Fled is that music

a whitethroat, because I don't have a picture of a nightingale

Years ago, I was heading down to the Correze on my motorbike. I'd been riding for hours, and it was sometime around midnight. I was in a hilly, wooded area with Angouleme behind me, and enjoying the experience of travelling through somewhere I'd never been before. I stopped for a stretch. I switched the engine off, and as the engine cooled it made TINKing noises, but all was otherwise silent.

Except for a nightingale singing.

It was the first time I'd heard a nightingale in real life (though I'd heard it accompanied by cellos and by Lancaster bombers, courtesy of the BBC) , and it was beautiful.

I've heard nightingales in other parts of France since then, but not yet in England. When I first moved to Bristol I thought that Nightingale Valley, in the Avon Gorge, sounded hopeful, but an evening listening there produced nothing much more than distant revelry from Clifton. I am assured, though, by no less a person than The Finest Swordsman in France, that nightingales can be heard singing in Clifton, where he may often be found wobbling around long after the pubs have closed. When he makes this sort of pronouncement, I simply nod in agreement and forbear to mention that blackbirds too can, as the song says, sing in the dead of night; and sing beautifully; they are relatives of the nightingale, after all.



So, with the weather being so sunny and calm on Sunday, we went over to Inglestone Common, where I had heard of nightingales. Inglestone Common lies below the western flank of the Cotswolds, and is a slightly boggy, heathy, scrubby, woody sort of place, and therefore a good place for birds. We arrived quite late, to give the other birds a chance to go to bed. Indeed, with not a breath of a breeze, it could hardly have been more quiet. Bats flitted past us, so close that I could hear their wings fluttering, little leathery outboard motor sounds. We walked for some time. It was quite chilly now; the cold air was flowing down from the hills and forming a gentle breeze. The bats clocked off; I guess the insects had gone to bed too. And the nightingales, being English nightingales, had had an early night with some Horlicks, presumably.

We drove off. "That's the trouble with actively going out birdwatching," I said; "If you don't see what you set off to see, it feels like failure. Accidental birdwatching is much better."

Fortunately, the engine overheated a little while later, so we had an adventure after all. But that's another story.

And I will remember the sound of the bat's wings.

hands off my history

Back in the 70s, I used to spend a couple of evenings a week at the Air Cadets, and spent weekends learning to fly gliders. I was aiming for a career as an RAF fighter pilot. I'd read my Biggles and Worrals books, and lots more books too, and I wanted to fly Spitfires and biff the Hun. But I was willing to settle for whatever the RAF would let me jump into, and was confident, indeed hopeful, that I would be fighting the good fight, whatever.

Innocent days.

Meanwhile, in another reality, some of my contemporaries would be shaving their heads and putting on Doc Marten boots and getting swastika tattoos and going out Paki-bashing.

Time passed, and I didn't join the RAF (colour vision problems). I became a student and a bit of a lefty. I Rocked Against Racism, and wore my Anti Nazi League badge with pride. Once, when a National Front rally was held in Portsmouth, I joined in the counter demo. It seemed a disproportionate response when I saw what the rally consisted of; a small group of pimply skinheaded thugs and a couple of shabby older blokes, who looked like disreputable uncles. The thugs seemed quite pleased with the attention they'd got, what with the police cordon outnumbering them and the large jeering crowd of us lefties. They looked very uncomfortable, though, when we chanted (to the tune of Bread of Heaven) "Does your mother, does your mother, does your mother know you're here?" -I think we hit the spot there.

More time passed, and now it is today. The little thugs have become balding middle-aged men with families, and they have learned to cover up their tattoos with suits, because some people seem to respect people who wear suits.

I got a leaflet from the British National Party through the door the other day. Look, here is the front of it.


They have appropriated the Battle of Britain as part of their narrative. Explicitly, in fact. "The New Battle For Britain..." "...because we've earned the right!"

Now, I know my aeroplanes of course. This is a Mk V Spitfire, so it came in too late for the Battle of Britain. I got quite excited, though, when I saw that little chequerboard pattern on the nose.



