Sunday, December 15, 2013

Qantas Zero Zero One

There has been a worrying development this week. My female staff's mum wants to be an airline pilot. It's worrying not just because she's eighty five, but because her memory is not what it was. It's been years since my staff have had the courage to be passengers in her car, so they have no idea what her driving is like, apart from the fact that she frequently forgets where she has parked and has to walk the streets for hours until she finds it. She doesn't really mind though, it's a good social outlet for her because she stops at every coffee shop she passes for a chat and a cuppa, and to ask if anyone there has seen a crookedly parked white Mercedes anywhere.

Then yesterday while she and my staff were slurping chardonnay on the deck I heard the subject turn to planes. My female staff's mum has always been fascinated by them and simply loves flying, so much so that my male staff offered to buy her a broomstick for Christmas. This earned him a savage glare from my female staff's mum and a bruised arm from my female staff. It was then that my female staff's mum dropped her bombshell.
 "I'd love to be an airline pilot." She said. Actually sixty years ago she would have made a fantastic pilot. She's certainly courageous, she quite happily gets into the car when my male staff is driving and doesn't even close her eyes. She may of course spend an hour praying fervently beforehand of course, but I have absolutely no evidence to support this. I must admit it made my fur stand on end when I heard her say this, and my mind was instantly filled with images of her in command of an Airbus A380 containing four hundred passengers approaching London Heathrow Airport.

Air Traffic Control comes on the radio.
 "Qantas zero zero one heavy. Please descend to flight level one three and maintain holding pattern awaiting further instructions."
 "Oh hello dear. Is that you Barry? How's your dad? Is his gout still giving him trouble? Can you say all that again dear. I forgot to bring my hearing aid. Left my glasses at home too. Honestly, I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on."
 "I repeat. Qantas zero zero one heavy. Please descend to flight level one three and maintain holding pattern awaiting further instructions."
  "Okay Barry dear. You sound busy. It must be nearly time for your tea break. Does your mum know that you're still smoking. You really should give it up, and you can't be getting much fresh air stuck inside that control tower of yours. It can't be could for you." Now, what was it you wanted me to do?"
Deep sigh.
 "Please descend to flight level one three and maintain holding pattern awaiting further instructions."
 "Sorry dear, you'll have to speak up. Did I tell you I forgot my hearing aid?"
Barry shouts  "Please descend to flight level one three and maintain holding pattern awaiting further instructions."
 "No need to shout Barry, I heard you. You're getting tetchy. Are you sure you're not working too hard? Okay, so you want me to descend to flight level three one, is that right? Wait a tick dear that can't be right. I'm already well below flight level three one. Are you sure you don't mean flight level one three? You really should concentrate dear. Anyway, I'll descend to flight level one three for you and maintain a knitting pattern. That's what you wanted wasn't it dear?
 "Whatever." Then there's the sound of a chair scraping on the floor, some muttering and a door slamming."

My female staff's mum turns to the First Officer. "Okay Roger dear, set the flappy things to fifteen degrees please."
 "Roger, flaps to fifteen."
 "That's right dear, that's what I said. Are you teasing me now you naughty boy? Call the tower for me please will you please Roger. Ask Barry which runway he wants us to land on. I think he's a bit cross with me at the moment for some reason. I must send him some of my date scones"

The First Officer gets on the radio and has a conversation with the tower.
 "Well, what did he say dear? I hope he's concentrating better now."
 "Barry wasn't there Captain. They said something about a terrible accident, apparently he fell off the tower. They're not sure how it happened. He's been rushed to hospital."
 "Oh, that's nice. I'll take him some flowers and grapes when we land, I'm sure he'll be pleased to see me. Now then, which runway did they want us to land on?"
"Runway zero nine left Captain."
 "Jolly good Roger. We're getting quite low now, better lower the erm......the erm......don't tell me, it'll come to me shortly. Oh look! A cow, and a man walking a dog. Tsk tsk! Oh look. He's let his dog poo on the pavement, how disgusting. Sorry, Roger, what were we doing? Ah! I remember...........the wheels, better get the wheels ready. What's the correct term? I always forget."
 "Lower the under carriage Captain."
 "That's right. Remind me which button it is will you. No, wait don't tell me, let me guess. Oh look that man nearly fell off his bike looking at us, he should watch where he's going he could cause a nasty accident. Oh Roger, we've landed now. Did you press the wheelie thing button for me while I was nattering? That's disappointing dear, that's my favourite bit. never mind probably just as well.

