It was the late summer of 2011, and there we all were meandering around the north shoreline of Lower Loch Erne in Northern Ireland ... me, The Significant Otter and The Shredder ( our dog). It were right 'ot as well. So there we were by this little jetty with a few small boats around, a few benches to sit on with a good view over the loch, so we got our picnic out and had tea. Naturally, I scanned around the loch to see what was about..... and after clocking all the nearish stuff I glimpsed a pink thingy in the far distance .. it seemed to be on the jetty of one of the islands in the loch .... and I wasn't sure what on earth it was. The was a smallish boat there too. Despite the heat, I schlepped back to the car, got out my 4-ton telescope and tripod and sat down again to have a closer look. It was indeed a great relief to put the Kowa TSN2 on the ground .... Well, I relocated the jetty, and the boat, and the thing. I will tell you now, that my first impression was that it was a flamingo ... it was sort of hunched down on the jetty, with its neck rising up, and the bill just tilted below the horizontal. The plumage was a lovely pale pinkish colour. The head/bill occasionally nodded a bit. It was very convincing. There was bit of a heat-haze out there .... but ... but ... it did look good. I switched places so the SO could have a look. She agreed that it did look like a flamingo. But it was a long, long way off, it hadn't moved except for the slight occasional nods of the bill. There was a bit of heat-haze too ... but, dear reader, it looked spot on. We could even see the dark down-pointing distal half of the bill with its pinky base. We wondered if it was one of those plastic flamingos people put on their lawns. But that bill was moving a little bit ...occasionally. So... we watched. The SO with the scope, me with the bins ... and watched. We swapped over from time to time over the next 10 minutes or so. I even went back to the car and put the x60 lens on ! It still looked like a flamingo. I swear to you, if we had upped sticks and motored back home, I would have sent that in to the Irish Bird Report or whatever as a sighting of a presumably escaped flamingo ... complete with a drawing and all the rest. I mean, they're pretty distinctive birds. You could hardly get it wrong. I was looking forward to other sightings being reported, and maybe finding out where it had escaped from. Then an amazing thing happened ! Something we could hardly believe ? You probably won't believe it either. The "flamingo" stood up, picked up a towel and walked along the jetty to the boat. And then disappeared inside it. What !! It was a man. A man with pink skin, ... and slip-on footwear with black toe-ends. Not only that. This man was stark naked! Naked as the day he was born. Except for the odd footwear. I don't really know how he had contorted himself to get that effect. But it was brilliant, however it was done. The "body " of the "flamingo could have been the visible top bit of his recumbent pink body... or a bit of it. The "neck" was probably one of his sticking-up legs. (?) It's "head" was probably his dangling foot. The black-tipped bill was the black-tipped end of his sandal-ish sort of footwear or whatever it was. Well. something like that. Who will ever know ? We both felt like right fools ... nothing new there then. And I felt I'd had a lucky escape . Oh yes. Phew!! Here's the music for today .. it's remarkably apt ....
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Here's another crap bird-themed poem ... this time by Willy Wordsworth of " my wife Dorothy gives me all my best ideas" fame. But it's not its crapness that we're going to look at today ... no .. it's #2 in my groundbreaking and iconoclastic quest to sort out, once and for all, a hoard of bird-related puzzles and problems in fictional literature. A few posts ago we had a go at the nasty, viciously xenophobic antics of Pooh and his mates in stealing baby Roo from Kanga in order to force her to leave the wood for good. This exactly mirrors the current situation on the US/Mexican border where desperate incoming families are being separated from their children to force them to leave. But in the Kanga/Roo case "they" do it by distracting Kanga by getting her to turn round for a moment to look at a rather dubious bird... which to this day critics are not quite sure of in terms of species. But in this next bit of fiction I'm going to expose to ferocious critical attack, we're going to have a look at WW's poem, The Stuffed Owl. "While Anna's