News and Not News 2
October 6, 2023
In my continuing desire to bring you the news that Meta won’t let me post on Facebook, I start with news that has upset me no end. Some lowlife has cut down the tree at Sycamore Gap. Such an iconic tree. Leo and I did Hadrian’s Wall as part of our virtual medal challenges and I was so excited as I approached it on the map. I think the Northumberland police chief is correct when they describe the act as “stealing joy”. The tree is also famous for the geographically challenged Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves. Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman travelled back from the Holy Lands, crossed at Dover, walked through Sycamore Gap then finally got to Sherwood, and presumably saw the tree in this beautiful collection.
Moving on the bears. First, it’s Fat Bear Week! Time to vote on the bears in Alaska that have put on the most weight over the summer. It’s quite the thing – and this year the young ‘uns are really coming through! Closer to home, The Boss is being a grumpy grizzly in Banff! It’d be much better if he was blowing bubbles like this bear in Prince George!
On to dogs, and particularly Biden’s German Shepherds. First there was Major and now Commander, and they’ve both bitten secret service agents multiple times. Of course, it all comes down to the humans. Perhaps the secret service should just be grateful that the Bidens don’t have an Emotional Support Crocodile.
A serious section. We live in a world where some people have private jet flights with their dogs, where there’s knickers that cost $5600 a pair, but a little black girl gets skipped over for her medal, disabled refugees are treated so incredibly appallingly, and the depths of Trump’s depravity when it comes to disabled veterans made me feel physically ill. Thank heavens for people like Jeison Aristizábal. Born with cerebral palsy in Cali, Colombia, he founded a university for disabled people. The late Stella Young reminded the world that disabled people are not inspirational for purely existing. Jeison is inspirational- and not because of his disability. And, the next time you see a politician talking about benefit scroungers, take in this research from UBC. What happens when you give poor people money with no strings attached? They spend it on improving their quality of life, of course.
Rounding this issue out with a load of random stories that caught my attention. There’s the app that tells you the best time to go for a pee during a movie, the $100,000 reality tv show that never actually existed, shrinkflation hits Galaxy (at least my diabetes means that’s no longer an issue for me, great, super), Lego will not be made from recycled plastic bottles in the near future (yes – NOT!), a wonderful story about a building dispute that resulted in a great gargoyle, Brian May was involved in the asteroid sample collection (of course he was), there are some very funny wildlife photos up for awards, and, finally, out of the English HS2 debacle comes the Network North Nonsense (the map being my favourite).
After all of that, there’s only one thing to think about. What would you put in your apocalypse go bag?
