Performing animals for the EU?

31 March

Simon Whaley is a writer and writing tutor, and overall I like his work. It seems that Simon is a very busy chap with several articles and short stories on the go at the same time, and as a full time writer he needs to do that because it’s his only income. I mentioned one his e-books yesterday, a ‘how to’ book for Wunderlist, which he says he uses daily and makes his work a lot more productive on a daily basis. Then I read on FB a quote from some bloke who say that we should only work on one project at a time. That’s fine for a successful novelist, but not for writers like Simon and of course, mesen; hmm, Dorktown slang that could be useful in Arathusia. As it is, after reading 75% of the Simon’s book, I’m not sure it would work for me really. I can see me spending more time sorting and resorting things on there than getting any serious writing done … we’ll see later.

Call the Council is a BBC documentary that is based in Wigan and looks at some of the issues raised when residents call the council over so many incidents that gets raised with them. This might be set in Wigan, but it could be any town/city within the UK. Anyway, yesterday they feature a young bloke wanted to turn his hobby into a full time job, sounds good eh? Normally I would be saying, ‘Yeah, good on yer mate!’ but this one is slightly different. He is an owner of a number exotic pets and his business was to take those pets into schools to try to educate the kids. OK, fine … but does that mean that pets then become performing animals and how does that lie with the ban on performing animals in a circus? Some of these things can be dangerous after all.

The young guy informed the council of what he want to do, so he is being up-front with it all, but then he found out that he actually needed a special licence to take the animals to schools. He finally got the go ahead for and his first show was filmed, and the kids loved it. Another issue I thought about while watching it was the need for CRB check seeing as he would be working with children, even if there was a number of adults in there as well. Generally, I think it’s a worthwhile effort and I wish him well. I’m just hoping some local do-gooder jobsworth doesn’t jump up and find something to complain about it.

The ‘stay in’ lobby have come up with another problem with leaving the EU, that of negotiating the departure. Beg pardon? If we want out, we leave, end of! They have pointed out the case of Greenland wanting out of the EU and the negotiations went for three years. But why was Greenland in it anyway? It’s more America than Europe. However, there may well be some sort of rule that would mean there will be some delay, and any deal can be succoured by just one ‘No’ vote from the other 27 nations involved.

There’s company in Brum that makes meat products and one of its best ones is a range of Cornish Pasties. When they started out they were using some really nice colourful labels. Then the EU poked their nose in and the coloured label; was rejected and now the makers have to have plain black and white label that lists all the ingredients and the nutritional information. That has made their products look the same as any other product, although I suppose they could use different colours for the labels. And remembers my friends, these are non-elected jobsworths we are speaking of, not elected UK people.

In another Midlands company, transport this time, the EU said that all commercial drivers must undergo job training on a yearly basis. One of those drivers was a 60-year-old man who has driven for that company for most of his working life. He came back off his course an unhappy man saying he had wasted a day being taught what he already knew about and practiced every working day. He put his notice in that day and retired. Have a look at your local papers and see how many companies are looking for drivers; there’s a national shortage of drivers and these silly buggerences from the EU do not help, they hinder. And here in soft touch Britain we apply everything they come out with while other members ignore them and go as normal.

Oh yes, we are going out early tomorrow so there will be no blog until Saturday, and then I shall a load of new photos to post.

A photo then … I love lots of colours …

Brollies on a Dorktown Market stall.

Today’s funny …

My dad said to me, 'Son, today I fought off the powers of darkness.'
I said, 'How did you do that?'
He said, 'I paid the electricity bill.'