204 Bird Brained

At ten o’clock last night, just as the BBC television news was starting, my cell phone vibrated, indicating that I had a message.  

Rambling:  ‘Cell phone’ is one Americanism that I do use.  It is much easier and quicker to say than “mobile phone” and although a ‘mobile phone’ may be used in the way its name suggests, ‘cell phone’ is just as acceptable as it is named after cellular networks, where service areas are divided into ‘cells’.

Unlike the mobile phone which can never be anything but “mobile phone”, I foresee the day when the single word “cellphone” is recognised just as “telephone” is an established word now. Telephone is derived from tele (at a distance) and phone (sound or language).

I looked at my cellphone screen and saw a message that I had never seen before.  It read:

[Alarm] Anti-theft alarm triggered.  Check your vehicle.

Electric cars like ours have become very popular among car thieves but our model has Immobilisation Technology which is supposed to make their theft more difficult.  Nevertheless, I have read that a determined thief, with the skill and technology, finds it quite straightforward.  

Our car was parked right outside the front door and as I opened the door, hoping that I would not be confronted by a burly figure wearing a hoodie and a Covid face mask, I could hear the wailing of the car alarm and all four indicator lights were flashing.  It was pitch black but as far as I could tell, there was no one there.  The doors and the boot were still locked.  After a minute or two, the wailing stopped.

Twenty minutes later, the alarm went off again.  This time, I rushed out.  The alarm was sounding, the lights were flashing but again, there was no one there.

I thought that possibly, the thief had scurried off as soon as the alarm sounded and was hiding behind a bush somewhere nearby, watching me.  

I devised a shrewd plan: I turned on the outside porch light so that now, the car was visible.  I went upstairs, got a chair from a bedroom and sat on it so that I could look out of the window on the landing and watch the car below.

After a few minutes, the indicator lights started flashing and the alarm sounded, louder than ever.  No one had gone anywhere near the car.  There was clearly some kind of fault and so, we had a problem.  

Five houses are within 50 yards of us and if the car alarm was going off every now and then throughout the night, there would be justified complaints from angry neighbours.  I had to do something and the something I did was to drive the car some 200 yards away and park it a long way from any houses.  At 11:10 p.m., as I went back into the house, I could faintly hear the alarm in the distance.

At nine o’clock this morning, I went to the car to drive to the KIA dealership and get them to fix this irritating and annoying fault.  As I approached it, I was becoming a little worried.  All was quiet.

“Oh no,” I thought.  It’s happening again.  I’ll ask them to fix a fault when that fault seems to have fixed itself.  What if it starts again tonight?

As soon as I reached the car, I felt relief.  The problem wasn’t coming from outside.   I could see through the windows that what was causing all that fuss was inside the car.  A blue tit was on the top of the front passenger seat.

Its movement inside the car when the doors were locked had been what caused the alarm to sound.  How it got into the car, I have no idea but it just sat there, staring at me and it didn’t fly off until I opened the door nearest to it and then it was off and away. 

Problem fixed.

*****

Talking of birds, this photo shows an interesting fact that I've discovered recently about bird behaviour.

Blue tits in Wavendon prefer to eat to the left.

Both sides of this bird feeder, which is fixed to the outside of a glass patio door, were filled at the same time with sunflower hearts from one packet.  The birds, most of which are blue tits, are clearly drawn to the left side first.

‘Lateralisation’ among birds, akin to being right or left handed in primates, is a known characteristic.  It’s been shown that many parrots tend to be left-footed, meaning they prefer to use their left foot for tasks like holding food and some bird species prefer to use their right foot for picking up food or scratching their beaks. 

Apparently, lateralization in feeding is food-type specific and it somehow impacts on feeding success in wild birds.  Maybe, I’ll fill the feeder with biscuit crumbs next and see how they deal with them.

Interestingly (I think), while primates are usually right handed, orangutans tend to be lefties.  

 

 

203. How do You Know?

Recently, there seem to have been a lot of news features on television about older men suffering from dementia.  As I am now well entrenched in the ‘old age’ category of the population, becoming demented is something I think about now and then.

Quite how old I am was forced into my consciousness this afternoon when, completing a survey from The Stables, a nearby music venue, I was asked to indicate my age by putting a tick next to the right category.

How insensitive of them.  I was given 14 rows to peruse with the first being 0-14 and the last was 75+.  Why have groups of 5 and not 10 years?  

36-45 would be much more sympathetic than 36-40 followed by 41-45.  Then, I would have put my tick in the eighth row and not the fourteenth.  It would still have been at the bottom of course, but at the bottom of a much smaller tower.  It wouldn’t have made me feel and appear quite so ancient.  Incidentally, the final age group on the NHS website is 91+.  That’s more like it.

Every day for the past 20 years or so, I have completed a Sudoku puzzle rated “Super Fiendish”.  At first, I did them because I enjoyed the challenge but recently, while doing one I keep thinking something like, “This must be helping to put off dementia.”

There is a timer on the screen ticking away as I do the puzzle.  I don’t know why it’s there and I never used to pay any attention to the time it took me to complete a puzzle but nowadays, I do keep an eye on the clock.  Today, it took me 37 minutes and that is worryingly slower than usual, especially as Caroline rattled it off in 9 minutes.

