The silent city (grit free pleasure)

 

 

 

What I wanted to chat about in this posting was "The Silent City" No; not some post apocalyptic zombie film or the town of Mdina, but the west country city of Bristol.

 

 

Like most of the UK yesterday Bristol was covered in a thick layer of snow. Bristol City Council are renowned for their lack of gritting effort, which considering this is a very hilly city makes for some atrocious driving conditions. I'm sure this is a reflection of their desire to make this a car free city. I have no problem with that, as long as they grit the roads to allow the buses to run. Car free is admirable, and inability to get to work is lamentable. I once drove from Newcastle to Bristol in thick snow, every road on that 300 mile journey to the perimeter of the City was easily drivable. I then passed the South Gloucestershire boundary mark and within a few miles the whole place became gridlocked. Took me three hours to do the last mile to work. I'd have walked but I had a car crammed with kit so couldn't leave it.

 

 

However because of this lack of gritting yesterday it made me realise what cities could be like without the car, something as a child of the Sixties, I have never known. All the photographs for this comment were taken at 2pm when the roads were beginning to clear of snow, but even then they were empty of traffic. In the morning however because no roads were gritted, the City fell eerily silent. Trains were running, but all buses had been cancelled and all other transport had heeded the warnings to stay at home. My 40 minute walk from Bristol Temple Meads train station (and back when these images were taken) was absolutely fantastic.

 

 

Because there was no traffic, except the odd driver braving the roads, as I walked I could hear and feel the silence around me. Silence is something a big city can never experience these days. Usually walking to and from the station I am either enveloped in a carcinogenic fog or dodging endless traffic while trying to cross a road. It is often a harrowing experience. But not so on January 18th 2013.

 

As I walked I could hear birds singing. Above that children, and a few adults, chatting, laughing, playing snowball fights, building snowmen. Everywhere people walked, walked and walked, like a reenactment of an L.S.Lowry painting was being staged. We didn't worry about the traffic, there wasn't any. We just walked in the silence and that silence was deafening, but also so so therapeutic. This is what cities should be about!

 

The second photograph on this posting is Whitladies Road in Clifton at 2pm. Usually this is a slow moving carpark of traffic either heading into or out of the City. Not yesterday. It was eerily quiet. People walking could cross on a zebra crossing or at lights without a care in the world. It was so fantastic I felt like running along a road just because I could. As I stopped to compose these photographs I had a few people stop and say "isn't this lovely this snow is magical" or "isn't the city quiet". On a normal work day everyone is heads down shuffling to their appointed destination without a care of the environment they tread. Yesterday however the transformation was astonishing. We looked up, we heard and we saw.

 



 

 

Even on the train as I headed home again, which was delayed by 15 minutes because of the weather, people were chatting. One woman on hearing the train would be delayed just said "ohh well its the weather, what can you expect" and then struck up a conversation with a complete stranger about how beautiful Bristol looked today. He chipped in with an observation that he came from Taunton and he was the only one of his office to make it to work today. His colleagues all drove in to the office from Bristol and couldn't make it, so his manager had sent him home - presumably with a gold star and impending bonus for good behaviour.

 

 

The weather (and to a part Bristol Council's inability to cope) did a miraculous thing yesterday. It allowed the people to reclaim the City for people, just for a few hours. For millennia cities have been places of and places for people; gathering for commerce and employment cities grew into chaotic vibrant and above all human scale places to live. Vice and crime rubbed shoulders with commerce, culture and housing. The outer boundaries of our biggest cities was less than the distance a man could walk in half a day, as he needed to walk back in the evening. Indeed I have a book covering the history of stage coach travel. In 1800 Hyde Park Corner in London was just that, the corner of the street where one road split to Bath, the other South. Here market gardens and farms prospered feeding the Nations Capital.

 

Just fifty or 60 years ago all that changed, with the arrival of the combustion engine in a form that allowed the masses to buy cars. Just think about it. When our grandparents were born, no one owned a car. Okay a few wealthy people did, but everyone lived close by their place of work as they either walked, or got the train or bus. My father talks of the 1950's when he began working after school, lines of buses travelling between South Shields and Newcastle became more like a club. Each day everyone would get on at the same place and they'd chat like old friends. If one person missed the bus, they'd either tell the driver to stop or a great discussion would develop, "where are they" But since the 1960's, the car has taken over. 

