Shawn,
Probably Monday, maybe Tuesday, pm me your mobile number & I'll give you a call... the whole trip's being done on the wing, so really hard to know where I'll end up - would be good to meet a few Newc guys though, maybe you can give me the address of a good venue so I can plot it into my route...
++++
& back to the original thread subject:
John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young Layers called pullets and eight or ten roosters, whose job was to make sure the eggs were fertile. John kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of John's time so John got a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.
John's favourite rooster was old Butch, a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. BUT, to John's amazement, Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the county fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result... The judges not only awarded Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize" but they also awarded him the "Pulletsurprise" as well. Clearly Butch was a Politician. Who else could figure out how to win two of the most politically biased awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them.
