Month: May 2024
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Wildpilot I – two local businesses, Amazon and Currys
I have been toying with this idea for a while: reviews good and bad of companies and services, which to embrace and which to avoid. They include small local businesses and mega corporations such as the utility companies and range from the truly excellent to the disappointing, from the wholly incompetent to the wilfully criminal.…
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Maria Vincent Robinson, photographer extraordinaire
https://mariavincentrobinson.com/ This is an entirely unsolicited appreciation of the work of this truly brilliant photographer. His work is for me amongst the best I have ever seen, anywhere. I have his permission to post a couple of examples here, but I urge you to visit his website. The wildlife photographs appeal to me particularly, but…
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For fox sake
I have become really tired of writing about fox hunting. I see so many awful reports of extreme cruelty every week but I cannot keep saying the same thing over and over again. Not only has nothing changed, it seems things are getting worse. I quote directly from Protect the Wild who have reported “the…
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Birdwatch & BirdGuides May/June 2024
I include bird photographs from my trip to Kenya. I have tried very hard but cannot be 100% sure of all of the species but these are my best guesses. Immediately above and below are images of African Tawny Eagles, I think. There has been a lot of news from Birdwatch and BirdGuides, especially of…
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How They Broke Britain Part IV
How they Broke Britain by James O’Brien, WH Allen, 2023 And so we reach the end of James O’Brien’s brilliant, epic excoriation, of which one reader joked that he kept his copy in the fridge for safety reasons and another said that he had had to stop listening to the audiobook version whilst driving because…
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Rude Poems
Herrick (Robert). The Hesperides & Noble Numbers [Works] . Edited by Alfred Pollard, with a preface by A.C. Swinburne. Engraved frontispiece. Lawrence & Bullen, The Muses’ Library, 1891. First Edition thus. One of 200 numbered Large Paper copies. Two volumes. Quarter parchment, spines lettered in gilt, . green cloth sides, top edge gilt, others uncut. …
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Michael Palin in Nigeria
I loved this extraordinary, eye-opening travelogue with Palin at his decent, thoughtful and affable best. He is visibly horrified and guilt-stricken by what he learns about British involvement in the country, as one interviewee says, the worst thing that has ever happened to Nigeria. The interview with one of the kidnapped schoolchildren who managed to…
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How They Broke Britain Part III
How they Broke Britain by James O’Brien, WH Allen, 2023 The chapters on Cameron and Corbyn are the least interesting so far because they are the least interesting, least Machiavellian characters. Cameron is simply a product of his education and the milieu in which he grew up. The private school system produces emotionally stunted people…
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How They Broke Britain Part II
How they Broke Britain by James O’Brien, WH Allen, 2023 Chapter 5. Nigel Farage. The author generally eschews criticising people for things they cannot help, like their personal appearance. But his skewering of Farage seems entirely justifiable since this is how he chooses to appear (he actually prefers wine to beer when he is not…
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How They Broke Britain Part I
How they Broke Britain by James O’Brien, WH Allen, 2023 As one would expect if you have heard or seen the author’s radio broadcasts, this is an angry, deeply incisive, passionate and incendiary book. There are two things it cries out for, so let me get those out of the way. The first is a…
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Billionaires
Carol Vorderman wonders: “Should we get rid of the super rich?” | LBC (youtube.com) Following the recent publication of the annual Sunday Times ‘Rich List’, Carol Vorderman has been applying her mathematical genius to the numbers and has made some truly shocking extrapolations. In the last year, for example, the wealth of our prime minister…
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Iris
Nothing to say about this, which appeared in the garden today – its strange, stunning beauty speaks for itself.
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An end to live exports at last
A slew of e-mails has arrived over the last couple of days celebrating this massive win for animals in the UK. World Horse Welfare were first, describing it as a historic milestone and a monumental victory (they have been campaigning for this for over a century). PETA and others were not far behind. I couldn’t…
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Oxeye daisies and ladybirds
The oxeye daisies in the garden are just coming into flower. I noticed these tiny ladybirds which turn out to be Sixteen-spot Ladybirds. Not, as I first thought, Twentytwo-spot (sic), being a creamy rather than bright yellow colour. To identify them, I turned to my copy of the folding, laminated WildID guide to ladybirds, which…
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The RSPCA and a king
The tireless Protect the Wild has deplored the appointment (perhaps I should say anointment, the royals seem to like a bit of anointing) of a king, Charles Windsor (i.e. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) as its new patron, describing him as an animal abuser. It is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, so I can…
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A much too close encounter with a deer
This photograph is from an altogether happier encounter with a muntjac deer in my garden: An unexpected garden visitor – Animal Wild On my way back from RSPB Pulborough Brooks* however, I and a deer had the nearest of misses. *RSPB Pulborough Brooks Nature Reserve – Animal Wild On a busy dual carriage way, I…
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A Short History of the World in 50 Lies
By Natasha Tidd, illustrated by Emily Feaver, Michael O’Mara Books Limited, 2023. With so much to cover in under 300 pages, beginning with the Achaemenid Persian Empire from 550 BC and ending with the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, this proceeds at a breakneck pace and is necessarily pretty dense. The author’s irreverent wit, knowledge and…
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Motorway gantry signs again
I drove to Blackheath yesterday to see and value another literary archive, which entailed driving for six hours, mostly on the M25 and M4. I have written about being caught out by these gantries before: https://animalwild.blog/2024/03/26/screwed-by-the-government-again/ I commented that I find the patronising platitudes intensely irritating (make sure you carry water on a hot day,…
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A Horse in Full and PETA
I have been watching a recent offering from Netflix, A Man in Full, starring the great Jeff Daniels. The style is somewhat like that of the magnificent Succession – a nasty tale about mostly nasty people with absolutely no redeeming features, and a disturbing subplot or two. The Jeff Daniels character, Charlie Croker is Trump…
