Merry Christmas and an even Merrier New Year!

Hello everyone!

It's me, Mervyn, an I finally found my way to the front page after shomeone tried to show me the way to go home an I jussht wanted to shay that I love you an I don't love everyone but I do love you.

And on Chrisshmush Day there wash lotsh of dogssh an lotssh of brusshelsh sproutsh an so the only thing to do wash to have a little drink. Or two. Or three an after a while I lossht count becaush of all the dogssh an the necssht day I had a bit of a hangover. I'd better go to shleep now.

Lotssh of love and wishing you lots of alka sheltzer for the New Year.

Mervyn

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Musings from Puflet Palace

Puflet Politics



Puflet thoughts:



'I don't understand politics. Or rather, I don't understand George Bush. I think he has a couple of relatives, Rose Bush and Holly Bush, but then I'm not too sure because he doesn't seem as intelligent as most of the plants I know.



What I specifically don't understand is how he can think he is defending people's civil liberties by infringing people's civil liberties.



Love P xxx

Musings from Puflet Palace

Musings from Puflet Palace



We've been to London to seek our fortune ...! Back at the Palace now, though.



I recall from Junior School, on Prize Day (it was one of those prize days like the caucus race in Alice in Wonderland where everyone got a prize) a local MP came to award the aforementioned booty. She was trying to tell us, in that patronising way that MP's adopt with school children, that she would be visiting Buckingham Palace once she'd seen to the likes of us. Rather than doing so in a direct way, though, she was talking about somewhere 'you might see a little mouse under her chair', whereupon someone in the audience muttered darkly to his mate: "She's goin' rattin'".



Quite right, too.



Anyway, I digress ... went to see the Rousseau exhibition at Tate Modern, which was wonderful. I never realised he had been imprisoned for fraud, though, but I don't think that this related to the way that paintings inspired by the Jardin des Plantes in Paris purported to be from real live jungles. Then on to the Samuel Palmer exhibition at the British Museum ... mouthwateringly beautiful drawings, and what made this exhibition really special was how the BM was able to pull together disparate work from its own permanent collection, which provided the context and sources for Palmer's work, e.g. Durer woodcuts. I was disappointed that they didn't include any of Tom Keating's 'Sexton Blakes', though!



Then back on the train ... Puflet was sitting next to a young male gentleman of the opposite sex, who was wired for sound. Some of this could be heard beyond his earphones - at least, the rhythm was audible. His legs were jigging along to a different time signature, and he was drumming on the table to a different rhythm again. Every now and then this Terpsichorean display was punctuated by the sound of his mobile phone going off. The prospect of standing next to the door, half an hour before the train was due in, seemed strangely inviting.



CAS

Musings from Puflet Palace

Musings from Puflet Palace



Message from Puflet:



Do you ever go into posh shops where they wrap things up for you, and take a lot of time over it? Does it remind you of when you were an even smaller water bird, and when you were being tucked into the nest, rather than being left by yourself to go and search out sand eels at night?



I've a good mind to go and buy another fluffy dressing gown tomorrow ...



Love P xxx

Musings from Puflet Palace

Musings from Puflet Palace



Just a quick entry to introduce Mervyn Newt, another member of the Palace staff. He would like to make an entry on here, but he can't because he is permanently inebriated.



He has made appearances in my paintings and drawing for a number of years now. Watch this space!



CAS

Ever so tired today (we all are), so here's another picture of a blue tit.

Musings from Puflet Palace

Musings from Puflet Palace



We were dancing this afternoon, as part of an end-of-term entertainment (I use the term loosely). It was the Betty Mullenger Formation Team; it may be the first and last performance. It is important that you throw yourself into these things wholeheartedly; my partner obviously did. When I saw her coming towards me ... firstly, I didn't recognise her. Secondly, when I did, it was with the same sense of shock you might experience on seeing the Queen Mother advancing towards you sporting a grand walrus moustache. Very fine one it was, too, composed from two large black bits of fluff.



CAS



Puflet says: Yes, you've reeelly reeelly got to go for it. The ones who look like tits are the ones who hold back and look terribly British and repressed. Not that I've got anything against tits - we had some who were close neighbours only last year. Anyway, here's a picture of one, so's you know what they look like.



