7 January 2013 (Monday) - News

The most recent fruit of my loin was visiting early this morning; I was still in my jim-jams when she arrived. Probably just as well that she was about: I was keen that Fudge had company today. He'd been in an odd mood since yesterday evening and I was somewhat worried about him. He's probably just overdone yesterday's walk (much as we all might have done), but he was very unsettled yesterday. And I have been wottying.
This worrying is yet another reason why I never wanted a dog.

As always the news boiled my piss. More so than usual today. Read this story: "The owners of a Suffolk petting zoo have been found guilty of failing to adequately look after their animals" and so it continues in that vein. The average reader is going to think the worst and give up after a paragraph or two still thinking ill of the place. If they are ever in Norfolk they might remember the place and avoid it. they might mention this story in passing to others, and so bad feeling about the place would spread.

But I know that zoo. I know the owners. These charges are just wrong. This sort of thing wouldn't happen there.
And it didn't.
When you actually get into the details of the case all cruelty allegations turned out to be utterly unfounded. What the zoo keepers were guilty of was administrative failures. Trivial paperwork hadn't been completed in the right coloured ink. The fine imposed on the zoo was the lowest that the judge was allowed to give, and in summing up the judge said to the keepers. "Ladies, a lot of people get a lot of pleasure from your animals. Keep up the good work" One wonders why news agencies didn't publish that bit.
I suspect that all of the news that we hear is like this; we are given a rather biased version of one side of every story.

Mind you I had a smile at one of the pundits who was on the radio today. Apparently the Prime Minister and his puppet Nick have been making speeches about how well the coalition government is doing now that they are at the half-way stage. I can't pretend to be a fan of this coalition, but the pundit was right when he said that there has probably been a lot less public squabbling between members of this government than any of the previous governments in recent history. I suppose the Con-Servatives and the Dribbling Democraps have to be seen not to be at odds with each other.

Meanwhile I have made some more progress with organising my diary. One or two more events have appeared in it. However I'm still awaiting dates for astro club outings, and I really need to pencil in dates for some serious hikes.
I'm awaiting developments with the two Teston kite festivals. The most recent communication that I've had from the management makes me rather sceptical about the June festival going ahead this year. Or ever again. I'm not sure that I would miss its going. once a year is enough; personally I'd like a repeat performance of the small camp that we staged last June. Maybe this time with one or two of the "Teston faces" along. I might just start smiling in the appropriate direction to get this one rolling...

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