Broken brocks and broken English

In the past twenty years I've only ever seen one live badger. All the others have been sad furry heaps at the side of the road, like the one I passed yesterday when taking stuff down to the post-box. It's a real shame that they seem to have no road sense - though also a real surprise that this is the only dead one I've seen along that particular stretch of road; anyone who's stayed with us and walked down to the village will know all too well how fast cars fly along an unmarked country road which isn't meant for that sort of speed!

I've always liked badgers, they seem like small-scale bears (and yes, I know they're actually weasels on steroids, but still...) although the one I did see alive, in the back garden when we lived in Tinahely, moved more like a hassock covered with a hearthrug. Diane thought it looked like a very small Horta, as portrayed in the Devil in the Dark episode of Classic Trek. I could see her point: it was late November in a fairly cold year, the badger probably had his full winter coat on, and what with longish grass, longish fur and shortish legs, the impression was of something with no legs at all.

Yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day. Well, I didn't. Not much, anyway. After dropping off the post, I stepped into Moore's (the village pub, shop and gossip information centre), and felt moved to announce, in the best traditions of Wallace Beery's Long John Silver, Macdonald Fraser's The Pyrates and sichlike worthies, something along the lines of: "Arr, me hearty, oi'll be havin' a tot o' that there Cap'n Morgan Ol' Jamaickey rum, arr an' belike or scupper me wi' a handspike else!"

Oddly enough, this didn't immediately generate a shot of the fluid. What it did generate were some very odd looks of a sort up with which (grammar) I bet Cap'n Blackbeard never had to put.

So I had a beer instead.