It is said that we are all only thirty feet from a rat. Not inexplicable, then, that the internet is full of rat traps. Many are the humane sort. That is, a trap that catches the rat alive so that it can be released somewhere else. In someone else’s patch, in other words.
Given this regime it’s not surprising I overheard this conversation:
Reggie Rat: Have you been to Cleethorpes?
Billy Rat: Twice, last year. Don’t recommend it. Whole family went. Mislaid three of the kids on the way back the second time.
Reggie Rat: Mislaid?
Billy Rat: Some bloody woman stuck us in a trap and drove us to Nottingham! Didn’t know anyone was missing till we got to Derby!
Tommy Rat: I’ve been to Birmingham three times – including Solihull. Felt like a bloody yo-yo last year – twice round Birmingham, up to Liverpool and then Leeds via Hunstanton. Don’t even ask!
Billy Rat: Know how you feel. What I’d give for a bit of peace and quiet and a nice nibble of chocolate. I’ve got constant jet lag.
Reggie Rat: Bloody humans. Do you know that you’re never more than thirty feet from one? Gives me the shivers.
Published by Jenny and Jim
We are writers living in Leicester and Blackpool. Jim writes comic fantasy, funny poetry and plays which frequently have madness of all sorts as the theme. His latest comic novel also has a serious theme: it explore the relationship between Marlowe and Shakespeare, and bases its plot round dissent from the Elizabethan settlement, and the police state run by Walsingham and Burghley. Jenny writes what used to be called space opera. poetry on a variety of themes (elves is the latest), and plays with historical settings. along with non-fiction on such subjects as the right of the married woman to work and the question of what happened to Christopher Marlowe in Deptford. Jenny also has traditionall views on teaching, leaning heavily towards explicit instruction, and supports initiatives such as the Phonics Test, and Systematic Synthetic Phonics. Trained when progressivism was the only method taught, she has always thought discover methods etc were asking pupils to re-invent the wheel, and that this was pointless. She also supports an academic education for all. Jim dissents from some of these views. Both Jim and Jenny are Brexiteers, Jenny because she is a socialist and Jim because he believes in national self-determination (Jenny believes in this as well, and both support the Union). Both would agree that rule by supranational bodies such as the EU Commission and Council of Ministers diminishes and destroys democracy through lack of accountability and also by seeing ordinary people as both unimformed and unworthy of consultation.
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Aylestone Writers 