Boris' Bit
Ich haben never liked flyink. It's just not natürlich für eine guinea pig. If guinea pigs could be flyink everyvhere ve vould be nussink more zan bats.









Sunday, December 8, 2013

Boobs, Shoes And Too Many Humans

Writing a fresh blog every week can be challenging for a rodent. There's only so much one can say about vegetables, herbs and poo before one starts repeating oneself. It's vital the we animal bloggers pull out all the stops to keep our human readers entertained week by week. We all know that humans have a very limited attention span and if there's nothing in the first  few lines to grab their attention their minds wander off, perhaps to shoe shops in the case of women, and more than likely boobs in the case of men. In fact I imagine that nobody at all is reading this now because it took me five lines to get onto the subject of shoes and boobs. If some smart human would only invent a pair of nice shoes to fit snugly and fashionably on ladies boobs I could concentrate the minds of 99% of humanity in one fell swoop. Meanwhile I sit here in front of a blank screen, pensively chewing on a piece of poo that I have just pulled from my own bottom passage with my teeth, wondering what I should write about this week.

Did you know that at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ (assuming such a man existed) it is thought that there were fewer than thirty million humans on this earth. Imagine how easy it would have been to find a car parking space. I believe that is about the population of Mexico City as it stands today. Now there are over seven billion of the buggers, and at this time of year it seems like they are all at our local post office whenever my male staff wants to buy a stamp.

Seven billion! How frightening is that? In 1958, the year my male staff was born there were less than three billion. That's just fifty five years ago, a mere blink of an eye in historical terms and as far as I know he hasn't personally added to that total, so don't blame him. How on earth can the world continue to supply all these people with food and water? It has long been thought that the next major war will be fought over water supplies - never mind oil. In another fifty five years the United Nations estimate that the World population will reach approximately ten billion. Imagine how far you'll have to walk from your parking spot to get your rationed daily cup of water then. At least you won't have to worry about going to the supermarket because there won't be any food. Climate change will have seen to that. Only the super rich will be able to afford to eat. Women's magazines will be full of photos of obese models dressed in the latest fashions, so that the average skeletal woman in the street will have something she can aspire to.

Did you notice anything interesting about that United Nations projected figure for the year 2068? Yes, that's right the rate of population increase will slow quite dramatically. Why? Drought? Famine? Loss of libido caused by the ever increasing consumption of anti-depressant medication? A decrease in the popularity of Catholicism? It doesn't really matter because by then the damage to the planet will be almost irreversible. There will be virtually no wildlife left because it will have been crowded out by the spread of the human population. The massive increase in cattle and sheep populations brought about by the need to feed so many people will have left many parts of the world dust bowls due to over grazing. The Sahara Desert will stretch from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to Zimbabwe in the south. The great forests of West and Central Africa will have gone the same way as the Amazon and the rain forests of South East Asia - levelled to make way for farmland and building materials.

Melting ice caps mean that many low lying Indian Ocean and Pacific Island nations no longer exist. Rising sea levels have inundated them causing their populations to flea in boats to become refugees, turned away from every nation they approach because there is not enough food, water or compassion to help even their own citizens. Australia is particularly badly effected by climate change. The southern half of the island continent below the Tropic of Capricorn is one enormous desert, while in the far north powerful cyclones whipped to a frenzy by warming ocean temperatures smash back to the stone age what remains of large coastal settlements like Darwin, Cairns and Townsville. The Great Barrier Reef had died by 2030 thanks to the warming ocean and poorly regulated use of fertilizer which is washed from the sugar cane plantations lining the Queensland coast into the Coral Sea by the huge rainfall delivered by the increasing cyclonic activity. Such run off feeds huge blooms of crown of thorns starfish which then eat every last square metre of live coral on the reef, while the silt washed down from the rivers kills the sea grass beds vital to fish, dugong and turtle breeding and feeding.

So called world leaders were warned about all this by scientists as early as the 1970's, but greed, corruption and short term gain got the better of certain politicians who dismissed the science as "Absolute Crap" in the case of Australia's own Prime Minister Tony Abbott. He and others either sat back and did nothing or actively made things worse through misguided policy choices.

