Shooting Parrots

E is for Edgar the Etheling

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday and for Round Ten I am focusing on people from the past, some famous, others less so. If asked who became King of England after the Battle of Hastings, most people, me included, would say William the Conqueror, but in fact it was Edgar the Etheling (or Ætheling [...]

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Writing Nothing At All

Monday, 13 February 2012

Isn’t it odd the way that blogger’s block can hit you out of the blue? One minute you’re all self-opinionated and the next there’s not a thought in your head, original or otherwise. I did start a few posts, but they didn’t really go anywhere. For example, I began writing about Abu Qatada and the [...]

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All Right Jack

Thursday, 9 February 2012

I can’t think of a thing to write about at the moment, not that that has stopped me before, so I thought I’d simply publish this photo of our dog Jack. It’s one I took at Christmas as he chomped his way through one of his treats. The reason it has surfaced again now is [...]

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D is for Dr Dicky Doyle

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday and for Round Ten I am focusing on people from the past, some famous, others less so. Dicky Doyle was a doctor who successfully treated a man who had been partially decapitated at the notorious Changi jail in Singapore during World Wat Two. Born in LIverpool in 1906, [...]

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Alpha Course

Monday, 6 February 2012

I am occasionally pulled up on the spelling errors and typos that crop up in Shooting Parrots and that is how it should be. If it wasn’t for the metaphorical blue pencil, where would the language be? And because I’m prone to a gaffe or two myself, I’m loath to point the grammatical finger, but [...]

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Blue Skies

Friday, 3 February 2012

High pressure over the UK has meant that we’ve enjoyed clear blue skies over the past few days. I say ‘enjoy’ even though the same conditions have kept the temperature low, but at least it has been still, so no wind chill factor. I should have made the most of it and been out there [...]

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Rolling Rice Krispies

Thursday, 2 February 2012

I’ve embarked on my fourth round of ABC Wednesday, deciding this time to focus on people, famous or otherwise, and interesting things you may not know about them. For example, did you know that Bob Dylan tried his hand at acting in the UK early in his career, appearing in a BBC play, Madhouse on [...]

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C is for George Cayley

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday and for Round Ten I am focusing on people from the past, some famous, others less so. The first person to fly in a heavier-than-air machine wasn’t the Wright brothers, but an unknown coachman who did so in 1853. He worked for the Yorkshireman, Sir George Cayley, sometimes [...]

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Age Old Story

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

I have been sat by the phone all morning, but it has remained silent, apart from someone called Andy from a call centre in India trying to sell me something that I couldn’t understand due to his impenetrable accent. I’m sure it would have been worth my while persevering with the conversation, but I had [...]

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