Tales from the Moor

Warning : Includes Scenes of a Sexual Nature (just frogs though…)
I love this time of year, it makes me appreciate to change in the season from Winter to Spring. Just the briefest hint of watery sun, the tiny bit of warmth it offers makes me happy.
It also gets me out of my fitness stupor and I start emerging from my pupae, a plump and translucent skinned glistening lump, to strengthen and toughen as the days get longer.
I’ve started running a little bit again, had a mad few running days in January, but work put paid to my progress. Now, with the longer daylight hours I’ve no excuse really.
I love running on Flitwick and Flitton moor. In Winter the ground is too muddy, but now, it’s firm enough to not splatter too much, with a satisfying spring in the spongy peat. In times gone by, recent times in fact, up to the 1960s, peat was dug out for fuel. There is even an old peat cart and remnants of the tracks and runners it was pushed along, rusting away behind a hedge.
It’s also a great place for wildlife. I’ve been fortunate enough to see frogs mating a couple of times now (another of my blogs has a video of this phenomenon) Frogs Porn Video.
With a bit of patience, you can observe the writhing mass of their bodies and their croaking calls (once disturbed they become self conscious – which is understandable really, considering giants had just stomped up to watch them going at it)
The ponds in amongst the reed beds were just loaded with breeding frogs and their spawn. Their chorus an ubiquitous drone. This photo doesn’t really do them justice.

This close up came out quite well, I was taking photos into the sun, which meant a nice silvery effect from the water.

As for this chap (or lady) – you’re missing out! Get in the scrum!!

On that particular day, we also saw a shy heron, who flew away to a safe distance. In that they aren’t the most quick to get into flight from a standing start, they keep a safe distance from potential dangers. The heron is in the top right of the photo.

And here is a pic of the bark of a silver birch, which caught my eye.

We also saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming from the top of a tall tree. In the distance, we could hear another male replying. It’s all about the territory, a peat turf war. He let us watch him for a bit, then flew off. It’s amazing to think they evolved to have heads with such insulation and shock absorbers as it was freakin’ loud. Head banging is bad for your health.
My wife Debbie is very educational, she let me know that the Great Spotted woodpeckers are the ones that hollow out trees to make nests. The other major British woodpecker species, the Green Woodpecker, aren’t really big on the pecking side of things.
You can hear them more than you see them, they have a laughing like call, which is what Professor Yaffle’s laugh was based on in Bagpuss. So that’s one mystery solved. Professor Yaffle is a Green Woodpecker… not a Great Spotted. And a quick google search shows that “Yaffle” is also a lesser known name for the bird in some areas of the UK. So there you go.

Although normally shy, in the breeding season (now), Green Woodpeckers can get surprisingly bold. I saw two of them displaying to each other, fluffing out their wings and swaying their heads at each other. They ignored me as I watched them. It was really fascinating.
Other recent sightings / news -
Buzzard
Within Southern England, this is quite a big bird of prey. We heard it first, it has a cat like call, it loped away with its big wings pushing it through the air. We’d probably disturbed its feast.
Red Kite
These beautiful birds are not endangered anymore. Once they were a common site, even in London where they’d eat carrion. They’d been pushed to the limits of extinction within the UK. But these distinctive birds with their forked tails are now pushing into the South East again. We see them riding the thermals, circling up high with their distinctive forked tails. They do manoeuvre like kites.
Skylark
Debbie pointed out our first Skylark sighting on 2011, somehow it can fly and sing at the same time. It seems to struggle through the air, buffeted this way and that. When there are loads of these birds flying and singing, it’s pretty noisy.
Kingfisher
Deb has seen them… I haven’t yet. Always looking for that flash of blue lightning whenever I cross the River Flit.
Deer
Muntjacs are the most common species in the two moors and the woods, but so skilled at hiding, you rarely get to see them. Escaped from a private collection (non native, from China), these small deer, with their unusual tusks are now all over Beds and Herts. I couldn’t believe reading a news article where dog owners complained about their pets being gored by these tiny animals. They should be under control when visiting the nature reserve… and all they were doing is defending themselves and their young.
Otters
Most exciting (if you’re into this sort of thing!) is that otters have been seen in the river Flit. We’ve not seen any yet… one can but hope!

Childhood chocolate

Funerals are time of reflection, respect, sadness and celebration of a hopefully full life.
This blog is concentrating on the reflection element, those places your mind takes you to when you are thinking about the times you’ve spent with the recently departed.
I’d known “Auntie” Ifigenia or Fiona all my life, the latter name chosen to make it simpler for non-Greeks to pronounce. She was part of the Cypriot generation who came to North London to work in the 1950s and 60s.
Every Saturday, she’d do her weekly shop and then pop into our house for our coffee. As a small kid I really looked forward to her visits. This was the one day of the week I could eat chocolate. It was a kit-kat, a two finger kit-kat. Without fail, she’d bring it to me, I’d politely say thankyou and then go and hide in some corner, where I would savour every bite, I remembered the feeling of emptiness and disappointment the times she couldn’t make it.
It’s strange to think that everything is a commodity now, so accessible. Yet chocolate was a luxury, is a luxury. For working class families in the seventies it wasn’t something that was easily accessible or necessarily affordable. I used to think things like “When I grow up… I’ll eat crisps and chocolate every day” it seemed decadent and regal to me, a real step up from where I was. (as well as wanting to be an astronaut – a chocolate/crisps eating one clearly).
It’s only a small, funny little memory. But it seemed important to capture it. A way of saying thank you to a lovely lady.