Peers and Early Playmates Tread " 1827 While Anna's peers and early playmates tread, In freedom, mountain-turf and river's marge; Or float with music in the festal barge; Rein the proud steed, or through the dance are led; Her doom it is to press a weary bed-- Till oft her guardian Angel, to some charge More urgent called, will stretch his wings at large, And friends too rarely prop the languid head. Yet, helped by Genius--untired comforter, The presence even of a stuffed Owl for her Can cheat the time; sending her fancy out To ivied castles and to moonlight skies, Though he can neither stir a plume, nor shout; Nor veil, with restless film, his staring eyes. Now what's the big, big elephant in the room with this "poem" .. ? Yes, you've got it. It's obvious..... Which bloody sort of sodding owl was it ??? You won't be surprised to hear that over the years a whole array of critics and analysts have written numerous papers, articles, diatribes etc on this very topic, as well as PhD theses and beyond. Key theorists like Frederick C. Crews, Hayview Gottaburger , Hal Fuseless, Freda Cagebird and Roda Carthorse have all crashed and burned in the fierce heat of this crucial question. Much of this has centred two main themes.... [a] The numerous symbolic attributes of the various species of owls... you only have to reference "The Owl Service" to see one tiny facet of this massive diaspora of possibilities. This rather duff sonnet must surely have more to it than meets the eye ... and that might well lie buried within the symbolic and turbulent hinterland "behind" the "Stuffed Owl." As well as the obvious "owl symbolism" in the Mabinogion, from which Alan Garner took his inspiration, there are numerous owl-based stories, myths and subsequent symbolic attributes for owls all over Europe ..and beyond. Some have pursued the many and various owl references in the numerous European bibles .... with surprising results which are too voluminous to list here. [b] The second channel of enquiry has centred around a more practical approach ... their line has been " which types of owls tended to be stuffed and put in glass cases in Wordsworth's time ? " And which species tended to turn up in the houses of the various tiers of society in the early 1800's. This has involved trawling through thousands of sources and also the scouring of photographs of the interiors of houses of all types, plus letters, other literary works, and the hunting diaries and records of the shooters and, of course the stuffers. Some cynical world-weary types would say it's just an excuse to get free entrance + tea and cakes to loads of said properties for years on end. Who gives a flying fart which sort of owl it was ? I hope you, dear reader, are not one of those dreary nay-sayers ... no no no ! So... knowing that you will want to read the key papers, the "Famous Four are listed here for any of my readers who might wish to consult them..... Kupp, Arthur T. Owl symbolism in the poetry of Wordsworth, a working index for researchers. Transactions of the National Symbolist Movement,Avian Division, August 1972 Witz, Alf. On Wordworth's "Stuffed Owl" and its numerous and mendacious critics, including a critique of all current theories. The Hoffstadt Journal of non-trivial Avian peregrinations 2003 vol 7 pp 88-746. Freda Cagebird. Wordsworth's enigmatic owl ! A seismic synergy in the Mabinogion-athon. Llwybr Llaethog, Bethesda, 2001. Frederick C. Crews Postmodern Pooh. A digest of modern Pooh studies. Profile Books, London. Includes numerous references to Milnes' "Wol", a truly semiotic Strigiformation of Owl-related Symbolisms and Semiotics , in the wider context of fictional Wildlife. Klapptrapp, T and Sbwriel, A Twenty ways to interpret the "literary owl" for the diligent sophomore and beyond. The Wisconsin Journal of World Literature 1157 to the Present Day. A. Carthorse, Iva Thea Rye and Kingsley Aimless A complete survey of the Owl Kingdom in mythology and fact. Frederick C. Crews, Seamore Birdbaths and Arthur Sixpence. The Owl and the Pushy Cat went to See: the only book you need to read for sophomore Eng.Lit. Trumpton Publications, Noddyland, USA. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OK readers, you've got the complete kit now. Thanks to ME ! But now ... Wise Owl Jupiter Jones and the lovely " Still" This is a work-in-progress sort of ongoing thread featuring twitchers and the like ... eventually every one of them will appear on here, assuming I live for ever ,which seems unlikely at present... but it's good to have a goal.