If you think all that is bad enough, wait until you hear this. I had to go to the vet at the weekend to have a rock hard lump of my own poo removed from between my toes.

Boris' Bit

Heilige scheiße! Ich vish Herr Billy had not bozzered writing ein blog at all zis woche. Now ich bin sehr depressed und vil haf to haf some of Herr Billy's male staff's anti-depressants. Ich hope ich don't lose mein libido. Not zat ich habe any use for it at ze moment, but if der chance arises ich vant to be ready.





Sunday, December 1, 2013

Flamingo Dancing

If you've been paying attention you will know that my female staff teaches belly dancing. Now she has taken up something called flamingo dancing too. She's not teaching that at the moment, just learning, but give her time. Before long she'll be out at Lake Nakuru teaching the flamingos to foxtrot or something. So anyway, on Saturday night my female staff's mum, my male staff, Boris, Baci and I were crammed cheek by furry butt into the Hyundai Getz for the ride to Palmwoods Memorial Hall where the flamingos were due to dance. The benevolence of Lady Luck never ceases to amaze me, and despite my male staff's best efforts to ram the Getz at one hundred and ten kilometres an hour into a variety of obstacles - trucks, petrol stations, cattle, police vehicles, we arrived at the venue in one piece, though Boris did have a slight bladder accident during one particularly close call, which involved a tree, a large Hereford bull and a fire engine.

So, while my female staff went backstage to change into her flamingo costume, the rest of us settled into our seats. I sat on my female staff's Mum's lap, contentedly depositing bush chocolate on her white skirt, while Boris and Baci sat with my male staff. Boris on his lap and Baci on his left shoulder. Being the smallest of us my male staff said that it was only fair that he had the best view and it had the added advantage of allowing him to wiggle his bum at the people sitting behind us. Then the house lights dimmed and Boris, thinking it was time for bed went to sleep. Not for long though because a moment later the music started. Now I'm not a great fan of music. My staff aren't allowed to use their sound system at all and I make my female staff close all the doors between the piano room and me. She is the only piano player outlawed by the Geneva convention. I've said it before - "If music be the food of love, I'm going on a diet."

My female staff, front and centre on the stage and not a single flamingo in sight.

This was something else though, someone was playing a guitar as though he had just consumed twelve tins of that awful caffeine drink stuff. What's it called? "Dead Bull" or something. It was deafening, and then a singer started wailing as though his testostricles were being assaulted by a pack of African wild dogs. Then the stage curtains parted to reveal, not a flock of flamingos as had been promised by my staff, but a whole herd of middle aged female humans dressed in what my male staff called traditional Spanish attire, with long flouncy skirts colourful tops and half a florist shop stuffed behind their ears. My female staff was up there too, swishing her skirt around and oh the horror, showing her knees! Naturally I was outraged and tried to reach up from my spot on my female staff's Mum's lap to cover young Baci's eyes. But he wasn't there. He'd disappeared from my male staff's shoulder.

It then became apparent that the stage was infested with bull ants or something equally bitey because all the ladies started leaping up and down and stamping their feet wildly and very loudly, while frantically waving their arms in great circles and clacking together what appeared to be half walnuts strapped to their fingers, so what with the manic guitarist, the yowling singer and the herd of middle aged ladies stamping their feet and clacking their nuts I was starting to regret attending this event. Then things started looking more promising. My male staff stood up and started howling like the singer. At first I thought he was just joining in to show his appreciation, but then I noticed a wriggling lump under the front of his shirt. It appeared that Baci had slid off my male staff's shoulder into his shirt to escape the din and all the stamping coming from the stage had frightened him so much that he had latched onto my male staff's right nipple with his razor sharp little teeth. Another reflex had loosened his bladder and the resulting deluge warmed my male staff's stomach, which was good, because he had been complaining that it was a little chilly in the hall.

Meanwhile, my male staff's agonised leap to his feet had catapulted Boris from his comfortable repose on his lap onto the top of the head of the gentleman sitting in front of us. He in turn then stood and glared at my male staff, who was still yelling while desperately trying to fish Baci out from the front of his shirt with one hand and mop up the hot pee with a grubby handkerchief with the other. For a moment I thought the man was going to say something unpleasant to my male staff, but when he saw the wet lump under my male staff's shirt he obviously thought he was about to witness an "Alien" moment and thought better of it. Before he turned to face the front again he plucked Boris from the top of his head and handed him back to my male staff, but not before my female staff's Mum had looked up at him and said to my male staff. "Ooooh look dear. It's Donald Trump." Then once Boris had been removed, "Oh sorry dear, my mistake." I wonder if we'll be invited to the next flamingo concert.