This brain damage business reminds me of something that happened ten years ago.  We were in France on holiday with Caroline’s sister and her family.  Oscar, Joanna’s elder son, who was 12 years old at the time, was playing around on the roof of a shed.  He slipped and fell, landing on his head and was unconscious for a short time.

As soon as he came round, the questioning began to see if he was OK.  

“Where are we?” asked his mother.  

“Talais in France.”

“What day is it?” Caroline asked him.  

“Thursday.”

“Say pi,” said Timo, Oscar’s ten-year-old brother. 

“3.1415926535897” Oscar began.

“OK, that will do,” interrupted his Mum.  “You’re fine.”

“93238462” 

“Stop now.”  

“64338327950288”

“Stop it!” bellowed his Mother.

“197, but I used to know the first five hundred,” Oscar mumbled, almost tearfully.

In 2008, when I was in Broward Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, recovering from my liver transplant, I was asked questions by a doctor I had never seen before to find out how my brain was coping after weeks in Intensive Care.  I can still remember three of the questions I was asked. 

“Who was the last left-handed President?”

“Sorry, I’ve no idea.”

“Who’s in charge of The Department of Education?”  

“Ed Balls, I think.” 

“What state are you in?”

“Very ill, I suppose.”  

I don’t know if that doctor knew I was English and not American.  If he didn’t, I expect he thought I was showing signs of dementia.

202 A Quiet, Ordinary Day

I got out of bed on Wednesday morning thinking that the day to come would be yet another quiet, ordinary day spent sat in my comfy recliner, reading a newspaper, doing online puzzles and then planning and preparing that evening’s food.  There was, however, one thing I knew that I had to do and I expected it would cost me around £35.

The day before, on Tuesday evening, Caroline had left her office and as she approached the car, had seen a note on the windscreen.  It read ‘YOU HAVE A FLAT TYRE’.

The KIA EV6 doesn’t carry a spare but every one of its very expensive tyres contains a sealant that supposedly fills holes made by an intrusion.  In this case the sealant had clearly not worked.  The screw that had punctured the tyre was too large.

Our car insurance includes AA breakdown cover and so Caroline called them. Within an hour, the problem was fixed and she could drive home.  The man from the AA had warned Caroline that his fix was only temporary and she should get it repaired properly as soon as possible.  While Caroline went to work in the Mini on Wednesday, my job was to have the KIA’s tyre repaired.

At FastFit, the tyre mechanic told me that a repair was impossible and I needed a new tyre.  He said that the presence of the sealant made reparation impossible.  I suspected that this was just a line to get me to buy a new tyre and so I went outside, sat in the car and made some phone calls.  I found out that he was right.  The tyre was irreparable and so I went back into the tyre company’s office and ordered a new tyre

“£250 please.”

Back in the car, I pressed the start button.  I saw messages that I’ve never seen before.  One said, “12 volt battery low”, while another read, “Press the start button with the key fob”.  I did that and the screens went completely black.  The car would not start.

I called the AA and within 30 minutes a yellow AA van pulled up next to me in the car park.  After doing some tests I was told that the 12 volt battery was not charging and I need to have a new one.  Luckily, he carried one.

“£215 please.” *

When I got home, the post had been delivered and an ominous brown envelope was lying on the mat.  In October last year, I drove into London and according to a letter from the Metropolitan Police that I received a few days later, I went through a red traffic light.  I didn’t think I had but on November 2nd, I phoned to pay the £60 fine.  

The reference number on the letter the police had sent did not match any that the call handler could find and so he told me to hang up and they would either send me another letter or phone me.  

I heard nothing from them until more than four months later in early March when I got a letter advising me that as I had not paid the fine in the time allowed, I was either to attend a court hearing or fill in an online form.  The form asked all kinds of intrusive questions including ‘What is your monthly income net of tax?’

The brown envelope glaring at me from the door mat contained a letter headed ‘Result of court case’.  The fine I have to pay is made up of three components.

Fine                             £216.00 and 3 penalty points

Costs                           £50.00

Victim surcharge         £86.00       Victim?  Surely that’s me.

The last line of the letter is: If you don't pay, you could be sent to prison for non-payment.

“£352 please.”

I phoned the number on the letter and explained that I had tried to pay the fine last year but because of their incompetence and through no fault of mine, I had been unable to.  I was told there was no record of that call (what a surprise!) and that I had 28 days to pay the amount stated.  

So, my quiet, ordinary day cost me £817.00, three penalty points and a threat of imprisonment. 

* In 1977, a new 12 volt battery for my Honda Z cost £5.00.  That's £40.00 today, allowing for inflation

201 Pottering About

On Saturday morning, I was talking to a neighbour.  I asked him what he was going to be doing that day.  He told me he intended to “potter about in the garden”.  

“Doing what?” I asked.

“Prune bushes and rake up some leaves.  Possibly do some weeding.  That kind of thing.”

