A family in Northern Ireland only found out what their cat had been doing to protect the household when they put the cat in a cattery while they went on holiday. Upon their return, the father found that wiring had been chewed and he caught nineteen rats in a twenty four hour period. The cat had been quietly holding the line for them up till then.Once the wiring has been attacked, it is safest to vacate the property until the infestation is dealt with and renovations made. Some drastic pest control measures are only possible with a vacant property.
Wednesday 28 September 2016
Tuesday 20 September 2016
Madmen and the Threat to Cats
According to the Daily Express, Peter Marra, a "leading scientist," thinks that cats should be culled on a global scale, and any allowed to live should be banned from going outside. There have been similar views expressed, though in a less obviously madman voice, by some conservationists in the United Kingdom, including Chris Packham. (And now Stephen Moss.)
Thing is, over the past fifty years or so, around the world there have been a number of determined anti-cat pogoms, usually launched by local governments in authoritarian communist countries, and the result has been a plague of rats and/or mice every time. Voles, too, are capable of staging spectacular plagues in rural areas; this is usually a sign that foxes have been suppressed as well as cats. Cats are indeed efficient hunters, and human civilization might have fallen long ago if they weren't. Control of rodents by poisons and traps is expensive and simply doesn't work. Rodents become immune to the poisons and the traps have to be laid in unrealistic numbers and it takes a huge amount of man hours to keep checking and resetting the traps.
The last flat the blog author lived in had rats in the basement (where all the electricity meters were) and despite months of fiddling about blocking holes and laying poison, the professional human pest controller had completely failed to eradicate them, even though they were chewing on wiring and posing a lethal fire hazard thereby to the people living in the flats. There were no cats allowed in the building. The landlord eventually put the flats up for auction because he couldn't get on top of the rat problem and obviously piously hoped that someone else would have better luck!
In parts of Southern England, Ring Necked Parakeet populations are also reaching plague levels, so we need to be suspicious of cat haters claiming that they are just trying to protect the birds.
Further on the same topic:
The RSPB has stated that responsible cat ownership is not a conservation issue in the United Kingdom.
It has also been established, for example, that what caused the huge drop in Nightingale numbers in England was not predation but a big increase in the number of Muntjac deer selectively eating the Nightingale's habitat of low woodland undergrowth. Other species have suffered badly from changes in the countries that they have to cross to reach the British Isles, making migration more difficult. This includes deserts spreading, water holes drying up, increased cultivation and development of former woodlands after (arson initiated) forest fires. Migration often proceeds as if along a chain of islands, between water sources and woodland across North Africa and Southern Europe. Small bird species, such as Great Tits, tend to disappear when Ring Necked Parakeets are present in large numbers. This isn't predation so much as the smaller birds simply been driven away from their food sources and nest sites by the larger, noisier and more aggressive birds.
The idea that because cats catch things, cats must die, is what Psychiatrists call "an overvalued idea". Like going from the idea that it's immodest of young women to wear shorts, to needing to stab young women to death if they are wearing shorts. Overvalued ideas are behind a lot of extremist positions.
The value of cats is most obvious when they are removed (temporarily one hopes) from the situation.
Further on the same topic:
The RSPB has stated that responsible cat ownership is not a conservation issue in the United Kingdom.
It has also been established, for example, that what caused the huge drop in Nightingale numbers in England was not predation but a big increase in the number of Muntjac deer selectively eating the Nightingale's habitat of low woodland undergrowth. Other species have suffered badly from changes in the countries that they have to cross to reach the British Isles, making migration more difficult. This includes deserts spreading, water holes drying up, increased cultivation and development of former woodlands after (arson initiated) forest fires. Migration often proceeds as if along a chain of islands, between water sources and woodland across North Africa and Southern Europe. Small bird species, such as Great Tits, tend to disappear when Ring Necked Parakeets are present in large numbers. This isn't predation so much as the smaller birds simply been driven away from their food sources and nest sites by the larger, noisier and more aggressive birds.
The idea that because cats catch things, cats must die, is what Psychiatrists call "an overvalued idea". Like going from the idea that it's immodest of young women to wear shorts, to needing to stab young women to death if they are wearing shorts. Overvalued ideas are behind a lot of extremist positions.
The value of cats is most obvious when they are removed (temporarily one hopes) from the situation.
Friday 16 September 2016
The Clean and Cheap Alternative to the £18bn+ Hinkley Point
In its bid to secure Chinese funding for the massive French technology nuclear power station to be built at Hinkley Point, for which the government has agreed to guarantee electricity prices at nearly double the going rate, it seems that a wholly British advanced technology alternative is being ignored. This is the sort of casual contempt for the national interest that one associates with George Osborne and the fallen Cameron government, but for some reason the May government is unable to break free of its predecessor's perverse decision.
