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caldrail

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Blog Comments posted by caldrail

  2. caldrail

    Posted

    Well.. I must be honest, the journalist hadn't a clue who I was (philistine!) and simply chose me at random to talk about issues of the growing dole queue.

     

    But, interviewed I was, so who knows, perhaps I'll have to change my forum name to Backontherail? Stand by for impact, World, here I come....

     

    ...Until my next obstacle that is. The world is a big place after all. It does tend to get in the way. I was pleased to note that Simon Cowell, my biggest rival in the celebrity stakes, may well lose a

  4. caldrail

    Posted

    Also, dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, whereas chimps will always be wild animals regardless of how they are treated by their owners.

    Not necessarily. Humans and dogs got off to a good start because we had reason to co-operate in prehistory, plus humans have been breeding dogs and changing the species for thousands of years. We don't breed chimps the same way nor do we have any use for them except to sell teabags (re: Tetley's ads of the 70's) or as daiper consumers.

     

    Another thing about chimps... It's very likely that they naturally perceive human beings as rivals for the same resources.

    Well, they would, but so far chimps haven't shown much interest in supermarkets,burger vans, and indian resteraunts, so I suspect the competition isn't really a factor. Also, even in Africa, human beings moved out of the neighborhood to rear domestic animals and crops rather than the nuts and stuff chimps prefer.

     

    While I myself don't perceive chimps as rivals for my resources (I've no worries about a chimp competing for my job), I think the bit of wildness that remains in me may be a contributing factor towards my dislike for the species.

    I suspect the chimps don't have your fashion sense Neph. Maybe in the US you're lucky, but the the european anthropoids have certainly killed my job prospects :(

     

    And by the same token, I've no doubt that the honkin' huge chunk of wildness to be found in every chimp that any idiot ever put a diaper on and coddled and called "baby" (are you listening, Michael Jackson, you freak?) is responsible for pet chimpanzees' rage on their owners.

    :) Well, I think it has more to do with temperament. Chimps have been observed fighting border wars between groups and some of the violence they commit in the wild is truly shocking. Truth is, they ain't that different from us, and their nasty underside is something we'd prefer not to recognise.

  5. caldrail

    Posted

    Eh, I don't dislike them, I don't like them...but I do respect them, and all other non-human animals, as being great to look at and marvel. But even domesticated animals will turn if mistreated...it's their natural instinct..

     

    It isn't just mistreatment that does that. Dogs are social animals like us. That means we tend to get along because dogs understand the human owner is the alpha pack member and co-operates... most of the time... Problems arise when the dog thinks it can dominate, or it misunderstands the signals its getting, or simply does what it always does but at an inappropriate moment.

  6. caldrail

    Posted

    I dislike chimps, monkeys, etc., and have never been able to understand how anybody could think one of those animals looks "cute" or "funny" dressed up as a human.

     

    -- Nephele

     

    Its the human need to anthropomorphise everything. We give boats, cars, trains, and planes names and personalities (usually female I notice) and entertainment abounds in imagery of animals with human expressions, motives, and emotions. We know how to speak human - most of us are pretty lousy at speaking animal.

     

    Chimps unfortunately are very endearing creatures when young but they do tend to get aggressive in their mature years. Coupled with an upper body strength that dwarfs our own typical human being, its something to be wary of. Personally I agree with you Neph - dressing animals in human clothes isn't as cute or funny as some people think, but then there's a lot of people who like to laugh at others especially when the object of their mirth isn't aware of it.

  10. caldrail

    Posted

    And the Lord spake, saying,

     

    'First shalt thou take the mick. Then, shalt thou count your ratifiers to three. No more. No less.

     

    'Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.

     

    'Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.

     

    'Five is right out.

     

    'Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy funny stuff towards thy audience, who, being naughty in My sight, shall giggle.'

  11. caldrail

    Posted

    There was a news report last night highlighting the numbers of teenagers displaying erotic photographs of themselves on websites at their own volition. It ain't healthy.

