News From The Hen House III

I've been more than a bit remiss as regards keeping my blog up-to-date over the past couple of months.   Quite a bit has been going on, not least in the hen house where Amelia, Chicken Nugget has been busy sitting on an egg.  Initially, I took the first few eggs away from her but she kept stealing her sister's so I took pity on her and let her keep one to brood.  Bless her, she's been sitting on it for almost four weeks now, so I think it's fair to say that she's sitting on a unfertilized egg (Artichoke, Chicken Dinner is a cock firing blanks, it seems).

This evening, however, I got a phone call from a friend needing an emergency chicken: her son had been to see his dad today and come home with two chicken and four quail's eggs that "were not for eating".  Amelia to the rescue!

It's Enough To Drive You Up The Pole

This is the continuation of a post I made on FaceBook.  It's taken quite a long time to write because trying to put my initial thoughts down on the page, so many tangental thoughts crowded in it got difficult to keep my focus.  Anyway, here it is ...

February 9th is National Libraries Day, apparently.  It's the culmination of a week of celebrations in schools, colleges, workplaces and, of course, public libraries across the UK.  In support of this campaign, to highlight the importance of libraries Midlothian Council are  staging a range of events in an attempt to encourage more people to use the library services.  So far, so good.  Until you delve into the detail a bit and find that amongst the very laudable events they are staging, such as Author Events, Local Studies and, even, Love Your iPad sessions are 'booky table tennis' and 'Pole Fitness taster sessions'.

'Booky table tennis' involves using books as bats.  Using books as table tennis bats?????  Whoever came up with that idea should, at the very least, be horse whipped.  In fact, tarring and feathering is probably too good for them.  Books should be treated with the kind of reverence usually reserved for the dessicated and rotting remains of the beatified and the saintly!  And if treating books in such a cavalier fashion wasn't a heinous enough act ... Pole Fitness?  POLE FITNESS??!!

Pole dancing fitness sessions are "a fun and interesting way of encouraging more people into our libraries" according to Midlothian council's cabinet member for public services and leisure. 

Midlothian council's cabinet member for public services and leisure needs to educate himself (yes, it is a man.  I'd say predictably, but that would be sexist and, besides, enough women fall into the same trap as to make me want to weep blood!)

As a sport, or fitness regime, pole dancing is controversial.  It's supporters will say that it is difficult: that you need to have coordination and really good core and upper body strength to be able to do it.  This is undeniably true.  What is also undeniable is that Pole Dancing has an association with the erotic that equally challenging fitness regimes, such as Pilates, do not.  And therein lies the problem.

Watching someone pole dancing is almost inevitably an exercise in the erotic for the viewer, probably more so than it is erotic exercise for the participant.  It is whether we like it or not, widely seen as sexual in its context, if not in its content, and for most people has very close associations with stripping and lap dancing, both of which, rightly or wrongly, are seen by many as being just a whisper away from prostitution.  Actually, taking the strict definition of the word, if money changes hands then they're all pretty much of a one.   

Many people, I think, consider stripping and lap dancing to be demeaning to women.  It objectifies women; reduces them to commodities to be used, and even abused, for money.  So in those terms, pole dancing can be no different.  

There is, of course, the counter-argument that, rather than being demeaning, activities of this nature are actually empowering to women.  For some, maybe.  For the minority who actively choose to take that route to empowerment of their own volition; for the very few who are actually completely in charge of their own productivity, so to speak; those who are not forced or otherwise coerced into it through circumstances and lack of choice then, yes, I can quite see that it might be.  Most of us, I imagine, will have read an interview with a (inevitably, it seems, young) woman with First Class degrees from Oxbridge who has actively chosen to work in the sex industry: who is taking advantage of male sexuality by being 'the exploiters, rather than the exploited'.  But there's at least part of the problem. Whichever way you shake the snowglobe, and however much glitter you dress it up in, the fall out is simply exploitation.