 

There is no doubt it the car is a fantastic invention, no other transport allows A to B movement so efficiently. But this efficiency of the car is also the cities downfall. We as a society have become isolated. Because we can travel huge distances now from home to work, our cities are expanding at a rate never seen before into the countryside and we now live a long way from our places of work. I work with people in an office who in an evening are nearly 120 miles apart from each other once at home. Society thrived on living and working in the same town or city as it allowed people to mix and socialise with work colleagues, or friends of friends all within a short distance of each other, day and night, and importantly on a human scale.

 

My parents never worried about a little bit of snow; as my mother said only last night, in the winter when it snowed, such as in 1963 she walked the 2 miles to work and back again every day, never even crossed her mind not to turn up.  Today the slightest sign of snow and the country grinds to a halt because we rely 100% on the car in the main. I remember talking to a chap who had moved from Newcastle to the wilds of Northumberland years ago. A 45 mile drive each way. He loved it, but like we said, give a good hard winter like we used to get and it'll be fun. I wonder how he has coped these last few years.

 

And I do wonder what will happen when fuel runs out. Will we start moving back into cities, which in a way is already happening in a few places, because lets be honest who wants to spend 3 hours a day commuting? I often drive along motorways and think how many years will it take for nature to reclaim these structures after the last car has passed along it. Sitting in our tin boxes we will know more about the presenter on Radio 5 Live than the man sitting in the car next to us at the traffic lights. And that is why society is fragmented and isolated. We do not have a connection with where we work, where we play, or where we travel through.

 

But if we were on a bus or walking, there is just a chance we may chat to pass the time. For the first time in history, as a pedestrian in a city we are an alien species in an alien environment. And that is sad. Maybe Bristol Council after all have the right idea, a car free city. As I walked the quiet streets of Bristol yesterday listening to the birdsong, the children laughing, people chatting, I thought, I am part of a community here, a community surrounded by its environment. Bristol was not an aggressive noisy rush rush city yesterday, it was calm, silent and on a human scale. I doubt I shall experience this feeling again though as on most days I see nothing nor hear anything of the City as I drive by in my perfect efficient transport.

 

We'll never go back to cities being for the people while we have combustion engines, but maybe, just maybe when the petrol runs out in about 75 years we can once again quote from Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities, the city slept it's silent sleep.....in silence.

 

“Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.” 

A New Year's Day Walk



 

Like a number 14 bus, readers wait for weeks for one posting and in an instant, two in one day. No doubt this will be followed by another gap of gargantuan proportions. However today was, after these last few weeks and weeks of rain, a welcome diversion. Clear blue skies, mild, if a little breezy, perfect weather to blow off the cobwebs after the Festive period. Not having a car at the moment places to go for a walk were limited. However looking out of my bedroom window, across the field lies Woodspring Priory. About a mile as the crow flies, about 3 miles on foot. So laden down with a couple of satsumas off I set.

 

 

So this blog posting is a record of that walk from my house to Woodspring Priory. And of course I came back too but by then, 2 satsumas lighter, I'd run out of things to photograph. So we'll begin at the estate, leaving the road via one of the pathways.

 

Within a few minutes I was in the open countryside between Weston super Mare and the Bristol Channel. This area is actually part of the Somerset Levels, specifically the North Somerset Levels and Moors. It is a special place, quite isolated considering Weston is close by and I love it.

In the hedgerows I found ivy still in flower and berry, very important for wildlife at this time of year, and in hedge bottoms Lords and Ladies were already unfurling leaves. This part of Somerset has a unique microclimate, helped by the warming waters of the Bristol Channel. The Temperature can be 2 degrees warmer here than in Bristol 20 miles away. Spring is knocking at Somerset's door.

 

Another feature of this area are the wide ash hedges. I've not seen this anywhere else in the UK and this hedge must be 10 feet across the rhyne.

 

Not everything was looking positive in the countryside today. I passed field after field of stunted decaying maize. Maize is a late harvest crop and many fields didn't even get a chance to produce cobs due to the continuous wet weather. It is heartbreaking for a farmer to spend so much time (and money with the price of diesel) sowing a crop only for it to fail because of the rain, made worse this year as they can not even get onto the fields to plough this in. It'll take weeks of dry weather to dry these fields out enough to get machinery on there.

 

But I carried along in the welcome sunshine along a long and winding country road.

