Seagulls to Newton

 

Random blogpost today. Possibly a bit surreal as well, sorry.

Yesterday I was walking around the school, you know I work in a school, right?, and I heard the sound of two arguing seagulls. This was quite quickly followed by the sound of something hitting the ground. It was an apple. It appears that these two gulls were arguing over the fact that one of the birds was holding an apple. WTF!!

I wonder what possessed a seagull to pick up an apple? ‘Ooh! Look! An apple! I feel a bit peckish and I fancy some fruit, I’ll grab it in my beak and take it up to the top of that lamppost and eat it…’ You will notice here that I am not really concerned with the fact that this falling apple, caused by Isaac Newton inventing gravity in 1687, could fall on a child’s head and kill them. I find it more intriguing that a bird, not known for eating whole fruit, has flown off with a rather large apple in its mouth.

Were they arguing over the logistics of the apple transport and ingestion when it was dropped? ‘Look, George, you can’t possibly eat that thing, it’s far too big. What do you intend to do with it when you get it home, peel it and slice it? ‘

‘Ung uun ung un… Sorry, couldn’t talk with that bloody thing in my mouth. I thought it might make a nice change from all the usual shit that we eat. We could get some flour and sugar and make an apple crumble. If you could lay some eggs we could make custard.’

‘You are a feckin seagull! What, on Earth, did you think we were going to make it in? We haven’t even got a kitchen!’

‘I didn’t think that far ahead. And now, because of that bloke Newton inventing calculus, I’ve lost the apple. And that big ugly bloke has picked it up.’

'I think you will find that the principles you wanted to refer to was gravity, not calculus. We need to be aware of why we don’t plummet to the ground rather than how we can figure out our change in delta v.’

‘Sorry. I’ll stick to nicking chips in future.’

I’ve got to admit to being very surprised at the size of the apple. I wonder how that would’ve looked on the RIDDOR report form? I blame Newton.

 

Regards

Giant68  😊

Your entitlement...

 

I am going to state, right at the beginning, that I am a grumpy old man. But then, you should know that already. I may have slipped a bit just lately but the grumpiness remains.

I am warning you now that if you don’t like what I write hereafter, tough. I don’t think that I am a bad person, just grumpy and getting more opinionated as the years go by and as the pandemic carries on.

A few days ago, Capt Tom passed away. We all know that he raised a phenomenal amount for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100^th birthday. People are now mourning him as If he was their father. Fine, nothing wrong with that. But are we doing it for the right reason? Yes, he raised a shitload of money. Yes, he walked 100 laps of his garden when he was approaching his 100^th birthday. Others could’ve done that and, indeed, they did. One lady was 104 when she walked to raise money. Capt Tom was the first and he captured the nations attention. His attitude was that of a generation that lived, and fought, through a world war, rationing and hardships of many kinds. He never implied any sense of entitlement or of being cheated out of anything.

My grandfather left school at 14 to work down a mine. Some of the money he earnt was used to pay for night school courses that led him to become a civil engineer. He became chief civil engineer in Nottingham. And on his journey through life he earned an MBE for services to the country during the war. Apparently, he planned dummy airfields for the Germans to bomb. He worked hard. He took only what he could earn in a world that was harder than it is today. And he died before he could enjoy his retirement. He asked for nothing.

Today I see on the local news that prisoners in an open prison are complaining that they have missed out on the furlough scheme. I see teenagers claiming that they have been cheated because they have been ignored by the government and their education is suffering. What are we becoming?

At one point this country was producing some of the best scientists and engineers in the world. Our armed forces were the envy of the world. Now? Not so much.

If you have been affected by anything contained in this blog feel free to sob to yourself in a corner.

Regards

Giant68