The House Husband

Tonight I am going to blog about three news stories I spotted in the Metro, the free London paper. Actually, it used to be the only free London paper but now there seems to be a lot more. Not that that matters. The Metro is available everywhere in the capital and is handy to read on the bus or to do the sudoku when lectures get dull.

Well, I was reading it on the number 4 bus this morning on a journey that took twice as long as it should have. There is repair work going on all over Waterloo Bridge (has been since last November and is set to continue till December this year!) and it’s reduced to two lanes – that’s one in either direction. Sometimes they also close the tunnel which goes from the end of Waterloo Bridge, under The Strand, which makes the first part of journey a commuting hell. But I don’t want to blog about that!

So…I was reading the Metro and three stories struck me. I decided then that I should blog about them.

Swallows
I heard about this on the radio, almost a month ago, before reading it in the paper this morning. A flock of 76 swallows flew straight into the ground in Somerset. They tried to fly through someone’s concrete driveway. Apparently it was an awful sight. I heard a vet interviewed who was upset at being so powerless. He couldn’t understand what had happened or why. A witness described it as if they were just flying through the air.

Swallows fly in big swarms and make all sorts of beautiful shapes in the sky around dusk. Scientists believe they do this to appear a much bigger threat when they are threatened by predators. Generally they will fly into reed beds to escape. Apparently the driveway is the same colour as a reed bed, a vet said.

Granny
I hate it when a sensationalist newspaper prints a story that says one thing but decides a headline saying the opposite is more appropriate. This is one of the (many) reasons I refuse to read the Daily Mail or the Express! It doesn’t usually happen in the Metro but today it did.

The headline went something like “Granny fined and tagged for selling goldfish!” In fact, if you go to Google and put in ‘granny goldfish’, you’ll find this story everywhere doing exactly the same thing as the irresponsible journalist did in the Metro.

The story goes that this granny (I think she was 77) worked in her daughter’s pet shop. She sold a child a goldfish. This is against the law. She was fined £1000 and electronically tagged. She had a curfew imposed on her, meaning she wouldn’t be able to babysit her grandchild. The family called it legal lunacy and this is how the newspapers have pushed the story. It’s hard not agree, and most people would be so incensed by this, I doubt they’d read the final paragraphs.

It is in the final paragraphs that we discover how the family has been warned previously about animal cruelty, particularly about a cockatiel in the shop window, and have been told by the RSPCA they need to smarten themselves up or be closed down. On other ocassions they have been caught selling animals to children without an accompanying adult. The final sentence in the Metro had a quote from an RSPCA officer saying “We do not take animal cruelty lightly!” Damn right, too.

Hole in the ground
This is a rather sad story. Nero had a palace in Rome. It was called the Golden Palace (Domus Aurea) and was amazingly amazing. It sat on top of the Palatine Hill, overlooking the Forum and the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. It had a rotating dining room which moved by way of water courses and large rock spheres. It was adorned with magnificent murals and mosaics.

Within a decade of Nero’s death (AD68) the place had been stripped of most of its building materials, filled in and built over. They weren’t too keen on Nero. It was he who fiddled as Rome burned. After the fire, he built himself the palace and taxed Rome mercilously to pay for it. Not popular. Anyway, the palace remained buried for ages and then, in the 15th century, it was rediscovered after a chap fell into a hole.

It’s been raining in Rome recently and quite heavily it seems. Well, it has weakened the roof of the palace, which was bearing a lot of weight – two metres of soil – and it all collapsed. Into the vaulted ceilings. Horror! Archaeologists are frantic, the mayor of Rome is beside himself. And, last but not least, Dawn and I walked on top of the very spot when we visited Rome in 2008. Sad face.

Another beautiful day down here in the south east, though cold. Oddly there was a very fine coating of snow everywhere this morning. It resembled washing powder. Elsewhere in the UK it’s a bit thicker and, as a result, some 3rd round FA Cup matches are being postponed because of it! Chelsea play tomorrow. Aldershot didn’t get through.

Still sick. My second day of the new year and I still haven’t left the house. At least Mirinda is a lot better today. She has trotted off into town to buy buttons (!) while I languish away in bed. Actually after a hot shower and new bedding, I feel a bit better.

While on the subject of my health, I’d just like to inform my mother that spicy food is very good for blocked sinuses. Though Joey Layer Cake isn’t particularly spicy.

And shifting back to Dr Who…I’ve read a few comments about the last two episodes this morning and most of them are far from complimentary. It does occur to me that people just like to moan, regardless of the subject. It also occurs to me that the people who moaned about Dr Who clearly have no idea how to switch channels. Unless, of course, they’re the sort of people who believe that they pay for the BBC content, therefore they have to watch it and it has to appeal to them. Which only makes sense for an audience of one. And if this was the ratings figure, the show would be axed.

I loved it, anyway, so there. I pay my license fee and I approve of it being spent in this way. I have to constantly switch channels when rubbish is on the BBC (a good amount of my viewing time) and would certainly not watch something that I wasn’t enjoying. If the BBC Trust was to ask me what I thought, I’d say stop broadcasting Eastenders because I hate it.

But that’s not going to happen. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have an opinion. I’d be the last person to say that. I’m saying, if you’re not enjoying something, turn it off. If you must comment, say you didn’t like it because [insert opinion here] and then you turned it off. That would work a lot better rather than the steaming piles of vitriol that are presently left in various corners of the Web.

But I wasn’t going to talk about that – I sound like a Grumpy Old Man, another show I dislike – I was going to discuss my New Years Resolution. I haven’t thought about it in the lead up to the new year but, at a pinch and at the moment, I’d have to say, it’s to get over this BLOODY FLU!!!!