 

Passing even more flooded fields

 

Even my favourite wild feeling lane had flooding each side of it and as the photo aptly illustrates, dead and decaying crops.

 

I had a choice here, walk the wet and muddy bridleway or walk the lane to Woodspring Priory, I chose the latter

 

A very muddy horse and some happy starlings feeding away

Woodspring Priory area has always been a sheep area and it always makes me feel uplifted seeing these in fields in sunshine.

Eventually making it to the National Trust land, but I kept walking to the Priory for the time being

 

 

 

Not having a car, my need for the car park was limited, so sloshing through the puddles, I arrived at the Priory which standing on a mound, was surrounded by a soggy field.

 

Being New Years Day the Priory is closed but it is still an impressive building

 

Looking back from the Priory back the way I'd walked.

 

A bit of an arty shot below - seems so isolated yet just 10 minutes drive from the centre of Weston super Mare

 

Retracing my steps I then headed back to the National Trust land of Middle Hope (sounds very Hobbit-ish)

 

This is a very isolated spot and a cracking site for birdwatchers, or would be if there was access. This is all private land and frustratingly I could see dunlin, redshank and curlew on the mudflats, but there probably would be a lot more species to view with a telescope.

 

Just to prove I was there - Wessex Reiver's shadow. By now it was 1.30pm so time to head back.

 

On the way back I spied these which are probably a cultivated variety, but that doesn't matter, it is yet again a sign of how mild this winter has been so far.

 

A good walk. Happy New Year

Writing a diary

I have always loved New Years Day. Always a real sense of the year beginning, optimism abounds as we cast off the old and embrace the new horizons before us. Strange in a way as the cycle of years is entirely man made based on Celestial observations, and many cultures of course have a different annual cycle, different new years. Of course then today is no different to December 31st 2012 but that does not matter, as today, is a new day and it feels different to any other I've experienced.

 

My memory may also be playing me tricks but I can not recall a bad weather January 1st. A few have been iffy, not bad, but in my experience after the dark days of December and that feeling of being trapped inside because of Christmas the first day of the year has often broken fair and quite often mild.



 

 

 

As I write this at 9am on New Years Day, I have already been serenaded by a robin calling its territorial call as dawn broke. In the fields behind the house, sheep are calling, gulls and corvids noisily feeding in the wet pasture, and house sparrows noisily at the feeders, I count 18 there today. Looking out of the office window there is not a cloud in the sky, sunlight is beginning to illuminate the willows in the hedgerows, Sand Point a rocky outcrop jutting into the Bristol Channel is the most luxurious of green and the moon is slowly fading from sight as sunlight gathers strength. All's well, it is always fine on New Years Day.

 

One thing I have observed these last few weeks is that a few people I know are picking up the quill to take up handwritten wildlife diaries for 2013. I know of 3 people who have said they have bought a diary specifically to write about nature. And I mean write. I love writing on the laptop as my jumble of consciousness can be easily corrected when re-reading it even I struggle to understand what was being said. But to write on paper is an altogether different thing and I admire their wish to do this.

 

I have long kept a diary, a maelstrom of things to do, weather snippetts and when time allowed commentary on nature or an event attended that day. I've never been able to write a diary though. Not on paper. Which is sad as my first forays into the world of nature writings came from the likes of BB who wrote every day. His book Indian Summer which I read in 1980 is a fascinating mix of the observed and his memory from a man at the end of his journey.

 

For me this is why diary writing is fascinating. Over time our mind plays tricks. For generations we have said the weather is not as good as it was "when I we'e a lad". Of course it isn't, not in our minds. As a child if it was sunny we'd play outside and fond memories of lying on golden sands in the sun dominate. If it was raining we'd probably be inside feeling miserable or like me, playing with my Action Man. I can recall walks along sunlit rivers in detail, watching fish gently swaying to the rivers flow. But can I remember what I did with my Action Man other than just know I had one? It is human nature to remember the good times, and obscure the bad, part of our Fight or Flight response.

 

And that is why diary writing is a wonderful thing to do. In February I went to see a master of diary writing Tony Benn. For decades he has written about the political turmoil and doings of Parliament. And now looking back, he has one of the most outstanding social documents of the 20th Century. Of course being a left wing politician, some would say his diaries were biased, but that is exactly the point. A good diarist can only ever present the facts and how they feel or observe them. Diarists can not write in the third person. Writing a diary is by its very nature a very personal experience, often for solo consumption. We are all biased  in our thoughts and comments and that has to be a good thing as the writer is setting a point of view on paper which some, but not all, will agree. Diversity, is what makes diary writing a joy to read, diversity is simply - being different.

