OT pigeon hate

[Mary Fisher]

It's a deal.

Spouse won't have sardines in the house!

er- do puffins eat sardines?

Mary

[Andy Hall]

Snoek's a fish though?

[Eric The Viking]

Must be evolution at work...

ETV

[Mary Fisher]

It was whale.

In those days.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

He doesn't know what he's missing. Tell him that oily fish is good for him.

[Phil Young]

They're not very intelligent, they'd probably go for the dirty bomb instead. Since they're dirty bastards anyway.

Lack of opposable thumbs might let them down as well.

I had occasion the see some Ring-tailed lemurs close up a few years ago (in Devon, not Madagascar). Can't remember if they had thumbs as such, but I think they would probably be able to use a tin opener. If they managed to teach that to cats, then our usefulness would be at an end. Don't know what they taste like though....

Cheers,

Phil Young

[Mary Fisher]

I imagine they'd be a good target but I can't hit anything moving.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

He's fed up of hearing that! He vomits at the thought - honestly.

I love them, and herrings, kippers, mackerel etc. It took me years of devious persuasion to get him to eat salmon. And don't mention shellfish ...

At least he will now eat pork, rabbit, garlic, spinach and all kinds of game. He wouldn't when I first knew him. Still can't abide liver but will eat heart, kidneys etc.

I can't be too pushy.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

No, it was called snoek to try to fool us that we weren't eating whale, allegedly.

Trouble is, people at least in the north pronounced it 'snook', which is the noise you make when you force air up through your nose to dislodge snot and it made the product unpopular ...

But it was wartime, most things were rationed and we were hungry. You wouldn't believe what we ate - unless you admit to being old of course :-)

Mary

[Eric The Viking]

I see - and no-one would admit to being old enough to witness evolution at work ;-)

ETV

[Alan Vann]

Ah. Well round here we get the third type, Collared Doves. Bastards!

I just wish they could play a different tune occasionally, they are so monotonotonotonotonous.

Alan

[Seri]

Mary, just out of curiousity, what do you object to about people dropping cigarette ash out of a car window? I can understand object to someone dropping the actuall cigarette end or other litter, but can't understand the objection to the ash...

Only reason I ask is that I'm a smoker and do often flick the ash of my cigarettes out of the window (not the butts mind) under the assumption that there was nothing in this action that could cause offense...

Thanks for any response.

Seri

[dave]

Late folowup but... I don't think you are fully in tune with the spirit of this posting :-) but if you must take every word literally how about this:

One or two - or ten calls wouldn't be too bad. But often they go on and on dozens of times. It's the repetitiveness and the distance it travels I don't like. They blow so hard sometimes the sound goes into another mode of resonance. Go on, tell me they do that by intelligence :-) I guess that's the limit of their repertoire. This pausity of melodic sound is another indicator of their stupidity. Yes I know these factors are there for obvious purposes - but I haven't got to like it. Now take a blackbird. In the evening when it's doing it banal territorial din it's horrible. However take a sunny afternoon and just listen to those beautiful sounds from the same bird and the melodies it makes. Pretty damn good I think.

Crows and Magpies are as equally horrible as pigeons, sound-wise - but not as disgusting in their habits.

And as to their navigational abilities, do you think they conciously fly along fully aware of what they are doing! Of course not, it's a programmed reaction - just like breathing. It is an amazing ability but don't attribute it to their intelligence for goodness sake.

[Andy Hall]

My mother has mentioned it before now - I'll have to ask her.

It does seem unlikely that a new fish was discovered though.

Thinking that this sounds like a Dutch word, I did some searching and it appears that it is a Pike.

whale meat, at least when cooked, has more of the texture and taste character of meat, rather than fish.

[Mary Fisher]

It's litter. Do you drop it on your floor in your house?

Mary

>

[Mary Fisher]

I'm working on it ... be warned :-)

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Oh I know well what snoek is, I'm saying that in the 1940s people were very suspicious of a 'new' product which was - I don't like to say "forced" on us but appeared - and because of food shortages we ate it. I don't remember anyone enjoying it and the consensus was that it was whale. That was reported in the papers too but you know my opinion of those. I could never understand why whale was so undesirable anyway. But I didn't like 'snoek'. Mind you, I didn't like cow heel either but when you're hungry

a good dose of hunger would do no amount of good to today's picky children.

This stuff did. But pike caught in British waters is meat-textured and not fishy tasting. Well, that which has been caught by an angler friend and given to us has been. I'll have it any time, it's delicious and not at all like the wartime stuff we had.

Yes, those fish WERE pike, I was given them whole, not in fillets or steaks. You can't mistake a pike for anything else!

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Same with most of the animals and machines we live with.

[Mary Fisher]

Yes it is, that doesn'tmake them stupid.

paucity

Explain why if you want to persuade me.

Why don't you live somewhere where there are no birds?

It's the same noise.

er - why?

What evidence can you provide of your intelligence versus programmed reactions?

Mary

>

[John Schmitt]

Which accurately encapsulates my point. You are clearly confusing instinctive abilities with intellect, learning ability and resourcefulness.

Absolutely. In the Dark Ages, virtually all technical knowledge went down the drain. The Mayan, Inca and Egyptian civilizations all lost the vast majority, if not all, of their knowledge base. While the Romans introduced many innovations to Europe, it took a remarkably short time for all of that to collapse. The Renaissance vas a very accurate term for the period. Technology was back to square one. Various inventions were catalytic to a positive feedback loop of invention and learning.

While the majority of mt interest is the 20c, of which I have an entire

8' bookcase of books, lovingly compiled over more than 20 years, some very, very rare, I also dabble further back than that.

John Schmitt