22.10.07, Comments on all sorts.

If you are a Plump Lump you are in the spotlight! I wrote about obesity the other day and now it has taken over from Global Warming as the Flavour-of-the-Week, and is throwing up the most amazing reactions on TV and in the Press. Scotland’s attempt by giving free meals to school children for six months to make them eat sensibly, has Christmas in between, for a start, which will be a stumbling block to the calculations in the records. While I would like to see it succeed, I believe it is destined for the same result as Jamie Oliver’s school meal project, they are both aiming at the wrong target, the kids emulate their plump parents, and eat the same stodge at home.

If you hadn’t read it in the press, you would be unlikely to relate obesity with Firemen, but in fact, getting heavy weight people out of buildings is setting them the same problem as with nursing, and they are being called out in emergencies having nothing to do with fires, and are suffering physically. As a designer of structures I had a figure per square metre to cover pedestrian loading, on floors, stairs, foot bridges, in lifts, etc. Play equipment, maybe lifts, and other areas could now be all under designed, if 30% of the population are obese.

We Are Losing Out Indigenous Birds.. The numbers have hit an all time low. Turtle Doves, Skylarks, Yellow Hammers, Linnets, Wagtails, are all about 60% down, while Grey Partridges are down by 87%. Intensive farming, autumn sowing of cereals, including the use of agrochemicals, the loss of field margins and hedgerows are the main culprits.. I think I heard recently there was a move afoot to get rid of Set-aside as a subsidised policy, This would further cut the bird population. Like the wild life of the world, soon we will only see our birds in zoos, those who approve of zoos. People in suburbia are no longer having bird tables in the numbers they did, they haven’t time to clean up the droppings or bird-watch.

Aggravation comes in so many forms, is often self induced, and always counter productive, while in some, downright dangerous. The one area most afflicted is driving a car where one forgets the basic law of checks and balances. The old saying concerning a cold in the head, ‘it will take a fortnight to cure, otherwise fourteen days’., has a parallel in driving, ‘no matter how you drive, any journey will always take the same time within a minute or two.’ We have all proved this, but, short of time, we still race and brake, people hoot you unnecessarily and sometimes we hoot, all to no effect, except a rise in blood pressure. There is also Road Rage. Is a minute saved all that important? I was just hooted at, that caused this outburst.

Short cut through a cottage. While we are on about motoring, lorry driver’s satellite navigational aids are making life difficult in some areas. Apparently some aids suggest a narrow lane in Greater Manchester as a short cut, and a number of properties have been damaged as a result, Progress?

Cats kidnapped as punishment. Cat owners received letters that their cats would be relocated because they were killing birds, using gardens as a toilet and digging up lawns. A total of seven cats have been taken, and the owners received letters saying the cats were imprisoned 25 miles away as a punishment.

Gordon Bennet was an expression of surprise and horror I have heard and used, and must admit often wondered where it came from, there seemed no logic. The Daily Telegraph has put me out of my misery at last. It is among 53 other words updated in the Oxford English Dictionary(OED), and is a euphemism for Gorblimey, from a novel, ‘You’re in the racket too,’ by John Curtis in 1937. Now I can sleep at night!.

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