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.
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 the 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 to 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 occasions 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 mercilessly 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.
Swallows are such fragile and well tuned little birds.My theory would suggest that perhaps a chemical could have affected them .For example a lot of spraying goes on in different areas they could have flown through some crop spaying or just house spraying a lot of chemicals are very insidious. Or maybe their food source could have been contaminated.My sympathy to you regarding Nero,s palace.Claire
Did they all die?
Sadly, they did. All of them. It was awful.