Of A Tale of Two Birds

About 10 years ago I spent a few days over the Christmas period at the glorious Ashford Castle in Mayo, Ireland. It's a fabulous place with beautiful grounds, steeped in history and some really quaint touches. When you arrive you get handed a goblet of warm mead and there's a fantastic owl on his perch in the corner of the reception area who takes a careful note of each visitor.
Not so quaint however were some of the guests and there was one in particular I shall always remember. He was an irritating man with a puppet on the end of his arm. When I first saw him he walked around the hotel approaching children saying "big bird, big bird" as he went. To my horror he then started on the adults and my evening meal was soon interrupted by this annoying little man and his annoying little chants. Upon inquiry it turned out he was the owner or founder or whatever of Sesame Street and "Big Bird" was its star creation. I spent most of Christmas Day trying to avoid the pair of them and wishing that the bird of prey on guard in reception would see fit to finish one of them off at least.
Alas it seems that presidential hopeful Romney is promising to do the job for me by ending the funding for PBS which might also mean the end of Sesame Street.
Now there's a man who would get my vote.