I smell a rat – well actually I don’t because I chose the final solution

I recently asked you, dear readers, about dealing with rats, having recently Tweeted about it. The viewings of the Tweet have increased since I last mentioned it but there has still not been one comment.

Even you, dear readers, haven’t jumped in calling for the death penalty for rats or calling for mercy and expounding on the intelligence of rats, as discussed in scientific journals.

Under the circumstances, without any other advice on the matter, I decided to take the matter into my own hands. Especially after they gnawed through cabling in the garage; shredded a plastic bag in the potting shed which contained soil; and to put the tin hat on it they got up onto my workbench and chewed into two boxes of wildflower seeds mixed with a sort of sawdust to allow you to broadcast it.

I decided enough was enough and looked up ways to get rid of rats.

I immediately rejected forking out big money for a “humane” cage trap, which would then involve me taking the rat, or rats, for a ride into the country before loosing them in a woodland glade.

In fact I considered that to be the least humane way to deal with them.

Imagine taking a city dealer up to the Highlands of Scotland and letting him loose, no phone, no laptop, no coffee machine, no secretary to run errands. It would be kinder to put a bullet in his brain and free him of that misery.

That means looking for the most humane and quickest form of death.

Poison was ruled out straightaway.

After all these poisons are normally designed to cause a slow death allowing the rat to get back to its nest before dying in absolute agony. I am not that cruel – anyway think of the smell and having to find out where the nest was which contained the rotting corpse.

This really left me with only one alternative.

An old-fashioned, spring-loaded, baited trap.

Not one of these fiddly little wooden and wire traps you see in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

No, the one I ordered had a strong steel bar and solid plastic construction which would go on for years, just in case a future generation of rats decided to nest in the Garage of Death.

They arrived within 24 hours, and as well as two sturdy traps there was a syringe of bait attractant which is apparently irresistible to rats.

The first night I put bait in the traps but did not set them.

Next morning the traps had moved and the bait was gone.

I did the same for the next two nights and then, on the fateful night, I set both traps and the following morning one had been triggered and the plastic-coated steel bar had come clean down on the neck of the medium-sized rat.

Careful to use gloves, I opened the trap over a strong plastic bin bag, rolled the whole thing up and put it in the bin.

The next night I set both traps again and this time I was greeted in the morning by not one, but two rats. One was the same size as the previous night but the second one was more of the size of rat you see in documentaries about life in the sewers.

They were treated to the same plastic shroud as their predecessor.

That night I set a trap in the garage and also one in the shed.

Next day the shed trap had a corpse in it but the garage was still set.

I didn’t jump the gun and declare the place rat-free and for the next few nights, in fact most of the week, I set the traps in garage and shed but there were no further corpses.

Job done and they will have gone to the rat Valhalla.

I do not seek praise, I have not cleared the town of rats like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, just dealt with my problem.

If any of you condemn me for my actions, well I’ll have to live with it.

I do not enjoy taking life but sometimes it is the only, and final, solution.

Horace can be a bit of a bully boy but he knows when it’s time to stay still

One thing we have noticed about our friendly little hedgehog, Horace, that although he bumbles around looking for food he can be quite a little tough guy when he wants to be.

It first came to light not long after we set the camera up.

One night a hedgehog turned up only seconds after Horace had gone off camera in a completely different direction. The newcomer did appear to be a touch smaller than our regular visitor.

Within seconds of him going to the food dish Horace came barreling out of nowhere and headed straight for the intruder who had the good sense to roll up into a ball.

After pushing the prickly ball around for a while Horace went to check on the food dish and positioned himself right over it as though guarding it from predators.

This is why I was not surprised when I viewed the trail camera images a few nights ago to see him come face to face with a cat and the cat . . . . . . .

See for yourself:

As you can see the cat spotted the angry little eyes and then saw the undergrowth rustling and at the last moment decided to turn tail leaving Horace the victor.

Mind you this particular cat is not the most intelligent feline around but more about that another time.

Horace, on the other hand, knows when to leave the field to a more powerful adversary, even if that adversary is the female of the species.

As you can see Horace had only just entered his brick bunker when he stopped having obviously heard Francesca’s approach. He even waited until she had cleared out.

The next shot showed Francesca disappearing to the viewer’s left while Horace stayed put in the entrance to make sure she had gone.

I must admit our garden wildlife gives us lots of fun.

A busy little hedgehog needs his entrances and his exits

One of the most important things you need if you want to make your garden hedgehog friendly is an easy route to get in and out.

