Enjoyable visit to the badger exclusion location this afternoon - met up with one of my female colleagues, and we chatted all the way back to Marylebone Station.

Over weekend I spent thinking too much about the past and getting upset.

cycled in today - bit cold but sunny. Listening to Dazzle Ships and Dare. Just realised what a great song "Open Your Heart" is. still sends shivers down my spine.

Put in some info for the biodiversity session in two days time though I do not intend to be there.

some sort of incident by st Pauls today - a chemical spill apparently with one person taken to hospital. Sounds dodgy to me - maybe its the start of a zombie outbreak. I'd better get tooled up.

Rogue State America - video

24 hours in Iraq

order to torture

Week's over and I'm shattered. Only managed two days of cycling this week, but it was good to be back on the saddle. Shattered because - partly stress of being told I might be out of a job second winter running; and partly becasue of Wednesday which started extra early - 5am alarm - so I could get to Rickmansworth by 9.00 am. At Rickmansworth I had to brief management on the correct procedure for ensuring noise control, and then out to the lineside location where badgers have been tunneling under the railway.

Finally, finally! The day has arrived for me to install the gates - setting them to one way only - and putting in enough infrastructure to ensure that the little stripey bastards* can't get back in. It's all legal by the way - I have a license issued by Natural england for this work.

It was hard work. I had a guy doing the physical work for me - and I assisted him as best I could, while also giving him direction, and supervising him. The setts are halfway up a steep embankment so it was hard-work just keeping standing. By end of afternoon we had three gates in place. Had to go back on Thursday for the last one, and then again Friday for the first inspection.

And after installing the three gates, I had to be back at the office for a little admin catch up followed by a visit to our depot near Earls Court for a two hour class on Track - or P-Way (permanent way). The first class was an overview.



* meant affectionately of course.

How To Explain Evolution To Idiots

New World Order Nearly Here?

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, however....

Bruce Anderson on New Orleans - looks like he's racist too

These extracts are from an article written by Anderson about New Orleans:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x10009

It seems he's a thoroughly obnoxious character; which is surprising as he looks so pleasant in his photographs.

As reported in Private Eye (No. 1129, P.4) :

"Bruce "Brute" Anderson recently penned a flattering if somewhat barmy book review in the Spectator. The book in question, The New English Kitchen by Spectator cook Rose Prince, got high praise from the Brute - but then the review went off at a peculiar tangent.

"The Orcadian piss-pot spent paragraph after paragraph praising Lord Salisbury (aka Lord Cranborne) and his pig-breeding enterprise.

"Why so? Because over the new year Anderson gatecrashed a Salisbury family holiday in Italy and infuriated them so much with his boorish drunken behaviour that he was barred from the house. Despite much banging on doors and several pleading phone calls, the resolute Salisburys refused to let the odious Brute back in.

"Anderson is running short of grandees whose hospitality he can abuse: only a few months ago the Eye revealed a hideous incident which earned him a lifetime ban from Lord Hesketh's house in Northamptonshire. Will shameless brown-nosing in the Spectator get him back on the Salisbury guest list?"

"America is founded on work, responsibility and law. This is no more important item in the Bill of Rights than the unwritten one: that each and every American has the right to work his butt off. That is the basis of another right: this year shall be better than the last year and next year will be better than this year.
Not in New Orleans: that city is founded on laziness, irresponsibility and lawlessness."

"Large numbers of the descendents of the involuntary immigrants have spurned every opportunity to invest in the American dream. It's as if they regard the work ethic as tainted, because it was imposed on their forebears by slavery."

"I suspect that at least 90 percent of the looters were from one-parent families."

"The decisions which doomed New Orleans were taken years before Bush became President, including the one to build the city in the first place."

His one excuse would have to be mental illness. Or maybe he's just joking.