..because it's the insignia of the Polish Air Force. This is in fact a Spitfire of 303 Squadron RAF, whose pilots had escaped from Poland and come to Britain to carry on the fight. Look, here's a Polish PZL P11 fighter, with the larger version on it. I once built a model of this aeroplane, so I remembered the insignia. And other stuff, too. Obviously, my childhood wasn't entirely wasted.

Unlike some... I was quite excited because I always suspected that homegrown nazis are bit thick, and it's so nice to see such palpable evidence.

In my version of history, the fight against Fascism was an international sort of affair, and the Germans were the Johnny-no-mates in the business. Here, for instance, is the breakdown of pilots from other countries who fought with the RAF during the Battle of Britain

Poland 145
New Zealand 127
Canada 112
Czechoslovakia 88
Australia 32
Belgium 28
South Africa 25
France 13
United States 7
Ireland 10
Jamaica 1
Palestine Mandate 1
Southern Rhodesia 1
Unknown 8

I recently read Vasily Grossman's diaries of his time as a war correspondent with the Red Army. I was struck particularly by the sense of outrage among the Russian soldiers when they advanced into Germany and saw how good the land was and how the locals seemed to have so much of everything -why, they wondered, did these people want to go out and behave so badly to other people in other places? Why didn't they just stay at home?

Anyway. I don't like nazis appropriating a history that I feel that I've got a share in. Rather more of a share than them, in fact. Enough with the cultural lebensraum, you lot. Go and appropriate the Luftwaffe instead, why don't you? -o yes; they lost, didn't they?

found poetry

...from a received e-mail

a trans exual; a austin radio; A band;
a dailect listener; a dialect guest town clerk wells; a dialect listener;
a dialect listener; a dialect listener; a dialect listener;
a dialect musician; a duialrct listener; a fialect listener;
a kora player baku; a kora player; a kora player;
a machupachu Indian;
a poet;
a radio dialect listenLesa presenter NUJ; a radio station;
a radio station; a radio station; a radio station;
a radio station; a radio station; a radio station

one for sorrow

So, the last chapter in the story of the magpies who nested in the plane tree at the front of the house.

On Wednesday, the single chick left the nest and spent a while hopping around on the road, before taking refuge in a bush. The parents spent the day to-ing and fro-ing with food, flying in and perching on ledges on this house and the house next door to check that all was clear, before dropping down to the chick.

Yesterday morning I looked out at first light and it was still in its bush, and all was quiet.

An hour later there was a huge kerfuffle going on. I went to the front room window and saw the magpies on the pavement angrily chattering and facing off a fox, that was sitting bolt upright on its haunches looking as though it was wondering how best to preserve its dignity. It decided on withdrawal, and sauntered off looking insolent, pursued by magpies.



In the middle of the road was the chick, apparently lifeless.



I went out and checked. Yes, the chick was dead and toothmarked. I moved it to the garden wall so that the parents could say goodbye properly. For the next hour or so they fluttered to and fro, chattering and pecking at the corpse to try to get it to respond.

After a while they went away.

In the evening, Katie and I went out for a last walk on the Downs as the sun set. On our return we saw a magpie perched silently on a rooftop at the end of the road.

A short while later there was more chattering at the front of the house; the two parents were fluttering between the nest, the road where the fox had dropped the chick, and the bush where it had spent its last day. They spent some time doing this.

This morning the chick was gone. I guess the fox had returned.

lost bearing

Thank goodness the rain stopped, and I was able to get out and fix things.

I had been getting worried about the car's portside rear hub, which had been leaking oil into the brake drum. So I took it to bits, and found that the bearing was breaking up.

Oil all over the brake pads is not a good thing when you want to stop quickly... look, you can see that there is a ball missing from the bearing there.

Lord knows where the missing ball went to; I wonder if it had been assembled like this at some point in the past? -a bit of the cage had broken off and lodged in the oil seal (the black thing on the right in this picture) and there was no sign of the spring that should have been wrapped around the inside of the seal. Which is why it wasn't doing its job.