The Electron Model of Many Applications promises small, cheap and clean nuclear reactors that are never "critical" and therefore simply cannot runaway or meltdown if damaged. They just stop. They need only be fuelled with a ton of unenriched fuel at a time, whereas the behmoth being built in Somerset will contain hundreds of tons of expensively enriched fuel. It's like comparing the technology in the latest Star Trek movie with that of a 1930s Science Fiction B movie.
Read the article on the link and be amazed that you never even heard of this technology when Hinkley Point was being discussed.
This, by the way, is not the "Thorium Technology" being developed in India: that is just a Hinkley-like reactor that uses uranium 233 fuel bred from Thorium. The Indian technology isn't actually very advanced at all, it just offers a way round the enrichment of natural uranium. It saves a bit of money, but isn't a game changer as regards cleaness or safety. But when tackled on the issue of why "EMMA" is being ignored by the British government, Tory politicians will start talking about the Indian technology and muddle the issue as much as they can.
Britain urgently needs politicians capable of seeing the national interest when it is in front of their face.
Thursday 8 September 2016
Potted Index of Book and Screenplay Extracts
Here are some links to writings on this blog that may be of interest to the reader. There's a lot more on the blog than I have linked to here, but a lot of the topical current affairs articles were topical at the time they were written and may baffle now. You can still browse through them if you're keen.
Protegée (Forest series) extract from a completed Science Fiction novel.
Crushed Fennel, opening scenes from a completed screenplay.
Pilgrim Process, links to e-published dystopia.
The Promise of the Child, book review.
Dystopian Spin and Brexit. Op Ed article.
Buy to Rot. Op Ed article.
Laura Hoerster, about the illustrator of Pilgrim Process.
Hinkley Point: about the advanced technology British alternative.
Cats: about lunatic proposals to cull cats worldwide.
Something to Sell: how to make Britain prosper during and after Brexit.
Assassination: Who would want to kill Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen.
Protegée (Forest series) extract from a completed Science Fiction novel.
Crushed Fennel, opening scenes from a completed screenplay.
Pilgrim Process, links to e-published dystopia.
The Promise of the Child, book review.
Dystopian Spin and Brexit. Op Ed article.
Buy to Rot. Op Ed article.
Laura Hoerster, about the illustrator of Pilgrim Process.
Hinkley Point: about the advanced technology British alternative.
Cats: about lunatic proposals to cull cats worldwide.
Something to Sell: how to make Britain prosper during and after Brexit.
Assassination: Who would want to kill Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen.
Wednesday 7 September 2016
Book Review: The Promise of the Child by Tom Toner
The Promise of the Child, Volume One of the Amaranthine Spectrum by Tom Toner, Gollancz.
(I have received an advance copy of this novel from Orion Books to allow me to review it ready for publication of the paperback edition on the 13th of October 2016.)
A province where silver really does grow on trees is just one of the places which Tom Toner takes the reader to in this rich novel. (The local currency is made of silk.) There is also a civilization where artificial bees made with gold airframes are a sign of ostentation. Tom Toner isn't lacking in imagination.
After a Prologue set in fourteenth century Bohemia, the novel is set roughly twelve thousand years in the future, where humanity (or at least the semi immortal Amaranthine) have colonised a "firmament" within about twenty light years of the "Old World" (Earth). They have found planets with breathable atmospheres, (composition like that of the young Earth) but no sign of any life originating other than on Earth. An incredibly ancient spacecraft found frozen in the rings of Saturn turns out to have been crewed by Dinosaurs, also from Earth. The Amaranthine (divide and) rule over a number of races however: the dozen or so "PRISM" species of intelligent (and generally small) primates living on various planets and habitable moons, and the giant Melius, who are supposedly the genetically engineered offspring of the Amaranthine themselves.The Melius mostly live on the Old World. Many Melius are servants of the Amaranthine. The Melius also share the Old World with intelligent birds, who are servants of the Melius.
The novel is composed of several separate plot threads seen from the point of view of various individuals of various species, including Corphuso, a PRISM scientist and inventor of a mysterious machine known as the Soul Engine. Several parties plot to gain possession of the Soul Engine and its hapless inventor, not stopping short of large scale military actions and simple skullduggery in their efforts.
