Seven Decades

Well - blogger me! I've reached the age of 70!

Where did it all go? What did I do with my life? What's it all about, Alfie?

"You're as young as the woman you feel." She's 64 - so that's how old I am!

I've had a great birthday weekend with my family. This morning I went for a country walk with my two sisters and their husbands. There was quite a lot of uphill slogging, and I was forging ahead of them. They are all younger than me, and were puffing and panting. I therefore concluded that I still had a quite a bit of life left in me, and I have been fortified through all my good friends telling me I don't look my age, "70 is the new 50" and so on. I have also been very grateful for all the wonderful gifts from friends and family.

Birthdays are good for you - the more you have the longer you live, and so I intend to have many more.

Back to work in the morning. Onwards and upwards.

Christmas Lights

There's a fortune awaiting the first person to invent a string of Christmas lights that doesn't tie itself into a thousand knots during the eleven months it sleeps in a box in the loft - even though it was packed ever so neatly after last Christmas.

What happens? Does the string of lights wake up some time during the summer months and do some kind of war dance inside its box?

Merry Christmas to my two readers.

Religious Bullshit

Gillian Reynolds is a teacher working in Sudan. Her class has a teddy bear. She asked the children what they would like to call it. One of her pupils was called Mohammed. The children elected to call the teddy bear Mohammed.

She was then arrested and prosecuted for this act, and is now serving a prison sentence. Under the Sudanese law she could have been given 40 lashes in public, so I suppose she's got off lightly. Thousands of people have demonstrated in the streets of the capital actually calling for her to be shot. Can you believe that?!

What is it with these people? They are an obscenity. They are a throwback to the Middle Ages. I'm fed up to the back teeth with these religious fanatics. I was pleased to note that British Muslim groups have condemned the treatment given to Gillian Reynolds, and have stated it was wholly out of proportion.

A day trip to Manchester

Yesterday we had a day out in Manchester, and it says something for the way in which our public transport systems appear to have improved somewhat that we were able to forsake our car (except for the 8 miles to the train Station), take the Trans-Pennine Express to Manchester, use Manchester’s Metro-Link “super tram” system to reach the new Lowry Theatre and Arts complex on the newly developed Manchester Ship Canal waterfront, have lunch, take in an afternoon play, and be home again by 8.30 p.m., having completed a round trip of 220 miles.

The first pleasant surprise was our train pulling into the station just 20 seconds later than the stated time. So, whilst not exactly of Swiss Railways standards (by which the train would have arrived on the dot) a 20 second discrepancy, by my reckoning, was pretty darned good! In fact it could even have been explained away by the fact that the station clock might have been incorrectly set. There was a similar lack of absolute precision on reaching Manchester Piccadilly, but forgivable in that we arrived 3 minutes early!

Then, for the princely sum of £2 each we purchased our return tickets for the 25 minute ride on the Metro-Link tram to the Lowry Centre. The trams were pulling into Piccadilly approximately every 3 minutes, though for different destinations. For our route they were coming in about every 10 minutes.

We arrived at the new Lowry development (named, of course, after the famous painter who depicted Manchester’s earlier industrial life using hundreds of human figures sometimes described as “Matchstick Men and Women”), having braved a bitterly cold driving wind in our faces for the 10 minute walk from the tram stop.

The theatre and associated buildings were spectacular in their bold denial of all things conventional. Walls, windows and floors went every which way, and strong primary colours abounded. But it was all supremely functional, spacious, and comfortable. The theatre auditorium was one of the largest and most comfortable we have experienced. The development was part of Manchester’s Millennium Project, and so is only seven years old.

We enjoyed a play called “Whipping it up”, starring Richard Wilson (well known for his role in the TV series “One foot in the grave”) – a political comedy set in the Westminster office of the Conservative Party’s “Chief Whip” and with a newly elected Conservative Government trying to survive on a House of Commons majority of 3 seats.

Other unexpected pleasures associated with the day was the discovery of so many names in the newly developed waterfront that reminded us of our 2003 visit to Canada and the USA .. “Anchorage”, “Ontario Basin”, “Erie Basin”, “Huron Basin”, “Michigan Avenue”, “Broadway”, and “Ohio Avenue”.