Summer in Paris

Back in the summer, I decided to make a little trip to Paris to catch up on the Lucian Freud exhibition at the Pompidou Centre. Freud is a national treasure, our greatest living artist, so it was exciting to see his work showcased. I got the cheapest Eurostar ticket I could find (something like 5.20am, which meant I left home at 3am) and headed out there. It was a packed couple of days.
I was triggered to write this blog as the Tate (Britain) is currently showing a small gallery of Freud’s work as part of their pre-refurb exhibition, focusing on British art over the last 150 years or so. Well worth a visit. Especially if you like Bacon, Nicholson, Hepworth, Moore, Sickert and other great British stars. This finishes sometime in February I believe.
So while in Paris… I overdosed on art. I’d never been to the Musee D’Orsay before for instance and there was some amazing stuff in there, but I found the place totally overwhelming. The modern art museum however is outwardly slightly shabby and inwardly more accessible, I really loved the graffiti on this statue outside. It enhanced her.

Inside was one of Louise Bourgeois giant spider sculptures, there is a lady walking in the background to give a sense of scale and no, she wasn’t injected with venom and devoured, if she was, I’d have filmed it. Poignantly, Bourgeois had died a few weeks earlier. This spider wasn’t as immense as the one which stood outside the Tate Modern a couple of years ago when she had an exhibition there.

As well as the Freud exhibition, there was also a Munch exhibition in town.


As memories all merge into one, I can’t remember which order I did everything…. I was there for two long days. Galleries galore. My only fixed memory is of the one night I stayed out there, having a massive steak and watching a world cup match with my brother who was out there on business.
I also visited the catacombs, I got there late, 4pm, the staff were telling everyone there would be no chance of making it as the queue was so long. But I persevered and I was last one in! The american guy behind me, where the cut off took place, thought he was snoop dogg and was shouting “you cocksmokers!” at the French staff who just shrugged gallic-ally. But he wasn’t allowed in. I was. This also meant I could loiter until everyone pissed off so I could take photos on my own.
The catacombs is consecrated ground, the bodies of the poor within them were exhumed and moved from old plots to make room for more burials. Only the rich could afford their own permanent burial space. And so, this space (once used as a stone mine) was filled up, the bones arranged creatively.
It made me think about some bored monks, pulling this all together. And of horse drawn carts full of dug up bones, poured into the tunnel system below, so a single skeleton could end up over several locations in the network. Slightly disturbing. It wasn’t a frightening place in any way, but it did make me think.

The Most Amazing Quote in the World

The night before last I had a dream, where I came up with what can only be described as the most amazing quote in the world. In a brief moment of lucidity, knowing I was dreaming, I dismissed the annoying dancing monkeys and pool playing imps, forcing myself to wake up so I could memorise this amazing quote. I felt exhilarated and elated. This quote was incredible. I felt I had discovered a great gift, so powerful it could blow a man over with its intellectual might. It was no more than two lines, a subtle play on words, yet of such sharpness that it could have been an almost invisible piece of Japanese steel folded 400 times and given to a sword master to demonstrate the beauty of slicing a human hair lengthways.

As I lay in the dark, open eyed, but looking up into the inky blackness of the bedroom ceiling, I pondered, should I write this down? Maybe read it out and quote it into my iphone dictation thingy. But I was sure I would remember. I closed my eyes, reciting the quote again and again in my mind until I fell into a fitful sleep. I was awake again before the night was over, the quote on my lips, in my mind again, I held onto to it tight, like a chubby cherub with a chicken drumstick. I wasn’t going to let it go. I would be the new Oscar Wilde. So I slept soundly this time. When I awoke in the morning however, I’d forgotten it completely. Useless cock.

The Golden Eagle, Marylebone

Last week, we went on our re-arranged Christmas team night out. Marylebone is a fantastic part of London, quirky shops, great food, atmospheric pubs. Seems to have retained it’s own character and hasn’t been swallowed up by the tourist trap that is Oxford Street just down the road.
I’ve been to quite a few pubs in the area, but by far the oddest, and not necessarily in a bad way, just from a curious social history perspective (as it’s stuck in 1943) is the Golden Eagle. It’s a proper pub or as it’s described in some quarters an “imbibing emporium”. Observe this contemporary scene.

