Mother Nature

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I’m ignoring most of the dire stories current this morning for my attention has been drawn to the wonders of Nature. Yes, even the Old Goat can wonder at some of the things going on around him.

The best story is that of the tiny robin that has befriended retired university physicist, John Crabb, in Somerset and which will happily perch on his outstretched hand to pick up a morsel of food. Mr Crabb is an amateur photographer who set up a simple system to capture amazing shots of the bird landing on his hand. The robins are the friendliest of birds and I love it when our resident robin comes down into our garden, but how wonderful to have one feeding from your hand - and to be able to take photos of it doing so.

Then there is the tale of Sydney the snail which beat off 200 competitors to win the World Snail Racing Championships in Congham, Norfolk. Sydney took three minutes and 41 seconds to complete the course by racing from the centre of a circle to the outer rim thirteen inches away. Sydney’s owner, Claire Lawrence, was delighted to win a silver tankard filled with lettuce, though there are no recorded comments from Sydney himself who, I assume, is now resting after his exertions.

There is good news also on the butterfly front where Large Blue butterflies have been successfully bred in secret locations in the West Country. The butterflies were driven to extinction over thirty years ago and two conservationists bought eggs back from Sweden in the 80s and have successfully been breeding them ever since. In one site, 135,000 eggs, virtually invisible to the naked eye and smaller than a pinhead, were laid this year. The eggs are placed on heads of thyme, the cannibalistic caterpillars are then separated from each other and, after they have shed their skin for the fourth time, they drop off the thyme. The conservationists have developed a way of placing the caterpillars in new sites just as they drop off the plants where ants, attracted by their sweet scent, drag them into their nests where they become food for the caterpillars which ultimately turn into butterflies. Ultimately, the plan is to extend the range of these rare creatures further north but, for the present, they are only found in very specific locations in Somerset and Devon, including Collard Hill, which is a National Trust nature reserve and open to the public.

Finally, it is well-known that grazing animals give off enormous amounts of greenhouse gases. There are, for example, said to be around thirty million sheep in the UK, each producing around 20 litres of methane a day, and over ten million cows each producing around 500 litres of methane a day. Now scientists at Newcastle University have discovered that coriander and turmeric in their diets can reduce the amount of methane produced by up to forty percent. It is an interesting development. Maybe it’s possible that our beef and lamb will in time come ready curry-flavoured!

‘Ain’t Nature wonderful - even when it’s given a helping hand?
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In Weston-super-Mare?

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Weston-super-Mare in Somerset features in most of this morning’s newspapers for what the town’s good burghers are most likely to feel are the wrong reasons.

I’ve never visited this town and looked up its website (I loved the advertisement for the Dog Lead Shop!). It appears to be a typical seaside town with miles of golden sands complete with donkeys, a pier, a large observation wheel, an aquarium, two museums including one of helicopters, a Memorial Garden to Jill Dando plus all the usual holiday resort attractions. Wikipedia advises that notable residents of the town have included Bob Hope, John Cleese, Jill Dando and Rupert Graves.

But, like any other town I suppose, there is another side to Weston-super-Mare, for, among others probably, it has a nightclub advertising itself as an 'exotic house of luxury' in which the paying guests can enjoy an 'exclusive lap and pole dancing venue'.

I imagine that most towns (with the probable exception of Frinton in Essex!) have these so-called night clubs and that they would most likely prefer that they not become the focus of national attention. So what has made Weston-super-Mare different?

It is that undercover reporters (yeah, right!) discovered a 14-year old schoolgirl performing there as a lap dancer and giving men £20-a-time naked dances. Not only that, but the shocked reporters discovered she was drinking vodka alcopops.

Inevitably, the police became involved and the young lady concerned, who told reporters ‘This is only my second night but I'm a very good lap dancer’, has been asked to concentrate more on her school work than lap dancing in future. Her shocked mother will have to be watchful in future - she thought her daughter was at a sleepover!

