Monday, January 29, 2007

Ducks and things

The Florida duck who survived being shot, stored in a fridge for 2 days and having major surgery has made the international news today.

Don't quite understand why, apart from the amazing lust for life and survival spirit of the duck, or the medical genius of the Goose Creek Vets... the duck was found in a hunter's fridge... don't hunters shoot things as a sport anyway? This one - Perky the Duck - just happened to be the One That Got Away, in spectacular fashion. Can't have been the only 'trophy' in his fridge, or the first, or the last, shot duck (or shot anything) in America. As his wife took that particular nearly-dead duck off to the vet, as it wasn't quite dead, I guess he* went out and shot a few more to refill that fridge... can't let all the pesky blighters escape, with all this sentimental attention being generated...

Nice to know some people got emotional over Perky's miraculous survival, though. At least he escaped being made into a leggy little morsel like Mrs Beeton's recipes.

Actually, I saw a couple of ducks walking along Oxford Street once, in the West End of London. They looked very purposeful, obviously knew where they were going... quite streetwise, really. Mallards. Nice.

Curious the way your mind works when you start writing, lurching from one bit of mindless trivia to another.... anyway... I noticed a new Duckie link on the Whitmore blog earlier, so I had a look. I know they're people, not ducks, but I like the Reader's Wife's Music Manifesto, as it's always good to shatter mindless stereotypes of musical taste, as they do.

Maybe I'll write something really intellectual tomorrow, now my scaffolding has been taken down, and there's no chance of being woken up first thing in the morning by builders on the balcony any longer, accompanied by their ubiquitous bottom cleavage. Not a nice sight at the best of times, and certainly not before breakfast, believe me.

*I'm guessing the hunter is a man. Sounds like a manly American past-time, somehow.

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