Our train home was crowded: when we stopped at Huddersfield a crowd of football fans who had come all the way up from London to watch their team (Leyton Orient, I believe) playing away. Judging by their mood they must have won. They were loud but well behaved, and amusing. One young lady from Dagenham in Essex sat across the gangway from us and immediately engaged in friendly banter with two guys from Newcastle (judging by the Geordie accents) who were already on the train. One of these guys had been boring the pants of everyone else by pontificating in a loud voice about the meaning of life to his mate, and moving swiftly on to a discussion on the various preferable ways of dying. At one point it briefly crossed my mind that being thrown from a fast-moving train might be one method he might like to try.

Anyway the Essex Girl diverted him on to discussions about regional accents. She herself had an East London-cum-Essex accent that the average “Essex Girl” is known for, assaulting one’s auditory senses with all the finesse of a chain saw, but interestingly she avowed that she didn’t have an accent – she spoke “normally”. The Geordie – who spoke with the Newcastle version of the chain saw – thought that the Essex Girl’s speech was delightful and put forward the proposition that her accent was “very cultured” (at which point it was fortunate that I was not in the middle of sipping a hot cup of coffee).

They all got off at York, to catch their respective trains – one going north, one going south. For the rest of our journey we had the carriage to ourselves apart from a mother and her little boy who provided a small diversion by locking himself into the toilet, then pushing the emergency button instead of the one that flushed the toilet, causing the train conductor to come rushing down the train to open up the toilet with his master key, to deliver the boy back to his embarrassed mother.

It was a day that we should try to repeat when the weather is better.

Finally I have no hesitation in recommending the Lowry complex to anyone wanting a good day out. http://www.thelowry.com/

Move over Darling

A major government department - HM Revenue & Customs - has lost two CDs containing the confidential data of 25 million people in receipt of child benefits, including dates of birth, National Insurance Number, and bank account details.

In an act of unbelievable stupidity their offices in the north east of England decided to send the data to London by CD using a Courier Service (TNT). One wonders how a department such as this could even contemplate such an obvious breach of security rules. Surely the Government has an "Intranet" over which data can be transmitted in encrypted form over a secure line?!

The Head of HM Revenue & Customs has fallen on his sword - an increasingly rare act of honour these days - and I can't help thinking that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling (see photo) might usefully do the same, since this is not the first act of incompetence by departments for which he is responsible since the transfer of power from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown. In fact government departments seem to be so good at making a complete hash of major IT schemes that one wonders how anyone can believe they could bring to fruition their stated policy of bringing in National ID Cards.

Advice on Health Advice

There used to be a time when one could rely on certain basic tenets of health, for example, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” or “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases - cover your mouth”, or “Wash your hands after using the toilet”.

These days, however, whilst the above still holds true, we are bombarded almost every month with some new piece of so-called research concerning what we eat, how we exercise, how heavy we are, etc. that results in a new set of “rules” for healthy living as each month goes by. That would be fine but for the fact that the rules have a nasty habit of contracting each other with each new “discovery” from some university research project or other.

Coffee is good for you and helps you start the day.
Coffee turns you into a caffeine addict and gives you the shakes.

Tea is good for the heart.
Tea contains caffeine.

Red wine is good for the heart.
Red wine contains alcohol.

Alcohol helps you relax and unwind.
Alcohol causes social breakdown, and also destroys the liver.

Smoking Cannabis has no long-lasting effects on your health.
Smoking Cannabis causes severe psychosis in later life.

Some life-long smokers live to be a hundred or more.
Cigarettes cause poor circulation, heart disease and lung cancer.

Fat people are happier than thin people.
Overweight people are more prone to heart disease and diabetes.

If you are overweight go on a special diet.
There are a thousand and one special diets, they all fail in the end, except in the matter of making money for the people who sell you the system and the products.

Exercise is good for you.
Exercise is bad for you.

Stress is an essential part of being alive.
Stress causes mental breakdown and shortens your life.

Brush your teeth after every meal.
Brush your teeth before eating.

Oily fish, e.g., tuna, contains something called Omega 3 and is good for you
Too much tuna should be avoided because you may get mercury poisoning.

Fish and chips clog the arteries and makes you fat.
Fish and chips contain all the nutrients you need for a healthy life.

Milk and cheese are a good source of calcium, good for the bones.
Dairy products are bad for the circulation and the heart.

Dark chocolate contains antioxidants and lowers blood pressure.
Milk chocolate is bad for you and leads to overweight.

