Gypsies stalk and eat swans in East London

I got a giggle out of this.. Just for the usual brilliant Sun commentary. PILES of swan carcasses stripped for food have been found at a squalid camp used by East European immigrants.

But then I read below and was curious, is there something in the UK Constitution that gives the royalty ownership over all swans or is it just these ones? Is it like Robin Hood where you can be hung for poaching the Sheriff's deer?

Americans have the Bald Eagle protected, so I assume there would be a fuss kicked up if someone killed and ate one of those in the states? It's just one of those laws that's been around for a long time.

I've always wondered why we (even outside the UK) don't eat swans.

They look like they've got more meat on them than turkeys, do they taste bad or something?

Yeah but swans are hardly endangered... I'm surprised makeshift camp sites on public land aren't banned instead of eating the local birds.

I've eaten swan. Delicious. But then me old man was a Queen's Swan Upper at the time (it involves rowin', a lot of free drinks, and coppin' 'old of big irate birds... bit like Southend on a Saturday night).

I like the quote "It’s vile. You could see where they’d snapped off the wings and plucked them before cooking."

Would it be less vile if they ate them with the feathers on?

Also take note of the beautiful comments the SUN readers came up with.

The Bald Eagle is not on the threatened or endangered lists either.

my bosses wife had her front teeth knocked out by some "eastern europeans" who stole her handbag in dover yesterday. nice bunch...

I've heard they can break your arm with their wing.

Swans too.

It was.. but if it isnt anymore I say its mahlzeit...

There is no "UK constitution". But by traddition all unmarked mute swans in open water are the possession of the crown and it is a criminal offence to kill or harm them. In practice this is only enforced on ceratin parts of the Thames

The only other people apart from the crown who are allowed to kill and eat mute swans in Enmgland are the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies and one college each at Cambridge and Oxford Universities.

We don't eat eagles or anything like eagles though, I presume because they don't make for good eatin'. We do, on the other hand, eat things that are like swans such as geese and ducks.

I guess if the Sun were that outraged by it they could have alerted the coppers before they rushed over there to get the juicy lead.

@bohemka, and I'll wager The Daily Mail are livid they didn't get the nasty immigrant story first.

The Bald Eagle is the National Bird of the United States (Not only the national bird, but a symbol for the country as well). Are swans the National Bird of England? Would clear a lot of things up for me if it was

don't think England has a national bird. Just a rose

I thought the English national bird was Barbara Windsor?

They are, just google travellers~thats the pc term or _{edited, dont think i'm allowed to use that word anymore} if you're feeling un pc, hmm am I allowed to use that word on a Thursday.

And they sell lousy caravans too.

So you've seen one movie featuring pikeys then?

I wouldn't know the word pikey otherwise... or know that RVs are called caravans on this side of the poind either.

Here, you can read a bit more about them on An open letter to Toytown Re: "Pikey" topics.

There are speaking ones too

He's talking about Cygnus olor.

Sin's right: "mute swans" are a species of swan (as opposed of Bewick etc) the latin name of which is Cygnus olor

Are you sure? I'm not normally right. Not on a Thursday anyway.

Oh dear

[img]http://www.mimifroufrou.com/scentedsalamander/images/Jordan-advert-web.jpg[/img]

Jordan - national bird?
National Ugly duckling more like.

Saw a documentary on her once - she had a moustache!

Probably. Most migratory birds are protected, such that, for example, possession of an eagle feather (even if you just pick it up from the ground) is illegal.

Which up until very recently was on the endangered species list.
From Wiki: On July 6, 1999, a proposal was initiated "To Remove the Bald Eagle in the Lower 48 States From the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife." It was delisted on June 28, 2007.

A caravan looks like this:


Whereas what I think you call an RV, we would call a camper van.

I know none of you ever read anything thats linked, but in this case, I really think you should! here's an article I remember reading from a while back

about how the sun swan stories are a bit dodgy

because the sun runs this very same article every couple of years, obviously when news is slow

wow, I knew the Daily Mail had a series of completely bogus asylum, gay, paedophile, EU, benefits scrounger stories up its sleeves that got wheeled out with different photos and names changed at regulatr intervals but I always thought the Sun for all its awfulness was above that kind of 'journalism'

Wow you can't be serious, or is there another Sun newsparer.

The Sun is inflamatory, divisive and partisan

However the Daily Mail is by comparison a poisonous pile of mostly invented stories and wildly distorted news designed to paint everything European, gay, black, brown, chinese, left wing, unemployed, scottish, Irish or Welsh in the worst possible light. It is crude agitrprop of the far right dressed up as cosy middle brow and middle class. Good god they supported Hitler in the War - you would have thought that would give someone a clue.

By contrast the Sun is just mercenary and a bit crude.

Thanks for pointing that one out, worm. Bloody good piece. I remain cautious of The Daily Telegraph, but impressed they ran that. Must be a circulation war kicking off.


"eating a swan is as alien to the Serbian way of thinking, for example, as eating a cat would be to a Briton" *cough* QUEEN MUM EATS PUSSY was the headline that immediately flashed across my brain... for a moment there. This boy's never eaten swan, obviously. Deeee-fuckin'-licious. I'd have it KFC'ed if I could, only they'd nick me.

This was my favourite bit:


Conjecture, Your Honour? Then prey, how might it be accurately termed a 'Newspaper'?

There we go, dear. Gettin' it now are we? Substitute the word Daily and Mail for the words News and Corporation and you're right on the money. In fact $28,700,000,000 a year's worth. It's not called 'Corporation' for nothing.

that torygraph article was from 2004, i just remembered reading it - in the opening paragraph he talks about the sun article being around in the summer of 2003

Duh! I never checked the date. But you made your point, and I'll give you mine: Media is marketing. Conveying purported news worthy events manipulated by conjecture is phenomenally important if you are to control and succeed. The small ones then are naturally more reliable.

BtC is right in that the Daily Hate Mail is a middle class organ whereas the Scum does have a certain connection with the working class.
It's readers are ordinary men and women who want something of a laugh to read in their break at work or whatever. Shit that it is.

ain't birds of prey also protected by the crown ?

And Peter André's back is ripped by talons becasue of THAT statute!

They're the same thing, MT, just 'packaged' for different target markets. They've even got a high-end product called The Times. It's just harder to get the marketing through to the A's and B1's.

for some reason I find the sun kind of innocuous, but the mail just seems quite virulent, and yes, the times is dumbing down quite rapidly. torygraph and guardian for me, FT on saturdays and the sunday times on...sundays

I would have said the Daily Mail was very much more dangerous., The Sun blows every which way depending who is in power wehereas the Mail has an agenda that is constant and obscene.