously skewed ideas about what us mere commoners regard as a good time.

"I wonder" she may indeed have wondered "how we can stop all the riff-raff climbing the fences and shagging the goats. Hmmm. Hamish! Bring my easel!"

It's as likely as anything else.

As I stood there pondering all of this I realise I have broken the last instruction and my darling child is commanding “Silly” ducks into their pond at stick length.

What the hell, I think, climb the fence and proceed to get stuck into Debs the Cheviot sheep. In for a penny, in for a pound.