Chocolate is as good as sex for some people.
Chocolate is more expensive than sex (unless you are using professional services).

Fats are good for you.
Fats are bad for you.

Some bottled water has taken 150 years to reach us after filtering through volcanic rock.
There is a “Use by” date on the bottle.

Tap water in modern civilised countries is as good as bottled water and is cheaper.
Tap water in modern civilised countries often tastes of chlorophenols.

Gardening is good exercise.
Gardening exposes you to pollens and fungal spores and gives you hay fever.

Writing Blogs on a computer allows you to share your opinions with the whole world.
Writing Blogs on a computer increases stress, strains the eyes, and leads to repetitive strain injury.

My conclusion is that Health Advice is bad for the Health.

Death of Common Sense hits my Village this Christmas

Every year my North Yorkshire village puts on a good display of Christmas lights. They are painstakingly erected over a period of weeks by enthusiastic volunteers. They are funded by public donations. Visitors from other towns and villages in the area come to admire the display.

The switch-on involves a bit of fun on the village green, with Father Christmas entertaining the children, and there's plenty to eat and drink from the stalls provided by local shopkeepers.

The green is a triangular patch of ground adjacent to the crossroads at the centre of the village, and so for this bit of Christmas fun a very short length of road separating the green from the main shopping area has, hitherto, been closed off with permission, so that the green, the road and the pavement outside the shops become integrated as a pedestrian area. In no way does this impede the flow of any traffic since the triangle has a road on all three sides. Therefore after the road closure, two sides remain for traffic going in any direction. The Police and the Highway Authority don't want to help.

We have now received notice from the Christmas Lights Committee that because of new regulations the act of physically blocking off two ends of this short stretch of road can only be done under the supervision of someone fully qualified in Traffic Management! It has therefore been necessary to hire a Traffic Management Consultant this year at a cost of about £2,000.

In future, apparently, it will be necessary to train up one of the volunteers in the black art of traffic management so that by Christmas 2008 we shall have our own tame qualified person.

As part of society's downward slide towards such a degree of over-protection that we shall soon require a certificate in the art of sneezing safely, there are rumours that in future we shall also have to employ qualified electricians rather than intelligent volunteers to string up these lights.

Up and down the UK towns and villages are giving up many of these festive activities because they are overburdened by Health and Safety legislation and attendant prohibitive costs. In some areas the use of ladders to string up lights has been banned by local council officials who will only be able to sleep at night in the knowledge that volunteers are hiring the services of lorries fitted with hydraulic lifts.

When are we going start fighting this rising tide of interfering bureacracy and regulation? I'm sick of it. I'm off for a stiff whisky before someone makes a regulation requiring me to have some suitable qualified person check the strength and stability of my pouring arm and my knowledge of the optimal dilution factor when adding water.

Spammers are invading my Blog

In the past few days my e-mail inbox has been flooded with messages from this system notifying me of new comments made on this or that post. (There were 51 in 6 hours just today, and I've wasted a great deal of my time locating them on the Blog and deleting them.) They are all rubbish comments, e.g., "Great Blog", "Nice writing", or "I'll pass this on" and they all link to some website or other of doubtful provenance trying to sell you stuff.

I've had enough! These people are a waste of space, a blot on society, a bloody nuisance, sad gits, and they should crawl back underneath the slimy stone from which they came.

Since it is highly unlikely that we shall be rid of these online parasites I am forced to re-introduce "comment moderation". In this way, when the next 50 so-called comments are passed to my inbox I can go to the "moderated comments" page and zap them all at once and prevent them from being published. I know that some regular and genuine contributors don't like this system too much, preferring to see their comments go straight to publication, and so I apologise to them and hope they will not be discouraged from making comments.

I can assure any genuine contributor that his or her comments will be passed for publication as soon as I see them. I am interested only in separating proper comments from the automated garbage.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Death of a fine teacher - Ken Cripps

I took this rather fuzzy photograph surreptitiously from the back of the classroom when I was in the 6th Form of Kingston Grammar School back in the mid-1950s.

Mr Cripps (or "Sir" as we were obliged to call him) was one of the finest teachers I ever encountered in the whole of my schooldays. He taught English and Latin. He was small in stature and quietly spoken and yet had an innate ability to maintain discipline. I knew of none of my classmates who would dare challenge his authority, or even say anything bad about him in private.