So there is now a new bearing and a new oil seal in place.

As I worked, I was accompanied by a young magpie, which had ventured out of its nest in the tree above the car and taken refuge in a nearby bush. The parents spent the day anxiously dashing to and fro feeding it. I know that feeling...

austerity Britain

"Make friends with your butcher" -Anne J.

A comment on Facebook got me recalling a story someone told me of the not-so-good old days. This is how it happened.

The Blue Flame is a pub which nestles in a lane between Nailsea, the bustling Somerset home of Adge Cutler and the Wurzels, and Kenn Moor, where Somerset goes into serious boggy mode.

It's a nice pub, and I would especially recommend their pickled eggs.

Anyhow, V was writing a book on pubs, and, as I occasionally pass by the Blue Flame I was asked if I knew how the pub got its name. I didn't, but as it was a good excuse for an outing (which, thanks to my navigational abilities, took us about 30 miles further than strictly necessary)....

here's the story.

We were in the Blue Flame at Nailsea last night, and I asked the landlord where the name came from. He said that originally it had been called the New Inn, but got its present name from goings-on during the war. A decoy Bristol was located on the moors around there, in a hopeless effort to persuade the Germans to drop their bombs on the marshes instead of the city; and the landlady of the pub had an illicit relationship with the man whose job it was to light the lights for the decoy. She lit a stove in the window (landlord obligingly points out stove in window) to let him know when her husband was out and the coast was therefore clear for him to come calling.

....it's no doubt a story the holes in which a squadron of Chieftain tanks could be driven through; but better a good story than a boring truth, I suppose...

+++++++++++++

...further to the anecdote about the Blue Flame... something trawled up in the 'net...

Quote:

In addition to their normal operations, No.951 (Barrage Balloon) Squadron also controlled Bristol's six 'Starfish' Decoy Sites, the construction of which commenced in late 1940. They were eventually located at Stockwood, Chew Magna, Downside, Kenn Moor, Yeomouth, and Cheddar, and it was during the city's second large scale raid on the night of December 2nd that the first 'Starfish' site in the country was lit in anger.

...I told the story of the Blue Flame to someone, let's call her X, who had a good laugh about it and then told me that she used to do something similar with a box of Omo washing powder on her kitchen window sill. If it was there, the butcher's boy knew that it was all clear to come in and trade some of the contents of his basket (sorry, I'm trying to think of a way of putting this without it sounding smutty... I must have dwelt among English academics for too long...)...o God.... OK, the butcher's boy would then trade meat for sex.

And there we have it, story for today!

stuck indoors

Blooming weather. It's been raining hard most of the day. Got out bright and early to the Downs cafe, where I met up with the naturalists. Nick Winn, the Peregrine Poet, has had a poem selected for displaying on buses in Bristol, so he was pleased, and we were pleased for him.

I don't know which poem it is, though, so I can't put it here. It got me thinking about poems for displaying on Bristol's buses, which have long been notorious for being expensive. And this was the result

How much, did you say?
-I want to go to Broadmead,
Not bloody New York.

..more agitprop than haiku, I suppose. I like this one much more, though it's about trains rather than buses. And I'm not going to change it now.

I can't hear it, though
I can see the crow crowing
Through the train window

Home again, I got down to some Useful Tasks. First, I fixed the strap on my favourite Doc Marten sandals, thus

...and am now ready for the summer.

And I made some more compost bin liners.

Bristol issued everyone with compost bins last year. The contents are collected weekly. I am very much in favour of the scheme, as I have no compost heap of my own. Unfortunately, keeping the bin clean is a bit of a bother. So I have taken to making liners out of old newspaper stuck together with wallpaper paste. I make a load of them in one go, thus


...which stops the bottom of the compost bin going manky and horrible, and saves loads of time and effort sluicing it out.

Next week: washing up, a joy for life. Or maybe not.