Catblogger

Sophie Puss was born in New Zealand so when I moved back here I brought her with me.  She is a lovable, lively cat now ten years old and enjoys a game with a cheap toy although she is addicted to a catmint mouse bought from the PDSA stand in Queenborough two years ago.  I can put my hand into those sharp claws and teeth and play-fight without getting totally scragged.   My last cat - Toots - was a maniac and all the time she had sharp teeth and sharp claws its was a case of shredded fingers and antiseptic washes followed by sticking plaster dressings and using a chewable object instead.   Sophie is just as active but less ferocious. 

The rumors have it that in the near future we will be able to claim a subsidy for purchasing an electrically powered motor vehicle. Wow! Great idea? First we have to have the infrastructure in place to service them; next we have to realise that if everybody changed over we will have to have extra power supplied to make up for the demand and most importantly the money to pay for the change. Granted we have to find a way of reducing our energy use and pollution to try and conserve finite resources but we also need to take a look at the way we live and ask the question: do we really need the motor car?

Is it possible to channel the proposed electric revolution into a comprehensice transport system that will enable us all to travel at costs we can afford? We are used to travelling at will in cars often as sole occupants on journeys that could be better served by frequent, cheap and efficient public transport.

The knee jerk reaction to the dire situation of the car market by the government is silly. Without thinking the situation through the idea is daft because what is needed is an integrated system that will employ the minds of engineers and systems designers to produce a solution that has not just had money thrown at it.

For a person in my situation an electric car, a new car or even a better car is not a viable proposition - in other words I cannot afford it so it will be on the bus or foot using a rail card or perhaps a bike.

The proposed few thousand pounds for an electric car could be better used making public transport work The car makers can do what other manufacturers have had to do in the past - change to another product.

On a more cheerful note I thought I must talk about the place I live.  Sheppey and Sittingbourne in Kent is considered by some as an area of outstanding mediocraty.  Recently I took a stroll around Sittingbourne which is not the most attractive of towns I have to admit and I was pleasantly surprised at what I found.  I was taking photo's to put on our local writer's group website to show a little of the area's more attractive parts - an exercise to cheer people up who live there. 

The result was a Spring showing that even in the middle of town was pleasant.  Nice pubs and a cheerful looking street and some wonderful displays of daffodils and magnolias; the latter in gardens and the former also in gardens but as additions to public spaces including roadside berms, cemetaries, church yards and our local sports fields.

Sittingbourne can be a treat in spring. 

Now that the Somalian pirates have defied the US forces sent to assist and had the gall to hi-jack an American ship we are likely to see some fireworks. The oops factor has kicked in and these high seas criminals have made a mistake. When I was a boy I used to like the idea of a Pirate movie or playing game with my friends in which we, as pirates, captured ships and took prisoners who were made to walk the plank or captured one of the girls and held her hosstage, although one of them always wanted to be pirate captain. This as you can imagine was a bit of nuisance for us boys as we expecetd the girls to be girls and not tom-boys. Unfortunately this one was a tougher than some of us and got her way - she was also quite pretty and those early stirring unrecognised for what they were encouraged giving way.

The game was fun and although I had some idea that piracy was not all peg legs and parrots that squawked 'pieces of eight' I was happy to play my part. The sword fighting and the silly accents we adopted were all part of it as well as the romantic movie images, and of course the book Treasure Island, the story of Peter Pan and Hook and the popular hero worship of Sir Francis Drake who was little more than a state sponsored pirate if historians have it right. The bloodthirsty appeal of a pirate on the Spanish Main was a great draw for a boy. It was later as an adult that I realised how awful a pirate's life must have been; short, brutal and precarious.

Today we have an expectation of being able to travel wherever we wish within reason by air and sea and to be wise about going to places we consider to be dangerous, as westerners that is, but we do expect to cruise the seas with safety other than for storms and such sea borne hazards. Piracy doesn't come into it.

Except that is for the Somali pirates who are getting bolder. It is time they were reminded that attacking the US, European and Russian ships is a mistake. In 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and learned that the Paper Tiger had claws and teeth and they got badly mauled. The US was taken by surprise and in 2001 Al Queada attacked the US which created a reaction - the US got annoyed and fought back. That is a difficult fight.

The pirates of Somalia by attacking a US ship have grabbed a Tiger by the tail and the nature of tigers is to turn on their attackers and bite them. Oops! Let us watch the claws and teeth in action - take a lesson from Entebbe and the recent French attack to release a yacht siezed by the pirates, or from the bravery of the passengers inn the aircraft on its way to damage the White House.

When you insult American patroism you take a tiger by the tail and should expect to get bitten on the bum.