Long rant starts.........

Has anyone else noticed how much aggro there is here

Seems to me that people are so hot under the collar that they're now
jumping on things others say as jokes.

A couple of years ago, I nearly pronged a hedgehog hibernating early.
Not long before I had to ring the vet to deal with our last dog who
had suddenly started behaving worryingly. Turned out to be a brain
tumour and we had to put him to sleep. Fortunately, didn't need the
RSPCA. The vet's charges were reasonable. If your vet's charges aren't
find a different vet. Even in remote areas they compete.

I used to hate cats. Now we've got one (it adopted us) and he's even
got his tongue in cheek website at www.rivendell.org.uk/Pillster. So I
can now accept cats (though not necessarily cat owners).

We get grey squirrels in the garden. They try the bird feeders but
usually give up. We chuck some peanuts on the lawn for them (and
collect the rare unpinched ones soon after). They may be for some a
pain but not worth throwing insults about for.

I make spelling/grammatical mistakes no doubt (still can't work out
whether "practice" or "practise" is right!). Not the end of the world
though. What matters is that the message gets across, somehow.

Haven't seen the fox this year, sadly, but for the past few years
we've had a regular visitor that lies on top of the garden shed and
paws us if we pass. Quite "tame". Got into the house once! What a
stink! But I've got nowt against foxes. I've always been
anti-fox-hunting purely because I abhor killing any animal for sport
(so I'm also against fishing for sport).

Nature has a balance. It's we humans that have upset that balance. If
there are too many foxes, or too many squirrels, or too many cats then
it't thanks to us humans. And don't forget that it's thanks to us
GARDENERS that the UK has to contend with Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan
Balsam and the like.We're not blameless!

Bill and Harry (for example) may be plain talkers but being plain
talkers they seem also to take something someone else says literally,
ignoring the jocular bit. So arguments ensue over nothing. Conversely,
who cares if a posting about olearias developes into a discussion
about badgers? Bill - that's the way chats go! Earlier today I was
chatting to a neighbour about a scratch on a car; by the end of the
chat we had covered so many topics that we forgot about the scratch.
Newsgroups are like that. If you have a good newsreader and a thread
branches off about something you're not interested in you can "kill"
that branch without stopping other stuff.

And, for the record, newsgroups are entirely voluntary things. No-one
is obliged to respond to anything anyone else posts. We look at a
"title" and decide. Come to think of it, earlier today there was a
post "Fence Height" which was actually about growing climbers above a
fence height. So give your posts a realistic title and you may get a
response. If a post is titled "Pruning whassamajigs" if I don't grow
or know anything about whassamijigs I won't respond.

But don't killfile a person. I left primary school years ago - before
they were called primary schools! I'm not playing with you sort of
stuff!

And woe betide anyone who posts from Garden Banter.

My current "Jake" incarnation is based on one of my nicknames - J for
John and K for the Surname (initially I signed my posts "john"). Some
years ago I participated in this group under my real name (and got
spammed but that's beside the point). [Usenet has been around since
the early 80s and my involvement in it started in late 1985 (sheesh,
I'm old!!!)]. I "withdrew" from URG then because whatever I said I got
frozen out by some of the then regulars and I found that a lot of the
discussion chains were lessons in anger expression. Now, again, it's a
regular occurrence to read a post about adding someone to a killfile.

Can we not all lighten up a bit, bury the hatchet in some tree stump
instead of each other and enjoy the peace and tranquility that gardens
offer?

OK. Gets off soapbox. Retires to await retribution.

"Jake" wrote
Long rant starts.........

Has anyone else noticed how much aggro there is here

No.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 22:09:04 +0100, Jake
wrote:

Long rant starts.........

But full of sensible points,

Thanks for the info on 'fence heights', I for one thought it was going
to be a 'lets knock a neighbor rant' so did not even look at it, so
will go and check it out now.

Derek

www.lincolnfuchsiasociety.info

On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 22:09:04 +0100, Jake
wrote:

Long rant starts.........

OK. Gets off soapbox.
Retires to await retribution.

Nonsense!
You are making a mountain out of a molehill.
The genuine posters here all get on pretty well. Of course there are
disagreements - if there weren't it would be boring.