The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2650 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I didn’t believe my name made the police act any faster than they would normally. In fact I wondered if it did the opposite—if someone had bumped me off, they might give them a few days to escape before looking for them. I’m sure there are loads of ways of delaying the start of an investigation. I didn’t pursue the point with James though I did mention to Simon who immediately thought my importance had just been recognised. I couldn’t dissuade him, even suggesting that Jason or Kit Mitten’s names were more likely to cause an acceleration in affairs than mine. He told me off for underestimating my importance. I knew what it was—zilch.

I checked the internet for last minute emails and trawling through the Guardian website discovered that Blackburn diocese wants the General Synod to consider some sort of baptism or renaming ceremonies for trans people. I suppose given the pedestrian way the C of E has dealt with same sex marriage, it could be seen as progress but could take years of wrangling and working parties before anything except sympathetic inertia was the conclusion.

The evangelical right will say it isn’t covered in the bible or condemned by the bible, yet will happily accept blood transfusions or transplants that don’t appear in the bible either. Oh well, the more liberal members will continue to try and introduce progress but it will be exceeding slow. Good luck to them is all I can say, and also to those who feel a need to be rebaptised or renamed. Popping into a solicitor’s for a statutory declaration was enough renaming for me.

I had one more day to get through before dashing up to Reading on Saturday for the friendly match between England and Scotland’s ladies. Danni had been included in the squad but that didn’t guarantee she’d play. Apparently the current manager only announced the team an hour or so before the game to enable last minute changes. I suppose if someone is on a heavy period they may not play as well as usual, which won’t happen to Danni unless medical science moves forward more quickly than expected.

I heard the thing on the radio about paracetamol possibly causing fertility problems in male foetuses during pregnancy if the mothers took above a certain amount or used it regularly—undescended testes being one such problem. I have a feeling my mother took it while she was pregnant but how much and for how long, I have no idea.

After noting a website for recording ladybirds—something I could do with the younger children—I ordered a book on Ladybirds so I’d have a chance to identify them. It appears we have a large number of different ones including a newcomer, the Harlequin Ladybird which out competes and might even eat other species. As this is a real ecological issue, it might even get some mention next year and start someone looking for a research project, to do some post grad study. If we can prove it harms the ecosystem, we might even get some government money to study it. I know, that annoys me too, but blue sky research is very difficult these days without someone funding it.

Hedgehogs are being counted and suggestions for improving the environment for them is being publicised. I’ve been saying this for ages but no one listened. Hedgehogs are in trouble possibly only one thirtieth of the population we had in the 1960s. As they do no harm and loads of good, we should respect them. My garden is hedgehog friendly with places for them to nest and hunt, and was before I lived here. Tom has always encouraged them—he’s a keen gardener, but not one who likes total control of the planet.

Bumping into Simon as I took my cup back to the kitchen, he said, “Oh, I thought you’d gone to bed.”

“No, I was checking my emails.”

“Right, well I’m going on up.”

“I’ll be up as soon as I’ve rinsed my cup.”

He nodded and ascended the stairs I was no more than a couple of minutes behind him being overtaken on the stairs by a black rocket propelled cat who shot into the girls’ bedroom and would probably end up on Trish’s bed. Apparently there’s some research which suggests some antigen in cat saliva can encourage glaucoma in susceptible individuals. I wasn’t so sure about it but must have a look on the net to see how respectable it was. The guy on the radio suggested cats spent more time in doors than dogs, which I thought was erroneous in many cases—Bramble was out most of the day—only coming in for the night because of bribery with biscuits.

The problem is that the Today programme is frequently like the Daily Mail, it uses all sorts of stories which are necessarily correct because they are vaguely newsworthy. It doesn’t however carry as much on transgender issues as the Wail or even the Guardian, though the emphasis is so different between those two.

It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to suggest they are diametrically opposed to each other in many of their views and opinions. The Wail tends to look for negative sides to transgender stories unless the person involved is glamorous, while the Guardian is more proactive in carrying politically contentious stories about transgender people including the Church of England one. I suspect the same story in the Wail would be much more anti and conservative, perhaps suggesting the use of ducking stools for the baptisms. These were nasty objects which were a forerunner of waterboarding but used the same sort of outcome—nearly drowning the unfortunate victim, occasionally going beyond the nearly bit and actually drowning the victim in the village pond. They were popular for getting witches to confess.

Perhaps not quite as perilous as throwing the unfortunates into water bound up so no swimming was possible, where the innocent drowned and those who floated were then burnt at the stake—double jeopardy doesn’t begin to describe it.

Talking of things historical, it looks as if the irreplaceable artefacts and architecture of Palmyra may be days from destruction as the Islamic State militants have captured the ancient city. It grieves me that barbarians exist in the Twenty First Century, though their inhumanity to their fellow humans exceeds even their destruction of irreplaceable archaeology, perhaps only matched by the Syrian government of Assad and one or two other equally atrocious regimes in the Middle East or Africa, where life is cheap unless you happen to be the dictator or close to him.

Talking of Africa, I see a moron from Texas paid $350,000 to shoot a black rhino, an endangered species and then claimed it would aid conservation—talk about inverted logic.