 

I began this blog in 2007 as an attempt to write a diary. I have good years and bad years, based on time to sit down and write of an hour. Generally my efforts have been quite rewarding for me, and so for 2013, I too will endevour to make time to write more than of recent months.

 

The fascination of all this is that as human beings we are unique in the Animal Kingdom in that we can write down our thoughts for others to read. So for those of you about to begin what may become a lifelong writing tradition, I wish you well and I'll end with a quote from one of the best diarists of all time; Oscar Wilde,

 

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train

Without News day : Ending

At the beginning of this week I put myself on a bit of an experiment to avoid news. The reasons for this were many, but now at the end of my experiment, how was it?

The first thing I noticed is that it is now virtually impossible to avoid news. No matter how much I tried to switch off the car radio on the hour, or avoid newspaper stands, I frequently found I was being stalked by subversive news on-line. I use the internet a lot for my work; just about every webpage has some form of advertising and a link to the news. Snippets were unavoidable, but I forced myself to not read any further, with one exception, the death of Jacintha Saldanha, 46.

Mrs Saldanha was the nurse who answered the hoax call from 2Day FM trying to find out why the Duchess of Cambridge was in hospital. With tragic consequences it looks like she has taken her own life as a result. I can only imagine what her husband and children are going through. The crassness of this prank, and the devastating consequences of it, illustrates the power of the press, and the responsibility the press has to human emotions. It is a real power. Advertisers do not spend hard earned money on media advertising just for fun. They know that getting their message out there via the press is vital to sales.

Away from advertising though, the press really do hold sway and power. In 1997, the general election it was said was won by Labour because The Sun switched allegiance from the Conservatives. But looking further back the human rights campaigner Malcolm X summarised this power in a way I could never hope to do;

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

“Because they control the minds of the masses.” He wasn’t being scaremongering. The press really do control what we think, we the masses. Social media is developing this into a higher level of this control. How many people have been destroyed recently by a single tweet or Facebook comment going viral.  As humans we are all flawed and make mistakes. At times the press news and social media now resembles the mob at the Bastille, off with their heads, without anyone really standing back and saying – hang on is this right??  We need our press but we do need some form of slow down and think what you’re doing. In days gone by press hacks knew their story, re checked facts and rechecked again before breaking a story. It’s why the press were valued, they got it right. Increasingly they work at such a frenetic pace, they get it wrong, and in doing so, slowly, ever so slowly the mob at the Bastille are making notes.

My second thought based on my experiment this week is that I’ve missed an awful lot of news, but, and it’s a serious but, am I any less well informed? Possibly, although I have gained snippets of news via the aforementioned on-line sites. What I completely missed and forgot was happening was the Chancellors Autumn Statement. Only last night did I hear some analysis of this. Presumably there was endless coverage of this and analysis resplendent with graphs, charts and people in the street saying “how bad it all is”. I just don’t know. I was blissfully unaware it happened while reading my Christmas Edition of Country Life. Am I any worse off not knowing what was said by the Chancellor? Avoiding the news has somehow given me a lot more time to do other things.  I knew I’d have a bit more time, but it took me two or three days to appreciate I had all this additional time to read hard copy, and time is something we cannot produce more of.

Most of my days are spent glued to a mobile device or a computer hunting down stories, whilst reading around the news. The very first thing I do in the morning is switch on the blackberry and check Twitter, News sites and half a dozen conservation websites; anything that interests me I send via e-mail to work to look at in more depth. Before going to sleep at night I do exactly the same. Like all media people I’m always looking for that breaking story. This week, in a small way I regained some semblance of reality. I stopped chasing, I had time. I read magazines unopened since they were bought, I read books, I watched birds on the bird feeder for 20 minutes, I cooked, I rang friends, I wrote. One evening after a few phone calls I read a Christmas Ghost Story and then with just candlelight and a whisky sat for half an hour relaxing before bed. I haven’t done that for years.

