Lantana

In the year 1841 a defacto couple whom my male staff calls Anne Effing-Moron and Major Dick Head introduced a shrub called lantana to Australia because it had pretty little flowers and they thought it would look nice in their garden.  Now just one hundred and seventy four years later lantana, like many undesirable things - including cane toads and my staff love Australia so much that they refuse to leave.  It now chokes five million hectares of sub-coastal eastern Australian bush, including parts of my staff's garden.  In case you're not familiar with the stuff here's what it looks like.

Lantana.
Pretty isn't it?














Like the dreaded cane toad it comes from Central and South America.  Also like the cane toad it costs Australia millions of dollars every year, is poisonous and very hard to kill.  It grows rapidly in the warm, wet climate of sub-tropical and tropical Eastern side of Australia - rather like my male staff's stomach.  However unlike my male staff's stomach it is toxic to livestock.  Having said that, I have no evidence whatsoever that indicates that my male staff's stomach is not toxic to livestock because as far as I know no cow or sheep has ever shown the slightest inclination to taste it, and who can blame them.  His mad sister was once bitten on the belly by a zebra, but that's another story entirely.

Here in Australia the stuff climbs up into native trees and chokes them to death and it is probably one of the biggest threats to biodiversity this country faces.  Birds and mammals eat the berries and then poop them out wherever, and of course this produces another delightful lantana plant.  My staff have spent quite a large percentage of the fourteen years they have lived in this spot trying to rid their one hectare property of this scourge.  Pretty much the only reliable method if you don't want to go to the expense of hiring a bulldozer is to pull the stuff out by it's roots, which actually isn't that hard because they are quite shallow - again like my male staff.

The trouble is that my staff's garden is very steep and slopes sharply down to a dam where a large red-bellied black snake lives and neither of my staff (who have absolutely no sense of adventure) want to slip while wrenching out lantana and end up with the snake in the water.  The other problem is that lantana grows so thickly that you have to fight your way through an entire Amazon jungle of the stuff to get to the main root.  It's very time consuming, not to mention sweaty work and I'm surprised that the neighbours haven't complained to my staff about the foul language that accompanies their lantana clearing projects.  Mind you, if the neighbours did come around to complain they would probably regret it because it is due to their less than diligent approach to clearing their own lantana that causes my staff to have to spend so much time clearing theirs.  In fact I'd go as far as saying that it is almost pointless one household clearing their lantana if their neighbours don't bother because within six months of being cleared, the place is infested again.  Therefore any neighbour silly enough to knock on my staff's door to complain about profanities is likely to leave with a large sprig of lantana protruding from their bottom passage, which would be very uncomfortable indeed because along with all its other attributes it is also rather prickly.  The branches of the mature plant are lined with lots of little spines, so removing the sprig from his or her bottom passage would result in as much discomfort as the initial insertion.

These little spines also inflict rather a lot of damage on my staff as they do battle with the lantana.  Of course they wear thick gloves to protect their hands but their arms and often their faces look as though they've been assaulted by seven or eight irate cats after each anti-lantana operation.  They troop back to the house, sweaty, exhausted and bleeding from dozens of little scratches, which although cease to bleed quite quickly, the area surrounding the scratch turns to an angry, stinging rash which can last for days.  Anyway, you get my drift here.  Lantana is very unpleasant stuff and would have been better off left in Central and South America.  It even burns with an extra hot flame, making Australia's all too common and very damaging bush fires even more dangerous, but the worst thing is of course that guinea pigs can't eat it.

The stuff even gets my male staff into all kinds of trouble whenever he visits England.  This is due to his unfortunate habit of ripping decorative lantana plants from their pots whenever he sees them in garden centres or nurseries.  It's an instinctive reaction to the stuff whenever and wherever he sees it.  It's as though he just can't help himself.  "Ah-ha!" He thinks to himself.  "There's some lantana.  I'll rip that out now before it spreads."  He grabs the plant gingerly, because of the little spines.  Then a quick yank and it's out of the pot and deposited on the ground.  As a consequence he's always having to deal with tetchy, green-wellied nursery owners.
 "Oi!" They yell as they stomp after him.  "What do you think you're doing?"
 "I'm doing you a huge favour mate, that's what." Says my male staff.  "Did you know you had seventy two pots with lantana in."
 "Yes of course I knew." Says Mr Green Wellies.  "They're nine pounds ninety-nine a pot."  He rummages around in his pocket for a moment and male staff can see he's so angry that he thinks he's going to produce a Glock pistol and shoot him.  Instead he produces a calculator upon which he taps away for a moment.  "That's seven hundred and nineteen pounds and twenty eight pence you owe me.  Or should I just call the police?"  At the mention of this large sum of money my male staff snaps out of his weed destroying trance and with great sadness and even greater reluctance hands over his credit card.
 "Thank you." Says Mr Green Wellies, softening a little.  "Since you've now paid for all these beautiful plants, would you like to take some of them with you.?"
A few seconds later Mr Green Wellies was hobbling back to his office, his trousers around his ankles and quite a substantial lantana plant, flowering gaily sticking out jauntily between his buttocks.

