14 February 2011 (Monday) - This 'n' That



Being on a late start I checked the news. I *know* it winds me up. But today I had a sense of reassurance. Last week we were told that our place of work is not treating the forthcoming royal wedding day as a bank holiday. Today I found out that we are not alone. Have a look on Google – lots of councils, local authorities, large and small companies are treating the day as business as usual. It’s a disgrace – I was actually planning on having a houseful and staging a party-cum-booze-up whilst watching the wedding on the telly. And now I can’t. So much for patriotism….
And the same will happen next year with the extra bank holiday supposedly promised for the Queen’s diamond jubilee. It’s all very well for the Prime Minister to announce a bank holiday – he’s not the one who has to deliver on his promises.

On Saturday I mentioned that I was in Jey’s Pets where I was particularly taken by the baby royal pythons. Many years ago I bought my first ever royal python. His name was Snoopy, he didn’t feed (like a lot of royals), and he died whilst in the care of a reptile expert friend of mine. I did better with my second royal python. Ken went on to lay eggs (!), and over the years I built up something of an expertise on the subject of pythons, royal and otherwise. Do I miss having a house full of snakes? No. not at all!
Apropos of nothing I had a look at the prices of vivaria on eBay. Specifically small ones. Ones that would house a couple of royal pythons or a couple of leopard geckoes, to pick a couple of reptile species entirely at random.
There are half a dozen such vivs that are up for auction ending during the week. All of which are currently under a tenner, and all offer free postage. I say “free postage” – they are advertised as “buyer collects”, but they are all within an hour’s drive of home. I don’t really want to get any snakes or lizards again, but it doesn’t hurt to have a look to see what’s available. Does it…

And then I played with the blog’s settings. I had a look at the tracking software: it’s amazing how many people all over the world tune in to my drivel on a regular basis. Yesterday sixty different people from all over the world read what I had to say about Rye Harbour – and I have no idea who many of my loyal readers are.
One thing I have noticed is that my blog entry for 9 December 2009 gets a phenomenal amount of hits. It relates the episode when I had a wisdom tooth taken out, and I can’t work out why this blog entry should be so popular. In the last week alone that blog entry has been read by people in Brighton, Sheffield, Birmingham, Germany, India and Finland. I can’t see how that blog entry has anything unique compared to the other 1000+ entries to recommend itself.
I also added two more blogs to my blogroll (the list of blogs with which I keep myself up to date). All (but one) of my favourite blogs are listed in the panel on the right hand side and I’ve set it so’s that the five most recently updated blogs are visible as links. I was amazed to find that I have thirty three blogs on the list of blogs that I follow. Some are updated almost on a daily basis, some haven’t been touched in a year. Some are by very good friends, some are written by people I’ve never met.
But I do like reading all of them…. Except the one in Russian. I’m glad that one comes with videos…

1 comment:

  1. I found out about this today. However, next year's Jubilee Day is just the Spring Bank Holiday that's been moved, so we'll have to have that as a bank holiday, otherwise there will be a riot

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