Hedgehogs can go a long way in a night, setting out at dusk and hoping to be home by dawn. They will sometimes follow a set route but will also seek new feeding areas, and I don’t mean the ones I put out for our hedgehogs.

We know there is a way in under our front gate, but getting in and having no new way out can be a problem if the front areas is limited.

Fortunately Horace has a hedgehog friendly gate to the back garden (by accident rather than design) where one of the planks on the gate has snapped off just under the lowest strut.

He can then wander round at leisure throughout the back garden before heading off on his next wander.

He must have a good trail to follow because he comes in to the garden almost every hour.

As you will note from the above video, Horace has just the right clearance to get through the gap and, having seen the videos, I know that those darn cats can crawl through this small aperture.

Of course foxes, at least our two, are a lot bigger than than even a cat.

Yet the wily fox can also get through the gap.

Just to show it was not a fluke, this is Ferdinand making the return trip.

Eagle-eyed viewers of Ferdinand heading into the back garden will have probably noticed why I have designated him as a him.

Love them or hate them – surely everyone has an opinion on rats

About 10 days ago I put out a Tweet posing a question about dealing with pests – and I don’t mean Tories, trolls or other such annoyances.

I get involved in various discussions on Twitter, some bring a friendly response while others bring down a tirade of self righteous anger no matter how bland the comment might be,

Very rarely does a comment go without comment.

Except for this one.

In 10 days there were 34 visits to the post, one like and no comments.

What was it about this particular comment that it failed to evoke any reaction?

I asked a simple question:

If a rat invades your garage, chews into plastic containers and electric cabling, should you:

A – set a humane trap and, if successful, drive out to the countryside and release it;

or:

B – set a standard trap and, if it works, wrap it in a plastic shroud ad stick it in the bin?

Surely that is worth a reaction?

There must be hundreds and thousands of Tweeters who have an opinion on rats – you know, those overgrown mice who will chew through everything that is not made of metal or concrete.

Do they deserve a new life in the countryside or a funeral in the bin?

What about you, dear readers, what is the best way to deal with rats?

Before we mothernaked fall

by Dylan Thomas

Poem “Eleven” in Notebook “Started 23rd August 1933”; dated September 16, 1933
Before we mothernaked fall
Upon the land of gold or oil
Between the raid and the response
Of flesh and bones
Our claim is staked for one and all
Near to the quarry or the well
Before the promises fulfill
And joys are pains.

Then take the gushes or the field
Where all the hidden stones are gold
We have no choice our choice was made
Before our blood
And I will build my liquid world
And you, before the breath is cold
And doom is turned and veins are spilled,
Your solid land.

Back to class for the fourth time

Unlike joining the staff at a local shop, where new assistants tend to pick it up as they go along, the workings at any Odeon cinema could not be passed along by the manager, who would be too busy running the show to teach a new assistant manager what’s what.

Within a week of starting at Romford Odeon I was informed that I would be going up to Birmingham for a six-week induction course.

In a way it would be like going back to school – again!

In 1965 I had left Rhyl Grammar School and started to work part-time on a local newspaper (NOT the Journal) and the following year I had signed up for a year at the local technical college.

On completing a course which involved office practice, commerce, typing, shorthand, and various other useful subjects which I did not think I would be using ever again, I started serious work as a journalist.

Two years later I was back in class, this time at a college in Cardiff, on a block release course, in preparation for taking the exam for the NCTJ National Proficiency Certificate. The course was eight weeks fir the first year and a further eight weeks for the second year before taking the exam.

This time it was for a six-week course in \Birmingham where I would be put up in a good hotel and had a travel warrant each weekend to return home, although a couple of them were for mid-week to compensate for having to work a couple of weekend shifts.

Having only just finished an enforced separation from my darling Muse and the girls I would be away again for six weeks. On the other hand I would be at home two days a week.

Throughout my childhood and teen years, and into the the 70s, I had been aware of the local Odeon cinemas being a very well-run, smart business. On that six-week course I found out why.

Every minute of every day was crammed full of instructions on working out payroll figures; sorting out time schedules for a performance, which even then could include more than one film; ensuring money from the box office matched the tickets issue; checking stock of confectionery against sales from the confectionery; drawing up the weekly rota for staff; keeping an eye on the cleaners to ensure the foyer was gleaming when we opened for the day, and that, under auditorium lighting, the public seating area was clean and smelt fresh.