I was therefore saddened to learn from www.kgsintouch.com yesterday that Ken Cripps had died .. at the age of 98! I shall always remember him with affection and gratitude. Nicotine addicts will no doubt rejoice in the knowledge that Ken lived to be 98 as a regular smoker (he gave up the habit when he was 83!)

Here are few points from an obituary appearing on the website:

* * *

'Uncle' Ken Cripps, arguably Kingston Grammar School's best-loved teacher, died on October 23 at the ripe old age of 98. He taught for 27 years at KGS, finally hanging up his mortarboard in 1971, but his legend grew in his long retirement, when he kept up with scores of former pupils.

He also maintained his links with the school, becoming one of its principal benefactors. A new staff common room was named after him, to recognise his “major and enduring contribution to the school”. It features a bronze bust of Ken.

John Elvidge, chairman of the school governors, explained: “Of the many former teachers at KGS who live on in the memories of past pupils, students and parents, we do not know of anyone who is held in higher esteem by so many.”

Ken Cripps, who lived in Anglesea Road, Kingston, was born on April 27, 1909, in Horley, Sussex, where his father, the Rev Henry Cripps, had been pastor of the Baptist church since the start of the century.

After attending grammar school in Hertford, Ken went on to teacher training college, eventually joining the staff at KGS during the Second World War, where one of his early tasks was taking charge of the evacuation of pupils as Kingston – home of the Hurricane fighter plane – had become one of Hitler’s key targets.

Ken specialised in English and Latin, developing a teaching style which Bernard Pratt described as “combining a friendly, non-intimidating approach with an ability to keep order”.

However, it was his enthusiasm for overseas trips and London outings which really endeared him to pupils. Visits to West End plays gave many boys (the school was male-only in his day) their first experience of theatre.

He led annual trips to Paris for more than a decade, and took charge of an ambitious rail expedition to Leningrad and Moscow during which, in an obscure Soviet station, he left the train on which the group was travelling to buy everyone sandwiches from a snack bar, only to discover that the locomotive had left the platform without him.

He had to take an express to catch it up later in the day.

* * *
I was a self-obsessed, neurotic, depressive teenager in my final years at school, and I remember once Ken Cripps set our class the task of writing an essay about our present lives and how we saw our future. Mine was pessimistic to such a degree that Ken Cripps took the 5-mile bus ride to my home one evening and had a long conversation with my father about my state of mind. (Incidentally my life turned out very differently to the one I had foreseen in my essay.) I mention this little incident as a small example of the degree to which Ken actually cared about his pupils.

God bless you Ken.

Remembering Spike Milligan

Instead of writing today about things that make me angry or sad or excited, I feel like indulging in something that just gives me simple pleasure. One of those things is reading to my five-year old grandson.

Yesterday I found myself reading a story for children written by the late, great, Spike Milligan. Spike was my comedy hero from the days when he introduced British radio listeners in the stilted and austere 1950s to a totally new, anarchic and surrealistic form of humour with The Goon Show.

Spike had many faults as a husband and father (how many of us are any better?) and suffered throughout his life from bouts of incapacitating depression. He was a manic depressive, or - as we like to say these days - suffering from bi-polar disorder. But I think his illness contributed to his genius.

The story that held my grandson's attention yesterday (and made him laugh frequently) was the story of the Bald Twit Lion. How can one improve on the opening paragraph to this story ..

Once, twice and thrice upon a time there lived a Jungle. It started at the bottom and went upwards till it reached the monkeys, who had been waiting years for the trees to reach them, and as soon as they did the monkeys invented climbing down. Most trees were made of wood, and so were the rest. Trees never spoke, not even to each other, so they never said much (actually one tree did once say 'much' but nobody believed him), they never said 'fish' either, not even on Fridays. It was a really good Jungle: great scarlet lilies, yellow irises, thousands of grasses all grew very happily, and this Jungle was always on time. Some people are always late, like the late King George V. But not this Jungle.

The story continues with the account of Mr Gronk, the lion who roared so hard all his hairs fell out, and his own flea had to leave on account of there being nowhere to hide. All the other lions laughed at him, until a crow suggested to Mr Gronk that he should get all the other lions to shave off their hair so they would all look the same. They were persuaded by the assertion that if they didn't shave, their legs would fall off. Unfortunately this made all the other animals laugh. (One monkey laughed so much he fell out of his tree and krupled his blutzon.)

