Showing posts with label austerity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label austerity. Show all posts

Monday, May 27, 2013

Austerity Bites


This is the birdtable I see when I look out the kitchen window. The wife got it way back to give the birds a place to dine safe from marauding cats and other wildlife. When I see all the birdseed gone, it reminds me to go and put out some more. Pigeons, robins, tits and the like all vie with each other for space there. And even the pigeons, the biggest of the birds to come to dinner, often end up fighting among themselves and pushing one another out into the air.

So I'm inclined to keep an eye on it, both for entertainment and to attend to my duties as Maître d'.

When I looked out this morning I saw what looked like a lump of poo (above) that would do a large rabbit credit. What, in God's name, I wondered, had been in and left its calling card? So out I went to investigate.



It turned out, however, that the intruder was still there and doing his best to consume the avian vittles. Clearly austerity was biting so hard that it was even affecting the slugs on the ground. This guy had climbed all the way up the Empire State building for a bite of breakfast.

First time I'd ever seen the like.

Not a very merry bellwether, methinks.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Happy Christmas 2012

Christmas Display @ "TEMPTED Size 16-28"
Raheny Shopping Centre, 2007

Just to shift a little this year from Santa and Rudolf and the Sleigh to the Gaffer Elf in Santa's workshop. It is clear that in this era of austerity, high-wage-cost elves have had to be let go and some lower cost locals, themselves in danger of extinction, have been drafted in. And worse, in view of the increase in austerity crime, elaborate alarm and protection systems have had to be installed at the North Pole atelier.

Nevertheless, Santa is expected to start out on his usual trip on Christmas Eve, though some children may have to wait till the New Year before he reaches them as the Reindeer herd has had to be downsized as an economy measure.

As Rudolf himself is getting on, and not up to pulling the loads of nether years, Santa may have to leave gift tokens rather than the actual requested items in a significant percentage of cases. In this, he has promised to have due regard to equitable burden-sharing and rewards based on performance during the year.

Be Good in 2013