BACI'S BALONEY

Beekoz I'm like the most ellikwunt piggy in this howse Uncal Billy has arsked me to tell you that he won't be righting a blog for the necks three wheeks beekoz his mail staff is like flying to sumwear called Inglund.  I spose his arms will be so tyred afta all that flapping that he won't be able to tipe.  Uncal Billy says he  pollojizes apollyjyzis uppollagiziz is very sorry for the inkunveenyunce and that as soon as his mail staff getz back home he'll make sure he getz on the job agane immeejutly.

Robin Gibb's Bottom

Oh boy! Today (Sunday) was a busy day.  I went in spirit with my staff (which is a lot safer than going in person) in the good hold Hyundai Getz to the Queensland Guinea Pig Refuge open day to pick up supplies of dry food and a couple of new water bottles for the boys.  All went smoothly initially thanks to the lady who lives in the GPS. (Guinea Pig Seeker).  She's very patient actually and only occasionally does her voice lapse into moderate exasperation as my male staff takes a wrong turn for the fourth time, and that's just getting out of the driveway.
 "Perform a U-turn when possible." She says. In fact she says this so often that the poor dear loses her voice and my staff have to drive home without her help/Thatcher-esque nagging.

My staff mooched around the scout hall where the open day was being held, admiring and molesting various cavies who were up for adoption.  "No," they said to each other. "We can't really adopt any more piggies."  They purchased a few bags of dry food and water bottles and tossed them into the boot of the Getz and then went back for another mooch and molestation session.  This time, they were stopped in their tracks by a set of handsome twins called Tiger and Sniffles.  Yeah I know. Who calls an intelligent animal like a guinea pig Sniffles?  Anyway, I must admit that these two, particularly Tiger bore more than a faint resemblance to my handsome self - right down to the mohawk hair-do.
 "We can't adopt any more piggies." Said my staff simultaneously to each other.

And with that, they jumped into the Getz and under the strict supervision of Maggie the GPS lady headed off for lunch at nearby Redcliffe.  Redcliffe is a bay side suburb of Brisbane and is famous as being the home of the Gibb brothers - yes that's right, The Bee Gees.
 "In two hundred metres turn left, Night Fever Street."  Demanded Maggie.  Male staff turns right into Staying Alive Avenue.
 "No you silly sod! What did I just tell you?" Says Maggie. "Perform a U-turn when possible."  Male staff swings the steering wheel around straight into the path of a nine ton truck which misses the Getz - barely, thanks to a large slice of luck and great skill on behalf of the truck driver.
 "Jeez!" exclaims Maggie.  "Please stop at the nearest public lavatory as soon as possible, I need to change my pants."

Finally and without further incident my male staff double parks the Getz along the sea front - How Deep Is Your Love? Boulevard.  My staff stroll hand in hand down Bee Gees way, which is a pedestrian precinct lined with Bee Gees photos.  The place is packed with baby-boomers all examining the pictures minutely or watching a recording of an interview with Barry Gibb which is showing on a TV screen embedded in one of the walls.  The soundtrack can easily be heard over the babbling throng.  Come to think of it "The Babbling Throng" is a better name for a band the The Bee Gees.  Anyway, at the bay end of Bee Gees Way is an enormous statue of the Bee Gees, Barry, Maurice and Robin.  The three of them are standing together and they must be twenty metres tall at the very least.  There's a set of steps leading up behind them which disappears into a hole in Robin's bum. The hole is surrounded by flashing disco lights.  My staff of course are drawn to these lights like big fat moths to a flame.  Up the steps they go, through the flashing doorway in Robin's bum. Inside it's rather dark and "The Lights All Went Out In Massachusetts" is, appropriately enough booming out from hidden speakers.  They are literally inside Robin's bowels.  Then as my staff''s vision becomes accustomed to the gloom they see another set of steps with a glimmer of daylight showing from the top.  They climb these steps and find themselves peering out through Robin's mouth across the choppy, blue water of Moreton Bay to Moreton Island.  My male staff is so surprised by the sudden glare of the sun and the amazing view that he makes the mistake of standing up straight, bashing his head painfully on Robin's protruding teeth.  "Shit!" He exclaimed. "The bastard bit me."  The whole thing is all as tastefully done as one would expect from an Australian tourist attraction.