     

    I wish you good luck on your search for a decent bloke. I have a suspicion though that, women being women, you might get a little bored when you find him. In my exerience women like violent or caddish blokes because a - They're more confident/interesting to be with, b - because there's a safety factor in being with dominant men, and c - they tend to be wealthier.

     

    I know this to be true. When I bought my first italianate sportscar all those years ago, I suddenly got interest from the ladies. Not because they liked the car (they didn't, it was a body part extender as far as they were concerned) but because it suggested I had money. Eventually they noticed my trainers were grubbier than most peoples and wandered off with someone else.

  14. docoflove1974

    Posted

    Good point. Increasingly, with cars becoming dull as ditchwater to drive, lots of gadjets and toys are migrating to the front dash for drivers to play with.

     

    I think the reason I haven't had any serious accidents (I made a couple of low speed bumps in my early days, one was someone elses fault) is that I don't play with the dashboard or even bother with the stereo. Always look out the window. I know it sounds daft, but, there's a sort of parallel with fighter pilots. Its the one you don't see who gets you.

     

    Actually, the dullness of modern cars is a mystery to me. Adverts constantly portray production vehicles as fun to drive, exciting, responsive, a pleasure to own etc... The ones I've driven handle like rice pudding and need a request signed in triplicate before they gather speed. Maybe I'm lucky. I'm old enough to remember when cars were real cars :D

  16. docoflove1974

    Posted

    Its funny you posted this Doc. A friend of mine drove in the states once and was thoroughly frightened. Not by gun totin' hoodlums or whatever, but just by people cruising at legal speeds and basically losing attention because of the boredom.

     

    I'm reminded of an american lady I came across once. She was from Idaho, or Iowa, or somewhere flat and empty. We got talking about driving and I asked how she found it driving on British roads.

     

    She gasped in typical rural drawl "You people are sooo-peerrrrr-men." and went on to describe how she drew up at a road junction and didn't dare move for cars whizzing all around her.

     

    In fact, the same phenomenon is starting to occur in Britain. Now that speed limits are rigidly enforced, people are becoming less attentive (one reason why the accident rate hasn't improved much since speed cameras came in). Whereas in the good old days you kept a good look out for your own survival, now you just sort of accept that everyone is doing the same speed and doing the same things.

     

    Before my car(s) were nobbled and I became a pedestrian, it was getting more and more hazardous on city dual carriageways (the ones limited to 40mph) because no-one bothered to look before they manoevered. Not really a change for the better.

  21. caldrail

    Posted

    I suspect your students are more motivated than I was. Back then, I disliked the teacher, and with boyish insidiousness, proceeded to reduce her to a nervous wreck. She did try to motivate us though. There was this idea she had for team based learning with a mural painted around the walls to show the position of the teams as they progress toward France.

     

    She made the mistake of putting me on the team painting the mural... And I hit on the idea of a horizontal 'snakes and ladders'. She wasn't overly impressed with the artwork to begin with, and even less when she saw the crude police van directing those with poor pronounciation to jail and so back the start.

     

    I understand that the year after I left her tuition she turned into a fire breathing dragon and reduced her pupils to nervous wrecks instead... Maybe I shouldn't admit to being the cause of such suffering and misery...

  23. caldrail

    Posted

    What you have to understand is that domesticated trolleys you find in supermarket car parks are tended to by trolleyherds, but that sometimes trolley rustlers make off with them and invariably dump them in ditches, and thats despite devices to keep them shackled to their home carpark. Its a growing problem. Numbers suggest trolleys aren't an endangered species but their cruel treatment by some shoppers is ubelievable. I hope that in some small way I have made you aware of the plight of the Lesser Spotted British Trolley.

  24. caldrail

    Posted

    According to my studies of discarded shopping trollies, based on statistical information gathered over twenty five years, not one shopping trolley mated and bred offspring. Some do flourish in their damp and muddy home however, as weeds and sediment will tend to build up around them thus creating the perfect enviroment for the urban trolley. Trolleys do like ditches though, and I have seen at least one with a thriving population of four trolleys living together in an adonised community.

     

    Brings tears to your eyes.

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