To ensure that all new assistant managers, who intended to manage their own cinemas, could understand the complete workings of an Odeon we were put through the paces at one of the Birmingham Odeons, carrying out all tasks, from usher to ice-cream sales, box office assistant to serving hot dogs and selling popcorn and other confectionery.

This wasn’t just to let us know what each member of staff did. It was also to make sure we could identify any attempt by staff to cream a bit off the top for themselves.

By the time we finished the course we were expected to be able to identify the slightest hint of an attempt to “fiddle the books”. In fact they were continually training would-be managers who would know the best ways to do a bit of fiddling for themseleves.

I do not believe every single manager fiddled the books.

I got to know many of them during my two years with Rank and the vast majority were decent, honest men and women. I said men and women because I didn’t want to sound mysoginistic, but I never actually met a female manager in those two years, only female local assistant managers.

After six weeks away from my work base I was keen on letting Tony, my boss, know that I was bang up-to-date on operating procedures.

All he said was: “You’ll soon learn how things really work.”

Next time: Into the fray.

Caring for cinema connoisseurs as well as the dirty mac brigade

There were some real blockbuster movies playing in Odeon cinemas in 1975, when I first joined the Rank Organisation as an assistant manager early in that year.

Mind you, there were some real stinkers as well.

This was a time when many cinemas were being turned into multi-screen operations because the days of a full house at the single screen theatres were decreasing rapidly

Screen One, the largest of the screens, would be used for the latest release and if it weas good enough might be retained for three weeks or more.

A really good film might then be moved to Screen Two for another couple of weeks while a new release would be shown in the main theatre.

Screen Three at Romford normally showed lower grade movies, in the 70s films like Confessions of a Window Cleaner might run there for two or three weeks at a time.

The Confessions films centred on a character called Timothy Lea, played by Robin Askwith in all four films: Confessions of a Window Cleaner; a Pop Star; a Driving Instructor ; and finally Confessions From a Holiday Camp.

The story in each film was based on Askwith’s character, Timothy Lea, getting into very precarious situations which usually ended up with him and some buxom wench rolling around on the floor, the bed, in the bathroom; and even in some cases in the great outdoors, with little in the way of clothes.

In the 1970s there were many films like this doing the rounds. Confessions was not as blue as some of the X-rated films around. In fact these days it would be considered very mild, just somewhat smutty.

These sort of films proved popular in the afternoons with what came to be called The Dirty Mac Brigade. I think most of you will understand the reference.

At the same time the 1975 releases included some classics of that time, including Jaws; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; The Rocky Horror Picture Show; Picnic at Hanging Rock; Tommy.

With so many great films about you might have thought a cinema manager, or an assistant, would have seen them and known them off by heart.

Well think agsain.

In a three screen cinema the manager, or an assistant, not only had to be seen almost everywhere in the building he or she would need to keep any eye on the box office to make sure a cashier did not set aside some of the takings for their own benefit; to ensure the ushers and usherettes checked all the tickets; keep an eye on the projection rooms to make sure safety rules were being carried out; checking confectionery sales; and so much more.

The chance of even seeing 10 per cent of a film while it was on was remote.

In fact learning everything you needed to run a cinema could not be passed on by a manager while he or she was managing their own site.

This is why I was sent on a a management course in Birmingham not just for a few days but for six weeks.

I’ll tell you about that next time.

Let’s stay in touch

It’s been a week since I got back to the serious business of giving you something to read on this site and I hope I have succeeded. There are 10 or 11 new posts over the past week and at present I am just writing at random.

If you want to see more posts on specific subjects then please let me know, otherwise I will probably just keep rambling on.

Watch out for new stuff over the next week.

Dodgy lyrics or were these guys trying to play things straight?

I got into a discussion on Twitter the other day about lyrics from pop songs in the late 50s and the 60s. When it got around to lyrics that would be looked on in horror today (although some of the modern rap stuff is very close to the mark)someone referred to Young Girl by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

The claim was that it is a classic example of an older man grooming a young girl preparatory to having sex with her.

Now I remember this song coming out in March 1968 and it was a big hit. In fact it became a classic disco number of the time.

The initial Twitter response across the board was to support the accusation and claim that the song should have been banned at the time and should certainly never be played in modern times.

Now people might have a “thing” about 60s pop music and, considering the number of 60s idols who have fallen foul of the law precisely because they got sexually involved with under-age girls, a lot of it may be true. There were some dodgy lyrics out there – but Young Girl is NOT one of them.