To cut a 12-page story short, the lions were saved by a holy man called Daniel who came along and explained he could be trusted because he was once locked in a den of lions and none of them bit him and the audience asked for their money back. He made wigs for the lions by snipping hair from sleeping gorillas, sticking them to pieces of rag, then glueing them to the lions' heads with nails. Because Mr Gronk had caused all the trouble in the first place he was left out, cried for 40 days and 40 nights and suffered from lakes on the knees; to make things worse there were ducks on the lakes who kept him awake at night. Their quacking drove his knees deaf. In the end, God came to Mr Gronk, proved he was God by knowing that 2 x 2 = 4 and gave him back his beautiful black mane. He was so happy he married a Roman Catholic giraffe and lived happily ever after until the next day.

Spike Milligan said the following in an author's note: "I am of the opinion that children are not just small homo sapiens - they are an entirely different species, with a secret world that only very perceptive adults have any real knowledge of. I have. Lucky me."

If you stumbled across this Blog today, I hope it raised a smile or three.

Beaten but still proud

Well, we got to the Final but last night we didn't manage to hold on to the Cup. South Africa, the team that gave us a good drubbing a few weeks ago, beat us again and walked off with the Cup.

But this time our meeting with the South Africans was different. When they beat us in the preliminary stages with a colossal 36-Nil score we were a ramshackle bunch that deserved to be beaten.

Following that, we got our act together, and became a team to be reckoned with. Nobody suspected a few weeks back that we would ever get to the Final, but we did, and last night we gave the Springboks a run for their money, losing by just 9 points (15-6). We left France disappointed, but with our heads held high.

Rugby World Cup

Last night had me sitting on the edge of my seat in front of the TV as England defeated the "old enemy" France. What a game!

Who would have thought a month ago when we were trashed by South Africa (36-Nil) that the squad would have pulled themselves together so spectacularly that we would find ourselves in the Semi-finals.

And now we are in the Final, with a chance to hang on to that World Cup that we won back in 2003. At the time of writing we don't yet know who we'll be up against - Argentina or South Africa.

Can we expect to see Jonny Wilkinson's left boot on e-Bay some time soon?

Inside Bush's Brain - not a nice place

George W Bush has vetoed a Bill aimed at increasing health care for children in the USA. It had bipartisan support in Congress, but Bush has said, "I happen to believe that what you're seeing when you expand eligibility for federal programs is the desire by some in Washington, D.C. to federalize health care. I don't think that's good for the country."

Representative Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat of Illinois, said "Today the president showed the nation his true priorities: $700 billion for a war in Iraq, but no health care for low-income kids."

I agree with Emanuel. Moreover, I should like to ask - precisely what is so wrong with the concept of Federal Health Care?!

The man is a disgrace. Thank God the American people have only got to put up with him for another 16 months.

Burma

How typical of Russia and China to block moves by the UN Security Council to condemn the evil Burmese military regime! What kind of message are they trying to disseminate? In refusing to do anything (even say anything) about a brutal dictatorship - that employs military force against its own people, suppresses all forms of democracy, and utilises forced labour for the construction of its projects - the Russian and Chinese authorities merely confirm that their relatively recent apparent conversion to the notion of a more open society and free trade is no more than a veneer - a facade - concealing an inbuilt disregard for democracy as we understand it.

Since they refuse to impose sanctions against the Burmah Junta it is my opinion that it falls to us, the people of the Western democracies, to impose our own sanctions against Russia and China. I realise of course that refusing to buy Chinese made goods is extremely difficult because it seems that every other thing you pick up in the shops these days has been made in China. But I for one will make the effort.

At last - Some Competition on the East Coast Main Line

With the ill-fated GNER being replaced by National Express in December on the London-Scotland main line, I was pleased to learn that there will soon be some competition on at least part of the route. A new train company called Grand Central will later this month be commencing a high-speed service between Sunderland and London, via York.

If it lives up to the promises on its Website the service will be worth a try. Time will tell, but I wish them well.

Waste

Marmite .. "Love it or hate it" they say. Well for me it's "Love it .. hate the pot".

Why?

Just at the time we are all talking more and more about reducing waste and doing our best to recycle our garbage, food producers seem to be marching in the opposite direction and selling us stuff that we cannot recycle.

Sauces, condiments, drinks, etc. used to come in glass bottles and jars that could be recycled. Now they are coming in plastic bottles. And now Marmite has joined the Sqeezy Brigade.