Who’d have thought it?
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Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

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Today is the festival of St. Valentine, the day on which we traditionally send greetings to those we love and cherish and, anonymously, to those we’d like to love and cherish.

There’s much argument about St. Valentine. Chief of these is: who was he? First mentioned by Pope Gelasius 1 in 496, more than one hundred years after the first official list of saints was produced, he was either a priest, a bishop or a martyr; you take your pick. There were seven St. Valentines and the one celebrated on 14 February was a priest or bishop who was martyred in ancient Rome.

Relics said to be of the saint are held in Rome, France, Austria, Malta, Glasgow and Birmingham. Other relics of his, exhumed from catacombs outside Rome and donated by Pope Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin in 1836, feature in an annual Mass there for those in love.

There are no St. Valentine’s links to love and romance before it was mentioned by Chaucer in 1382, but by the time of Shakespeare 250 years later the links seem to have become well-established. By the time we reach Victorian times, ready-made Valentine Cards bound with lace and ribbons largely replaced handwritten love notes and commercialism really got under way. Now it is estimated that around half the UK population send Valentine cards and spend money on flowers, chocolates, jewellery and other gifts. Many of us also send ‘e-cards’ over the internet; the variety of cards is extensive and their cost minimal.

Many school children exchange cards on Valentine’s Day. But not in a primary school in Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset. There, the school banned pupils celebrating Valentine’s Day or sending cards so as to protect them from the emotional trauma of being dumped, and the poor mites have been told that any cards found will be confiscated. The Head Teacher said, ‘The school believes that such ideas should wait until children are mature enough emotionally and socially to understand the commitment involved in having or being a boyfriend or girlfriend.’ Humbug!

In sharp contrast to the silly attitude shown by this school, is the much more romantic one shown by the managers of Manchester Airport. It seems that romantic surprises have been spoilt in the past when the ring was pulled out as security staff rifled through bags. So this year passengers who plan to propose to partners on Valentine breaks need only utter the code phrase ‘Be my Valentine’ to staff to be taken behind a screen so that the hidden ring is not revealed. The spirit of St. Valentine’s Day is not yet dead - at least in Manchester Airport!

Happy St. Valentine’s Day To You All!
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Turner Versus Turnip

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For me, art is like poetry. I like to understand it.

So this year’s Turner Prize for art, worth £25,000, goes to a young man who, with four assistants, has made a huge mural covered in gold leaf. Unusually, it will be destroyed after the current exhibition ends.

Explaining this, the artist said, ‘I am interested in placing painting in the situation where it collides with the world; the fragility of that existence. Being here for a short period of time, I feel, heightens the experience of it being here.’

Yeah, right.

Others will disagree with me, but my view of the Turner Prize is that it encourages tosh done up in the name of art. Other works submitted included a melted passenger jet engine, an untitled steel frame filled with cows' brains and pictures of unclothed dolls.

I think on balance, I prefer the unpretentious Turnip Prize, organised by the villagers of Wedmore in Somerset where they compete for the prize of ... a turnip.

This year’s prize went to a lady who pinned a pair of old underpants to a bar room door and titled it ‘Manhole Cover’. Clearly it was a winner!

Other entries included a fence panel entitled ‘Don't Take A Fence’ and a bunch of naked Barbie dolls in an old birdcage entitled ‘Knickerless Cage’.

Ah, yes. The Turnip Prize is by far the better competition!
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Right On!

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There is something quintessentially English and eccentric about the villagers in Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset who have turned a traditional red phone box into the country’s smallest lending library.

The recent closure of the phone box service may not have caused any problems to villagers in these days of mobile phones, but when they lost the services of the mobile library one villager thought of the idea of purchasing the phone box and turning it in into a lending library.

Villagers simply stock it with books they have read and take away another one. A parish councillor said, ‘This facility has turned a piece of street furniture into a community service in constant use.’

In other villages around the country have turned red phone boxes into art installations, a shower and even a public toilet.

Right on Westbury-sub-Mendip!
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