Following on from
yesterday's witterings it transpired that "er indoors TM"
had the flea comb in her bag all the time, so this morning after a
spot of brekkie I got Fudge up on my lap and gave his fur a
rake-through. He seemed to enjoy the process, and (fortunately)
he turned out to be completely flea-free. Which in my experience
seemed unusual. Previous dogs in my household have always had the odd
flea when being combed. Perhaps the modern anti-flea preparations are
better these days? It certainly makes me feel easier about giving "Mr
Trousers" the full run of the house.
However this doesn't
explain how I got so seriously bitten last weekend. Perhaps it was
mosquitoes which got me. They have certainly done for me in the past.
I then set off to work
slightly earlier than I might have - a new geocache had been launched
and it was on my way to work. Or so I thought. Whilst I got within
fifty metres of the thing, it was behind a row of houses on another
footpath. I shall have to plan my route a bit better before I try for
that one again. Or look at the map properly.
As I drove to work there
was an article or two on the radio which got some steam from that
most volatile of my bodily fluids. Apparently a candidate for the
American presidential elections is looking
down his nose at the sort of person who expects the state to
provide homes, healthcare and welfare provision. Call me an old
leftie if you will, but if the State doesn't provide homes,
healthcare and welfare provision for those that need them, why on
Earth do we bother having a State or a civilised society?
And talking of welfare
provisions, there was an interesting statistic announced on the same
radio programme. The claim was made that the average Danish chap who
is in all ways identical to a simular British chap can expect a fifty
per cent better return on his pension investments. That wound me up -
clearly there's something going seriously wrong somewhere!
Or so I thought.
When I went on-line to
look further into this I could find absolutely nothing to corroborate
what I'd heard on the radio; but I did find that this average Danish
chap won't get his pension until four
years after the comparable British chap will get his.
The moral of the story is
that I really shouldn't believe what I hear in the news. Another
example of this is given by the current campaign by St John's
Ambulance brigade to raise the profile of first aid in the general
public. A couple of days ago they made a very emotive claim on peak
time television that if the public were more aware of basic first aid
them 140 000 lives could be saved each year. However there is a
school of thought that they have their figures wrong by a factor
of nearly thirty. Who is right -St Johns or fullfact.org? How can we
ever know who we should believe?
Personally I have grave
reservations about the entire concept of first-aiders, but that's
another rant...
Meanwhile Fudge would
seem to have a look-alike at Legoland
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