Finally, with my male staff still rubbing his head from Robin Gibb's "bite",  my staff shuffle back down the steps, popping out of his bum into the daylight and winding their way through the crowd to a suitable restaurant for a bite to eat and a cup of coffee.  the "Too Much Heaven Cafe" has quite an extensive menu, so even my male staff who like me is a herbivore, managed to find something suitable.  So my staff sit there, slurp their coffee and guzzle down their lunch while watching the comings and goings at the "More Than a Woman Hair Salon" next door.

 "Tiger and Sniffles were very cute weren't they?"  Say's female staff sipping her cafe latte.
 "Yes."  Say's male staff warily.  He knows what's coming.
 "Shall we go back to the refuge and get them?  We have plenty of room at home and there are spare cages in the shed."
 "No!" Says my male staff emphatically.  "Absolutely not. We have four piggies and a budgie already."
Female staff is not put off at all. "Oh come on, we can manage two more, and did you see how much like Billy they are?"
 "Nope, definitely not." Male staff puts his foot down once and for all in an impressive show of masculine dominance and decisiveness.

So anyway, here's a photo of the new members of my staff's furry family. Meet Trevor and Theodore, alias Tiger and Sniffles.  Female staff decided that Sniffles is a silly name and that Tiger looks more like a Trevor..  Meanwhile my male readers will be pleased to hear that my male staff had the last word. Two words actually.  "Alright darling."

                                                                         Trevor                  

                                                                        Theodore


BACI'S BALONEY

Woah!  That was like a big supprize.  Uncal Billy's staff go owt in the mourning and then in the afternoon they like cum back with thees too big fluffy ginny pigs wot look a lot like Uncal Billy, espeshully the wun wot they call Trevor whooz got this mow hawk haredoo just like wot Uncal Billy had.

I havunt reely had mutch of a chants to tork to them yet but I spect Uncal Billy's staff have eckplayned to them that I'm like the alfa pig of the heard and that they'd betta do wot I tell them or I'll like byte their butts and pull their fur owt like wot I did to Tom.  Not that I want to frytun them or nuffink. I just want them to no whooz boss piggy arownd hear.

The Blue Bird of Happiness

My staff's morning routine very rarely changes from day to day.

6am                      
The alarm clock bleeps.
6am & 5 seconds  
Male staff wakes up and groans.
6am & 10 seconds
Male staff goes back to sleep
6.05am                  
Male staff realises that the bleeping is not part of some hideous nightmare.
6.06am                 
Male staff stretches out his right arm, groping for the off button.
6.06am & 2 seconds 
Male staff knocks over his glass of water which stood, untouched as usual, on his bedside table.
6.06am & 20 seconds
The stream of obscene invective emitted by male staff wakes female staff.
6.06am & 30 seconds
Female staff yawns and sleepily says "Good morning darling."
6.06am & 40 seconds
Male staff says "No it f#@*ing isn't.  I've knocked over my f#@*ing water again".
6.06am & 50 seconds
Female staff says "Why do you even bother taking a glass of water to bed anyway? You never touch it."
6.07am
Male staff says "Because I'm practicing for when I lose all my teeth and have to put my dentures in water for the night."
6.07am & 20 seconds
Female staff says "Great! So when that happens you'll still knock the water over, but then you'll have to get out of bed to look for your dentures, which, even if you do find them will be covered in fluff and dust.  Not only that, but my day will be ruined.
6.08am
Male staff makes the mistake of asking the question "How come?"
6.08am & 5 seconds
Female staff says "Because you always sleep in the nude and I'll have to wake up to the sight of your old wrinkled bum sticking up in the air while you're scrabbling around on the floor looking for your furry dentures."
6.10am
Male staff gives up trying to think of a witty and cutting riposte, hauls himself out of bed, slips on a pair of underpants, picks the the now empty glass from the soggy carpet and wanders out to the kitchen to find a suitable cloth to soak up the spilled water.

