Possum

On Saturday, I met my first opossum. This is the only marsupial in North America. It stopped in its tracks, looked at me, and then trundled off.
My camera had already given up the ghost by then, but managed to rally for two final and not very good pictures, sadly I didn't have time to zoom.
This must, I think, be a baby opossum because I am told they are usually the size of a small cat, whereas this one was only as big as a regular rat.
But to me, it was an extraordinary creature.

Yesterday we saw the last ever episode of two series. Firstly, the Sopranos. That's all I'll say, I have been cyber-spanked for mentioning big Tony before.
Secondly, and to me, more importantly, Trailer Park Boys. I'm not overly happy that there won't be any more series of Ricky, Bubbles and Julian, but I must sigh and admit that it has run its course.
The boys ended up bargaining with both US and Canadian police, from a stolen launch in the middle of the river. Who were they going to give themselves up to? The Americans or a drunken Jim Leahy? All I will say is that Conky has had his last stand.

So, this is the last week of programming. I downloaded and printed off the science curriculum in French, now I have to design some programmes around them. Oddly, I feel quite enthusiastic about this.

And one, two, three, I'm back to TV. I notice that ITV are showing a new drama series, Talk to Me, starring Max Beesley, he of Bodies and Hotel Babylon. The Graun's critics are divided. One thing seems clear though, Maxie baby, in spite of hardly being one of TV's pretty boys - and thank goodness, I'd far rather watch the kind of good acting we've come to expect from the likes of Beesley - has his kit off again.
Well whaddya know.

Bouncing all over the place here. One thing I admire about Whatcom county, Washington, is that they have a fair number of traffic cops out and they give on the spot $300 fines for speeding.
Splendid.
Richmond, or BC in general, could certainly take a leaf out of their book, the driving seemed to be less terrible down there too. On t'other hand, it must be said, you'd be hard pushed to be getting the old engine up to the kinds of speed limits allowed there. 70 mph is about 110 in our language. Still, a speed limit's a speed limit and that's all there is to it.

Now, much as I try (and repeatedly fail) not to tell other countries how to run the affairs of their nation, I feel a tad anxious about the new strategy the US military is using, the one where it gives weapons to disenchanted Sunnis, on the basis that they say they are fed up with Al-Quaeda - well, seriously, who isn't? - and that they have promised they won't kill any Americans.

The trap I must however avoid, is that of trying to understand what's going on anywhere in the world from reading journo's accounts. Standards of reporting have dropped rapidly over the past couple of years, although admittedly there's still a long way to go until they reach the level of our local rag. I think the technical expression for that garbage is sheer unadulterated crap and badly written to boot.

You might think, that if you have an actual job where you get paid for writing, that you may be able to use adverbs and past participles.
Well, you might think that, but all that proves is that you haven't read our local news-sheets.