Bumper Sticker Sets Man Free

This afternoon I was driving home behind a car with a whole bunch of bumper stickers on it. One particular sticker caught my eye. It read ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body’.

“Bloody brilliant!” I thought. Given the extreme nasal discomfort I’ve been in for the last few months that must mean I have the strongest sinuses, teeth and cranium in the county!

In fact if we extend that thought out a little further. With all the hangovers, motorcycle accidents and rugby injuries I’ve had - I am probably one stubbed toe away from becoming The Hulk (I even look good in Green)!

Wonder why I can’t get the lid off of the sinus tablets then?

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Bazza

Life In The Stopped Lane

Some people exert that the word California means something along the lines of “place of milk & Honey.” I have just returned from a trip to Southern California and I ain’t so sure. The lifestyle does seem to be different to here in the Northeast or back in the Midwest. However, I’m not sure that life in Southern California is all that. The working life definitely seems not to be idyllic. I chatted with a bunch of locals during my stay and I found myself getting more and more surprised that anything is achieved in Southern California. This is mostly down to the compromises forced upon them by the traffic.

The workday seems to go something like this:

Get up early to avoid the traffic. Get stuck in traffic. Arrive at work and spend first hour moaning to co-workers about the traffic. Work for one hour. Go out to Starbucks. Work 30 minutes. Go to lunch early to avoid the queues. Come back to work, spend thirty minutes discussing lunch then thirty minutes discussing traffic at lunch. Do an hours work. Spend fifteen minutes watching the traffic on the Internet. Leave early to avoid traffic. Get stuck in traffic. Arrive home. Spend ninety minutes recapping to spouse your day and the traffic. Go to bed early as you want to get up early to avoid the traffic.

Maybe companies should just run large buses equipped with satellite communication that drive from one employees house to the next - never actually arriving at an office just sat around on the Freeway all day ...

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Bazza

Bogey's Green Legacy

I watched as the beautiful Green birds rose as one body from the end of the garden. Given that the fox conversation was still hanging over the breakfast table, I wasn’t about to start another fauna discussion. I excused myself and headed back upstairs. Once in the back bedroom I grabbed my camera phone and looked out into the garden for the second time that morning. Sure enough, in one of the trees that flank the garden were four green parrots. I snapped a bad picture (above) just to prove to myself that I wasn’t insane.

Later, when everyone had gone out, I tried a little ‘twitching’ on the web. If parrots have established themselves in Surrey then surely it must be all over the news? Not exactly. I did, however, discover that the birds I had seen were Ring Neck Parakeets and one of the more colorful theories for how they come to be in the UK. Namely the assertion that the birds escaped from the film set of The African Queen while it was being filmed at Shepperton Studios in West London. The most informative piece was this four and half year old article on the BBC. The most startling thing in this piece is the estimate that the population is growing at 30% per year – that’s a lot of parrots.

Later that day I caught the bus to Kingston (there’s some wildlife right there). Once there I met up with my kids and took the opportunity to ask my youngest about the parrots.

“Spud, do you ever see Parrots?” I asked, over a coffee in Starbucks. Spud looked up from his cell phone, creased his brow and shot me a sideways glance. He seemed annoyed that I had interrupted him.

“Parrots?” he asked and he turned back to his text messaging.

“Yes parrots. Do you ever see parrots?” I had the beginnings of a horrible feeling of déjà vu., “Parrots, here in Surrey. Do you ever see ‘em?” My only response was the silent movement of his fingers on his cell phone keypad.

“Spud,” I said, a little louder this time causing a few of the other coffee shop patrons to look in our direction, “parrots? Anywhere?”
Spud snapped his cell phone shut and put it on the table between us.

“What is it with you and bloody parrots?” asked the twelve year old.

“Don’t swear,” I said, “I‘m just asking, in case you didn’t hear me the first three times, if you ever see parrots round here?”
His look changed from tired indulgence (I think he learned that from his mother) to one of, well, contempt (also probably from his mother).

“Of course I see parrots. They’re everywhere. And anyway they’re not parrots they’re parakeets”

“Parakeets? What’s the difference?”

“Parakeet is African for small.” He said, but I think he was making that up. “They live in the tree outside our house and in the ones near the football pitch; they make a lot of noise when the ball hits one of their trees. Sometimes I watch them in my geography lesson”

“When you're doing things about Africa?”

“No, in the tree outside the window of the geography hall.”

“Well Spud, maybe you should concentrate on your lesson …” I started to say. I was going to explain to him that when I was a boy there were no parrots, sorry parakeets, in England. But I realised that his attention was back with his cell phone.

So I guess there are now parakeets in living in Surrey. I wonder if parakeets can talk. Bet they say more than a twelve year old boy says.

Later, when I was back in the States, I was telling my mate Jim about the parrots and that they may have escaped from The African Queen. He pointed out it was lucky they weren’t using elephants in that film. I agree. If Pachyderms got into trees by the football pitch god knows how you'd get them out.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza