This is some really weird font here. Me no understand. Must sort out my CSS on the return. The school is going well but I need to return to listen to a guy from Sunderland explain density functional theory. More dispatches later. ttfn, rab.

[Btd] Our neighbour has decided to install some chickens, too. He was banging and sawing pretty much continuously last weekend (while we were unboxing all our gear) and now there are gentle warbly chicken noises coming from his garden. No rooster, fortunately.

Isn't it odd your neighbour didn't mention it before? "Oh, by the way, I'm getting chickens too!" I don't know, it just seems slightly odd to me.

[rab] See! See! Not just me
[snorgle] You'll find it was Bob the dog who's Chicken Man.
I currently live in what would be classed as "inner city" (20min walk to the middle of the CBD), but it's quite low density still - blocks of units, but many individual houses. We really only have one person-neighbour (going anticlockwise: church, multistorey carpark, cliff and shop, more shops, neighbour in large house). Some friends have kept chooks (complete with renovated gardens for same), and I did hear about someone with a sheep, up in the hill just a little over. They used to take it for walks, on a leash.

[snorgle] Not really - we were moving in while the chicken coop was being built, so I suspect the decision must have been made a good while before we could ever have met the neighbours concerned.

We seem to have lost Thraxwhirl from the realms of the Celebdaq league...

[Roosters] One of my lovely neighbours has roosters, introduced a couple of years after we moved in. His attitude is "if you don't like it, move" but said in a more unpolite way.

[Boolbar] Gun with silencer?

[flerdle] That's a good idea. But what about the roosters?

whoops! I wasn't paying attention, and I'm awful at names - I often have to read back in books to check who is who again. We get quite a lot of horses running wild near me as there is a traveller site not far away. The local paper ran an article where a Belfast man now living in the area said he wanted to move back to the Garvaghey Road in Belfast as he felt it was safer, because his garden was constantly invaded by wild horses. Bit of an over-reaction, if you ask me. He said the police wouldn't help once they were on his property. I can't help but wonder if reporting the horses to a horse welfare society might be more likely to get a reply. He could say that they were in danger, and not just from him! (they do gallop all over the roads..).

I have noticed that the gentle warbly chicken noises you get from hens has an oddly soporific effect. I have considered recording it to sell as a new-age aid to meditation…(Page goes all shimmery)
Are you stressed, anxious or hyper-tense? Why not try Bob the dog’s natural free-range homeopatic massage emporium! Yes! You too can experience deep massage set to the natural sound of real organic chickens. And for that full holistic experience, why not try the gentle scouring action of a detox colonic irrigation using the purest natural Honey Beer? Guaranteed to remove lethargy. Guaranteed to remove sensation.

Oh dear . . . every time the phrase 'Honey Beer' pops up on this page, I can't help but think of a porn star [y'know - add the name of your first pet to your mother's maiden ... etc etc].

[Chalky] Dusty Jaines. eeeek
Best girl's name ever come across in the course of my work (according to a male colleague...) Stella Foster