My sleeping patterns have improved too. Normally I’m awake about 5am, mind buzzing with what’s happening in the news. Must find out, must find out! But this week, 7am was an average wake up time, in-fact yesterday 8am.  Today though I returned to 5.30 wake up, as instead of turning over and relaxing, I put the news on the radio, then checked Twitter….. ahh yes, the pattern is developing again. Anything that raises adrenaline levels before bed can cause insomnia and disturbed sleep.  Insomnia can be a trigger for depression, depression leads to insomnia.  One of these adrenaline causing activities is watching TV, so watching the 10pm news and then heading to bed, potentially could be harmful to mind and soul.

Now all this is just a single persons experiment and thoughts after one week. Many will disagree, and that is healthy. What do I conclude?  Well; I’m by no means anti press. I think the power the press have, providing it remains free and regulated is a force for good. Personally I have re-learnt that we (I) do not need to be as informed, re-informed and analysed as we are 24 hours a day 365 days a year. It’s not necessary as most of this blanket coverage of a story is re-hash of old facts. I have probably missed a lot of news but is that such a great loss?  I’m more convinced than ever that over populating the airwaves and printed media with non breaking news is depressing the creative and free-thinking soul of the Country. I’ll give you an example.

We’ve been told since 2008 that we’re in recession. It’s everywhere, so everyone has become cautious, worried, what’s the future for our children going to be like. I don’t deny there’s a fiscal problem, especially in Government, but recession is different to not having money. Recession is poor or negative growth of an economy = an economy that needs taxes = more taxes are gathered in times of growth = bigger Government spending. Having briefly studied economics at University, one of the first things we were told was that continuous growth is unsustainable, and fiscal adjustments downwards always follow growth. It’s been a cycle of financial management as long as there’s been money. There are trillions of pounds sloshing about our economy, but we are constantly being told by the press, who feed on the Government, who need the press, its Armageddon waiting in the wings time, one false move and we’ll all be living in cardboard boxes. Absolute poppycock. I certainly have less money than 5 years ago, not having had a pay rise, but so far I’ve not phoned Pickfords for some packing boxes.  Have you been to a pub or restaurant lately; can’t get a table because of all the people eating. I was in Wells last Saturday at the market, the place was heaving, and everywhere was really busy. Drive on the roads, they are full of people, seemingly driving new cars. When was the last time you saw an old banger?

My point? Recession is an economic process. Day to day living costs  = cashflow. Cash is still flowing, there may be less of it flowing about, but I’m convinced we’re being kept in recession by the Government and Banks repeatedly informing us that we are in recession by the press, because the Government wants locked up savings to be brought into the economic cashflow, because spending cash brings in 20% revenue in the form of VAT and higher business tax if there’s more profit. That’s why people like my parents are getting 1 or 2 % on investments. Better to spend this, it’s going to be worth much less next year you know.

One interesting aspect of my week away from news, was that the news I heard of from friends and colleagues was all about UK stories. Not one person I spoke to mentioned anything from abroad yet most news on TV especially is from abroad. I’ll not try and analyse why only UK news filtered to me by friends, purely this was an observation.

My week has proven to me that I don’t need the news to function, and I do feel a lot more positive about life. But it’s nice to know what is happening as people tend to chat about the news. One looks a right chump when a conversation begins with, “did you see….” And a blank expression reveals, well actually no I was reading an improving book, as Bertie Wooster would say.

News is here to stay and that is no bad thing, but maybe as a society if we all consumed 50% less news, then the art of conversation may return. We may be a more questioning society. We may indulge in more free thinking discussions. Writing based on intellectual thought rather than analysis of news analysis. And that has to be a good thing.

Because, remember what Malcolm X said.

Avoiding the news

Without News day 1 : December 3rd

Yesterday I took the decision to try and avoid all contact with news for a week as an experiment. No grand philosophical reason, I wasn’t looking for a spiritual uplift in the season of Advent, more I just feel weighed down with the relentless bad news which seems to continuously batter the reader and listener.

News media has always dwelt on the bad in the human existence, bad news sells, good news doesn’t. Until recently however all news came from the print media or from the television flickering away half watched in the corner of a room. Both these media are controlled and licenced of course and bring about a sanitised version of what has developed on-line in recent years. On-line media has few controls, both where and when it is put out there. Grossly upsetting images of car crashes or people being killed now litter the internet, put out as breaking news.  Even logging onto my personal e-mail account now necessitates wading through the news section before I get there.  Why? I just want to read my e-mails.

