[krazy for kate] my future queen

Sisters doin' it for themselves. Queen Kate tests the waters.

All right, I admit it - I have a thing for the future Queen of England and this sort of comment by Wolfie,alleging the less than nice side of Kat … er … Kate, is entirely uncalled for:

We bumped into Kate and Wills over dinner way back in 2005, just before their relationship was made public. I was of the opinion that she was a good catch for William but my wife (then my fiancée) disagreed, and to be honest I tend to listen to her on these matters because she has this amazing built-in bitch detector which never seems to fail in its accuracy.

Apparently on a trip to the bathroom during the evening there was one of those “women sizing each other up”/”evil eye” moments between Miss Middleton and my somewhat amused wife, which seems quite bizarre considering she was clearly romantically involved with me and seven years her senior.

Sigh - doesn't she hold a mean paddle?

So, I launched into a spirited defence of Lady Middleton:

I don't understand why everyone's down on Kate Middleton. Is the average blogger down on her because the media also is? And how did that come about? What did she do which was so wrong?

… only to receive this in the comments, from another Lady:

I think this lady doth protest too much, I don't think she has had a hard time. [Ellee]

But not everyone agrees. Lady Mutterings and Meanderings defended the chewing gum princess ... but at the expense of the family she's marrying into:

I think the poor girl is well shot of the lot of them. We do not live in the sort of society depicted in a Jane Austen novel. Those who criticise the Middletons for lack of class are pompous oafs who lack class themselves. Anyway, I reckon William's losing his looks already ...

And was this entirely necessary, Lady Welshcakes?

I think she should thank her lucky stars that she has not married into that most dysfunctional of families.

... and Sir Tom, you may have waxed lyrical here but I don't think this entirely clears the air:

William seems a sensible guy - not difficult by comparison with his barking mad Dad. He has the free will to be Free Will if he wants.

But Lady Mutterings and Meanderings is not convinced of our Kate's newsworthiness:

But why was the break-up of their romance the top story on the BBC TV news? That's not right ...

Kate - she might be up that creek but she sure has a paddle.

To which the Minnesotan, erstwhile New Yorker, producer of Little C, Lady Ruthie, had to ask:

An even more pertinent question, Mutterings and Meanderings, might be: "Why was the story of their breakup the top story in a mid-sized American city in Minnesota?" I mean, good heavens ... But, um... as long as we're on the topic... how does one go about meeting an eligible prince?

... to which some desperate hopeful called james higham replied:

There are plenty of us about.

Anyway, to the present Konundrum about Kate by that authoritative, serious news source, the Daily Mail, who kindly supplied the pics I swiped for "reasonable usage" and they point out:

Kate Middleton has been forced to pull out of her Channel boat race - a clear indication that her romance with Prince William is officially on again. After all the ballyhoo about her joining the Sisterhood, a 21-strong female crew of a Chinese dragon boat, and weeks of training on the Thames, I can reveal she has abruptly dropped out, leaving her fellow amateur rowers high and dry.

Officially her decision was taken because of security fears that her high-profile presence might jeopardise the safety of the other girls. But I understand she was ordered to drop out by royal aides who fear Kate's continued role was in danger of becoming a major media event.

So there you have it. Kate's back [hoorah!] and the greatly missed Tin Drummer is pleased that she's finally being treated as the Queen she will be:

I am a kind of instinctive monarchist and I'd like William to be a good King one day but I don't want people associated with him to be hounded every time they step out the door.

Perhaps an American visitor, Lord Nazh, should have the final word:

I'd buy her lunch ... maybe dinner ...

"Need some more gum, mum?"

"Don't you start!"

Sometimes I'm just a big poop head, as Lady M pointed out:

"GET OVER TO MY BLOG and PICK UP YOUR AWARD and stop crying on Welshcakes shoulder over at her blog, you big poop head!"

Welshcakes and JMB's comments were unprintable, due mainly to the fact that they were e-mailed.

I can report that the wounds have been bound, the tears dried and the instructions dutifully obeyed, [as you can see by the pic]. Feeling frightfully braced and ready for the fray.

[local politics] not only for brits

Non-Brit readers won't know who the heck these people are or even what the issue is but what you will recognize is the attitude. The attitude behind these Tin G-ds. I reprint in full:

In tonight’s Shropshire Star (only a couple of weeks after sending it!) …

Unitary proposal shows contempt for opinion

When Shropshire County Council first proposed abolishing local councils and replacing them with a single sub-regional unitary authority, people said they didn’t want it. Three of the five districts under threat held referenda and all three referenda rejected the idea of one council for Shropshire.

The county council, however, showed its utter contempt for public opinion by not only continuing with its bid but submitting its proposal to central government on the day one of the referenda results were due to be announced.

Stuart Parr
Telford (West Midlands No! Campaign)

I think all of us can relate to this.