You might wonder why my male staff bothers to don underpants when my staff usually live alone.  Well, mostly he he remembers to cover up when guests are staying, but he always used to wander out to the kitchen stark naked in the morning.  I cured him of that though, when very early one morning he was feeling peckish and raided the fridge in search of a chocolate biscuit.  I watched him from my cage in the adjoining lounge, and seeing him open the fridge door naturally I assumed that he was about to serve me my breakfast; the prospect of which as usual prompted me let out a few loud "wheeks" and to stand on my hind legs with my front paws on the cage bars.  My male staff wandered over, getting close to the cage, and leaning over said "Hello Billy.  It's not breakfast time ye........aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!"  Well, how was I to know it wasn't a green bean?  It was the right size and shape, and since we cavies are, like most animals colour blind, I couldn't even tell that it wasn't green.  I also refuse to take any blame at all for him slipping on the dripping blood, or the pain he suffered from the stinging iodine he poured on the wound, or for that matter for the inconvenience of having to remove and replace the sticking plaster every time he needed to pee for the next week.

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, my staff's morning routine.

6.15am
My female staff yawns, stretches and removes a variety of objects from the bed.  There's the pillow that she keeps between her knees, the large hot water bottle and cover in the shape of a cow, her bed socks which she has kicked off during the night because he feet became too hot and at least two or three handkerchiefs.  She rises and pads out to the lounge to uncover Paolo the budgie and to hang his daily millet treat in his cage for him.  She bends down to budgie level and he waddles over to her, stretches his wings and does a little happy dance on his perch.  My female staff calls him the Blue Bird of Happiness, although yesterday she called him something else.  In fact yesterday my staff's usual routine was somewhat different to the norm.  For a start they don't usually spend half the day in the casualty department of the local hospital.

6.19am
Female staff presses her nose against Paolo's cage and as she does every morning makes kissing noises which Paolo responds to by very gently nibbling my female staff's nose.

6.20am
I'm no bird expert, in fact Paolo is just about the only bird I've ever known, but something must have upset him because he grabbed my female staff's nose through the cage bars with his surprisingly strong, sharp beak and refused to let go despite the high pitched squeal emitted by my female staff.

6.21am
My female staff calls urgently for my male staff who is still mopping up the water in the bedroom.

6.26am
My male staff saunters out to the lounge.  "Did you call?.............What are you doing to that poor bird?"
"Poor bird be buggered!" Said my female staff a little more nasally than usual. "The bloody little vulture won't let go of by doze."
"Won't let go of what?"
 "By doze, by doze.  He's bitten by doze and won't let go."
 "Is he biting your nose? Asked my male staff.
 "Yes he bloody is. Get hib off will you.  This really hurts."  My male staff could see that this was true because her eyes were watering.
 "Let me think for a moment." Said my male staff.  "I need to find a way to get him to release you without hurting either of you."

6.51am
My female staffs calls out.  "Have you thought of anything yet?"
 "Not really." replied my male staff regretfully.  Would you like a cup of coffee while I'm thinking?"
 "How the hell ab I supposed to drink a cup of coffee with by doze stuck to a bird cage and a budgie attached to one end of it?"  I think my female staff was becoming a little irritable.  She never was a morning person.
 "I could get you a straw." Suggested my male staff helpfully.  This was greeted by a growl from my female staff and Paolo responded by tightening his grip on her nose.

6.52am
"Why don't you just jerk your head back suddenly?"  Says my male staff between slurps of coffee and mouthfuls of toast and raspberry jam.
 "Because I'll probably lose a great chunk of by doze that why."
My male staff sighed.  "Well then, I'll just have to drive you and Paolo to the vet when they open at eight thirty."
 "I can't stay here for adother hour and a half waiting for the vet to open, and eddyyway, how am I going to get into the car with a birdcage stuck to by face?"
 "Hmmm" pondered my male staff, "you have a valid point there.  I'll have to try and cut a hole in the cage to release you and Paolo.  Anyway, maybe he'll let go when I start cutting.  I'll go to the shed and get the pliers.  Would you like some toast while you're waiting?" He asked considerately and was rewarded with an icy glare that he took for a "no thank you" or "doe thank you" in this case and hurried off to the shed.

7.46am
Male staff returned from the shed.  "Found 'em!" he called cheerily.  "They were in the box with all the old photo albums.  God knows how they got there."
 "Dever bind that." said my female staff. "Just get this bloody birdcage away frob by face."