Unlike my parents who devour three newspapers a day, which I believe is a throwback to the Second World War when people wanted to know what was happening, I have never been a massive consumer of news. I have to be aware for my work, but researching wildlife stories often involves phone bashing or more targeted research.  My work also involves being sent press releases by major organisations, usually embargoed for a few days and while interesting for news media generally, few come as new news to the office as we’re across the stories anyway. And it is these press releases that first got me thinking about this experiment to avoid news for a week.

The ash-dieback story began my train of thought here. Back in June, the Forestry Commission sent out a scientific notice about the disease which went unnoticed by the media. This Chalara Fraxinea fungus wasn’t news; because it wasn’t doing any real harm… was it? I even tried to get colleagues working in wildlife media interested. But it was the summer, booking 3 weeks in the Costa del Sol or Great Yarmouth was uppermost in their minds.

Fast forward 5 months and a single mature ash tree in East Anglia shows symptoms of the disease.  Like opening a beer tap at a Bavarian Hops Festival, journalists grabbed any copy they could find and printed, reprinted and analyzed the reprinting. Speed was everything; we need to be first with the news. Red top papers announced that the world would end and the British countryside would be devoid of trees in a few years. Experienced journalists then tried to get a more measured grip on this new arrival, but still trudged out the same few facts, which primarily were based on press releases and copy from other media. I now listen to the radio, watch TV or read both print and on-line sources and unpick the press release or paragraphs lifted from another article, rehashed in an edited format. None of this is wrong, but, and it is a big but, many of the facts were, shall we say, weak, because news is about speed. First past the post sells, ya boo sucks loser! Therefore no matter how weak these fact were they became headline grabbing facts.

But then this Chalara Fraxinea disease did something more dramatic, it crossed over into other forms of its host. Non news output began running stories, often a rehash of news media, everyone wanted a bit of the cherry before the disease withered it into an inedible form. Experts were brought out of the woodwork in their droves to provide analysis…. All of which said the same, “we don’t know what the future brings to our ash trees, but there are about 10 other tree diseases in the UK which are of concern” Sorry expert we’re not interested in those, god long complex names, but, ash die-back, great name for a headline. Have aliens brought it to Earth? Is this the X-Factor of tree diseases…. And on it went.

I’m not against all of this, but by the end of 2 weeks of continuously having  ash die-back thrust upon me I became so fed up of the whole situation I wanted to go out and fell all the trees myself before our other wildlife was either maimed by the falling dead branches or small dogs suffered asthma attack from the spores as they wee’d up a trunk. I may jest here, but there is a serious side to this. At the height of the media coverage of this disease I received an e-mail from a worried listener who has just had 3 mature ash trees in her garden felled as a precaution, because she was worried about what they’d do to her other trees. But now she didn’t know what to do with the timber that presumably lay strewn across her patio. When telling her she could have left them standing, she was heartbroken, because she loved those trees.

In the midst of this ash disease feeding frenzy I was desperate to know what was going on elsewhere; had Syria become peaceful? Presumably Afghanistan was also peaceful. Nothing had been heard about any of these vitally important news items for weeks. I’d missed seeing a correspondent covered in dust standing by someone firing an AK47 at some passing pigeons. Even the US elections which seem to happen for 10 years at a time were forgotten about.

And this started me off on this experiment, because I, like many people have press coverage thrust upon us these days 24:7. But what do we actually learn?

The press had covered the ash die-back COBR briefing by the Government that mature ash trees should not be felled, but this was usually in paragraph 9, which if reading on-line was after an advert for something like shower shoes, the perfect Christmas gift for a loved one. Most people only read the first 100 words of a story. In fact the headline and the first 2 sentences are often all that is ever read unless someone is really interested in a story. In media terms this is called the hook, hook them in they’ll read it or watch it. It’s why we have headlines on news TV and the red tops outrageous, but very clever headlines. And this is my worry. On-line media is perfect for news. Sound bites lend themselves to on-line media like a pair of favoured gloves will warm cold hands on a winter’s day. Ten words add a link and press send and the news is out there. Everyone believes it, because it is in print. (I’ve written this, so it must be true). And that’s a worry, because in my job, I always have to go back to source, no matter how respected an organisation is and their press release, to check facts.

