Eleven Pipers Piping

Seems like it's not just me, but Wallace and Gromit have also been wondering about the meaning of this Christmas song. I will have to wait to see what their thoughts are though.

The weather has changed from dark and lowering in the west with hints of blue in the east, to harsh, sleety showers and then back again to blue skies plus energetic winds.

I went to the Nature Park to see Lori - who told me about W&G. We're going on a Field Trip to Vancouver Island tomorrow, just the near part you understand, I say that for those of you who have long lost rellies in Port Alberni. If we get hopelessly, hideously lost, I'll look them up, however, the plan is Victoria.

As I drove into the Nature Park car park, a car was spilling children out, like tennis balls being set loose from some...tennis ball holding thing. Bounce, bop, fall, bounce again, and somehow it becomes my responsibility to keep them from beneath the wheels of my car. What a contrast, I thought to myself, when I watched Sue get her two kids out of the car, Holly gets out first, is taken to the pavement side, where she has been trained to keep one hand on the car until Teddy is out and in his pushchair.

Now who wouldn't want to encourage Jews, Christians and Muslims to co-operate peacefully on some project that they all felt was of burning and universal importance? Well the answer to that is, no-one who cares about human rights. I really get the hump with these bigots, they can't seem to see the inconsistency, any of them, in believing in a perfect being and the sheer abject hatred entailed in denying one part of society the same dignity and rights as any others.
And if they can't get that, then get this. The article I refer to was in the Daily Nazi, and even the Daily Nazi readers, so this is like VERY RIGHT WING BIGOTS we're talking about now, don't get why these religious groups are getting arsey towards the gay community.
So that, my beardy friends, makes you more intolerant than Hitler.

At some point it would be good if someone, somewhere in our lazy fat-arsed society took responsibility for something. I'm very sorry that two little boys have succeeded in hanging themselves, but blaming TV? Give me a break.
In standard pathology anyway, it's not boys who self-harm.

Where are we on Citizenship education? It is the duty of every Citizen to uphold the law. But do we teach kids to do that, or take responsibility for their own safety? What models do we show them?
Adults frequently take the option of least resistance, slide beneath the law, blame everyone else, think it's unreasonable for them to teach their own children manners, respect, responsibility, cry foul whenever things go wrong, or even when they perceive things not going the way they want.
There are people who think nothing is worth fighting for, that others shouldn't have the same rights as us.
That education isn't important, something that the State forces onto people, that health care is just a right on which there should be no limit.
That the Police should protect us without being respected.
That politicians will heal the planet and if we all suffocate or are irradiated then it's their fault.
That we can't help copying what we see on TV, but not the good stuff.
That it's the TV's fault for showing us stuff, not that we have the possibility not to look.
That we don't need God, but the one we'll take is the one we mangle in our own image.

Hmmm...well at least Wallace and Gromit still have values.