End of pier show

I wanted to share these photos by Nigel Bowles - his copyright and I expect he'll tell me if he's not happy for me to put them up - of the West Pier in Brighton which was illuminated by lasers to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It creates a ghostly impression of how the pier used to look before it burnt down decades after it was abandoned and left to rot. I wish I had been there to see it...instead of wrapped up in my bed with a rotten cold.





The wreckage of the pier at the land end is being cleared away by the Council, hopefully, so that the plans to build an observation tower can go ahead. The i360 has been designed by same team as the London Eye and will make a brilliant contribution to the City. It has been delayed by those bastard bankers who have done their utmost to bring wrack and ruin on the country whilst continuing to line their own pockets. They will hopefully get their just come uppence, and we hopefully will get a new landmark on the South coast.

Pied Piper

We have a new guest in Buckhurst Hill. I was in the garage and looking into the garden, when I saw what I thought was a large leaf blow under the pallet that the boy had thoughtfully deposited there a year or so ago...in the full expectation of turning it into something significant. I have mentioned this before here. And indeed it has turned into something significant - a hiding hole for a large brown rat. I tried to follow it as it ran away, but they're sneaky little buggers, and it disappeared - either into the neighbours garden...or into our out house where the central heating boiler is. It is warm in there, and a lovely place to live. I am sure Mr Rat (AKA John Terry) is very comfortable there...I'm confident he is sitting on a sofa, puffing on a cigarette in a holder, with a glass of whisky whilst watching Rat TV. Not a bad life. But I think he has to go. He is not something of which I am overly fond. And I'm not sure if he has friends and family, but I'm not that keen on them either. It's only a small house, and there's not really enough room for the boy and I let alone guests.

I have called Rentokil to do the business. But unlike the Pied Piper, they demand money up front. Very wise. How daft was the Pied Piper, didn't he have a credit control department to sort out his finances? Not sure he would survive in today's economic climate. So for the princely sum of £299 plus VAT, Mr Rat will be served with an eviction order. He will be forced out, and probably will rot in the gutter (there's no guarantee we will be able to trace his corpse as he may keel over anywhere). And then order will be restored in the Nota Bene household.

...and all this on the day that ITV have been fined $3000Aus for killing a rat on I'm a celebrity get me out of here. I'm not sure I follow the logic. Perhaps Australians love their rats more than we. But not camels - I keep reading about a planned cull of feral camels wandering the Aussie outback. Is it April 1st?

You could, of course just listen to some music here