Boris' Bit
Ich don't sink zat der mann vas enjoyink havink me on top of his kopf, und ich sink zat he enjoyed havink to shake der poopies from his hair vunce he had handed me back to Herr Billy's male staff even less.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Misquoted

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  It's just amazing how many great world leaders and historical figures have had guinea pig companions. A short time spent researching this matter will yield many examples. That's not to say that all humans with cavy companions are great or historical. Take my own staff for instance.  The only great thing about my male staff is his waistline, especially since two weeks ago he got so drunk that he fell over and bruised his knees so badly that he has been unable to have his daily run since. He claims, of course, that he tripped over a root while running in the woods, but nobody in their right mind would believe such an unlikely tale. And of course my female staff is more hysterical than historical.

Still, the fact remains, that many famous humans owe their fame and often their fortune to their guinea pigs, and yet these heroic cavies have been virtually wiped from the history books by human propaganda. Some of history's greatest human quotations were really about the orator's guinea pigs yet their words have been subsequently doctored to suit mankind's ego.

John F. Kennedy was more fond of his guinea pig than he was of Marilyn Monroe. In fact towards the end he actually thought he was a guinea pig. "Ich bin ein guinea pig" he told the people of Berlin. He also said. "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your guinea pig." Noble words indeed and yet they were edited by his advisers into something bland. Which versions of the above do you think would have had the greater impact. The original about looking after your guinea pig or the dull version?

England's Queen Elizabeth I recognised the ferocity and bravery of guinea pigs, when she addressed her troops at Tilbury in 1588 as the nation prepared to repel the Spanish Armada. "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a guinea pig." She said and was greeted with wild cheers by the assembled rough and ready soldiers, for they too all had guinea pigs (many of them secreted in their codpieces) and knew how ferocious and courageous they are, especially when it comes to defending a slice of cucumber. Of course her Father Henry VIII had the stomach of several hundred guinea pigs, but that is neither here nor there.
 
Marie Antoinette was lynched by a crowd of outraged guinea pig owners when she dared to suggest that the impoverished cavy enthusiasts should feed their furry friends something that could give them bloat and make them very sick. "Let them eat cabbage." she had unwisely suggested. It was  the last thing she ever did.

In 1938 Neville Chamberlain visited Adolf Hitler to view his impressive guinea pig collection. The media of course leapt on this visit, claiming that it was an attempt to avert a looming war between Britain and Germany. It was no such thing of course. Herr Hitler had merely promised one of his favourite guinea pigs to Mr Chamberlain as a token of good will. Mr Chamberlain's reported "I hold in my hand a piece of paper." speech was just contrived nonsense concocted by the Conservative Party. What he really said was "I hold in my hand a Peruvian/Texel cross."  The said cavy then proceeded to pee in his hand. Mr Chamberlain then said "I will wipe my hand with a piece of paper." You see how propaganda works?

In 1966 Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt reportedly uttered the words "All the way with LBJ".
Allegedly he was referring to his willingness to get Australia bogged down in the ill-fated war in Vietnam. LBJ being of course the US President at the time - Lyndon B Johnson. This is complete rubbish. He said no such thing. He was merely extolling the virtues of a certain type of guinea pig feed. The one that his own Prime Ministerial guinea pigs favoured. What he really said was "All the way with timothy hay." Sadly the Liberal Party and the military twisted his words to suit their own agenda and very soon Australia's youth was being killed and maimed in a far flung South East Asian jungle. Poor old Harold. Eventually his obsession with guinea pigs became too embarrassing for the Liberal party to tolerate and they had him assassinated while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Melbourne. His body was never recovered, but there are rumours that he is alive and well and sharing a small bedsit in Beijing with Elvis Presley and thirty or forty guinea pigs. Apparently Elvis and Harold are never seen out together. This is because one of them always has to stay at home to make sure that the locals don't steal their guinea pigs to stir fry with a few spring onions, oyster sauce and cashew nuts.

