Tuesday February 19, 2008

Wildlife in the city...

Anyone who lives in a city will know animals like foxes are moving in. But amazingly enough the fastest bird, the Peregrine falcon is also find a home in the cities. This morning we were shown their latest high rise abode Lincoln Cathedral . Another family were seen in a block of flats last year. These places are safe and there is plenty of food in the form of pigeons around, who do not stand much of a chance when falcons birds attack them at speeds around 100MPH. A last point is these birds are finding they can hunt at night with amount of artificial lighting around them making city life even more attractive.

Lights on please ( repeat)

My first Grumpy old man entry.. since restarting writing these weblogs..

Like autumn when road users start their journey in daylight but... people are not putting their lights on when they need too. I drove home usual time the other night and lots of cars did not have their lights on. It is amazing the difference it makes when you look at a line of cars and one of them does not have their headlights on. Worse was a regulated L plate car - the one you pay money for a lesson was blithely going along with no lights on. Whether or not the car had a learner in it or was being driven by the instructor is irrelevant it is not a good example to the rest of us. This news article confirms what I heard - that in four years new cars will have their lights on all the time. Given my recent experiences on the road I am coming round to the idea.

Being flushed away..

On BBC Breakfast today they told the sad story about the state of public toilets. On Sunday I used one in Henley which was Solar powered, very clean, with vandal proof washbasins. The reality is the number of open toilets is decreasing and councils are not obliged to keep them open anyway.

Amazingly enough there is a British Toilet Association what other country in the world would have one of those! In early March a consultation about the state of our pubic toilets is to be published with a strategy for going forward.

I am sure most of us have nipped into a pub or fast food outlet when the call of nature got too desperate and now in Richmond certain places have stickers in their windows inviting people to use their facilities. What a fantastic idea.