Apart from admiring them, you could have a think about where they might be, and what, if anything, they were gawping at. If you have any similar pictures,, you could send them to me at this email address... [email protected] Since I wrote about "cheating" in the world of listing, there's been repercussions. Oh yes. One particularly pernicious swindle in the fiercely-contested "Day Listing" category is this business of "assuming" that you've seen all the common stuff before you even start. That frees up a lot of time so that you can concentrate on the tougher-to-find stuff. But we all know, don't we, that often we find ourselves at the end of a "big day" or "big hour" and we haven't actually seen a Wren, or a Pied Wagtail, or a House Sparrow, or any of a long litany of " trash birds" as some would call them. But we've ticked them off anyway. Well, that's all coming to a shuddering standstill now ! Hah !! Gadzooks !! From the end of this month, all "Big Anythings" will have to have full documentary evidence of every species seen, with photographs of each claimed species including local identifiable landmarks, the day's newspapers prominently displayed in the background ( a member of the team will be designated for this task) (lucky them) and at the end of the allotted time period each member of the team will need to write a full account of the events and sightings of the day separately from the others, which will then be scrutinised by a trained team of scrutinisers who will scrutinise their accounts for anomalies, lies, fictional events and dodgy behaviours. That's why they're called Scrutinisers. They Scrutinise. So ... you lot out there .... you're not going to get away with 'owt from now on. No more will Swindling Hornswogglers get into "Birding Universe" with their 143 day-list in Milton Keynes, there'll be no more"Top Day Lists" in the already dodgy " Northdorshampsouthfolkshire Birding Newsheet" all of which will have been kicked into the long grass by the aforementioned "Scrutinisers". And that's all down to me. Yes, me ! It's about time all those bird-spotting types got kicked into shape. Mendacious drips, the lot of them. That Robert Smith .. he used to do a lot of those Big Days .... but it was such hard work ,he had to take a few "in-between days ".... and he wrote a song about them... Well, Robert, it'll be a lot harder work now !!
Well, for all us top birders, all we're on the lookout for during the World Cup is birds .... there's a surprising number of footy fans who are proud of their "list" of footy-pitch birds they've spotted. The "rules" are appropriately rather lax ... you can count flyovers, heard-only records etc. The thing is, it doesn't matter if the play is crap, or if your team is losing .... there's always the chance you might get a good bird. And, obviously, in the current TV scenario, you can count on-screen sighting too. Of course, with international footy being all over the TV at the moment, now's the time for the avid footy-ground-listers ( FGLs) to add lots of new species ... but they'll need the ID guides to reap the maximum haul. Here's a few snaps to help you hone your skills .... some easy, some impossible, some in-betweeners ... This next one is a bit marginal .. is that v faint thin white line real proof it's a footy pitch ? Here's another one which has dubious credentials ... it's that ambiguous thin-white-line again .. it could easily be a rugby pitch .. or a hockey pitch. Jings !" As for this last one ... controversy has raged for years over that thing in the bottom right-hand corner ... is it a bird at all ? And if it is, what is it ? The problem is, the bigger it gets, the "birdiness" decreases ... but then again, some say the opposite... which camp are you in ? But that's all part of the fun in this wacky sub-world of birding. How is your WCBL coming along ? World Cup Bird List. That's your viewing sorted then ... but now it's time for music .... this morning, out with The Shredder usual, I met a bloke and his dog. For years I thought his dog was called Merlin ... but today I found out his real name .. Otis. And it's named after Rich Hall ... aka Otis Lee Crenshaw ... so I'm putting this clever song on here now .... as you will see, I don't need to put the words underneath this time ... Issues concerning bird identification are, I suspect, rare in works of fiction. So, when they do occur, we must examine them critically. Obviously. One of the most gripping ( no pun intended) issues crops up in A.A. Milne's most famous book, Winnie-the-Pooh. It is an integral feature of the plot-line in " Kanga and Baby Roo" which is really a story about entrenched xenophobic attitudes in a closed and and overprivileged claustrophobic society crammed with lazy, pleasure-seeking inhabitants . Kanga is a newcomer to "The Wood" ... a thinly-disguised dictatorship in the steely grip of Rabbit and Owl. So ...they hatch a plan to get rid of Kanga via the kidnapping of her presumably bastard offspring, namely "Roo". This seems a bit much,but it's true .... here's exactly what gets said ... " We'll tell you where Baby Roo is, if