William Wallace aka Mel Gibson had guinea pigs too, but his words were altered for dramatic effect by Hollywood in the movie "Braveheart" Personally if a drunken Scotsman with a blue face and a bare arse shouted "You can take my life, but you'll never take my guinea pig" at me I would be far more likely to take him seriously than had he said the words that Hollywood insisted that he uttered.

I'll leave the final quote to Bill Clinton. Bill really, really loves his guinea pigs. I mean really, really, really loves his guinea pigs. So much so in fact that he was forced to deny the extent of his affection.
"I did not have sexual relations with that guinea pig." He once said.

Boris' Bit
Mein favourite is Herr Kennedy's "Ich bin ein guinea pig" Mainly because it is ze only kvote ich versteh





Sunday, November 17, 2013

Sunday, November 10, 2013

The Ashes

The England cricket team is in Australia for something called "The Ashes". Being Peruvian I know as much about cricket as the Chinese know about forming orderly queues. It's going to be a long, hot summer filled with such terms as "silly mid-off", "fine leg", "short leg", "long on", "third slip", "bloody stupid wicket keeper" and "lousy bowler", though I think my male staff may have just made the last two up.

Those cricket fans who can't get to the games or a television will turn on their radios to listen to a commentary as languorous as a drowsing, daisy strewn summer meadow, delighting in the crack of leather upon willow and the occasional players' earnest appeal of "Owzaaaaaaaaat!" The backdrop to the radio commentary will be a blend of the low hum of the crowd, punctuated here and there by a smattering of polite applause, like a burst of distant fire crackers and every now and again a police, fire engine or ambulance siren as whatever vehicle it is racing past the stadium to some emergency in the whatever city the game is being played in. It could be that the emergency is that someone has dialled 000 because their television has packed up and they are missing out on the cricket. The radio listener will never know. All they hear is the siren fading into the distance as the commentator says something mysterious like, "Fine shot played there by Snivelling. He picked the new cherry up early and caressed it through the gap down to cow corner for a splendid boundary." While normal people are thinking "what?" sad cricket tragics like my male staff are lapping it up and (more worryingly) understanding and relishing every word.

 Then during one of the many quiet phases of the game the Australian spectators in the cheap seats who have guzzled enough beer commence the chant "Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!" Some will be waving huge blow up kangaroos that look as though they may have been purchased from some sort of perverse adult shop, but of course the radio listeners will miss out on that. Meanwhile, the "Barmy Army" as the English team supporters are known seems to include a better class of drunk. Their chants are often aimed at opposing players and are in comparison exquisitely crafted pieces of poetry

Ooooh Aaaah Glenn McGrath,
Walks like a woman
And he wears a bra.

These folk are obviously university educated and to their credit you rarely hear a four letter word uttered by any of them, unless its "beer".

My male staff loves all this and will sit in front of the television with either myself, Boris or Baci on his lap for the entire game, and may I remind you that a cricket test match lasts five days. We have to nip the inside of his thigh to remind him that we are there and that we require food and water. It's as though he's hypnotised by the soft verdure of the outfield, the straw coloured oblong of the pitch and the white flannelled fools who chase the hard red ball around day after day after day. It's funny, but more often than not, even after five days of hot toil under a baking antipodean sun there is no result. The game ends in a draw. Everyone is happy and yet nobody is happy. The players go to the bar for the night, and the next morning they all board a flight to whichever city the next game is being held in.

Why is this series of cricket test matches between England and Australia called "The Ashes"? Most people in cricket playing nations can probably tell you. They may not know the name of their own capital city but almost anyone in England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Indian sub-continent will be able to give you a more or less accurate answer.

The Ashes urn

In 1882 after Australia's first victory on English soil the British Newspaper The Sporting Times printed an obituary for English cricket, stating that English cricket has died and the body will be cremated and taken to Australia. Since then every time England and Australia take each other on at cricket they play for "The Ashes". It is a tiny urn about six inches tall said to contain the ashes of the bails that were burned following that historical English defeat. "What the hell are bails?" I hear my American friends cry. Apparently, according to my male staff they are the two little bits of wood that sit in the top of the stumps. "What are stumps?" I hear my American friends cry. Again, according to my male staff they are the three sticks stuck vertically into the ground at each end of the pitch. It is the job of the batsman to protect these sticks with his bat, head, testicles or anything else when the rock hard ball is pelted down the pitch at up to one hundred miles an hour by a mad-eyed gorilla in white masquerading as a human.

