January 13, 2003
DR. NO WINS:
Aggressive Seagulls Menacing Urban Britain (James Owen, January 7, 2003, National Geographic News)Soaring seagull populations are proving a serious headache in urban Britain. Noise, mess, and the threat of physical attack have prompted a range of measures aimed at repelling the winged invaders. But as efforts to curb them fail, the gulls get ever more aggressive.
The Bard wrote:
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, his realm, this England
Time to add a line:
This steaming pile of guanoPosted by Orrin Judd at January 13, 2003 6:45 PM
If they would go back to eating seagull eggs
(which were not rationed during WW2, when
you couldn't get a hen's egg), then the
population would go down.
Simple, eh?
PETA would flip. This is a country where they're banning the hunting of vermin.
Posted by: oj at January 13, 2003 9:21 PMDidn't Shirley Jackson write the short story Hitchcock's The Birds was based on? I read it years ago and remember it was set in England....
Posted by: Buttercup at January 14, 2003 12:33 PMDaphne du Maurier
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dumaurie.htm
Aside from this less than fragrant affront to a country whose--problems notwithstanding-- government is doing its best to stand shoulder to shoulder with the U.S., your iambic pentameter stinks.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at January 15, 2003 5:47 AMBarry:
The country-formerly-known-as-england can't defend itself from gulls and you're dissing my rhyme scheme?