Most Amaranthine live in "Vaulted Lands" that is, planets hollowed out with an artificial sun at their centre to act as small Dyson Spheres. One of these habitats is deliberately destroyed, and the Amaranthine face a real threat to their power and even existence. The Amaranthine are traditionally ruled by their oldest individuals, and because they are only semi immortal this means that their rulers tend to be dangerously close to senility. However, there is one, Aaron, seen in the fourteenth century prologue, who not only appears to be older than any of the "Perennials" but also seems to be unaffected by any form of senility. After centuries of his standing near to those who rule, it seems to be time for Aaron to take over the reins himself and save the Amaranthine, but this doesn't seem to be his chosen course. He still prefers to chose someone else and help them. There are also rumours that Aaron does not have a shadow.
A Melius "Lycaste" lives a fairly blameless life by the sea, but is inveigled into going on a disastrous shark hunt by his friends and then finds himself apparently murdering a government official. He goes on the run and ends up, through a nightmare adventure and drumhead trial, in the Melius second city of Vilnius just as a Melius warlord prepares to attack it in the latest phase of a long running civil war. Aaron is also in Vilnius, and the plot threads, like the novel's characters, converge on the city. There is a huge battle as PRISM armies invade from spaceships even as the Melius fight each other, but the Soul Engine may prove more significant than that.
The Promise of the Child is an absorbing and accomplished novel, and it argurs well for the rest of the Amaranthine Spectrum when it appears.
The link at the top of this review goes to the Net Gallery page for the novel. This one goes to the Amazon page for the novel.
PS:
While you are here, feel free to look around the blog.
(I have received an advance copy of this novel from Orion Books to allow me to review it ready for publication of the paperback edition on the 13th of October 2016.)
A province where silver really does grow on trees is just one of the places which Tom Toner takes the reader to in this rich novel. (The local currency is made of silk.) There is also a civilization where artificial bees made with gold airframes are a sign of ostentation. Tom Toner isn't lacking in imagination.
After a Prologue set in fourteenth century Bohemia, the novel is set roughly twelve thousand years in the future, where humanity (or at least the semi immortal Amaranthine) have colonised a "firmament" within about twenty light years of the "Old World" (Earth). They have found planets with breathable atmospheres, (composition like that of the young Earth) but no sign of any life originating other than on Earth. An incredibly ancient spacecraft found frozen in the rings of Saturn turns out to have been crewed by Dinosaurs, also from Earth. The Amaranthine (divide and) rule over a number of races however: the dozen or so "PRISM" species of intelligent (and generally small) primates living on various planets and habitable moons, and the giant Melius, who are supposedly the genetically engineered offspring of the Amaranthine themselves.The Melius mostly live on the Old World. Many Melius are servants of the Amaranthine. The Melius also share the Old World with intelligent birds, who are servants of the Melius.
The novel is composed of several separate plot threads seen from the point of view of various individuals of various species, including Corphuso, a PRISM scientist and inventor of a mysterious machine known as the Soul Engine. Several parties plot to gain possession of the Soul Engine and its hapless inventor, not stopping short of large scale military actions and simple skullduggery in their efforts.
Most Amaranthine live in "Vaulted Lands" that is, planets hollowed out with an artificial sun at their centre to act as small Dyson Spheres. One of these habitats is deliberately destroyed, and the Amaranthine face a real threat to their power and even existence. The Amaranthine are traditionally ruled by their oldest individuals, and because they are only semi immortal this means that their rulers tend to be dangerously close to senility. However, there is one, Aaron, seen in the fourteenth century prologue, who not only appears to be older than any of the "Perennials" but also seems to be unaffected by any form of senility. After centuries of his standing near to those who rule, it seems to be time for Aaron to take over the reins himself and save the Amaranthine, but this doesn't seem to be his chosen course. He still prefers to chose someone else and help them. There are also rumours that Aaron does not have a shadow.
A Melius "Lycaste" lives a fairly blameless life by the sea, but is inveigled into going on a disastrous shark hunt by his friends and then finds himself apparently murdering a government official. He goes on the run and ends up, through a nightmare adventure and drumhead trial, in the Melius second city of Vilnius just as a Melius warlord prepares to attack it in the latest phase of a long running civil war. Aaron is also in Vilnius, and the plot threads, like the novel's characters, converge on the city. There is a huge battle as PRISM armies invade from spaceships even as the Melius fight each other, but the Soul Engine may prove more significant than that.
The Promise of the Child is an absorbing and accomplished novel, and it argurs well for the rest of the Amaranthine Spectrum when it appears.
The link at the top of this review goes to the Net Gallery page for the novel. This one goes to the Amazon page for the novel.
PS:
While you are here, feel free to look around the blog.
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