No Rock - thoughtscraps

Is it true that horses love to jump fences, and do it naturally? No

Today’s  horse  is  required  to learn  a  wide
variety  of different tasks. Many  of these  tasks
are  not  natural  behaviors  for  the  horse.  For
example, polo ponies are required to  discrimi-
nate  and  follow  a  fast-moving  ball  while
avoiding swinging  mallets.  Whereas these
actions  depend  on  natural  physiological  re-
sponses of the horse, the horse normally would
not  utilize  these responses  so  intensely  for
such a long period of time. Many trainers have
observed  that  the  natural  tendency  of  horses
facing large  cross-country or stadium jumps is
to  go   around  the  obstacle  rather  than  to
discriminate  the  width and height  of  the
obstacle in order to jump it. And, most horses,
when  given  a  choice,  instinctively  avoid
entering a  dark, narrow  area  such  as  the
interior  of  a  horse  trailer.  To  perform  tasks
such as these,  the  modem horse must learn  to
suppress many  of its natural  instincts as well
as to learn to discriminate and to respond to  a
wide  variety  of  stimuli. The  ability  to  learn
and  respond  to  different stimuli  usually di-
rectly  influences  the horse’s usefulness  and
monetary value to humans.

A REVIEW  OF  LEARNING BEHAVIOR  IN  HORSES
AND  ITS  APPLICATION  IN  HORSE  TRAINING 
C.  A.   McCall
University  of  Connecticut,  Stons  06269-4040 

Journal of Animal Sciences, January 1990 vol. 68 no. 1 75-81
http://jas.fass.org/content/68/1/75

No.

The Centre For Economics & Business Research have called for Bank Holidays to be banned

They say they cost the UK too much money.

So I sent them an email:

Hello,

Just taking time out of my Bank Holiday routine to shake my head sadly at your ‘look at us’ press release calling for people to work even harder in the name of chasing more GDP.

Did you actually speak to any people who work at proper jobs? I suspect not; this incoherent suggestion bears all the hallmarks of a piece of work created by a group of men who light cigars with fifty pound notes and can’t see why the poor don’t work four jobs - after all, if they can hold down four directorships, is it really expecting too much for someone to wait tables and do a bit of cleaning, eh?

Look, if you guys want to work on bank holidays, that’s fine. Nobody’s forcing you sit around in your pants watching Homes Under The Hammer. But please don’t see people having time off simply in terms of extra cold calls that could have been made flogging payment protection insurance or a few further quid that could have been created for Vodafone to avoid tax on.

There’s more to life than money. There’s more to life than GDP. And Bank Holidays contribute more to the nation than a piddly couple of billion that you somehow think would otherwise be wrung out of the economy.

My apologies if you were actually going for some Swiftian satire. But I fear your were being genuine.

I got an out of office reply:

Sarah Conkay

I am now out of the office on Thursday 5 April, and the office is closed on Friday 6th April and Monday 9 April.

I will reply to your email on my return but if your message is urgent and requires immediate attention please call {number ]

Kind regards