h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Back at work after a day off. It was good having a long weekend.

Hope those with ailments are sorted soon

I wonder if our US salonistas could do me a favour and review my Swan Upping entry for me: A8653791

One of the reviewers is having trouble understanding it, possibly for cultural reasons (two nations divided by a common language etc) and I am having trouble understanding what the problem is - I'd be grateful if you could give me some additional USian input.

etc as the usual inducements

I read your Swan Upping piece last week Kelli and thoroughly enjoyed it, I'll nip back to PR and catch up.

Teuchter, there's luggies mentioned in the Address to a Haggis but the tranlation there is a dish but I'm pretty sure some of my Turiff mates refer to hares as luggies.

It's morning already?

Yup, it's morning.

Kelli, I had a read through of your PR thread. I don't think the confusion has anything to do with a US/UK communication gap. I think the reviewer just wants more detail about the status of wild animals in the UK. I don't think that is germane to the entry. I read it as more of a brief history of how a quaint ceremony came to be.

Thanks Witty, I thought I was being asked about stuff beyond the remit of the entry but wasn't really sure if I was understanding the question, or what I could add to make it clearer.

I thought it was revolving around an assumption that if an animal/bird was edible, then in the US it could and would be hunted and eaten - that all creatures are 'fair game' for the pot unless actively protected by law. Is that anyone else's experience?

In the uk a few people do shoot wild birds which are often encouraged to breed in specific areas for this purpose but it isn't really common, and a fair few of the huntin' shootin' fraternity (at least near me) seem to do it for the sport rather than because they have to in order to have meat for dinner.

I thought the confusion was grasping the fact that we can have wild birds, i.e. Swans, owned by the Crown and that in poor, urban parts of USA tey would be hunted no matter who owned them.

I suppose it is a novel concept but then again the same applies to Sturgeon.

We do still shoot and eat wild birds other than birds such as pheasant and partridge reared specifically for shooting. We shoot wild ducks, mallard, teal and widgeon and grouse cannot be reared in captivity so all the effort goes on improving their habitat.

It isn't that common though, probably because most people don't have guns...

It really depends where you are. Farming comunnities usually do a fair bit of shooting both for the pot and to control vermin while the wildfowlers seem to travel miles to get to forshores and estuaries. I'll check on the numbers but rough shooting is I think thriving and what is known as driven shooting has always been popular.

It is relative though isn't it? There just aren't that many people with guns here as a proportion of the population.

There are lots of partridge and pheasant shoots around us - the birds sometimes come and hide in our back garden!

I didn't realise just how popular shooting is. The BASC link provides some interesting briefing notes:

http://www.basc.org.uk/content/shooting_facts

Nice pictures of doors and walls, indeed, Ben - and it makes me even more happy as I now know that there's at least one more sane, trustworthy person out there who photographs things like that

Actually, I have several of that kind of photos - and both my kids and/or passers-by have sometimes looked a bit oddly at me while I took them...

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Clean cups! Clean cups!