Fun With Birds And Dogs

Hmmm - I Was Lying

Although that ought to come as no great surprise to anyone out there who knows either Conrad or the blog.

     There will be dogs, don't you worry, and cranes, too, which is where we get "birds" from.  Hey, Facebook states that this blog contains bad puns and - well, there you are.

     Anyway, about the cranes.  A couple of weeks ago I was privileged enough to get a shot of a jib crane's foundations being poured on-site.  Art?

Bottom left corner

     I did say "privileged" because it is rare indeed to get this perspective on a jib crane - one reason for soundly suspecting them of being alien spies in disguise - due to construction sites generally being fenced off, thus being inaccessible to you or I.

     What did I espy on Monday this week?

Stan the greedy rascal?

     Well - technically that's correct, Stanley the kitten with the appetite of five Bengal tigers, but can we stick to dogs and cranes?  Art, let's go again.

Jib crane fully assembled*

     There is the monster itself.  It was very windy afternoon and Conrad, whose mind runs along morbid lines anyway, wondered what the chances were of said crane collapsing due to high windspeed, and which direction it would fall, and where I had better run to avoid getting crushed.  I decided - you do want me to carry on, don't you? - that the side orientation offered the largest surface area, so it would fall to one side or the other, not me.

     Perhaps regrettably, there was no crane collapse.

A Short Pause Turns Into A Long One

Or, Conrad Fights With The Technology, Which Fights Right Back.
     Normally I upload photographs taken from my mobile phone (better known as The  Devil Box) and add them into BOOJUM! via the "Insert Image" Blogger tool.  By default when I plug in Satan's tool, a display of photographs appears, thus:

     Or at least it should do.  Yesterday I'd loaded up one photograph of the 20 I needed, when the system suddenly informed me that "a device has been switched off".
     "No it hasn't!" I objected.  "It's still plugged in."
     Unplugging and plugging the phone didn't help.
     "It's been re-plugged," I told the laptop.
     'Operation cancelled' said the unhelpful message.  'Do you wish to skip this file?'
     "NO!" - by this time, a good five minutes of fumbling had taken place and I confess my temper was not all it should have been.
     Next step, before taking a sledgehammer to both laptop and - no, make that a sledgehammer to the laptop, the phone I would boil in a vat of fuming nitric acid before putting through a microwave and then inside a concrete mixer with a bagful of builder's rubble - was to quit out of the internet altogether, turn laptop off and try again.
     'A device is not recognised or has been switched off' came the smug message from the hamsters**.
     "BAH!" cursed Conrad, before switching over to his PC, which worked fine.

A man can dream, can't he?

     "Yes, but about the dogs -" I hear you quibble.
     SILENCE!  Whose blog is it?  Quite.  I am getting to the dogs.  Actually dog singular, because she is a singular dog***.

Edna, Border Terrorrist
It has been the habit of our Four-Legged Alarm System, Edna, to lean on out back wall whilst keeping her back legs on what I term her "sentry pot".  I might have a photo in the back catalogue somewhere.  Hang on -

Sentry pot hidden by door-frame, sorry

     Edna would do this because, wickedly neglected as she is, she could then be patted by people passing by; on the other side that wall is six feet high.
     Frantic as she is to be loved loved loved by passers-by, Edna mortally detests every other dog on the planet and will yark, bark and generally indicate how displeased she is that another canine has trespassed on her territory, i.e. Planet Earth.  This had consequences when a passer-by with dog in tow went to pat her on the head and nearly got bitten.
     Oh my did Edna get a telling-off.  She was the very textbook picture of "Hangdog" for the next half hour, whilst some scratch fencing was put up.  Art?

Transformed!

     The sentry-pot is there no longer and passers-by no longer run the risk of having a finger being taken off, but on the downside we aren't going to be greeted on our return by a small, bobbing head being stuck over the wall for a petting.
     

     This is Edna, being very cross that she's not gotten a single crumb of biscuit despite her awesome display of self-control.

*  No tasteless jokes here 
**  They run all computers you know

***  Do you see what - O you do.