28.12.05

The Chances

I mind as 'ow the night afore that show
Us five got talking, -- we was in the know,
"Over the top to-morrer; boys, we're for it,
First wave we are, first ruddy wave; that's tore it."
"Ah well," says Jimmy, -- an' 'e's seen some scrappin' --
"There ain't more nor five things as can 'appen;
Ye get knocked out; else wounded -- bad or cushy;
Scuppered; or nowt except yer feeling mushy."

One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops.
T'other was hurt, like, losin' both 'is props.
An' one, to use the word of 'ypocrites,
'Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz.
Now me, I wasn't scratched, praise God Almighty
(Though next time please I'll thank 'im for a blighty),
But poor young Jim, 'e's livin' an' 'e's not;
'E reckoned 'e'd five chances, an' 'e's 'ad;
'E's wounded, killed, and pris'ner, all the lot --
The ruddy lot all rolled in one. Jim's mad

-Wilfred Owen
The Hand that Signed the Paper Felled a City
by: Dylan Thomas

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand the holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.
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22.12.05

We are like roses that have never bothered to
bloom when we should have bloomed and
it is as if
the sun has become disgusted with
waiting

- Charles Bukowski

16.12.05

Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'

Local people suggest hunger is driving squirrels to extremes.

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in
a Russian park, local media report.

Passers-by were too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a
village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.

They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some
carrying pieces of flesh.

A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food
sources,although scientists are sceptical.

The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in
the Maritime Territory, and was witnessed by three local people.

A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels
hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended
and attacked, reports say.

"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina
told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

"When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking
pieces of their kill away with them."

Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he
had ever heard of such an attack.

While squirrels without sources of protein might attack birds' nests,
he said, the idea of them chewing a dog to death was "absurd".

"If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests," he
added.

Komsomolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn
chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory.

A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no
pine cones at all" in the local forests this year.

"The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he
added.