[trafalgar] lest we forget nelly and red ken

Today we remember the Battle of Trafalgar.

The Quiet Man has posted his tribute and now here is mine about the proposal to slaughter the innocents. Red Ken's peristerophobia knew no bounds, as he first tried two Harris Hawks to kill off the pigeons and then brought in the heavy artillery:

London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, has pledged to provide an army of robot fighters to help combat the over population problems caused by pigeons in Trafalgar Square - one of London's top tourist attractions. The robot army, due to go into production in early 2007, is the latest development of Livingstone's ongoing vendetta with his avian nemesis.

The Telegraph ran this piece at the time:

Already, the numbers of poorly "sky-rats" admitted to Pigeon Recovery, the Sutton pigeon hospital, have soared. "He has not done his research," says Guy Merchant of the Pigeon Control Advisory Service. "He actually hired a couple of heavies to forcibly remove the seller. Thousands of pigeons are dying as we speak and that is a fact.

The battle ended on January 9th, 2003 and Red Ken was effectively defeated by fifty years of tradition and the wishes of the people, to later meet his Waterloo in Boris. As with that other great Battle of Trafalgar, the signal was given:

His Lordship came to me on the pigeon poop, and after ordering certain signals to be made, about a quarter to noon, he said, "I wish to say to the fleet, England confides that every man will do his duty. Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter."

After the battle was done and the poop had been scooped, the pigeons got back to what they do best. It's not every great battle which is remembered in two entirely separate theatres of war.