22Jun 2007

Destroying the world three bits of paper at a time

Sorry, but this rant really has to be voiced now and not left to stew, otherwise it will ingrain itself on my brain forever and I’ll never be rid of it. And I don’t like rants following me around, it’s somewhat disconcerting. So if you don’t like rants, read no further. You have been warned.

Right, today I got some post. Three letters in fact. Nothing unusual about that, except that on first inspection all three envelopes looked identical. That’s odd, I thought, why would my bank be sending me three letters all at once? It was only when I opened them that it twigged what had happened. They were letters informing me of a change to the interest rate on my savings accounts. But rather than sending one letter to the owner of the accounts, they had sent one for each account, regardless of the address! Not only a waste of paper but a waste of ink and postage too. And no doubt there was an innocent computer involved too, using valuable processor time and inconveniencing a significant number of electrons, all to no purpose.

Ok, not the end of the world, but still.

Rant over.

22Jun 2007

The fish that wouldn’t die

Something got into our pond recently. I’m not sure what exactly, possibly a cat. No one saw the attack, but the evidence speaks for itself – one of our fish was this morning floating on its side with gashes down its side. However, somehow it’s still alive, though only just. In fact, it’s been like this for a couple of days now, and despite its “playing dead” it still lives. Which poses something of a problem, because although it looks dead, it isn’t, so I can’t bury it. It sort of looks like it might be in pain, or ought to be given the wounds, but since it still hasn’t died I’m wondering whether it might survive after all. What do I do?

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