I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

Stop The Pigeon

"Shooting pigeons dead is no more acceptable than doing the same to dogs or cats"

A PETA spokesman, having received an assurance that pigeons would no longer be shot at Wimbledon.

If someone wants to come over to Hackney and shoot all the pigeons making a nuisance of themselves on my estate (and whilst they are at it, shoot a few of the idiots putting food out for them) - then more power to their elbow!

Obesity A Problem On The Scale Of Climate Change?

I was outraged to see Health Secretary Alan Johnson comparing obesity to the issue of climate change.

Climate change affects everyone, and indeed future generations.

Obesity is caused by people eating too many pies and not doing enough exercise. Obesity only affects fat people, pie salesmen and those married to fat people.

There is no comparison between the two issues at all.

Doing Good Work

When I was in Trafalgar Square on Monday I got talking to the guy with the hawk who keeps the pigeons down.

Acting agaiunst this public nuisance has been one of the few things Ken Livingstone has got right as Mayor - if only we had a few hawks in Hackney as well!

The Coolness Of The Urban Fox

Driving through Islington early this morning (about 2.15 am) I slowed down because there was a fox in the middle of the road.

This fox moved very slowly from where he had been sitting, allowing just enough room for me to pass. As I drove on I watched through my mirror as he returned to the exact same spot where he had been sitting, and carried on looking down the street.

I hope he survives Islington's boy racers and police racers, but acting like that, I doubt it...........

Bear Necessities

I have added some pictures to the South East Asian section of this site, which include shots of one of the two pandas at Chiang Mai zoo.

Entrance to the panda enclosure was just 100 baht (50 baht for Thai nationals, Thai's are not very-PC when it comes to treating everyone the same) which is not even £2.

Whilst Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra may be in legal hot water with the current military regime, he clearly still has plenty of fans in the North of the country. As you enter the area where the Pandas live, pride of place goes to a picture of Thaksin on a visit to the enclosure.

A Good Cause

As conservation campaigns go, it may be a bit late to save the Amur Leopard, as there are now estimated to be only 35 in the wild. The Amur tiger (often called the Siberian tiger) is not much better off.

That is no reason not to make the effort however.

You can find out more about this cause here.

Tricked Pandas

This really is a disgraceful story. It appears the Chinese will stop at nothing to ensure that the Giant Panda does not become extinct.

To widen the genetic stock, researchers had to come up with a way to find a mate for even the least popular females. How did they do that? "We tricked them," Zhang says with a smile. The "trick" is to put a fertile and attractive female into a breeding pen, where she leaves scratchmarks and droppings capable of exciting a male. But at the last moment the females are swapped. The zookeepers introduce a new, less popular, mate who has been scented with the urine of the more attractive animals. She is introduced into the mating pen rear end first, so the male cannot see the face of his partner until after they have finished copulating. "When the males find out, they get very angry and start fighting the female," Zhang says. "We have had to use firecrackers and a water hose to separate them."

Thanks to Saturday's Guardian for this story. You can read the full version here.

Fed Up With Being Watched?

Well if so you are not alone.

A rare tiger in Indonesia has taken to vandalising surveillance cameras that are monitoring him.

Read the story here. Who says human beings are more intelligent than animals?