This is an ‘html-only’ version of Scribblings with no database behind it. This means it is not possible to search it. I am working on a new version with which I am hoping to eventually put back into the main site. The new version is here but please note that there is no link directly back to the main site.
Saturday, 14th July 2007
The Badgers of Basra
I love the story which has surfaced on the BBC News site about the British Army allegedly releasing a swarm of savage badgers1 into the city of Basra in Iraq.
Despite the head of Basra’s veterinary hospital, Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, pointing out that the badgers had first appeared in 1986 some people still prefer to believe they were released by the British. Suad Hassan, a local woman, said that one of the badgers had attacked her while she was asleep. She told the AFP news agency “My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer. It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey.”
What I really like about the story though is that the British Army in Basra has felt the need to issue a denial. Major Mike Shearer said “We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area”. For some reason I find it hard to imagine the major saying that with a straight face.
Update (14 July 2007, 13:10)
There’s a bit more on this story on The Times site. Sattar Jabbar, a farmer, said that he’d seen a badger attacking animals much larger than itself including a cow which the badger is said to have torn up piece by piece and then eaten. Mr Jabbar said that he tried to shoot the badger but he missed and it ran away into the orchards.
1 These badgers are not the same as the black & white striped animals found in the UK. They are a related species known as the Honey Badger or Ratel.
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Since moving the site to a new server Scribblings is not as easy to find your way around as it used to be. It used to depend on a script and a database on the server but is currently served as ‘flat html’.
I have some ideas about how to make it a bit easier but they depend on writing another script. I hope to get around to it ‘eventually’.
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