On a “sing song” night, Tony “Fingers” Pearson wedges himself up in the corner of the pub, with his little Piano and tinkers out some classic songs (example – Moon River) and he is joined by up to a dozen dapper old chaps (some of whom wear cravats) who sing along. Occasionally a heavily made up and dyed of hair gin mother will join in, wearing some inappropriate fur wrap from some extinct mammal, but predominately, this is an old bloke thing.
There are all sorts of duffers in there, brylcreamed spivs, upper class dandies, rotund claret swiggers , dark suited heavies and jovial brick fisted navvies wearing their sunday best all singing along.
It’s quite friendly though, even if you wear clothing from the modern era and don’t talk like a minor character from an Ealing comedy.
I like it, it’s got character, others haven’t been so kind, one reviewer amusingly wrote :
“This is a creepy looking pub, it has the air of it being a living museum exhibit, i almost thought this was a set from little Britain. I've never seen so many misfits under one roof*, this place has an eerie air of unreality about it, It left me feeling quite depressed it was lucky I wasn't their when the pianist was playing, that would have freaked me out.”
*- I was probably in that day. And another wrote unfairly :
“This truly was a godforsaken place: the furniture looked like it had been bought from Steptoe & Son, the barman was as about as welcoming as a Death-Eater and the monged-out clientele looked like they hadn’t shifted since Thatcherism.”
(not fair in my opinion, they don’t know who Thatcher is after all)
And finally something positive, shouted out in capital letters :
“IT SERVES GREAT SAUSAGES”
Interestingly, my boss did tell me he took some Japanese visitors to the pub and they got a frosty reception. Probably because we are still at war right?
One of the weirdest things is the toilets though as you go downstairs and enter a perfectly normal corridor, but the corridor shrinks as you walk down it, like Alice in Wonderland, so you are almost squeezing yourself through a hatch to get into the loos. Being hobbit sized, I was surprised to find my afro flicking against the door frame as I walked in.
Anyway, try it for an experience, don’t let the bad reviews put you off, it’s a feel good place. And for any single guys, I suggest going dressed as an American Airman and try to hook yourself up with a 90 year old cockney sparrow. Make sure you use your impeccable Southern manners though.
Ps – If you are wondering about the art, it’s called Gin Lane, by Hogarth, an 18th Century Artist, Satirist and proto-comic book creator...

The World At War

I was watching one of the history channels the other night as I am oft to do. And the ground breaking and possibly the best TV series on the second world war was being shown. The World At War.
It has the gravitas, the meticulous detail, the big name narrator (Sir Laurence Olivier) and incredible interviews with some of the big players from the era.
26 one hour episodes of captivating, harrowing stuff, without any glamorisation and using incredible original footage. It took four years to film and produce such was the effort put in to bring it to the small screen. Anyone would have thought it was made by the BBC, but it wasn’t, this came from Thames TV, whose claims to fame included such guff as the Benny Hill Show and Love Thy Neighbour…
Watching it as a young kid I was frightened and moved by the chilling opening credits. The music was particularly disconcerting accompanied by the photographs of peoples faces, burning and melting into ashes. It used to terrify me, but I couldn’t avert my eyes. (To be fair, other things used to terrify me too, like my big brothers Pink Floyd album (Meddle) and one of the dinner ladies at my school who had a moustache)
I used to consider and wonder who those people in the photographs were, when did they die, what their names were, where were they from, whether they were happy in life, whether the war interrupted their happiness, whether anyone loved or remembered them. As a kid, it’s almost too big a concept to contemplate the transient nature of mortality, but it stayed with me.

Poetry

Yeah what? Poetry. I’ve just entered a competition to win 50 quids worth of Rococo chocolate. The store in Marylebone High Street is round the corner from our London offices and although (very) expensive, they make lovely gifts and taste amazing.
http://rococochocolates.com/
The competition is on facebook, here ….
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=166937213322687&id=43480946480
I decided to go for a theme of deviancy and colloquial filth, totally different to all the earnest / evocative and playfully humorous entries. I don’t think I’ll win, but I’m in with a fighting chance, like when Lordi won Eurovision.
So here it is… the theme was to mention at least one of their chocolate bars, which I forcefully wedged in, like a hedgehog through a letterbox.
I like chocolate,
quite a lot a lot,
Orange and Geranium,
Blows my cranium,
Chocolate from Grenada,
Wow! flippin’ Ada!
I quite like to eat ‘em,
Off a nice bottom,
But not off my own you see,
As that would involve great agility,
But rather, off a burlesque dancer,
Or if you are so inclined, you can feast from the behind,
of a Bengal lancer.

And here is a more serious one, about my lost summer to injury. Only just starting to run again. Seeing the surgeon on Tuesday, so want to be able to play football again and kick my mates. It’s been 6 months.
Summers lost,
The dull dawn,
mist broken by showers,
A gasp, feel the season,
Suck in the chill of Autumn,
the taste of damp topsoil,
The bark of pheasants,
In the woods,
I can run again.