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Our new Wankers of the Week are environmental health officers from Hammersmith & Fulham Council. They wrote to 65-year-old Dorothy Berry to tell her that a neighbour had complained about the blackbirds singing in her garden, and asking her to take measures to stop them. The official note warned of "a complaint alleging nuisance caused by birds singing" and said the problem was caused by birdsong "arising from your premises during the early hours". It went on: "In the interests of preventing any possible disturbance to nearby residents you may wish to consider if any such noise is likely to cause offence. If so, your prompt action in resolving this matter will be appreciated." Dorothy does not keep pet birds. The blackbirds are wild. She said "We have so much wildlife, it's so beautiful. The frogs croak in the pond - maybe they are doing that too loudly?" She phoned the environmental health officer who wrote the letter. He told her it could not be proved where the birdsong was coming from (Note to all environmental health officers: birds move around a lot, because they can fly - GOS). He had visited the house of the person who complained, but could not hear any birdsong in the early hours, so he phoned next day to say she had "no case to answer". That sounds reasonable, except that it suggests that if the birds had been singing that day, Dorothy could be held responsible. A spokesman for Hammersmith and Fulham Council said: "We are aware that this matter has ruffled a few feathers, but we must investigate all complaints from residents however bizarre they may appear." Now The GOS has to declare a bit of an interest here. Some time ago he and his neighbours were very disturbed by loud music coming from the garden of a house down the road, sometimes right through the night. He and others contacted the local environmental officer, and he has nothing but praise for the thorough and effective way in which she and the police dealt with the problem, which has not been repeated since. He is fully aware that the rules say every complaint must be investigated. But the rules don't say that a warning letter must be sent in instances that are plainly ridiculous. Sometimes there is such a thing as doing your job too well - but that's not a fashionable view these days when the jobsworth mentality rules local councils and common sense is the last thing that occurs to them. If common sense had been applied in this case, the officer concerned might have taken a moment to realise that the dawn chorus is a spring and early summer phenomenon, and by this time (late July) the birds have mostly done their courting and are busy feeding their faces - mainly on the cherries from the Grumpy estate, sad to say. The real Wanker ought to be the tiny-minded ignoramus who made the original complaint. The blackbird is not only one of our commonest birds, but has the most beautiful and varied song of any British bird. The nightingale doesn't even come close, in The GOS's opinion - and he lives in the country so he ought to know. But as we don't know who the anonymous Wanker is, so we'll have to content ourselves with giving the award to the Hammersmith & Fulham Council for not realising that the birds don't belong to Dorothy Berry and she has no control over them. That's why we call them wild birds. It's quite interesting, this question. Dorothy Berry clearly has no responsibility of the birds she doesn't own, but how responsible are we for the attitudes of animals that are our pets? A Belgian businessman rejected a Nigerian job applicant because the businessman thought the man might be bitten by the resident dog. The 53-year-old man Nigerian told newspapers he arrived at the Belgian's wrought-iron business and was immediately confronted by the barking dog. The Belgian turned the man away before he could even enter, and wrote on his labour office letter that he could not hire the man because of his colour, adding there was a risk the dog would bite him. The local labour office has concluded that the Belgian was racist and has removed him from its list of potential employers, but the businessman says "My dog is racist. Not me." It's well-known that people of different races have different smells, so it seems obvious that dogs, which have a sense of smell thousands of times more sensitive than ours, will discriminate between them. Becoming the owner of a dog doesn't automatically mean you can train the dog to deny its natural instinct - it's an animal, for God's sake! This could all make for a fascinating scenario: the racial equality nazis demand that all dogs that bark at black men should be destroyed, whereupon the animal rights activists set fire to the racial equality offices, dig up their grannies etc. Should make an entertaining fight. And why stop there? Perhaps in fifty years's time we can breed dogs that only pee up speed cameras - preferably very tall dogs. And great flocks of blackbirds will descend on global warming conferences and sing everyone to death. either on this site or on the World Wide Web. This site created and maintained by PlainSite |