7.47am
My male staff starts snipping away at the thin wires of the birdcage. "You realise," he said, "that we'll have to buy another cage now.  They're not cheap you know.  Har har! Not cheep. Get it? Not cheep.......birdcage, not cheep. Har har!"  My female staff closed her eyes.  Either she was in pain, or wishing that she was a long way away from my male staff; possibly both.

8.01am
Enough of the cage bars had been snipped through to allow my female staff to pull away from the cage with Paolo still attached by his beak to her nose.
 "Right," said my female staff.  "Get be to the casualty departbent DOW!"
 "Wouldn't the vet be better for Paolo?  Anyway, they'll be open in half an hour."
 "I can't wait adother half an hour, I want this bird off by doze ibbediately.

8.33am
Having endured the incredulous stares of the other motorists gazing at the lady sitting in the front passenger seat of a Hyundai Getz with a blue budgie attached to her face, my staff arrived at the casualty department of the hospital where they registered with a giggling nurse and sat in the waiting room, my female staff trying to look nonchalant, as though having a budgie stuck to one's face is a fairly common event.  And so they waited, and waited while a multitude of other accident victims deemed by the triage nurse as more urgent went in to see the doctors before my staff and Paolo.

11.58am
My staff and Paolo were finally called through to the treatment room.
 "What seems to be the trouble?"  Asked the doctor, who didn't look old enough to drive, let alone possess the necessary qualifications for removing small parrots from people's noses.  Understandably this question riled my female staff somewhat, standing there as she was with a bird stuck to her face.  In the end, she resorted to sarcasm, something she is always telling my male staff is the lowest form of wit.
 "By piles are givig be hell!"  She said.  "What do you thig this is?" She pointed at Paolo.  "Some sort of friggig blue, feathery bole?"
 "Hmmm." Said the the young doctor, peering closely at Paolo. "Could be a bole, er mole of some sort. I'd have to get a dermatologist to have a proper look at it."  It seems doctors can be sarcastic too when faced with difficult patients.

12.10pm
My staff were thanking the nice young doctor for removing Paolo from my female staff's nose, which seemed to be none the worse for wear except for a red, beak shaped indentation.  Paolo was placed gently into a cardboard box with a few air holes punched in it for the short drive home.

12.20pm 
My staff and Paolo were halfway home in the Getz. They could hear Paolo puttering about in his cardboard box on the back seat.
 "Who'd have thought a budgie would like toast?" Mused my male staff.  "It's a good job that doctor had the presence of mind to get some from the hospital canteen to offer Paolo.  He soon let go of your hooter when he saw the toast didn't he?  Shame you didn't accept my offer of toast this morning.  It would have saved us all a lot of bother."

BACI'S BALONEY 

I don't want to sound ungreatful or nuffin but I get the feeling that Uncal Billy's staff - the hewmins wot are supposed to be looking afta me and Alfie and Toby and Tom and Paolo are like insayne.  Sumthymes i get like reel wurried that wun day they mite throw a kompleet wobbly and get karted away by sum otha hewmins whering wite cotes and get put in this speshul hospiggle for wobbly throwers. Then wots going to happen to me and the otha boyz?

 

A Dog's Breakfast

I do sincerely apologise for the late publication of this week's blog.  Twenty four hours late is unacceptable and I can promise you that it will never happen again, though I should warn you that my paws were firmly crossed behind my furry back as I typed that.  So, why is this post so terribly tardy?  Well my male staff was trying to organise a trip to England to visit his dad, and in the same way that hairdressers always have terrible hair, doctors are always sick and dentists always have bad teeth, travel agents' own travel arrangements are always a dog's breakfast.

He must have looked at every single airline in the world and could not find anything at all that suited. Actually come to think of it he hasn't looked at Iran Air or Aeroflot yet, I must make a point of suggesting those to him when he starts looking again later today.  Both offer almost unlimited opportunities for adventure.  He's never flown on a Russian built aircraft yet - you can tell that because he's still alive, but surprisingly he doesn't seem to get over excited by the thought of unlimited supplies of vodka and borscht that are doled out by the Aeroflot hosties.  I can see why they carry such large supplies of vodka on Aeroflot planes.  It's so that in the event of the airline being refused aviation fuel as stopover points (and this has happened) because they have run out of credit, they can fill the fuel tanks up with enough vodka to fly to the nearest airport where they can still get credit without the captain having to walk up and down the aisle holding his cap out, asking the passengers for a contribution.  (That too has happened.)