[meat] humane solutions needed

No need to reiterate and regurgitate the sheer scale of the population growth dilemma. Here are the main culprits in order of births. No need to reiterate and regurgitate the sheer scale of the coming water crisis, also related to world population.

This article concerns itself with another aspect of the population dilemma - food and in particular, meat.

As demand outstripped supply in the last 100 years, it was only logical that debate would be fierce - both pro-meat and anti-meat. Meat-eating has a long history and there is a case for saying that it's difficult for a vegetarian to completely cover the loss of nutrients, e.g. Vitamin B12, entirely through vegetable sources.

There's a case for saying that humans have evolved with meat and that meat is a necessity for growth and nutrition. I used to teach a girl from a vegetarian household and she was always anaemic and sick with something or other. She lacked energy.

Hers was not an isolated case and here are some of the myths of vegetarianism. [At the top of the page is an extremely annoying pop up - just ignore it and below you'll find Myth N1.]

Some vegetarians, realizing the logical impasse they're in, then regard fish as "not really meat", especially shellfish but that's not the main dilemma with meat today. The main dilemma is the inhumane way battery and factory farms operate, designed to cater for the ever burgeoning market.

The Omnivore's Dilemma addressed the entire path of certain foods from source to table and it is not a pretty picture. As we tuck into our steak this evening, let's remember the sight of this cow watching others killed and this goose being force-fed for foie gras.

As the Food and Wine article said:

The terms "grass fed" and "pasture raised"—meaning that an animal was allowed to graze the old-fashioned way instead of being fed an unnatural and difficult-to-digest diet of mostly corn and other grain—have now entered the food-shoppers' lexicon.

Some say leave off the meat altogether and stick to fish. This article from Canadian West is about how far the Blue Fin Tuna travels but along the way, these things are also mentioned:

The catch soared after development of harpoon rifles and hydraulic net lifts in the 1920s. The fishery helped strip the bluefin population from northern European waters in a "relative blink of time." The creatures had virtually disappeared by the 1960s, the researchers report.

Bluefin stocks on the North American side of the Atlantic are at about 10 per cent of their historic levels and are "approaching commercial extinction," says Ron O’Dor of Dalhousie University in Halifax. There is evidence bluefins from the endangered North American stock are crossing the Atlantic and being caught off Europe, where there are much higher quotas than in Canada or the U.S.

So there's clearly a dilemma. Meat is part of the human diet but for reasons of population growth and common humanitarianism, it's best from local producers who have raised the animals naturally or from local fishermen. And what if you're near neither sea nor river? Then maybe you should stick to local livestock and locally produced produce in season.

But you won't and I won't because we've already tasted fish and it's good for our bodies.

Either way the slaughter is not a pleasant thought and I have unpleasant memories myself, from my younger days, of sticking knives into fish's skulls to quickly despatch them, even though we were at sea at the time and every fish killed was eaten.

The way the path from source to table has been smoothed over so the consumer needn't see the messy business involved in the killing or the appalling conditions under which the animals spend their last days has also meant that producers can do as they damned well please and the average consumer will be none the wiser.

And yet I would never advocate vegetarianism - it's unnatural. We are a species, there is a food chain on this planet, we have animals and plants we can eat and those we can't.

If we can get back some control, some humanity shown the poor animal [and plant for that matter - I hate chopping a cabbage in two and I'm sure I can here it scream] via our buying choices, it doesn't solve the problem but it's maybe looking in the right direction.

I'm off now for some tuna and cabbage.

[hindenburg] explosive sausage

Long time since I strafed and quite frankly, it's overdue. What better subject than the conflagration of the Hindenburg, thereby killing two birds with one stone - the strafing aspect and an air disaster which I'm sorry I haven't posted on for over a week now, in deference to Ruthie Zaftig.

It's a fascinating tale when you get into it and I admit that this is virtually a Wiki-summary but it's a good article:

Named after Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934), it was a visually striking "ship of the air", at 245 m (804 ft) long and 41 m (135 ft) in diameter, longer than three Boeing 747s placed end-to-end and only 24 m (78 ft) shorter than the Titanic. It was originally equipped with cabins for 50 passengers and a crew complement of 40.

It was originally intended to be filled with helium but the United States, the main world supplier, had imposed a military embargo on helium. Dr. Eckener, the chief designer, expected this ban to be lifted but it wasn't, leading to the modification of the design to use flammable hydrogen - 200,000 m³ of the gas in 16 bags or cells.

It wasn't as dangerous as it sounds. Germany had extensive experience with hydrogen and accidents had never occurred on civil zeppelins.

Summarized story of the disaster is continued here.

[poll result] feeding pigeons

Should we be able to feed the pigeons?

Yes - cruel not to 68%

No - let them starve 19%

At certain times 14%

37 votes total, which is not bad for summer. So, Ken, what do you think of this result? Hello? Ken? Ken? Oh, he's over there cleaning pigeon dos off his livery.