The Gray Monk: Bits 'n pieces

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April 23, 2005

Bits 'n pieces

It's quite a while since I linked anything to several of my favourite blogs, and I really should make more effort. Apart from anything else, it gives me a chance to see what makes others excited and to share that with my own readers. The Laughing Wolf is one such blog, and I will own to having a fondness for wolves anyway, but this one is articulate and has a wide range of interests. Photography, especially wildlife photography is one of them. The pictures of a wolf in this post are worth a visit!

I enjoy photographing wildlife myself, but I have little opportunity these days to get close to any of the really interesting animals. My recent trip to South Africa provided a chance to photograph some cheetahs, but not much more. I have recently bought a new camera with a bigger zoom and a clearer definition - the trouble is, the poictures are now way too big to post! A solution will have to be found when I can figure out how to play with Photoshop properly!

Trying to catch up on the blogs of several other friends is, these days, a little fraught, as I have a lot happening both at the Abbey, but more annoyingly, at work. Idiots now rule! Got that! Right!

Anyway, I know exactly how Cyn feels when her radio, television and apparently other sound producing equipment reacts to her presence! I've given up trying to sort out my bedside radio entirely; I put it down to my magnetic personality and threw away the radio.

Da Goddess to seems to be having a few trying times at present, and I hope that she soon finds smoother waters. The image she paints of receiving an epidural only partially under local anaesthetic makes shudderful reading - and that's only part of it! Hopefully she's now out of the trees at least, if not the woods themselves!

Suzie, of Practical Penumbra is also having fun(?) chasing bureaucrats. I'm glad to see that the peculiar brand of circular thinking in bureaucracy is not confined to these shores. It is a universal qualification for bureaucrats everywhere. The more important the official, the tighter the circle in which the thinking is done. I wonder if it's evolutionary? If it is, perhaps the bureaucratic gene will eventually achieve the feat of the OohJah Bird and dissappear up it's own back passage!

As if one was not enough, her post labelled "It's a long way to tip a rarie" made me smile - especially as the day job has, for years been about trying to address public safety!

On the Third Hand has a story that could only have come from the Far East, the Philippines in fact! The Filipino President and their Congress has a number of interesting ideas on "fair trade" in a "deregulated environment". Their largely government owned oil company is struggling - market share is 38% - and so, the President sees no problem in "urging" Filipinos to shun all rivals and buy only from Petron. Not to be outdone, the Congressmen are demanding that they stop buying oil from Opec. Mind you, one of the more fascinating aspects of life there is the "Pork Barrel" Budget - a special projects budget from which Congressmen and Senators ddraw funds for "Projects" in their constituencies. Whatever the project, they get to put up a huge sign proclaiming their "generosity" in funding it. Even bus shelters have these signs on them!

Oh well, the Piso continues to sink, my bank still won't buy back from me the handfull of large Piso notes I have left from my last business trip there!

Finally, on Dodgeblogium, a guest poster called Guido Fawkes has an interesting view of the Labour Party. Certainly something to think on and maybe look into a little more sometime when I have a moment.
Well, I had better get back to work and do something to earn my crust. More reading of blogs soon - I promise!

Posted by The Gray Monk at April 23, 2005 10:44 AM

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