you promise to go away from the Forest and never come back." I bet you never saw this story in its true light ! But now you know. Their clever plan is to distract Kanga, then steal Roo, replacing him with Piglet in Kanga's pouch. But how will they distract Kanga's attention from her beloved Roo? Here's how .... they try poetry first, but it doesn't do the trick ... so they have to try Plan B..... here we go " Talking of Poetry," said Pooh quickly, " have you noticed that tree right over there ?" "Where" " said Kanga. " Now, Roo .... " "Right over there", said Pooh, pointing behind Kanga's back. " No" said Kanga." Now jump in , Roo dear, and we'll go home." " You ought to look at that tree right over there" said Rabbit. And he picked up Roo in his paws. " I can see a bird in it from here," said Pooh. "Or is it a fish ?" " You ought to see that bird from here," said Rabbit. " Unless it's a fish." " It isn't a fish, it's a bird." said Piglet. " So it is." said Rabbit. " Is it a Starling or a blackbird?" said Pooh. "That's the whole question," said Rabbit. " Is it a blackbird or a Starling?" And then at last Kanga did turn her head to look. And the moment that her head was turned, Rabbit said in a loud voice " In you go, Roo!" and in jumped Piglet into Kanga's pocket, and off scampered Rabbit, with Roo in his paws, as fast as he could. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's not often that a crucial ID issue has such tumultuous consequences. Literary critics have also commented on the fact that "blackbird" has no capital b but the Starling is capitalised. Are they such beginners that they can't tell whether it's a Crow or a Rook or a Blackbird ? Is there a hidden meaning. And on top of that, why choose those two. Surely Kanga would have been far more likeky to turn round, and looked for longer, if they'd "seen" a Jay, or an Eagle, or a Hoopoe. We'll never know what Milne's intentions were I suppose. Maybe, in this mysteriously unworldy "100-acre-wood" all birds are equally common ... or, maybe, equally rare. If you have come across any "crucial ID issues" in your no doubt extensive reading of fictional works, let me know..... and I'll coax all the subtle undercurrents out of it for you to . You can send it in the comments thingy,or to my email ...... [email protected] Meanwhile, while you are all scouring through Bleak House and/or One Hundred Years of Solitude /Catch 22 or even The Magic Mountain, you can take a break to listen to this ..... it's "Alles" performed by ½ of Wir sind Helden .. live as you like.... I wonder how many of you recognise that title ... Sandy Beds. Well, when I first sent off my 10 shilling postal order to RSPB Headquarters, Sandy, Beds it was after a rather gormless 2-year delay. This was because the thing you joined then, the young people's bit of the RSPB, was called the Junior Bird Recorders Club. Being a naive soul, I thought that meant you had to have a tape recorder and you had to do lots of taping of bird songs. What twerp I was. But why did they give it such a stupid title ? Far too earnest and cumbersome and ..well .... dull. Anyway, that cost them a couple of ten-shilling subscriptions, so there. Also ... 10 bloody shillings was an absolute fortune back then, although, to be fair, it might have been 5 shillings .... even that was about 8 years pocket money. Seeing as I'm going to be a tad critical of the RSPB, I'd better give it a code name so they won't know what I'm talking about. How about the STQC .. that'll fool them. And they are a bit stqc up their own arses in some ways. It's based on that computer, HAL, which is IBM all moved down one letter. Except that I've moved it all up one letter. Anyhow, many many many years later, The Significant Otter and me were motoring around in't South .... I can't remember if we had the twins with us ... I hope not ... and we saw a sign .. it said ... Sandy !! So ...we went to the legendary Sandy, Beds at last. I was going to see what they'd done with all my money. I was not impressed with the reception for a start. And they hadn't a bloody clue about what birds might be about. Not only that, but they weren't interested either. They also had a map which was totally useless.... as are all maps dished out by places like that. But I won't mention it now. No. And then we wandered around trying to find something worth seeing .... nope ... and in the distance we spotted a HUGE building. And do you know what it was full of ? It was bulging with hundreds and hundreds of STQC workers, all beavering away doing MARKETING. Yes, MARKETING. Selling tea-towels with Avocets on them. Maybe other things, I don't know. Thimbles with wrens on I expect. I believe they even do Joy Division Oven Gloves now. I didn't like that. It fulfilled all my direst expectations. I fully expect that 98% of the money they raise get snaffled up by the management. Maybe 99%. And here's a thing ... that magazine they do ... over the years it has gone more and more useless, pathetic, populist and crap. And I bet the pages full of advertising has increased by 20% per year, and will asymptotically approach 