Watership Down

There was a very odd story the other day. Channel Five had decided to take a break from showing softcore porn and CSI spin-offs, and one afternoon had broadcast the film Watership Down. A great many parents were very upset about this as it contains upsetting scenes. There are fields of blood, near death experiences, tremendous barbarism. I am just now watching it again, and intend to reread it in a week or so. I can see why parents wouldn't want their children to watch such subject matter. It's upsetting. It's sometimes horrifying. It opens your eyes to how unthinkingly cruel humans are. You assuredly don't want your children to realise that. It's the sort of thing that could even turn your children into vegetarians or - horribile dictu - vegans. It happened to me, after all.

I watched it, a long time after I read it, I suspect, and both initiations said to me that humans can be pretty horrible people. This was a long time before I understood the Holocaust or what WWII was about or what nuclear weapons were. I was just a little boy, and rabbits were being killed by humans for no reason. One of the attributes of the rabbits in Watership Down is that they are depicted with human characteristics, which helps small children understand that they are not just inanimate objects, but conscious beings. Don't worry too much, parents: when we small children get older we realise that bunnies don't compose poetry, for instance.

However, we may well realise (and retain the realisation) that rabbits do feel. They feel pain and love and hate. They quite possibly (probably) don't feel them as we do, but they experience them, nonetheless. That is an awkward time for a child. For one begins to wonder if other creatures feel some of that. The pig sliced into ribbons for our breakfast? The cow chopped into chunks for our lunch? Do they feel? Then we might go and observe, and find that they do feel. Then we look about ourselves, and we see that our fellow humans know that these creatures feel, but still don't care about killing them. We look at ourselves and ask whether we feel happy about killing them just because they taste good.

Maybe for you the taste is argument enough for murder. Perhaps you don't think of it as murder. It could well be that your parents cleverly stopped you from watching this film (or something kin to it) at such an impressionable young age, so animals never got anywhere near your conception of people. Maybe your parents used sophistry or argumentum ad populum or ad vericundiam to make you eat your sausages. Many do, I think. Maybe you cared for a little and then stopped caring. Perhaps you cared, and want to spare your child the feelings you experience.

It's so much simpler, after all, to cut down any obstacle, to blast through any blockade, to eat anything that is in your way, and to teach your children to do the same. Crush the weak. Take their possessions. They are but your playthings. Just be sure to keep your children safe until they grow strong enough to seize and snatch, rob and grab, kill and burn.

This probably will be an unpopular blog. There is no way of which I am aware to point out to people that they are supporting mass murder and cruelty on a global scale that doesn't make them angry with you. To get a whole other bunch of people angry with me for one moment, the Israeli government seems to be stuffed with awful people. You can't say that without making people angry. Then, as I expect you know, some Labour MP was recently revealed to have said some horrible things years ago, and was defended by Ken Livingstone, who was himself defended by an American chap called Finkelstein, who argued that suggesting one move the denizens of Israel to America would - in America - have been treated as a hard-nosed piece of satire. That struck me as a weird thing to say, given that when one thinks of moving a whole ethnic group from A to B, with the concomitant death toll, one tends to think of the Holocaust, where a cruel bunch of people cruelly moved another group from place to place to death. There's no humour there. There's horror, which also begins with an H.

One can't really "joke" about ethnically cleansing the Jews from Israel to America without invoking and evoking the Holocaust. Well, you can (for a given value of "joke")...but you shall annoy people. Likewise, you can't point out that the Israeli government is pretty horrifyingly evil without upsetting people, nor that mankind is egregiously despicable in how it treats other species. Heck, the only two comments I had on my blog before last, discussing a lady attacked by men, were insulting rejections of her position, which didn't deal with the substance of her argument at all.

We have been adopted

I was up early every day the other week, of which more anon. When I went out to defrost my car I found a cat. This cat has been visiting us for ages, perhaps years, to collect some of the food we leave out, and has been so ubiquitous of late that Mum buys him cat food of a Saturday, doling some out to him daily. We originally started leaving out food to attract the local badgers, but over the years it has got ridiculously out of hand, and there are not just badgers, but cats, foxes, waddlings of ducks, and even the occasional hedgehog (who ate quite contentedly beside the badger). On this occasion the cat was asleep. The day before, Mum had put an old duvet outside, ready to take it to the tip, and the cat was wrapped up in it, all snug, or snugger than if the feline had no duvet at all. Every morning I went out he or she was there, and we inevitably did not have the heart to throw away the duvet. A little after two this morning, I popped out to my car to fetch some things, and there, snuggled up in the duvet was the cat, sound asleep until this great lunking human came clomping around and shining torchlight at the back of an innocent feline head.