Iran Air offers a different kind of excitement.  They have plenty of fuel, but because the Americans have long since had an embargo on the export of spare parts to Iran, all their aircraft, both civilian and military are held together with shoelaces, pipe cleaners and clothes pegs.  Consequently the things are falling out of the sky all the time.  You can barely go for a quiet walk in the country without being clobbered by the aileron of a 1971 Boeing 747 or a door from a 1969 Boeing 727.  These are not safe places to fly, and yet no doubt my male staff will consider them eventually when he discovers that none of the airlines with slightly better safety records meet the constraints of his budget.
  
So anyway, that's my excuse and I'm going to stick with it until I can think of something better, but now I will get on to more serious matters; matters that are causing me to be a cranky cavy this week.
Actually lets face it, there are many things happening in the world that make a deceased guinea pig very angry at the moment.  There's the wanton destruction of wildlife habitat for short term profit for a few greedy human individuals. There's the deliberate dismissal of the threat of climate change by many governments, most notably our own here in Australia, where the Prime Minister continues to demonize science, as if it's all a lefty pinko conspiracy to deprive his mates in the coal mining industry of some of their fat profits.  But most of all, the thing that is angering deceased guinea pigs everywhere is the current refugee crisis.  How sad that it took a single photo of a drowned three year old child face down on a Turkish beach for you humans to start thinking that 'Well, maybe we should consider doing something..........let's not rush into anything though.  If we look too anxious, people might start thinking that the developed world is somehow responsible for all this chaos and misery."

Am I the only one on the planet who thinks that most of this current state of affairs could have been avoided if a certain George W Bush and his "coalition of the silly" had confined themselves to rooting out the evil bastards who perpetrated the 9/11 atrocity from Afghanistan instead of pursuing regime change in Iraq in order to gain control of Iraqi oil.  Let's face facts for once shall we.  Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/ll.  Indeed he was a sworn enemy of Osama bin Laden.  Sure, he made life miserable for the majority of Iraqis, he was a brutal, criminal psychopath, but there are at least a dozen others who fall into that category - Robert Mugabe for one, but does Zimbabwe have anything else the developed world needs? No, unless you count tobacco.

It's not too long a bow to draw to say that Saddam's demise triggered the Arab spring uprisings throughout north Africa and the middle east in which oppressed populations rebelled against their despotic leaders, cheered on from the sidelines by the USA and others including Britain and Australia.  In most cases, but particularly in Libya, Egypt and Syria this destabilised the nations so much that anarchy took hold in the vacuum left by the ousted rulers.  This of course played right into the hands of the Islamist nutters that we are all so scared of now.  And why are we scared of them?  Because our government tells us to be.  Australia's Prime Minister looked people in the eye and said "The evil ISIS dealth cult is coming after you."  This suits his own political agenda of course, because an incumbent government with a serious security crisis usually gets re-elected, no matter how bloody awful they are otherwise.  Just ask Maggie Thatcher, she'll tell you the same.  Wait, you can't can you - she's dead and probably playing backgammon with Saddam Hussein and Augusto Pinochet.  Tony Abbott is obviously taking a different tack to that of his old boss John Howard, who during the security crisis that followed 9/11 coined the phrase "Be alert, not alarmed."  Abbott's message is "Be alarmed, not alert."  An alert population would never vote for him again in a million years.

So, where does all this leave us?  It leaves us with a huge humanitarian crisis.  It leaves us with a bunch of nations who actually indirectly, if not directly caused the crisis desperately washing their hands of the blame for it.  It leaves us with millions of Syrian refugees trying to escape the misery of life in a war torn land and it leaves us with a handful developed nations spending billions of dollars happily bombing ISIS, chasing them from Syria to Iraq and back and doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to treat the cause of this awful disease - injustice.

BACI'S BALONEY

I've got no eyedear wot Uncal Billy is banging on abowt.  He's got sum sort of bee in his bonnit abowt sum place called the Midda  Leest.  Now, like most Orstraliuns or Merrycuns I've like got no eyedear wot soeva where that is, but I don't think Uncal Billy's mail staff intends to go that way wen he goes to Inglund.  Cum to think of it I don't no where that is eyetha.

Insuddently, Uncal Billy's feemail staff fownd this green thing in the toylut the otha day. She fished it owt and put it in the garden.  Dunno wot it is but it ain't a ginny pig.