FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Morning refit

First LOL of the day goes to the Haunted Pencil--

Many people have pointed out the distorted cross on his shoulder, but also...

Russia on yesterday's terrorist atrocity - "it wasn't actually Ukraine who did it, but it was Ukraine's fault anyway"

Meanwhile ....

Timeline
September - those four massive apartment bombings
First October invasion of Chechnya
By December Putin a national hero

Former Russian FM --

I assume that Sky is still on his hols then?

click on pic !

Except that he was (probably) from modern day Turkey, as pointed out in the comments

Evening.

Had a pleasant weekend away from the madness of news and politics. My brother's other half got us backstage at a small semi-private zoo in Nantwich (It's part of a college). We got to feed lemurs, tickle a tapir and visit George an old, deaf, grumpy serval. He made it absolutely clear that we'd pissed him off by waking him up and treated us with absolute contempt. I recognised a kindred spirit immediately.

Oh and for anyone wondering if nationalising the trains suddenly makes them great my journey home this evening would suggest otherwise. The Northern (nationalised) train I was booked on was cancelled with no reason given, so I jumped on the next one, a Transpennine Express (nationalised) that was delayed in Manchester on the way for 20 minutes (no reason given) then I ended up getting into an argument with the ticket inspector who took issue with the fact that I was on the wrong train. He told me if a train is cancelled you have to get the next one with the same company, but I pointed out that both companies are now publicly owned so are in effect the same company so what difference did it make? In the end he decided to be magnanimous and let me off because I was obviously ignorant of the vagaries of train fare rules and wasn't trying to pull a fast one. Little did he know I was fully aware of said rules and was indeed pulling a fast one because now I can claim a full refund from Northern after getting home for free. Dumbass.

To be fair Northern Rail has been transformed immeasurably for the better compared to the absolute shambles it was when it was privately run, but it's taken years and hopefully we'll see the same with Transpennine.

As you may remember my brother's partner used to work in a zoo and told me if you tickle a tapir just right it'll lie on its side and let you tickle its tummy like a cat.

Tapirs are quite large animals so I let her demonstrate the technique first.

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Awwww