Taexalia
wild.life
Dangerous Owners Act
The media, the Police and quite a lot of other people are in a frenzy trying to discern the breed of dog which killed four year old Paul Massey. They've got it all wrong. The problem is not the genetic build of the dog, the problem is the behaviour of the people who owned the dog. The question is not whether the dog falls under an ineffective piece of legislation, the question is whether the owners should have owned any dog (or animal) at all. The stupidity of the act may be ... read more
How Our Fife Council Tax Is Spent
I stopped blogging again. It's like a yo-yo on this domain - get some peace, get some confidence, get some momentum and then BAM off it goes again. Silence except for the Tweets. I'll tell you what the BAM is - it's bams. Bams as in people. Let's just say that during the last couple of years this blog has attracted a few bottom-feeder readers. Instead of looking at it as a compliment, a mark of an interesting blog I seem to react by going silent. The latest bottom feeder is going to get a ... read more
CWU Striking To Prevent Royal Mail Modernisation…
CWU members voted to destroy small businesses and disrupt mail during the busiest time of the year by going on strike. I haven't seen a coherent explanation of exactly what they are striking about, and I strongly suspect some of them are still bearing a grudge about the expectation that they work a full shift for a full shift wage. The only reason I see coming up again and again is resistence to the planned modernisation of the ... read more
But I *am* Living In The Moment – It is the moment that is the problem
"Did you ever think, when you held or looked at a beautiful pearl, that its origin was irritation? An oyster, in response to the irritating presence of sand within its shell, creates a thing of beauty." ~ Thomas F Crum I thought I had found the pearl birthed from the last piece of grit but it seems that I have just floated on the ebb to a different shore and inherited a new piece of grit. A second strike of lightning. I want to know what the thing of beauty is that this piece of grit ... read more
Snake(s) In The Grass
Oh how things change. For years I have travelled to America visiting many interesting places, spending my tourist pounds and being curiously welcomed by strangers asking if I know any Ferguson's in Falkirk as that is where their great grandfather's second cousin twice removed came from. The only thing I've ever done in Falkirk is visit the Falkirk Wheel. My closest link to a Ferguson is the tractor my Granda drove around Belt Croft. My knowledge of ... read morePotential
I was reading this article about the potential increase in costs, or perhaps the potential failure, of the Edinburgh Trams Project and I was struck by a few of the details... Now before I go on I need to state that I am often accused of nit-picking. I am often accused of nit-picking as if it is a negative thing. The thing about nit-picking is that if you don't pick nits you will end up with a very uncomfortable head. Or to put it another way: "If you think that something small cannot ... read more
Why I Am Participating in Earth Hour
http://www.earthhour.org/home/
Or perhaps NOT Why I Am Participating in Earth Hour...
The suggestion is really simple. I mean it is so simple that I cannot believe that people are having a problem. I mean what is so hard to understand about this:
At 8:30pm local time on Saturday 28th March switch your lights off for one ... read more
A Random Collection of Thoughts
Thought One Having experienced what it is like to have my blog stalked by someone who does not have my best interests at heart, I find myself quite often deciding that silence is the best option. The thing about blogging that I had always enjoyed was the freedom I had given myself to be whatever I was in the moment, to be open and honest about how I experienced life and to share my perspective of the world with anyone who wanted to read. The past year has challenged me on this because ... read more
Donald Trump Re-writing Scottish History
Today news breaks that Donald Trump has renamed Menie House, the house that lies in the middle of Menie Estate, MacLeod House - in the process wiping out 700 years of history. There are no guarantees that he won't re-name the whole estate, especially when we hear what that darling of rhetoric George Sorial (cue hits from Trump Corporation ISP and their Google alert on his name) has to say about it - that the estate won't lose its name without public consultation. We all know how much ... read more
Curious Coincidence of the Squirrel and the Property Developer
The BBC reports the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), and the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association (SRPBA) are involved in the Saving Scotland's Squirrels Project. It is a curious coincidence that David Fyffe, owner of Fetternear Estate by Kemnay, has been granted a license to fell trees by the very same Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS). This licensed tree-felling is needed to clear land for a proposed housing ... read more
Battle on to save Red Squirrels
This is an actual Fetternear Red Squirrel
The Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) is under threat. The two main culprits are habitat loss perpetuated by human development, and the spread of the non-native Grey Squirrel (stupidly imported from America in the 19th century).
Scotland now accounts for 75% of the UK Red Squirrel ... read more