99.99999 % of the blasted thing any time now. But hey ... I'm sure they know best. I'm not even going to mention the vast amounts of money spent on misguided improvements, on posh chalet-style fancy hides, on bigger and "better" restaurants and outlets, on VEM's ( Visitor Experience Managers) who spend all their time trailing parties of infants and/or Boys Scouts around their reserves, pointless hierarchies of interns, volunteers, managers, under-managers, over-managers, opportunists and halfwits. And isn't it strange that nearly all of those interns are attractive young women ? No ,not really. So .... that's my humble thoughts triggered by my visit to Sandy Beds. I've tried to keep it as positive as possible. But now, 'tis music time ..... and guess what .. it's "Joy Division Oven Gloves" by the wonderful Half Man Half Biscuit ... Well they say she’s too hot
Yeah but guess what I’ve got Joy Division oven gloves If it’s her desire I’ll put my fingers in the fire ‘Cos I’ve got Joy Division oven gloves I’ve got Joy Division oven gloves Ooh ooh tropical diseases Ooh ooh chemical alarm Ooh ooh I’m a little blase In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves Oh I’ve been here and I’ve been there In me Joy Division oven gloves I’ve been to a post-punk postcard fair In me Joy Division oven gloves Ooh ooh Nagasaki towpath Ooh ooh tickling the Laird Ooh ooh checking out the Quantocks In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves On a sinking ship a sailor yearns For his Joy Division oven gloves Nero fiddles while Gordon burns In his Joy Division oven gloves Talk to the hands, talk to the hands In my Joy Division oven gloves Dance dance dance dance In your Joy Division oven gloves Ooh ooh piccalilli shinpads Ooh ooh polishing the knave I keep wicket for the Quakers In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves In me Joy Division oven gloves My grandfather’s clock was too tall for the shelf So I sold it and opened up a stall Selling Joy Division oven gloves We got Joy Division oven gloves Get your Joy Division oven gloves Hallelujah Why are these dark, forbidding clouds forming ? You'll see ... Many many years ago there was a long-staying Laughing Gull at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. And by an amazing coincidence, my cousin , who lives in Newcastle, had managed to run himself over ... something that takes a bit of ingenuity. So my mum coincidentally rang me up to ask if I would take her to visit him in hospital in ..... yes .... Newcastle. For some reason I said yes with considerable enthusiasm and off we went. So ... I got to the hospital, pushed my mum out of the car gangster-style and hoofed round to the car park with every prospect of seeing the bird. I wandered round various adjoining fields, meeting up with various other disappointed birders who hadn't seen it either. So after a couple of hours I picked up my mum and we drove all the way back. Grrrrr. So what had gone wrong ? Well, it was a silly thing really .... it could happen to anybody...the hospital that my cousin was in was ...er ... the wrong hospital. My only consolation was, those other birders had gone to the wrong hospital too. Over the time it stayed, many people did. That cheered me up considerably. Having found that out, I was too irked to drive all that way again ... until my mum asked me to cart her there again.... so I did. And yes readers ... I did see the bird. But, unbelievably, I went again with somebody else a few days later, getting a free ride, and we went to the wrong blasted hospital again !! Luckily I realised what had happened .... and we finished up in the right place. It was all like some stupid joke being played on us. But why ? And why did lots of other people do the same thing ? Maybe it happened to you ..... Now this song is an absolute blast .... Jupiter Jones und Jana Pallaske mit Nordpol/Südpol .... it's a real blow-you-away, send-you-to-the-wrong-hospital sort of song...hence the title. Here's the "answer" to a puzzle I will set you way way in the future ! It might not be the "best" solution, but it can't be far off. Here we go then ... Harlequin Duck Buzzard Pomarine Skua Jay Waxwing Magnificent Frigatebird Raven If you want to see what the "question" was, this link will take you to it 894-a-gormless-response-to-the-previous-post.html and you'll need to look at the post before it as well.... 893-at-last-a-reasonably-short-post.html Our local bird reserve is not what it was ..... as I've mentioned before. When we want to be nasty about it we use our code-name " Grumbling Stumps ." Over the years, it's lost or almost lost several of its keynote birds, even though it tried to pretend it hadn't until it became glaringly obvious that it had. The more people come to it, the fewer birds there are. But the sales are no doubt enormous ! Ker-ching !!! Eventually it's going to finish up as a children's playground/conference centre with a couple of duck ponds round the back. Come to think of it, why not turn it into yet another cack University to add to all the others. On my previous blog ... the one that