Love P xxx

Musings from Puflet Palace

Musings from Puflet Palace





Swimming Problems encountered by Puflet



Last night I went swimming, in a swimming pool - which is the best you can manage in a built-up area nowhere near the coast! A fire alarm sounded. All the occupants were obliged to leave this aquatic location and go outside (there was a cold wind - it's December after all) but they refused, and lined up dripping wet and freezing along a corridor with the door open. This was in the name of Health and Safety! It's good to see that somebody's got your best interests at heart! (It's a good job my feathers are all waterproofed and trap an insulating layer of warm air).



P xxx

Musings from puflet palace

Musings from Puflet Palace

I was going home on the motorway again (you wouldn't believe I try to avoid them, would you!) when the traffic was getting heavier and heavier. A notice appeared 'Queue ahead. 50' then 'Queue ahead. 40' then 'Queue ahead. 20' Oh dear! An accident on our side? ... but no - it was so that the ghoulish souls on the southbound carriage could gawp in safety at the accident which had happened on the northbound one! Speaking as someone who doesn't really want to look at RTA's - unless there's something I can usefully do - and would rather get home, I wish they wouldn't ...

CAS

Now there are some pictures!

Little Puflet says:

Well, at least I've got some more birds on the site now. Yesterday we went out to buy some bird food, and bought a plastic container full of insects, no doubt left over from the Garibaldi Biscuit manufacturing process (yum yum). And there was a female blackcap on the bird table; she had a little red cap instead of a black one. Did you know that the German name for Little Red Riding Hood means 'little red cap'?

Actually, I think Little Red Riding Hood was a junior member of Robin Hood's gang ...

Lots of love,

P xxx

Musings from puflet palace

Musings from Puflet Palace

Little Puflet comments:

I had hoped to post the photo of my friend as though it were the person who had set up this blog in the first place - never mind - it took long enough to get any of the pictures on here. But next time I'll be forwarned, if not fore - armed.

This is a smaller bird, who is one of Puflet's friends. Handsome, isn't he?

This is a picture of a hoopoe from 'The Birds'

Little puflet wants to say ...

Sunday 11th December

I've just been for a ride on the motorway. There was a sign up which said 'Fog'. As if we hadn't noticed. I think it ought to say 'Fog. But if you can still read this sign, it isn't really that bad'.

I've just found out that I need a licence to go out squawking in a public place to entertain strangers. (Yes, that did say 'strangers' and not 'stranglers')

Lots of love,

P xxx

Well, who's to BLAME???

December 9th 2005

Am I alone in cringing when hearing a news journalist pursuing some hapless interviewee with the insistent: 'Yes, but who's to blame?', following some disaster, whether natural, accidental or just human error. Of course, somebody has to be named. The media will not be happy until its scapegoat can be found.

For a start, playing the 'Hunt the Scapegoat' is a feature of dysfunctional families. And look at the ways in which the culture of blame renders society dysfunctional ...

Nobody wants to be blamed; lots of paperwork therefore needs to be produced to show that the responsibility for whatever it was cannot be laid at MY door. How much time and energy goes into this? Time and energy which could actually be usefully spent?

And for the blamer - yes, somebody else has successfully been blamed! I didn't look where I was going, fell over, and now I can screw some compensation from, say, the local authority. Yes, this will induce a transitory sense of triumph. But what are the effects of this kind of culture? Insurance premiums become prohibitively expensive; kids lead restricted lives because their teachers dare not take them anywhere risky; people who have suffered some kind of loss do not grieve and move on because they are so busy persecuting the scapegoat; areas of social functioning are tied up with so much regulation that they cannot function ... and the whole of society pays for it both directly and indirectly.

But what of the 'successful' blamer? By putting the responsibility for my own actions at somebody else's door, I am relinquishing my own power and potential for change. On some level, I am rendering myself helpless. Since when has this attitude really benefited anybody?

So, media, please stop blaming - so that I can stop cringing. And, no, I don't blame the media, who are after all just one aspect of an entire system. However, the media are perhaps uniquely placed to reverse this unhelpful, damaging trend ...

CAS