Sunday notes

Slightly cloudy afternoon, but with some sunny spells in the islands today. It's the usual Sunday quiet.

Had difficulty watching the Landward programme on BBC 1 Scotland at 11.30 just now. First off, they had an item about docking dog's tails, which was rather gruesome. Apparently, they remove the lower part of a dog's tail if the animal is going to work as a gundog, i.e. retrieve shot prey. The justification is that an undocked tail can be injured if the dog thrashes through undergrowth. This docking is done in the first few days of life.
Then, there was this guy who made art out of dead lambs. When the programme mentioned that he goes round fields, picking up dead lambs and make works of art out of them, it made me quite ill. I duly switched off. Gross.

A preliminary report into the cause of the Cumbrian traincrash last Friday is expected in the next few days. Investigations are focusing on a set of points, located half a mile (1 km) south of the accident site. Eleven people remain in hospital in Lancaster and Preston. The railwayline is expected to remain closed for one or two weeks. The fields surrounding the accident site are sodden, making it impossible for heavy lifting gear to be brought to the site without the construction of a special roadway.

Hurricane Gamede is now moving away from Mauritius, which has cancelled its cyclone warning. La Reunion remains on Red Alert.