mysteriously vanished ... I compared the evolution of bird reserves to motorway services ..... within the "motorway services universe " there is a "Hierarchy of Crapness" which affords us a gloomy view of how things are going to go ... I think the term " race to the bottom" is the economist's way of putting it. So ... we should really start with a good one ... a service station that is actually probably better than many a real one ... this is Annandale Services So there's one right at the top of the tree .... the "evolutionary tree" you understand .. and here's another ... Tebay Services .... this has had some good birds ... ...but .... before long, these places sink down the evolutionary slippery slope ... mainly because they want more people and more money. Who would have thought it ? Here's Norton Canes ... now there's a made-up management-type name for you ...and you can see there's a little tiny pool there ... maybe two, I can't quite remember now ... so that's their " green agenda" ticked. Sorted. But that's pretty brilliant when you compare them with really cretinous dumps ... I know this one well because my parents ... and for a little while, me ... used to live nearby .. it's Forton Services. It did used to have a rookery though ... I don't know if it's still there. But their big missed opportunity was that ace viewing tower ... except that it isn't. It's been closed for decades . What a surprise.... all is concrete ..... and the "restaurant" has been the proud recipient of the worst motorway food award ... now that takes some doing. But at least that one is surrounded by fields ... and trees. There's many a one that is totally devoid of anything at all....this is Bridgewater ! Dire or what ..so far I've only included ones that I been to and know about ... but seeing that photograph I just had to use it ! I've not put it right at the bottom of my list because it might ... just might ... be good round the back! Butt I very much doubt it.... Now here's one I've been to a few times ... Charnock Richard. This to me epitomises the direction that Grumbling Stumps could be going in.. a giant car park with a giant crappy overcrowded "outlet" attached.. Finally, one I've only been to a few times, but has always looked totally crappy. Yes, it's Watford Gap ... it's had a song written about it, and a musical has been written about it too. Could this represent the final fate of Grumbling Stumps ? I fear so. But let's hope I'm wrong ... who knows ? "They" might eventually realise that more is not neccesarily better. That more people mean more disturbance, That sometimes quiet, peaceful places should be kept that way. And maybe they'll read my "rules of management" .. And see that actually, more managers means more crap ideas. And that all the extra money is being swallowed up by them. Enough of this dystopian stuff ... let's have a listen to the Roy Harper song "Watford Gap" ... and you can have a watch of the "musical" too. If you think you're hard enough. OK ...here's the musical ... Have you ever wondered why so many birds get hit and killed by cars ? [ Or maybe you are surprised at how few of them do .] [After all, there is no "correct" number] [As far as I know] Here's my theory .... For a start, there hasn't been enough time, evolution-wise, for birds to change their behaviour ..... I suppose cars became plentiful about 60 years ago. That's only 60 generations of "new" birds. But the main factor, in my view anyhow, is this ... Throughout 99.9999999999999% of the time that birds have existed, anything that was big tended to be slow. Yes, I know that a few large animals are quick ... but I don't think they would have enough impact to alter the course of evolution. And they probably aren't after birds. Rockfalls ..... they move quickly but tend to be accompanied by hefty noises... and they're not exactly common.Avalanches ... slow,rare. So birds would have an inbuilt sense that big things weren't going to hit them any time soon. But ... when the car came along .... that algorithm was busted. And they haven't rewired themselves yet ... through the very slow process of bumping-off enough of them to alter the course of evolution and wipe out the set of genes that say " big=slow". And I don't think they will ever need to ... because surely they will outlast us humans. I do hope so. There .. that's that sorted. Or maybe not. Maybe there's much better theories out there. Let me know if you can enlighten us. But for now, here's an unusual thing ... a cover version that's better than the original. I first got to know about Welsh band Catfish and the Bottlemen because I hoped they would do some Welsh songs ... but they don't. But .... their songs are extensively "covered" by "ordinary people" .... and this version of " Cocoon" is streets better than the Catfish's attempt at it.... now that's a rare and beautiful thing ... off we go then .... [By the way, car radiators can be a rich source of moths .... they get squidged on them, often in hefty numbers. ]
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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