There's no question of the little chap coming inside. That is not because we are secretly diabolical villains or so terrified of cat hairs on furniture that we would let someone freeze. The problem is that Mum's asthma does not generally respond well to cats (or dogs, chickens and several other pets), so if we let the cat in, we force Mum out. That might be a bit excessive at this chilly time of year. We do have a slight surplus of hot water bottles, and my brother has been armouring the rabbit's and guinea pigs' homes against the cold with these apotropaic devices. I hope you all are enjoying the approach of Christmas or whatever seasonal festivity cheers you!

Excursus: pet food

I have intermittently mentioned my joy of cooking and my pets, which have at last been combined. No, no, restrain your screams of horror, as you have the wrong end of the stick. Calmed down? Good, then read on. One of the best ideas when cooking is to use fresh ingredients - which applies not merely to vegetables but also to the herbs. Fresh basil is quite unlike its dried counterpart, for instance. I use basil quite a lot, and one day I realised that wild rabbits would probably eat it. So I checked in our little rabbit-care booklet, which suggested that fresh herbs were an acceptable treat. Thus fortified with the experience of experts, I offered a spare sprig to Spot, and he devoured it ravenously! Bold and Nerva (Nervy), the guinea pigs, were fairly unimpressed by basil, but they have been guzzling down sprigs of thyme lately, and have been finishing off the ends of courgettes for a few weeks now. Spot seems unimpressed by thyme, but he and the guinea pigs both adore fresh mint.

Last night, Mum wondered what their position was on avocado. She failed to find any mention of it, but remarked that guinea pigs are fans of banana peel. Off to the kitchen to get myself a banana, and the guinea pigs the peel. Nyom-nyom-nyom-nyom-nyom-nyom-nyom! They only stopped eating the banana peel when their tiny tummies were full. It's amusing to think we seem to have miniature goats! I jest, of course, but it's certainly better for them to have the peel than for it to fill a bin and contribute to the messing up of the world. Anyway, folks, have a lovely Sunday!

Return of the Duck

We have lately been receiving the visits of a duck with her wee ducklings. They are adorable. By chance this happened just as two friends of mine had their first wee baby. It has been a lovely, wonderful time! Nick the Bunny has been visiting us lately, too, taking advantage of the fact that we leave out bread for the ducks. I chose the name Nick as the rabbit has a piece missing from his or her right ear. Do not expect to see me on the stand-up circuit any time soon. The ducklings are too small to use the big tub we leave out for the ducks to wash in and drink from (if they would use different ones, we would put out different ones!), so we put out a shallow tray (which formerly stored mushrooms) and a spare butter dish, and then a paint tray, since we aren't using that at the minute. Apologies for the lack of blogging lately. I have mislaid my mask, so when I popped into Dad's room to use his PC the other day, I ended up hacking like a man dying of tuberculosis. I had a good look for that mask, and managed to unearth it. Anyway, enjoy these wildlife shots.

Who is adorable? Spot!

The other day we couldn't remember Spot's age. We thought maybe two, maybe three. He seems to have been here forever. He is a gorgeous wee fella, Spot. You folk who missed him before should have a gander at his original appearance on this blog, when he was very nearly a literal ball of fluff. "Literal" and "literally" are much abused today, so I hereby assure you that Spot, at this time, was almost Tribble-like in his gorgeous fluffiness! Enjoy our wee bunny! :-D

http://veganhaggis.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/spot-rabbit.html

Lovely weather for ducks!

Since it's summer in the UK, the ducks who live near us have been having a lovely time of it lately. Then on Sunday we had three in the side garden, requesting food in a relaxed fashion. We had a couple of bunnies in the yard and back garden, but they sped off before I could even think of photographing them. I did get a nice shot of an immobile bush, though! So in lieu of grey-brown rabbits, you can enjoy a green-pink bush and some wee ducks.

