{"id":3818,"date":"2012-10-15T12:01:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T11:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=3818"},"modified":"2012-10-15T12:04:12","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T11:04:12","slug":"15-october-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2012\/10\/15\/15-october-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"15 October 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JackOK, we\u2019re back after a wonderfully enjoyable weekend with friends on the south coast \u2013 sorry for the interruption to your normal service. We drove down on Friday afternoon for a performance at the Brighton Comedy Festival<\/a> by Jack Dee<\/a>. (I was going to include a link to a YouTube video to give those of you who don\u2019t know of him a feel for his comedy. After searching for several minutes, however, I was unable to find a clip which didn\u2019t include, at some stage, a torrent of four-letter language of which I know my mother would not approve. So, for those of you who don\u2019t know his act, you\u2019ll have to search for yourself). Wikipedia describes his comedy as \u201csarcastic, witty and deadpan\u201d which is a pretty good description. I would add \u201cacerbic\u201d as well, partly because it\u2019s such a great-sounding word but also because it describes his humour fairly well.<\/p>\n

And, the show was great.<\/p>\n

Saturday we visited Wakehurst Place<\/a> in West Sussex, a beautiful National Trust property which happens to be the \u201ccountry estate\u201d of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and the home of the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership<\/a> where they have, thus far, banked 10% of the world\u2019s wild plant species. It\u2019s a lovely spot and, although the weather wasn\u2019t at its finest, we spent a lovely afternoon wandering amongst the gardens and woodland.<\/p>\n

[portfolio_slideshow id=3823 loop=true]<\/p>\n

Just for reference, those handsome folk in the group photo are: Yours truly, Stuart Brown and Sue Kelly, Sue Walton, Penelope Playchute and Dave Walton. The young girl sheltering from the rain amongst the Japanese Acer was just too good a shot to miss.<\/p>\n

I included a few cartoons in yesterday\u2019s stop gap edition \u2013 I\u2019ve one more to share with you this week \u2013 Decoding Dogs from Adrian Raeside\u2019s The Other Coast.<\/p>\n

\"Decoding<\/a><\/p>\n

This is an extremely informative piece and tells us much about the conversational characteristics of our Molly. None of the other dogs we\u2019ve had have been excessively vocal, at least in terms of barking (they\u2019ve all had this ability to communicate with a low, gravelly grumble but none has been what you might call a \u201cbarker\u201d). Rosie (I think it was Rosie) would always bark whenever the doorbell rang to ensure we had heard it and were aware that there were guests or strangers awaiting our response at the front door but other than that they\u2019ve all been relatively quiet in their interactions with other adults and canines.<\/p>\n

Molly, however, as I have mentioned before, barks at everything and everyone but always with her tail wagging as rapidly and vigorously as possible. The \u201ctrouble\u201d is that most people don\u2019t know what she\u2019s saying and tend to imagine that she is aggressively warning them that \u201cEverything here is mine! Stay away!\u201d Strangers who have never encountered her previously tend to regard her with some caution \u2013 small children positively quake and generally run away in hysterics at her apparent aggressiveness when, in fact, she wouldn\u2019t harm a flea. (Remember, this is the \u201cvicious\u201d dog that whines, whimpers and wanders in the opposite direction whenever she encounters any of the neighbourhood cats). Still, whenever we\u2019re out she will bark at any approaching dog or human and, in spite of our requests not to be so vocal, she cannot help herself.<\/p>\n

Bark, bark, bark. Bark, bark, bark. Bark, bark, bark.<\/p>\n

Also, she doesn\u2019t see too well anymore and this, taken together with her urge to vocalise all her thoughts, can lead to some amusing incidents. Occasionally, she will see another \u201cdog\u201d in the distance and start barking and bounding towards it, only to discover her error when she gets close enough to see that she has been barking at a rubbish bin or a mailbox or an abandoned crisp packet. The other morning she started barking and bounding off toward . . . nothing \u2013 vast acres of emptiness in the middle of the football pitch at the recreation ground.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always interpreted her vocalisation as an attempt to communicate, as the cartoon suggests, the everyday aspects of her life. Much like the loud drunk in the bar, she cannot help announcing her arrival \u2013 \u201cHey! I\u2019m here! How\u2019s it going? Haven\u2019t seen you around here in a couple of days \u2013 hope you\u2019ve not been under the weather. How\u2019s the wife? Kids still giving you grief? Hey! How about those Yankees?\u201d etc., etc., etc. If only she would do so a little bit more quietly!<\/p>\n

No rants this week, just a piece by David Mitchell<\/a> explaining that burgers and chips are the real reason behind our national incompetence. It must be true.<\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, we\u2019re back after a wonderfully enjoyable weekend with friends on the south coast \u2013 sorry for the interruption to your normal service. We drove down on Friday afternoon for a performance at the Brighton Comedy Festival by Jack Dee. (I was going to include a link to a YouTube video to give those of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “15 October 2012”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-ZA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}