I don’t know if you have ever listened to it, and I don’t know, if you did, whether you just liked the music and didn’t listen to the lyrics or listened and didn’t hear anything dodgy.

In fact the singer is not grooming the girl he is warning her off because he knows she is under age, although he didn’t know that when he first met her.

The song is one of those beginning with a chorus and follows it with the first verse of the narrative:

Young girl
Get out of my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run, girl
You're much too young girl

Right from the start he is telling the girl to go away and to stop messing with his head because he knows it would be wrong for him to have sex with her. He tells her to run because she is too young.

Now there are some who might suggest his basic urge is to have sex with an under age girl, but that is not what the song says:

With all the charms of a woman
You've kept the secret of your youth
You led me to believe you're old enough
To give me love
And now it hurts to know the truth

There it is – second line – she kept the secret of her youth.

Only now has he discovered her real age and the truth hurts him, possibly because he still loves her but knowing her real age he cannot go back to seeing her as a girl of 17 or 18.

Remember also that this is not a song about a man in his late 20s or his 30s, despite the real age of the singer it was sung on the basis of one teenager to another, even if he was 20 or 21 there is nothing wrong with someone of that age dating a 17-year-old.

Then we come to the second verse:

Beneath your perfume and make-up
You're just a baby in disguise
And though you know that it's wrong to be
Alone with me
That come on look is in your eyes

Now we know what he meant about having the charms of a woman, she was dressed up to the nines with all the appropriate make-up normally associated with a girl in her late teens, or older.

He’s now confronting her about her age and is even suggesting that she still loves him but he is telling her and himself that the situation is wrong.

I am not suggesting that she is doing a Jodie Foster from the film Taxi Driver, or is playing him as Lolita played Humbert Humbert. Maybe she just dressed up to fool the people at the dance hall that she was old enough to be there.

Now we come to verse three:

So hurry home to your mama
I'm sure she wonders where you are
Get out of here before I have the time
To change my mind
Cause I'm afraid we'll go too far

He is telling her to go back to her mother who is probably wondering where she is. He emphasises with his “Get out of here” that he still has feelings for the person he sees but now he knows her real age he has to reject her.

I wonder how many lads out there have met a girl at a disco and believed her to be in his age group.

How many young teenage girls borrowed their mum’s lippie, even borrowed a big sister’s posh dress and headed off to the disco with the intention of just deceiving the bouncers, not meaning to lure an older man into her clutches.

To be honest I believe there are more people around today trying to groom young girls than there were in the 60s when I was a teenager.

I do know that when I raised these points on Twitter my post was liked by more than 200 people at the last count.

Maybe the people complaining about the song Young Girl had got the Gary Puckett song mixed up with a Frank Lynch song with the same title, released in 1967. Now there is a song with dodgy lyrics.

If anyone thinks, after reading this, that I am suggesting young girls in the 60s deliberately led on young men then please be aware, I do not go by stereotypes and I am only defending the singer of this song based on the lyrics by Jerry Fuller.

If you know of any songs with dodgy lyrics let me know. There are probably plenty of them out there. Even Elvis is not above singing songs with suspicious lyrics – have a look at the lyrics of Little Sister.

Farewell Andy – now let’s get back to normal on our TV shows

I’m sorry that Andy Murray got knocked out at Wimbledon today (Friday, 7th July) and I am sure there are thousands of tennis fans who will be crying bucketfuls of tears as the British two-times champion at this London suburb an tennis court bows out half-way through the competition.

Mind you he sometimes seems to be British when he is doing well but was designated Scottish when he lost.

The point is those fans will soon forget their tears as they pick another white-clad player to receive their adoration (until that one also loses).

They don’t even have to be at Wimbledon to watch their idols.

BBC have wall-to-wall coverage not just on BBC1 but also on BBC2.

Even Bargain Hunt fell foul of the tennis fanatics (yes, that is where the word fan came from) on Wednesday.

I don’t mind that they put tennis on all day on BBC2 and wouldn’t mind if they showed matches with some of the stars of the tennis world on BBC1 – but not both channels at the same time.

In fact why can’s they use the channels BBC3 and BBC4 for their daytime live coverage, there is nothing on those channels during the day.

Don’t think I am anti-tennis – in my teens I used to play and a regular opponent was a young lady I was “walking out with”.

Like all things tennis should be offered in moderation.

The same thing applies to all sports.