» My Saviour

Three years ago on a cold evening in March a baby starling
fell out of its nest in next door's roof onto the path. I tried to walk past but had to turn back and pick him up. He didn't appear hurt, apart from being pissed off with the sibling who pushed him out, so I took him indoors.
He was christened "Sidney" and given dog food off the back of a teaspoon handle and water from an eyedropper. I kept him in a cardboard box with scrunched up paper inside. He was quiet when the lid was closed but would respond energetically when he heard me start to open the lid.
There was no-one at home daytimes so I took him to work with me because he needed feeding at least every hour during daylight.
One morning after about two weeks I heard frantic rustling as I went to his box. When I opened it he tried to fly out so I took the box outside on the lawn and let him take off. His parents were sat on our fence and he went straight to them and started begging. They looked surprised but they seem to accept him and they flew off together.
His siblings didn't fledge until three days later so chicken in jelly appears to be more nutritious than grubs and leftovers.
One of the most rewarding things I have done; people asked me why I bothered, there's millions of starlings? But it's like I said to Sid, "A mate's a mate, right?"
(Fri 10th May 2013, 12:19, More)

» Money-saving tips

When feeding ducks in the park,
soak your bread in Rohypnol. That way you get a free dinner, and you can do what you like to it before you pluck it.
(Thu 10th Nov 2011, 20:01, More)

» Funerals II

When my great grandmother died I was four years old.
My parents had nobody to leave me with so they took me to the burial. They didn't want to upset me so they left me in the nice big posh car and went to the service. Getting out of the car someone shut my fingers in the door. I would have made a brilliant mourner with all the weeping and howling I did.
(Sun 14th Apr 2013, 19:56, More)

» Brain Fade

Often work at home so the land-line handset is carried around all day.
Most days I lose it a few times and have to get its mummy to summon it.
One day I took the handset into the kitchen while I made me some lunch.
Later when Mrs jogs came home she found the phone in a kitchen cupboard. After a search she asked me why our black pepper mill was sitting on the base station.
(Tue 26th Mar 2013, 21:09, More)

» Racist grandparents

Survival technique.
My 2 pennorth if that's OK.
Racism, along with possibly all other isms is founded in prejudice. Prejudice in this context is a partially outdated survival shortcut. If a group was all "we" and someone arrived on the scene who wasn't "we" they were a possible threat to life and were quickly identified as "them". The safest route to "we's" survival was to kill "them" rather than wait to find out if they were a threat or not. This would apply to anyone or anything who was not "us". It could be people of a different colour, people from a different tribe with the same colour, of wild animals previously not encountered or even aliens from other planets, should they drop by.
Unfortunately as we become more civilised this instinctive genocidal behaviour becomes redundant but because it's instinctive it's a difficult habit to break. There is nothing stronger or more successful in nature than a cohesive group so this tends to be the preferred default. If we aren't allowed to kill "them" (incidentally aren't we brilliant at justifying doing so) then we use the slightly diluted method called scapegoating. So we may say, "People from ....... are ....... and if we let them mix with us their behaviour will damage our group." By scapegoating we are not killing the person but we are effectively killing their influence on our group, we deny them from the rights granted to "we" by categorising them as not the same as us, therefore justifying our decision to treat them as less than human.
When one day the brain develops sufficiently to overcome this survival technique we will be able to act towards others without prejudice and judge them for what they really are. In the meantime I guess we'll have to settle for believing that we are already doing it. We're not.
And for grandads and everyone else the only limit is the group must have at least two members. I knew a grandfather, not mine, who said, "Don't talk to people from.......village, they got two bloody 'eads that lot."
(Mon 31st Oct 2011, 16:58, More)