A recent example of this was the Daily Express saying that the UK is about to be “plunged” into the coldest winter in 100 years, with temperatures set to “plummet” to record breaking minus 20.  Read the article however and every fact is prefixed with “it is possible” or “while difficult to predict accurately” or “some experts say”. We may plunge into a new ice age this winter, but when I was growing up, winters were cold, lots of snow and ice and freezing, I remember learning about this at school. Winter is, well, Winter. And while I agree minus 20 is exceptional here in the UK, if we take time to look at the facts, in this case from the Met Office, the coldest temperature in Britain ever was minus 26.1 in Shropshire in January 1982. I’m not good at maths but I think that’s only 30 years ago.

 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate/?tab=climateExtremes

Will the experiment work?

So I’m now in day 2 of the experiment. What do I hope to achieve? Well I’m not sure, that’s half the fun. I spend a lot of time reading the news, but then a lot of time wondering where the facts came from or wondering whether my life been improved by knowing that. Often the answer is no. It’s like distraction behaviour in psychological terms. It’s time for the news, must switch on the TV or radio and listen to what quite frankly is the same news in different time zones, and then half an hour later we think , wish I had time to ring my friend, but it’s a bit late now, tomorrow.

I took the train to work last week for the first time in ages and everyone was looking at their i-phones in a repeated pattern. A few were reading something intently, but most looked at the phone, presumably nothing new had happened since it was last looked at, so they put their phone into a pocket. 1 minute later out came the phone, looked at again, back in pocket and repeat. This often lasted the whole journey.  Are we scared of not knowing???? We all live in an age of information overload, and at my age, I need to create space in my brain for more information, so I switched off Twitter, BBC news  and Facebook on my Blackberry and watched some fieldfares devouring berries on a tree by the station. I was the only one doing this out of say 100 people, 80% glued to their phones, looking down, not looking up.  Looking up and watching fieldfares enriched my life that morning, more than any news coverage could do.

And yesterday, day 1?

Well I almost avoided the news. A colleague e-mailed me with news of a fatal crash on the M4 motorway, which really is dreadful news for those concerned and my thoughts go to then. And Julie my partner emailed me to say the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting. Good news for a  Monarchist like me, but I left it at that. I know they’re expecting and it’s a private matter. I don’t need to know details, or speculation of the baby’s sex, date of birth, names, constitutional ranking, and comment from a third cousin once removed who says in a ground breaking way “we’re all very pleased for the happy couple” which I can imagine is now spread across every media source today.

I wonder if ash die-back has been cured then………..

The Twit-ter Returns

I've returned after far too long an absence. Back in December 2011 I joined Twitter and for a long time it was a preferred method of communication for me. As I had fun managing the 140 characters, and making new friends, my blog lay unloved and gathering dust. But recently on Twitter as I gained more and more followers, 418 is a good number in 11 months, and followed more people myself I became both deluged with tweets, but more importantly unable to easily to weed out the wheat from the chaff.

I tried to manage this with lists and so on, but eventually yesterday I decided to end the @Wessex_Reiver tweet account and re-created an old account, renaming it @CoquetdaleRaven. 

The other thing with twitter is at 140 characters, saying something of merit was often lost in the need to summarise to the point of incomprehension occasionally. This came to a head at the weekend when I seemed to inadvertently upset someone by having a conversation about wood pasture creation. Again this was due to the brevity of the number of words possible in a singe tweet.

And so, I've returned to my blog and use Twitter to do the hard work. I hope there are some followers still out there and hope the coming months I can provide some interesting posts to you, the reader.

3 years ago, I was choughed to see

As Groucho Marx allegidly said " "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana". Actually there is no evidence that Groucho actually said this and many attribute this to a translation of Tempest fugit into "Time Flies".  Moreover an article in Wikipedia gives this poem;

Time Flies Like an Arrow : An Ode to Oettinger

Now thin fruit flies like thunderstorms,
And thin farm boys like farm girls narrow;
And tax firm men like fat tax forms -
But time flies like an arrow!
.....
Like tossed bananas in the skies,
The thin fruit flies like common yarrow;
Then's the time to time the time flies -
Like the time flies like an arrow.


Edison B. Schroeder 1966

Anyway this is has absolutely nothing to do with todays posting, other than time really does fly. 3 years ago I spent a week on the Calf of Man for work, and it was here that I finally saw my very first chough. As a result of this sighting I wrote a short article of my time looking for them. Recently I came across this article again and realised it was three years ago.

