Why animals are smarter than people

Middle of the day and hot so
a. Look round a town
b. Lie on your back with your paws in the air
c Hide behind a shady shutter

Kotor

Kotor was the first white wall, limestone and marble clad ex Venetian style town that we visited on the holiday. Both Dubrovnik, Bubva and Kotor were all ruled by the empire based in Venice at some point and they all share the white walled, red roofs, twisted street layout. Kotor is a UNESCO world heritage site that stills bears one of the few tributes to communism left in Montenegro as rules forbid them from altering them.

The road from Budva to Kotor via Cetinje - Picture of the Day 05/08/10

First you go up from the coastal resort of Budva into the coastal mountains until you get to a point where you can take pictures like this
You then go down the otherside and reach the town of Cetinje. You then go up again to the village of Njegusi where you can see the view to the valley floor.


As you go down to the valley floor you can see a small hill again and you think that then yo go up the small hill there will be a short drop that you can see up ahead to get back to the coast.



As you crest the hill your jaw drops and you get this view. Only 25 hairpins in a coach to get to the bottom almost 1 kilometre below.




With roads that look like this


A decided to sleep from top to bottom thus reducing the terror as we approached each hairpin

Cetinje

Cetinje (Setinyah) was the traditional capital of the Montenegrin region, a region that has changed with the ebb and flow of the empires around it. Montenegro has never been conquered as it is far too mountainous and poorly located from a tactical stand point so apart from occasional burning no-one stayed around for long. To reflect this the monastery has a somewhat fortress like appearance to keep the raiders out. The Montenegrin Orthodox church is trying to establish itself as different from the Serbian Orthodox church and if it happens then this will be where it will be based.

Things I learnt on holiday

1. Montenegrin cuisine rarely includes mushrooms
2. Croatians don't understand spoons
3. Montenegrin taxi drivers believe themselves to be equal to Ayrton Senna and some might be
4. You can only be scared for your life so many times in a short period
5. Cats understand how to deal with the heat best
6. The most dangerous animal that exists is a small child with a stone
7. In the former Yugoslavia you can tell where a car comes from by the letters on the number plate
8. Tiger mosquitoes are small but "have bite like crocodile"
9. 3 of the most exciting roads in Montenegro really are
10. Basketball players are really tall and make you feel really short.

The 10 Montenegrin Commandments

I can't recall them all but they include

Work causes all ailments. Don’t die a young man
If you feel the urge to work, have a rest and it’ll go away
If you see someone else working encourage them to stop
Only break periods of rest for meals
Wake up late, rest and go to bed early

Why Academies are bad

If you devolve academies from the LEA there are a number of issues

1. They stop being locally accountable so you can't vote for anyone local to go in and change them as the town/city/county council are no longer in charge.
2. If you devolve power from the LEA then academies will have to buy in services such as Computing, Insurance, Transport and Payroll. While they could go to an outside service the people who are best set up to deal with the problem are the LEA who will charge a premium as they are now in the business of making a profit. The same job is now more expensive.
3. Pensions - as the LEA is now longer the employer of the staff at the school they are not responsible for the pensions contributions so that added burden on the each individual school budget will wipe out the extra money given from central government.