Let's face it - it's not the consumer causing the mountains of environmentally unfriendly waste; it's the food producers and retailers. Why do vegetables have to be wrapped in cling-film?

It's not just the food producers: why does a new computer USB flash drive (or "memory stick") have to be encapsulated in an inpenetrable plastic casing ten times the size of the actual product?

We will not start making inroads into proper recycling and a reduction in waste until the manufacturers, producers and retailer play their part. This is where government pressure should be applied instead of constantly nagging the poor old consumer, i.e., you and me. We're doing our best but "progress" keeps knocking us back!

Blog-free Zone

This is a blog-free zone for the next week - I'm off to Wales, clearing my throat and carrying a spitoon ready for all those unpronouncable place names. For the benefit of blogging burglars my house is fully occupied for the duration.

Great North Eastern Railway (GNER)

On 17th August my wife and I travelled by GNER from York to Edinburgh for the Festival and the Military Tattoo.

It was a fast, smooth and near-silent journey. It arrived in York (from London) on time, and it arrived in Edinburgh on time.

The onboard staff were brilliant: helpful, amusing, polite.

We returned from Edinburgh by the same service, and all the above comments still hold true for the return journey.

It was therefore all the more saddening to reflect on the fact that GNER have had to relinquish their franchise for the East Coast Main Line service from London to Edinburgh and beyond, since their parent company (Sea Containers) got into financial difficulty. From December this line's franchise will be transferred to National Express (the intercity bus company).

I shall miss GNER, since it is probably the only train service since British Railways were privatised to have retained some semblance of dignity and connection with the great days of this prestigious line. It didn't give itself a fancy modern meaningless name, it didn't tart up its rolling stock to look as if a mad graffiti artist had been let loose on it. It also designed itself an old-style railway style coat of arms, and maintained a smart but dignified external and interior decor. It didn't pretend to be some johnny-come-lately airline on tracks. All its trains had inscribed in discreet letters on the side of each coach "Route of the Flying Scotsman" and the train we travelled on the other day was named "Mallard".

I hope that National Express will take on all the GNER staff, and will find it in their heart to maintain some of this line's heritage.

Pigeons living dangerously

This is Part II of the pigeon story.

Our August weather has been doing a passable impression of mid-November. This morning the wind is howling and the fir tree containing our nesting pigeon(s) is waving about like a thing possessed; the branch on which the pigeon nest (if one can dignify it with that name!) is precariously perched is bouncing up and down alarmingly.

The pigeon currently "on duty" is, however, clinging on for dear life (and probably suffering with the bird equivalent of sea sickness), and although there is another little pile of sticks underneath the tree the nest appears to be just about intact. I understand the incubation period is about 18 days, so we must be getting very near to hatching.

Wood Pigeons - Birds Living Dangerously

This is a pigeon that is one of a pair which has constructed a nest in a tree standing in my front garden.

The trouble is, pigeons are rubbish at building nests, and I marvel that so many of this species actually exist.

They just chuck a few small dead sticks together in an untidy pile and hope for the best.

In the case of the pigeons currently domiciled at my address their house-building skills are made even more questionable by the fact that what is laughingly referred to as their nest is balanced precariously half way along a single branch without any other visible means of support or stabilisation.

On the grass beneath the tree is a scattering of sticks that presumably were once part and parcel of a construction that is rapidly taking on the attributes of a Minnesota road bridge.

A few weeks ago pigeons were observed building a nest in a tree in my back garden. Soon after they completed the job there were scrambled pigeon eggs all over my garden steps, baked hard by the sunshine.

As for the current attempts - somewhat late in the year, (but the birds are not the only creatures confused by our changing climate) - I was recently privileged to watch at close hand the "Changing of the Guard". The pigeon's mate alighted on the end of the branch near the tree trunk and turned to face in the direction of the nest. Both birds were now looking at each other about 18 inches apart. The bird on the nest then nodded its head half a dozen or so times. Its mate repeated the nodding action, after which it slowly walked along the branch and eased itself on to the nest whilst its erstwhile occupant simultaneously vacated it, walked to the far end of the branch and flew off.

I hope that this crazy nest will fulfill its proper function for long enough to ensure survival of the next generation, though I have to admit that the incessant and monotonous cry of wood pigeons at 5 a.m. outside my bedroom window is just a little irksome.

I will report developments.