Really, is this what the feminist movement and the drive for equal opportunities was all about: giving women the freedom to pretend to be sex workers in the name of 'fun'?  Perhaps I've missed something, but how is that in any way liberating?  How is it emancipating?  How does it strengthen or support the notion of women having broken free from the age-old stereotypical view of the best places for them being on their backs, their knees or in the kitchen?  How appropriate is it that this take place in a library, a place, supposedly, linked to erudition and learning?  And how appropriate is it that this is supported and even staged on the authority of civic leaders: people supposed to rule, inspire and guide the citizens who have elected them?

Snow Joke ...

According to a piece in the paper yesterday, nearly one third of parents feel it is "too dangerous" to let their children play in the snow in case they slip or are hit by a snowball.  One in five parents actually ban their children from building snowmen or taking part in snowball fights "in case they catch a cold" and keep them wrapped up warm indoors.

Makes me wonder how we ever managed to win a war ...

-o-

In a similar vein, just to put their ridiculousness into some sort of context, fifty years ago this country suffered the 'Big Freeze' one of the coldest winters on record.  It started on Boxing Day 1962 with a blizzard that was whipped up by bitingly cold East winds a couple of days later leaving drifts up to twenty foot high in many places and even the centres of big cities had up to six inches of snow.  This was followed in the January by temperatures well below freezing - I believe as low as almost -20c in some places.  The upper reaches of the Thames here in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire froze solid, and even as far down as Windsor people were able to skate on it.  In some places even the sea froze for almost a mile off shore.  Without the benefit of modern 4x4 vehicles etc., farmers struggled to feed, or even rescue, livestock and many, many thousands died of exposure and/or starvation.  Added to the problems underfoot, all the lying snow gave rise to almost daily fog.
A thaw came towards the end of January but, within a couple of days, the snow was back again with a huge blizzard that lasted for almost two days, again leaving drifts of up to twenty foot.  This time, the winds remained, so it was a constant battle against swirling snow in sub-zero temperatures.  And all this during a time when few houses had decent central heating (if they had any at all, and most didn't!), road gritting wasn't commonplace, communications links were reliant on overhead telephone wires - many of which were brought down - and besides, many households didn't even have a telephone, electricity lines were also mostly overhead and, again, many were brought down leaving entire communities without power and lighting for considerable periods of time.   And people coped.  They also coped with the huge floods that followed in early March when the temperatures did a quick reversal and soared to the mid-teens!

From the top: Wales, Kent, the Thames at Windsor, and Somerset.  Now THAT is bad winter.  And an entire generation of children came through it largely unscathed.  FFS.

News From The Hen House II

Amelia, Chicken Nugget has done it!

This morning she also produced her first egg. Much rejoicing was there in the nest box (well, just outside it, on the floor of the roosting chamber actually, but then she's a bit slower to catch on than her sister).

"Get Your Twinkle Back!"

Turned out they were talking about a new eye cream and not, as I initially thought, using some hideous euphemism ...

News From The Hen House

Have I mentioned that I keep chickens?  I keep chickens.  Bantams, Partridge Pekin Bantams to be precise.

This is them when they arrived at eight weeks old last August.  Scrawny little devils.

This is them grown a bit.

From left to right we have Olga, Chicken Kiev; Amelia, Chicken Nugget; and Artichoke, Chicken Dinner.  Dinner is a Frizzle, which means the majority of his feathers curl backwards towards his head rather than lie flat as the girls' do.  He's a really rather fine chap, with a fabulous ginger ruff and green/black wing tips.


Anyway, they're even more grown up now than they were when the picture above was taken and we reached a milestone on Thursday when Olga produced her very first egg!!

It was delicious!

She's produced a second one today equally as tasty.  And Amelia, Chicken Nugget is showing signs of being ready to lay now too!

Some Things Are Just Worth Repeating ...

I've posted this on my FaceBook page, but feel it deserves an airing here, too.