Currently England hold "The Ashes" but even when Australia win them they are kept in England at Lords - England's cricket head quarters, because the English don't trust the Australian's not to tip out the ashes and fill the historic urn with beer. This is probably wise given that David Boon, the legendary Australian batsman holds the record for the quantity of beer consumed on a flight from Sydney to London.

So, my male staff who pretends to work from home is looking forward to five games of Test cricket. That's twenty five of the next sixty days that one of us - Boris, Baci or myself will have to spend on my male staff's lap listening to someone on the television rapturously describing every indecipherable moment.

"That ball nipped back sharply off a good length and thundered into Snotworthy's pad just below the knee roll. He was absolutely plumb LBW. The umpire raises his finger and Snotworthy begins his long, lonely walk back to the sheds. Out for a golden duck."

Oh boy I can hardly wait.

BORIS' BIT

Ich know nussing at all about cricket. Ven Herr Billy's male staff said zat he vants to spend der tag vatching der cricket I am sinking zat zere ist ein wenig jumpink insect in vich he has ein unhealsy interest. 



Sunday, November 3, 2013

A Dull Week

What do guinea pig bloggers write about when they've had a boring, hum-drum week? Well, some of us turn to the sporting world to perhaps report on how the Boston Red Sox won the World Series baseball this year. They might perhaps explore the reasons why after all these years the team management are still unable to spell the word Socks correctly. One would think that with all the money swilling around in professional baseball someone would have been able to afford a dictionary. Other cavies might mention the Melbourne Cup which is about to be run tomorrow- Australian time. For those of you who have been living under a rock it is a horse race - oddly enough, given it's name, it is run in Melbourne. It has been dubbed "The Race That Stops A Nations." My male staff calls is "The Race That Gives Everyone A chance To Get Totally Rat-Arsed And Have At Least One Day Off Work." I don't think he's a big fan of horse racing.

Other blogging guinea pigs like to turn to popular culture when their week has been a bit dull. They might even visit the appalling Nine MSN "News" website upon which the US spying debacle and the Syrian civil war and humanitarian crisis are relegated to obscure web pages that you have to spend hours trying to find, while promoting headlines like "Kim Kardashian's Vagina Better Than Ever." and "Bieber Drugs, Sex & Assault Shame." It turns out that all Kim had to do to improve her vagina was to have a baby. All I can say is that it must have been pretty bad before that. As for Justin, well, imagine what a naughty boy he'll be when he finally graduates from pre-school.

One thing I will never be accused of doing is commenting on politics when I've had a quiet week.For example, I would never say that our former government was absolutely justified in slapping a temporary ban on live animal exports from Australia to Indonesia when footage emerged of cattle suffering horrendous cruelty at that nations abattoirs. Far be it from me to say that although I feel sorry for Australian farmers who's livelihoods depend on this trade, this was not the first such incident and the government and peak farming bodies should be making more rigourous checks on who these animals are sold to and what goes on at the abattoirs, and if it can't be one hundred percent guaranteed that animals are respected and dealt with humanely, then the trade should cease and other markets sought. I would never say that. Neither would I say that Australia's current Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce is a buffoon for saying that people should not over react to the latest animal cruelty outrage concerning live animal exports - sheep in Jordan in this case. Again, not the first example of this occurring in Jordan. Pakistan and Yemen were other recent offenders with animals from Australia. Some guinea pigs might even say that behind closed doors members of the Australian government are calling Indonesians, Jordanians and Pakistanis barbaric. Some guinea pigs might say that Australians are no better for continuing to sell live animals to these people.

Sheep from Australia were diverted from proper Jordanian abattoirs and sold to individuals to be brutally slaughtered in the street and in some cases in private homes. There is footage on the internet for those who feel strong enough to watch it. Unlike other blogging cavies I would never suggest that animals that are to be slaughtered for human food should at least receive dignity in death, if not gratitude for the food they provide. After all, who are humans to say that the life of any animal is not of equal value to their own. But then, as I say, I would not blog about such things.

BORIS' BIT

Mein Gott im Himmel! Herr Billy haben ein grosse bee up his bottom passage today, and ich sink it might have been stinkink him. Ich hope zat somesink more interestink ist happenink next woche, or else ve vill alles haf to be listenink to anuzzer mad rant.