15 Octoober 2012 (Monday) - Geese

Yesterday I mentioned that I'd found a website advertising bonfire events. I've been trying to find one of those for years. Now that I have found what I've been looking for I've spent a little while updating my calendar with one or two bonfire parades for the next few weeks. I do like a good burn up and a firework show.
On the theme of bright lights in the sky I've also pencilled in an observing session for an upcoming meteor shower as well: I bet it's cloudy that night. It usually is when anything astronomical is going on.
Why not click on the "Dates for the Diary" link above and if you're free you might want to come along to some of these? Wrap up warm if you do.
 
To work. The roads weren't as busy as sometimes they can be when I'm on a late start. There was fun and games at the farm shop. As I pulled up there was a herd of geese performing what I can only describe as military manoeuvres in the car park. They were clearly not going to move for anyone; and driving round them took some doing. I got my fruit and veg and came out to find the geese all lined up with what looked like a boss goose inspecting their ranks. I wonder what they were up to.
I also wonder what the collective term for a herd of geese is; and what is the correct terminology for a boss goose.

The morning's news was somewhat contradictory. There was all sorts of spiel about it being twenty years since the formalising of the European partnership into a political and economic entity. And for all that the average man in the street hates "Johnny Foreigner" there were no end of pundits being wheeled on to the radio to sing the praises of the European ideal and to say what a good idea the European partnership is. Unity is far better than dissolution, and we were given loads of evidence to support this standpoint.
There was also news about the formal referendum for Scottish independence. And all sorts of pundits spouted all sots of reasons why Scottish independence would be a good thing. Not that I'm any expert, but it did seem that the reasons why Scotland should become an independent country were exactly the same reasons why forming a closer European union is a good idea.
Interestingly it would seem that the vast majority of our Caledonian cousins want to remain as part of Great Britain. It is odd that Scottish independence should figure so highly on the Scottish political agenda when all the opinion polls show the majority of Scots are against independence and that any referendum will probably be a foregone conclusion.
It never fails to amaze me how isolationist jingoism can remain a viable proposition.


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