Shooting Parrots - Part 158

Pride please

Wednesday, 10 November 2004

Just a few hours from the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Please wear your poppy with pride. No glorification. Just pride.

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About twenty years ago, there was a play on Radio 4. It was a satire about a near future UK in which smoking had been outlawed and the remaining smokers had been driven from society into the hills of Scotland (or it might have been Wales) and were desperately eking out their last packs of [...]

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Diplomacy

Tuesday, 9 November 2004

It has been a grim, grey, gloomy afternoon oop north and I think it was that which reminded me of a story told to me by a bloke I once worked with.

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“First reckon, then risk” — von Moltke

Monday, 8 November 2004

News that a nine year old girl and her mother were among those killed in the Berkshire rail tragedy on Saturday make it all the more poignant. Already there are calls to scrap unmanned level-crossings in favour of either building bridges or tunnels over or under the lines or by manning them again.

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Editorial Integrity

Monday, 8 November 2004

Pity this editorial from the Lone Star Iconoclast didn’t get a wider audience pre the US election. Ten out of ten for the editor’s integrity, and in Bush’s home town too, and thanks Raised by Chaffinches for the link.

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Legal Bombs

Monday, 8 November 2004

Some pretty horrible things happened over the weekend, but the 20 year old who had his right hand blown off by a firework was among the worst. Okay, so it doesn’t compare with what is going on in Falluja at the moment, but the thing is that patently powerful explosive was sold quite legally. Yes, [...]

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Nil bloody nil

Sunday, 7 November 2004

ManU don’t do nil nil. Correction, ManU didn’t do nil nil, that is until me and Mrs Parrot last visited the Theatre of Dreams to see the first nil nil for about three years, against Everton.

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Oversensitive?

Sunday, 7 November 2004

The news overnight that a Paddington to Plymouth train had crashed killing six people and injuring many more after hitting a car on a level-crossing was awful to hear. But I do wonder if the powers-that-be are sometimes too sensitive. I just heard on ITV that they will not now be showing The Railway Children, [...]

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Chat-up

Sunday, 7 November 2004

Who says romance is dead? A bunch of psychiatrists have come up with what they reckon is the world’s best chat-up line to get the country’s lads and lasses together in a bid to stem the falling birthrate. And it is? “This time next year, let’s be laughing together.” The first bit signals commitment while [...]

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