Tag Archives: Animals

I can’t help thinking – just stop building the goat?

Sad news. People in Sweden have built a straw goat, which has burnt to the ground. Poor goat.

Well, let me expand a little – the 43-foot straw goat, a “traditional Scandinavian Yuletide symbol” was erected this Christmas in Gavle (just north of Stockholm) as it has been every year since 1966.

Though also every year (well almost – only 10 times since goat number one has this not happened), the goat is vandalised in some way, usually by being set alight and burning to the ground.

And this has happened to poor Mr Swedish Goat yet again, as he went up in flames early this morning.

Now, initially I sat here sniggering – oh, those Swedes! Building straw goats! And then always burning them! But then…I found out that the straw goat has his own blog. Gavlebockens (snappy name! Ahem, though it just means “Gavle’s Goat”) posted regularly (in both Swedish and English – a bilingual straw goat, you can’t get more impressive than that), even finding time to post whilst he was going up in flames. This appeared this morning:

Terrible night! Slept so well under my beautiful snow blanket, when it suddenly became awfully hot. It was fire!!! At 3 AM, someone managed to set me on fire and destroy the amazing Christmas spirit in Gävle. So sad that I can’t celebrate Christmas with you all, but thank you so much for now, dear friends. I’m sad to sad to say that I must go now. I’m going on holiday now to get some rest – but will of course be back for next Christmas. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

You know I’m now sitting here sobbing my eyes out over this poor, straw, not-even-real goat. (Hey, I’m a girl, I cry at anything.) *sniffle* He didn’t even get to see Christmas…

You rotters! Who sets upon a poor, defenceless straw goat? Anyone touches ol’ Gavlebockens next year, they’ll have me to answer to.

P.S. Ohmagawd, there’s something about Gavlebockens having a baby brother that was vandalised and never came back, and he was said, and…*waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh*…

P.P.S. Oh wait, then there’s another post about him watching Swedish Idol. Urgh.

Dogs hate staycations, prefer real holidays

Although, why do we use the word “staycation” anyway in this country? We don’t actually use the word “vacation” in the first place. Harumpf.

Anyways, you know the situation. You’re a pooch and your human may be willing to put up with the crappy weather the UK is having this summer, but it won’t fly with you. You start bringing home brochures to Carribean holidays; you bark every time that weird Thomson Holidays-creating-a-beach ad which always drags on far too long is on; you act all enthusiastic when your neighbours come round brandishing their holiday snaps; and you get so close with booking a Ryanair flight to Ibiza only to get foiled by the credit card booking fees as they’re too high and you can’t remember where you’ve put your debit card and then the booking expires and OH WHY IS THIS SO HARD.

So, you’ve really got to take matters into your own hands…er…paws. And for a dog, that’s surprisingly easy. You simply hop on a train to your nearest airport and fly out! Ha ha ha, take that!

But you get foiled by some more stupid humans. Why do they hate you so?!

Best news story…EVER!

I know what you’re  thinking. You’re thinking, “Hmmm, the best story, EVER? It must surely involve a cat in some way.” And of course, you would be right. Because the best stories always involve cats – FACT.

A postman in Somerset has begun doing part of his rounds with a neighbourhood cat called Charlie. The cat jumped in the postman, Nick Lock’s, bag one rainy day and has now been “helping” him out most days since. Kind of like a real life Postman Pat and his black-and-white cat, Jess.

Life imitating art
Life imitating art

By “helping”, I do of course mean running the whole show. Charlie the cat just lets his human think he’s in charge.

It does make me think…I wish I lived in Somerset. They’ve probably got cats serving in pubs, driving taxis, running the local council and more down there.