Gaming Board: Part 3 and some rabbits

The board is done, and I'm getting on nicely with some walls to create corridors for warring in. I've popped a lot of transfers on the walls to embellish them prettily. It's always good to have some nice numerals stencilled all over things, and some wee words on computer screens. Most are numerals and words, but a few are humorous: I've a few crazy faces to suggest mad computers, and some crazy messages to imply the same. "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and "DAVE". Heh! In closing, there are a few pictures of the wild bunnies in the back garden and our own dear Spot.

Space Hunt: putting it all together

Here, ready for gaming, is everything I have so far got to a vaguely painted stage for my Aliens/Space Hulk/Crusade set of bits and bobs. There are a few more walls outside with paint drying, and several of these pieces need a lick of paint, as you can see! But it's all shaping up very nicely so far. I have re-undercoated a dozen or so Cadians in grey, and intend to use them as my Colonial Dudes doomed to get eaten or impregnated with horrifying alien nasties. With Prometheus coming out soon, I might even persuade a few of my non-wargamer mates to try their hands at this. I'm sure one or two must have played Space Hulk back in the day. I rounded up a few bits of scenery that seemed most fitting for the innards of a spaceship, and I have a few vehicles, if the setting turns out to be an overrun research lab. In a moment of madness last night I did order the tetralogy of Resident Evil films. Some halfwit coined the word "Quadrilogy" to describe the Aliens boxed set some years ago. It's sad that the richest companies can't afford to employ folks who can use the English language. With the double width corridors, one could actually drive the aforementioned vehicles (such as this one from Old Crow) down the middle! No photos of that today, though. I doubt I'll stick a wall on either side of a corridor, either, as it would make gameplay very annoying. They can sit on one side and he decorative. However, for this photoshoot, I shan't use that idea. Salivate over this, though, folks. I am most pleased. Salivate. Oh, there's also a bunny from next door's field. Salivate over him and I'll have to impregnate you with some unspeakable alien monstrosity to protect the bunny. Wait, that will just lead to an alien monster eating him/her. I need to rethink that plan! ;-)

The Easter Bunny visited yesterday, and so did his son

Before we left for Mass yesterday, Mrs Duck and the Ducklings (bad band name) and an adult bunny dropped in and breakfasted in the yard. Later on I went for a walk in the garden, and as I came down the back steps saw a kitten, a baby bunny, sitting under the magnolias. No, we're not in the Deep South, so far as I know. I managed to get a couple of snaps of him before he shot off. They are below. Pictures of the avian ramblers are in this entry. In case anybody has missed it, I'm selling off a few more things on Ebay. For some nice big pics, a list and links, check out this entry. I'm going to knuckle down and do some modelling stuff today, so expect a proper wargamery post in the next day or two. Until then, I leave you in the impossibly cute hands of Baby Bunny. I hope you all had a lovely Easter. :-)

Happy Easter, Folks!

We had a nice little surprise for Easter yesterday afternoon: the first ducklings of Spring! Eight fluffy little things followed their mum up from the pond where they live to visit our bird-table. I hope you have a lovely Easter, and enjoy these pictures! :-)

Wildlife and less wild life

Ba-dum-tisch! For your enjoyment today, some pictures of the baby bunnies in next door's field, the horses and sheep in another field, several shots of the new guinea pigs, whom I am calling Bold and Nervy for the time-being (though Captain Pugwash is a name that just occurred to me on account of his "eyepatch" and nervousness), Spot, our bunny (Mum suggested people will feel we are co-ordinating our animals' appearances!), and a robin, who launched himself into flight as I tried to photograph him, but who then sat quietly on a bench while I snapped him. I hope you like them. :-)

The fields are alive with the sound of quacking

Would that have been as highly regarded a film as Julie Andrews'? I think we can safely say that the answer is no. As I was saying the other day, I haev been out in the garden a lot lately, and so have been snapping ever more pictures of the various critters hereabouts. We also recently got two wee guinea pigs, of whom I append a single snapshot. The majority of these pics are of wild bunnies, ducks and squirrels, with a couple of shots of Mr Pheasant, whom we hadn't seen lately. Most of the ducks are normal mallards, but you'll see two unusual ones here. There's a female white duck, who last year produced three crossbred males, one of whom you can see below. They've a rather pretty blue grey head on them. My brother can tell the difference between the females she produced and the regular ones, but I can't! I haven't enclosed many shots of the rabbits this time, as my camera is not designed for long distances, so long-distance shots are indistinct. I have marked with red three rabbits in a photograph below, but I think there were four when I took the picture. I can't find the last one now! See if you can guess where s/he is!