I received a sad and somewhat shocking piece of news today, a tragedy enough at any time, but at this time of year doubly so.
It is not necessary go into any kind of detail here, but it does give me a chance to finally publish a quote I came across some time ago.
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.-Og Mandino
I realise that the general standard of writing on this site could be better, but having read a few comments to the site recently, don't know whether to be elated that my writing is so much better, or that standards seem to be in such terminal decline.
For example, a recent comment from a reader at the "American University in Cairo", quoted in full:
its very easy to get the job done, but you have to focus on the rite areas in order to get that specific job done,we have had alot of definitions on the "who are runing your country". so why not delete those definitions, i love the U.S and i will end up living their one day, because "i believe that it is a great country but it just needs to be cleaned" cleaned for good, and get the dirt out for good,send them on their bikes,
common sense, this is a very intelegent student writing with alot of knowledge and own personal experience which you could need,
coz rite now things are not going well,
the states standards are dropping big time due to you no what, and i want something done about it, i cant live to see a great nation be injured due to some hairy bastards!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pity the plain english campaign award nominations have closed.
One of the cats ran up into a neighbour's tree sometime on Tuesday morning,
and it was still up there twenty four hours later.
Now, for anyone who ends up getting a cat stuck up a tree (and you live in the UK), the procedure is to wait for 48 hours, call the RSPCA, and they'll call out the fire brigade.
The RSPCA informed me that the fire service won't come out unless the cat has been in the tree for two days, as the cats have a nasty habit of jumping out of a tree in fright when being approached by strange men in uniform. If a cat is still up after two days, it is less likely to jump, so they tell me.
Anyway, this little moggie was meowing continually all night through to Wednesday morning. Faced with having to leave him up there another day before the professionals would turn up, I resorted to trying to coax the cat down with talking, arm waving, and a tin of sardines. Amazingly after a while this started to work, as the cat took a few tentative steps down the branch towards the trunk. Some time later he got up the courage to climb down the trunk of the tree. Finally this cold wet moggie was down to the ground.
5 minutes later and he was acting like nothing had happened. grrr.
