Author: gabrielsmy

The Differences Between Dogs and Cats

The most obvious external differences
are visible in the head.
Dogs have wider and shorter heads
and a more U-shaped
than V-shaped snout.
For hard-to-distinguish specimens,
the protruding tooth is the most reliable feature
to define a species.

Dogs lack the jagged fringe which appears
on the hind legs and feet of the cat,
and the toes of the hind feet are webbed
not more than halfway to the tips.
Dogs strongly prefer freshwater,
and cats can better tolerate seawater
because of specialized glands for filtering out salt.

Dogs also tend to be darker in color than cats
often nearly black
but color is very dependent on water quality.
Algae-laden waters produce greener skin,
and tannic acid from overhanging trees
can often produce darker skin.

When cleaning dog pools,
some zookeepers can tread on dogs
without eliciting a response,
though cats almost invariably react aggressively
and are for the most part
more aggressive in their natural habitat.

From a Groupon offer page. Submitted by Patty Kay Mooney.

Shoreham harbour

In the harbour a single Guillemot
and two Purple Sandpipers roosting
with Turnstones on the inner wooden breakwater
and Peregrine sitting in the nest box
on the Power Station chimney.

Widewater; I searched the entire length
of the beach from the flats to the sailing club
without finding the Snow Buntings once again.

On the beach a single Rock Pipit
and twenty-four Sanderling, off shore little other 
than a few regular gulls.

(From a Recent Sightings post, Sussex Ornithological Society, 12 Dec 2011)

Papa Don’t Shoot


“Papa rushed into the room”
Rola El-Halabi
told the newspaper. “He threatened us with
a gun in his hand and shouted
‘Everyone out!’ And then he shot me
in the hand from three meters.
I cried and screamed.”

Bild reported that El-Halabi split
from her stepfather as a manager
in January. “When I had problems
I could talk with him about anything,
except when it was about boys,”
El-Halabi said.
“That was taboo.”



Taken from a news story on April 3, 2011 about a female boxer in Germany, shot in the hand by her stepfather before a bout. Submitted by Marika Rose.

The Passenger and the Privy

I am arrive by passenger train Ahmedpur station
and my belly is too much swelling with jackfruit.
I am therefor went to privy.

Just I doing the nuisance that guard
making whistle blow for train to go off
and I am running with LOTAH in one hand
and DHOTI in the next

when I am fall over and expose all shocking
to man and female women on platform.
I am got leaved Ahmedpur station.

This too much bad, if passenger go to make dung
that dam guard not wait train minutes for him.
I am therefor pray your honour to make big fine
on that guard for public sake.

Otherwise I am making big report to papers.

A letter of complaint sent in 1909 to the Sahibganj divisional railway office in West Bengal. Source: New Delhi Railway Museum, via Letters of Note. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Insects In General


Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failures unless it comes through your own fault

Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions



Taken from a letter by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his 12-year-old daughter Scottie, away at summer camp. Submitted by Marika Rose.

The Complaining Lunch Queue Riposte

However the children complain
that they have to wait
they are hungry
they have less choices
they should even not have to wait
because they have their own lunch—
maybe this is all done deliberately
maybe temporarily
in order to teach them patience.

Why not?
They are not starving to death.
Should everything be easy?
Life is not like that.

Personally I trust the school.

From a Google groups message written by a parent at my child’s primary school. He wrote it as a reply to a stream of complaints from other parents that their children were having to wait too long to get their lunch. Commas removed. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Chickens on bikes

Things like boiling water, lizard watching,
mosquito nets, thorns in my shoes, wearing
skirts and t-shirts all the time, waking at
five AM, seat feeling sweaty, hearing
spoken Swahili, admiring cornrows,
dirt tracks and colourful markets and snacks
that all seemed so new when I first arrived,
now just feel normal. Glass pop bottles, old
Tsh notes, mud brick houses, chickens on bikes,
Karibu, men at bus stations, heat, dust,
colourful buses and dala-dala
and colourful clothes, rice and beans, insect
repellant, hot showers heated by the sun,
watering the garden morning and night,
African singing, mangos and pawpaw,
taking antimalarials, buying
green vegetables for the girls low in 
iron, frogs, owls, feeding chickens … I got 
that challenged feeling again today,
of having practical skills to offer.

For those of you 
expecting a blog
on South Africa, 
well, what can I say?
They did show G.I. Jane 
twice in four days.

(Sarah’s post from Tanzania, then her husband’s article from Johannesburg)