Pig Sty Avenue

Don't you just hate it when you bump into your ex unexpectedly?

Maybe Johnny Boy "I am the Enforcer" bastard-face Reid isn't as stupid as he looks . Despite being a knob-head with an ego the size of that newly discovered planet , he's realised that going up against Brown would be absurd. So credit the bastard with some sense of reality, at least... Hopefully, this tragic attempt to ingratiate himself to the incoming Big Cheese won't be enough to stop Papa Gordon from kicking his bony white arse onto the backbenches, and free us of a pox and a curse. Actually, as the Blair fandango winds down, it should give everyone a warm glow to think of all the sneaking, jockeying for position, bullying, wheedling, indeed, Brown-nosing, which must be going on behind the scenes right now. Twats.

But what if you thought all rugby players were posh hooligans?

This is weird looking enough to avoid being a cute/funny cat photo. I found it when looking for something to contribute to a typically post ironic thread in DMU . Not much time to post anything, the Certificate in FE (etc) course is reaching a crescendo. I was tidying up a classroom which had been used the day before for a 6th form exam, and someone had written on a desk "this is the last exam I will do EVER!" If only things were that simple. "Life long learning" forsooth. Keeps the middle aged out of the pub.

More where that came from, here .

... is back with a bump and a makeover, and has plans for intrepid psychonautery any day now. What a numpty!

We ate the last onion of 2006 last night. The rest of the meal was made up of vegetables from the shop. This is shameful. We planted some absurdly early first early potatoes under glass back in January , but they only began to grow a few weeks ago, and won't crop until June at the earliest. I'm blogging this now to put down a marker, and remind myself that we don't want to be in this situation this time next year. The answer is, more root vegetables stored, more spring cabbage, and quite a lot of all-year-round things like chard (and rocket [?]) Incidentally, whilst googling around this idea, I turned up an article about The Cattle Trade and Agrarian Change on the Eve of the Railway Age . The link's there so that I can get back and read it when I get an idle moment - God only knows when that'll be.

Scandalous behaviour!

... Zaghawa . Sociolinguistically, it's noteworthy that when asked what their first language is, students will tell you the language in which they received their education: Arabic, or French or Swahili, and keep shtum about their first language - the language they learned as babies. We might think that they are unwilling to mention the language of their home because it has diminished status. But maybe they think their linguistically curious teacher is a nosey parker? Maybe asking someone "What do speak at home?" isn't too far away from "What do you say at home?" To which "none of your business" could be an appropriate response. I only mention it now because a student told me today, when I was helping him fill in a form, that his first language is really Zaghawa, not Arabic as he had said before. Arabic is "for outside". Zaghawa is difficult for outsiders to learn, he said: "like Chinese".

Learn one language well, or several not-so-well? Anyhow, I'm going for French next. We're planning on spending Christmas in Pyrénées-Orientales . And I'd like to learn Catalan one day, too. Learning languages: it's a right laugh.

Brill.

... Corin made this GIF of me. I seem to recall the original photo was taken under the influence of much Guinness. Cute, eh?

The BNP are fielding more candidates than ever . They are certainly active round our way . During the current local election campaign, I've only had a total of three leaflets through the door, one from Labour and the other two from the BNP, and one of them was glossy, unlike Labour's MS Office photocopied baloney. They don't have their usual issues here: no minorities to pick on. What they will seek to exploit is disillusion with a smug Labour council who've been in power for generations.

Digging, planting, painting, studying, thinking... More nonsense later.

on the palace green , originally uploaded by /pɪgstaɪævnjuː/ .

more fun with peas , originally uploaded by /pɪgstaɪævənjuː/ . In keeping with the pea and Molly theme. I love this photo. Well, Moll's in it, of course. And there's something of the 1960s in its atmosphere, and I'm becoming increasingly attracted to photos from that era.

molly loves peas II , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I don't like these frozen peas you get in pubs. Molly loves them. So I give her mine. Problem solved.

In a week, this nest will be hidden by foliage. It was a rare thing to be able to watch the two little birds lining it with bits of tissue and downy feathers from a nearby pigeon cree today.