And so, here it is...

Chuffed to see choughs


by Andrew Dawes for Birds on the edge of Britain, 23 June 2009

Braving the Irish sea, land-lubber Andrew Dawes is on a mission to see a mythical bird that he's waited 40 years to catch a glimpse of.

Midsummer's day had just passed and with it the unsettled weather had begun to improve. I may hail from a long line of seafarers but there is a land lubber in me trying to get out. Thankfully the seas were calm as I, and the other members of the radio team left the English coastline by ferry.

We were heading to an island just 33 miles long and 13 wide, sitting in the middle of the Irish Sea. Legend has it that the giant Finn MacCooil, standing in Ireland, picked up a rock and threw it at the mainland. Missing his target this rock landed in the Irish Sea and became Ellan Vannin, the Isle of Man.

The rarest of crows

This island is clearly the offspring of its creator, Finn MacCooil, and punches well above its weight as a wildlife haven, not least as an internationally important location for marine life due to the warming waters of the Gulf Stream.

I was excited. This place is a UK stronghold for one of the rarest members of the crow family, a bird I'd wanted to see for nearly 40 years. Would this trip give me that opportunity of a lifetime? Aside from making radio programmes, I had a personal ambition to fulfil.

Cornish folklore has it that King Arthur turned into this bird when he died and will return to rule again if they ever return there to breed. I was however 250 miles north of Cornwall, so hopefully wouldn't be required to fight off members of the Round Table to finally glimpse a chough, or to be more accurate, a red-billed chough.

The Calf of Man


To guarantee a chough though I'd need to travel to an uninhabited island off the Isle of Man's southern shores; the Calf of Man. A nature reserve owned by Manx National Heritage.

The Calf is just one square mile in size and separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of water, the Calf Sound. It seemed close enough to walk across however the Sound contains three treacherous tidal races, fast moving tides flowing through a narrow passage causing waves, eddies and hazardous currents.

So we left Port St Mary on the aptly named wooden supply boat the Scraayl, which is Manx for shearwater. The sea was like a millpond, sun glinting off the wavelets and many seabirds diverted my attention, particularly the rafts of guillemots passing by the boat like ladies off to a game of bingo.

Leisurely we chugged along the coastline stopping briefly underneath Sugar Loaf stack, home to thousands upon thousands of seabirds. I however scanned the cliff tops as choughs can occasionally be seen flying with their acrobatic undulating flight overhead. But not today.

A precarious existence


Just a handful of choughs exist in England (in Cornwall). The remaining 450 breeding pairs in the UK cling on to a precarious existence around the western coasts of Wales, Ireland, Scotland; and of course the Isle of Man.

At a distance, choughs are easily confused with other crows, however they are unmistakable at close quarters, having bright red legs and a down-curved red bill used for probing short wet turf for soil-dwelling invertebrates. In flight they constantly call a screeching “chee-ow” while performing wonderfully swooping and buoyant flying actions. There are few more agile or graceful flyers.

First glimpse

After recording all day, we found ourselves in the island's observatory preparing supper, before heading off on a midnight trip to record storm petrel ringing. I'd still not seen a chough. Others had seen one or two and I discussed my eagerness to see at least one chough before we left tomorrow. Kate (our guide from Manx National Heritage) informed me they were breeding in the old tower behind us and usually fed in the field in front. I had to go and see for myself.

We'd not walked 200 metres when Kate called, "over there in the field!" My first chough looking just how I'd expected it to look.


What a bill, in this evening sunlight the brightest post box red. But what's this? There's another and another. Kate was pointing across all the fields and there behind every tussock it seemed was a chough.

Had they been hiding all day waiting for me to arrive, and like a surprise birthday party, were now rushing out to say "chee-ow"?

Chee-ow!

I was looking at 11 choughs all told. I just didn't know where to look, they were flying, calling, swooping, this was just exceptional.

Birds that I'd long waited to see were now everywhere. I may be a manly naturalist from Northumbria, but emotions took over and a small tear dropped from my eye.

And then, behind me, a loud "chee-ow!" we turned and there, two chicks sporting leg ring bling, silhouetted in one of the tower windows like a pair of actors about to perform some Shakespearean play.

Eventually we had to walk back to the Observatory. I slept the sleep of angels that night and dreamt of choughs taking a curtain call at the end of the play. Truly magical.

Published 9 July 2009