Petrol - Strike or no strike, doesn't really matter!

Well what a farce the last few days have been.
Petrol tanker drivers apparently have a problem with being paid in excess of £40k and have been balloted for strike action. Of those who actually bothered to vote, the majority voted in favour of strike action. So far, no date has been set for any strike action and in fact the union has not actually decided whether or not to strike as talks are still in progress.
What happens next then? A government minister who should know better tells the masses that it's not a bad thing to top up your tank and maybe get a jerry can and fill that too.... Well Halfords must have been rubbing their hands together - sales of crappy plastic jerry cans (which always leak when you try to put the petrol in the car) have gone up by about a gazillion percent* and are probably a fair few quid more expensive than they were last week. Ker-ching at the cash register.
What else? Well the general population, rather than enjoy the unseasonal good weather decided to spend their time queueing at petrol stations causing a shortage of fuel which is probably now more widespread than an actual strike would have caused. Way to go all you panic buyers!
The next bit is beyond farce.... the government respond to the shortage which has been caused by the stupidity of the population by relaxing the regulations imposed on driving hours for tanker drivers. I may be naive, but I thought that regulations on driving hours was for safety - we've all seen what happens when 40000 litres of petrol explodes (or those of you who have seen Terminator 2 have). Oh, and as an added bonus, this means the very tanker drivers who could possibly cause a real shortage of fuel when/if they go on strike can earn loads of overtime which will make up for what they lose when/if they down tools and walk out.
So - I have an idea.... I'm going to start making giant coffee cups and start rumours that Starbucks are going on strike... Come and get em - giant coffee cups only £10 each..... I'll make a fortune!!

*not official figures

Chickens - Enriched cages? No better than battery cages....

You may or may not know that since the start of the year battery cages were banned throughout Europe. A good thing you would think? Well yes - anyone who had ever visited a battery farm and seen the conditions that hens were kept in should be happy that this is no longer allowed. But what now? Well, hens are now kept in 'enriched cages' - ever so slightly bigger but more birds in each cage. Are the conditions really better? Well, you decide - in the picture are two who were rescued from these enriched cages in December. One is blind in one eye, the other has a lump of some sort on her head....
You can see they are unhealthily pale and have virtually no feathers. Hardly surprising when they are still treated in almost exactly the same way as they would have been if they were in battery cages - only the space they have has changed, nothing else....
These two are lucky, along with many others saved by the BHWT - a charity dedicated to giving chickens a second life in homes where they are cared for and they can live out their lives in a natural way. Those not lucky are slaughtered as soon as they are no longer profitable - this is usually when they are about 18 months old. A normal chicken usually lives until it is around 8 years. Chickens rescued from intensive farming such as this are lucky if they make it past half what their natural lifespan should be.
So is this method of farming chickens really worth a few pence off a dozen eggs? I certainly don't think so. But I am lucky enough to have 15 happy well cared for chickens. Do I care if they lay eggs? No, not really. Do I enjoy the eggs which they do lay? I certainly do. Do they taste better than any eggs you'll ever buy in the shops? Without a doubt.
And what of the two in the photo above? Well, they are now happy and healthy and enjoying their retirement. Their new life has seen them become more confident, exhibit natural and normal behaviour and grow back their feathers.

So - next time you buy eggs, do you really want to support the cruelty that these chickens have to endure??