The radius of that solar halo should be approx 22½ ° ... this twerp has made a mess of it ! Mind you, to be fair, chwarae teg, that was back in 1976, when the " Great Protractor Shortage" was rife throughout Cumbria, creating havoc across the North-West, and later spreading up the M6 towards Glasgow and then branching off to all points East. Luckily it never went south, the land of learning, intelligent life, muesli and sofa-beds. Bloody typical. Yesterday I heard a mysterious sound ! I was walking along a twisty tree-lined path, so I couldn't see very far Well, I knew what it was .. it was the call of the male cuckoo. Not, of course, to be confused with the call of the female cuckoo. But it wasn't quite right. In several ways. Wrong time of year. The "tone" of it wasn't bang on. The timing of the two notes was a bit off. It lacked that "echo-y" quality. Well readers, turns out it was a bloke with some sort of whistle-contraption. He was blowing into this ocarina-esque device ... but sheepishly stopped when I hove into view. He slipped the contraption into a pocket sharpish. That sheepish and sharpish..... a bit dodgy if you ask me. Shifty. Shushpishshous. Wisely, I think, I said nothing, and walked on. I'm a diplomatic old Hector. So ... what the hell was he doing ? For a start, there weren't going to be any cuckoos to attract, if that was his game. With men, they're usually doing something "because they can". It's a subset of a general rule about men .. " In general, men will do whatever they think they can get away with." It explains about 93% of male behaviour, according to the latest studies. So it was probably that. Perhaps. Maybe he'd found it , picked it up, and just couldn't resist having a go. Lots of times. (?) But you don't do that. What with Novichok and the Galloping Shits and even better, that " Whistle and I'll come to you" story which scares the pants out of anyone who reads it and/or has seen the film ... you don't pick up whistles and blow into them. Oh no . Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo !!! If you haven't the time to watch all of it ... He finds the whistle at 16m 20s He reads the inscription at 18m 19s He blows the whistle ( big mistake) at 19m 30s Things start to go badly wrong at 28m 50s..... You might as well watch the rest from there .... it's not good !! Oh dear !! Oh dear oh dear !!!!!!! So there we have it. But to be more serious for a minute, those "bird-call" devices that hunters use, especially in the US, can be dangerous. Mr. G ( remember him?) brought one of those "squeaker" contraptions back from America and the very first time he tried it, he got attacked by a Tawny Owl. True. I don't think he's used it since. They can have your eye out, you know. Right ... you've been warned. No whistling, hooting, cooing, cuckooing, trilling, squeaking, quacking ... nowt ! You're going to need a really lovely bit of music to get over that film ... we've had this before, but everybody should see this every so often ..... Naturally, you'll want to sing along .... Just one more tiny warning .... In case you're worried, The Great Protractor Shortage only lasted 7 years .... but for a while, it rocked the whole of the North, but nobody knows how much, because there was a bit of a shortage of protractors at the time.
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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