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RSPB Pulborough Brooks Nature Reserve
Pulborough Brooks Nature Reserve, West Sussex (rspb.org.uk) This is a lovely place. I visited for the first time last weekend. The volunteers were charming, friendly and informative to a fault. I was off to a head start because one, Janet, is a friend I had met on a safari in Kenya a few years ago.…
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Brian Phelan, Rest in Peace, 1934-2024
Brian Phelan died, at home, a few days ago on May 8th. His stepson, Josh, was kind enough to let me know almost straight away. I had seen quite a bit of Brian over the last few months. We first met some twenty years ago. My wife, eldest and then only daughter and I went…
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Police & Crime Commissioners
The recent elections have made me ask a question, not for the first time. How is it that the candidates for these posts put themselves forward as representatives of political parties? Surely the police are supposed to be entirely apolitical? What am I missing here? It is a job which comes with generous remuneration, plus…
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Pixie Bks
During our firm of booksellers’ centenary last year, I sent out monthly reminiscences and reflections on my time in the trade. The March issue was about Private Presses, where I wrote this: For many years we operated, for two American universities, Brigham Young (under the leadership of Scott Duvall) and Wisconsin-Madison (Yvonne Schofer), a ‘blanket…
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Just a few more garden photos
A first visit to Penwood Nurseries near Highclere made a refreshing change from the overpriced garden centre chains. Staff were friendly and highly knowledgeable and it is all just about the plants. Not a garden gnome in sight, not that I have anything against garden gnomes. This will be my go-to place from now own.…
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A commonplace student’s commonplace book. Part II
All things by immortal powerNear or farHiddenlyTo each other linked areThat thou canst not stir a flowerWithout troubling a star Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn From ‘Stoned Immaculate’ by The Doors. Wasn’t looking too good but I was feeling real well From ‘Before They Make Me…
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A commonplace student’s commonplace book. Part I
When I was digging out the poems now published here https://animalwild.blog/2024/05/05/a-poet-called-norrie/ I also came across two notebooks and an envelope file filled with various quotations which I had liked and some occasional writings of my own. Some of it, especially of the latter, is pretty cringeworthy to say the least, even excruciating, but perhaps not…
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Colonialism, the British Empire and the Buggery Act
This is a subject I really feel I should have known a great deal more about, but it is almost entirely new to me. The trigger was a chapter from A Short History of the World in 50 Lies by Natasha Tidd, Michel O’Mara Books Limited, 2023, a book I will come back to later. …
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Fractal ferns
There are around 70 species of fern in the UK and over 10,0000 worldwide that we know about so far. They pre-date the dinosaurs. I am extra careful about hyphenating that word since someone once wrote that as a volunteer at Trindledown Farm I predated most of the staff. This fern is throwing out some…
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A wasp
Every hour or so a solitary wasp finds its way into the summerhouse. I carefully put them outside. There is no doubt that they are annoying, but I was quite pleased with this image. I have an as yet unread whole book about wasps but I admit it is not at the top of the…
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A poet called Norrie
A poet called Norrie, published here for the first time Norrie was from Glasgow. He lived rough on the streets of Manchester but slept overnight in, I think, various hostels. This was a long time ago when I was a student and some of the details are a bit fuzzy. I cannot exactly remember how…
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Wildlife rescue – news from HART January / February 2024
Please consider a donation to HART if you enjoy this content – visit hartwildlife.org.uk and click on Donate January / February 2024 Meanwhile it has been business as usual at HART, the wildlife rescue in Hampshire where I volunteer. Except that there is not really any such thing as usual business – there are always…
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Creating beauty from brutality. Mulberry Mongoose
This lovely bracelet, ordered from the RSPCA shop, arrived this morning. The inclusion of my favourite animal, an elephant, made it irresistible. It has been suggested that I am somehow anti the RSPCA, but I’m not. They do a lot of good work and get some very unfair bad press. I do feel strongly that…
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Crufts and flat-faced dogs
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have protested at Crufts, on one occasion being met with physical violence from security people. They are calling for and end to the senseless “canine beauty pageant” and the demeaning behaviours the dogs are forced to perform. In particular they are drawing attention to flat-faced or brachycephalic…
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Royal Pigeons
Members of the royal family are no strangers to the enjoyment of extreme animal cruelty – their patronage of various wildlife organisations is a smokescreen of course. See Animal Trust and Animal Wild. A letter from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) highlights their abuse of pigeons. Three, from King Charles’ Sandringham loft,…
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Right to Roam
I had this to say in Animal Trust and Animal Wild on the subject: We could certainly do with a Right to Roam Act along the lines of the one embodied as a statutory right in Scotland in 2005, which allows everyone access to pretty much all land and inland water. At the October 2023…
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Birdwatch magazine, April & May 2024
I especially enjoyed in the April issue celebration of the rise in Bittern numbers in Britain and the admiration of the sheer beauty of the Garganey duck, otherwise known as the cricket teal. The bird is described as Western Palearctic. I have been seeing the second word quite often lately and was prompted to find…
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Rwanda
Footage released on Youtube shows two of a nationwide series of detentions of migrants bound for Rwanda. I have already posted on this subject:https://animalwild.blog/2024/03/26/screwed-by-the-government-again/ “Meanwhile there are plans to ‘house’ seriously ill child immigrants in shipping containers and as if the entire Rwanda scheme were not diabolical enough, the Home Office has awarded a £6.4m contract to…
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The Garrick Club part II: when luvvies attack
This should ideally be read in the context of my earlier post about the club and its travails. There have been a couple of developments. To take a reactionary, reductio ad absurdum viewpoint for a moment, would this give me the right to object to being judged by a member of the Women’s Institute or…