“I don’t think that’s Pottering About,” I told him.  “I think that Pottering About is doing random things or activities while continually moving around with no discernible plan.  But you intend to carry out certain tasks.  If you actually intend to do those tasks, they can’t possibly be random and so you’re not Pottering About - in my opinion.”

He disagreed and maintained that he would be Pottering About because as far as he was concerned, that meant doing useful but unimportant jobs with no time pressure and that, he told me, was what he would be doing.

I think he is wrong because I don’t think that you can actually plan to Potter About.  I feel that Pottering About is only something you realise you’ve done in retrospect or with hindsight and so it could be an answer to a question such as, “What did you do today?” but not, “What will you be doing today?”

I told him that he would be gardening and not pottering.

Some people think that Pottering About is just another way of saying “wasting time”.  It isn’t because there are some potentially positive aspects to Pottering About .  

Pottering About allows the mind to wander.  It gives your subconscious mind the time to process experiences or thoughts you are having.  It can reduce mental stress by focusing on simple, non-demanding activities.

Pottering About can give you a sense of accomplishment and even perhaps, a feeling of triumph as it can create a sense of having done something useful.  Also, for those of us who lead predominantly sedentary lives, it can be the source of gentle exercise and that has to be beneficial.

I played in a league cricket match once that ended in a dull draw followed by a heated argument between our captain and a batsman who was not out at the close of the innings.  

We had needed around 220 to win in 47 overs and at the close of play, we were about 200 for 5 and so, the game was drawn.  The batsman who had (justifiably in my opinion) incurred the wrath of the captain, was 53 not out from more than 90 balls.

“You weren’t trying to win the game,” yelled the skipper.  “You were just Pottering About, playing for yourself and you never intended to do anything else.”

However, according to my criterion, if the batsman had actually intended to bat that way from the start of his innings, he was not Pottering About at all.  

He was just selfish.  

200 All That Work for Nothing

This is the two-hundredth posting published on my blog.  I’ve actually posted 201 but I removed one of them after it had been here for more than three years.

I wrote the piece that was subsequently removed as a result of an uplifting experience I had while working two mornings a week as an unpaid classroom assistant in Savannah Primary School, Grand Cayman.  My responsibility was to help some of the less able children with their work. 

That was the plan but in reality, I spent most of my time dealing with Rozzard so that Ms Hunte, the class teacher, could concentrate on the educational advancement of the other 20 children who all actually wanted to learn – unlike Rozzard!

Mostly, I struggled to stop him from causing disruption and any learning that he achieved was a bonus.  But, as he demonstrated time and again, particularly in maths, Rozzard was very able.  (You can read about some of the things that Rozzard did in blogs 6, 12 and 23.) 

https://ramblingsandstories.blogspot.com/2010/02/sports-day.html  

https://ramblingsandstories.blogspot.com/2010/04/poetry-in-raw.html

https://ramblingsandstories.blogspot.com/2010/06/6h-and-fibonacci.html

One day, just before we left Cayman to return to the UK permanently in July 2010, Ms Hunte set a homework assignment to set out the plot of a story they could possibly develop and write one day.  They didn’t have to write a story, just the outline of the plot.

The day when these plots were due in was one of my days in class.  Before she collected their exercise books, Ms Hunte asked if anyone would like to read theirs aloud to the class.

To my amazement, Rozzard’s hand shot up and even before he could be summoned, he had come to the front of the class and stood facing everyone, book in hand.  As soon as he was asked to proceed, Rozzard spoke to us all with a confidence and self-assurance that I could never have imagined he possessed.

The hero of Rozzard’s tale was of a dog named Walter and that dog had a problem: he farted a lot.  A sharp intake of breath could be heard from everyone as soon as that word was said.  Ms Hunte looked over to me enquiringly and I replied with a shrug and a nervous, half smile.  I don’t know if children in Cayman ever farted but I know that none of them would ever have talked about it.

Rozzard went on to tell us that Walter’s farts were magical in that whenever he farted, something good happened in as much as anything that was broken or needed fixing was repaired to be as good as new or something that was lost became found.  Rozzard told us that this gift first became when apparent when, still a very young puppy, Walter was aboard a cruise liner whose engine had broken down while moored off George Town, Cayman’s capital.  

It was going to take several days for the necessary spare parts to be delivered and Walter had gone out to the ship with his owner who was delivering necessary, emergency foodstuffs.  Almost immediately after he set paws on the ship, Walter farted and the engine was working again.

At first, Walter’s owner thought it was just coincidence but the next day, when a grandfather clock that hadn’t worked for 40 years started working immediately after another Walter fart, the penny dropped.  Throughout his entire life, a Walter-Fart brought good to the world.

I was gripped and wanted to hear more.  Ms Hunte led the rapturous applause and Rozzard revelled in it.  Rozzard had surprised and amazed us all.

I wrote about all of that in a post that I put up in July 2010.

About three years later, I decided that as he never would, I would write a children’s book based on Rozzard’s plot.  If it were ever published, I would try to contact Rozzard and share some of my earnings with him.  After all, I would never have thought about writing a book were it not for him.  He would deserve some reward.

My dog was called Rocky and mindful of prissy parents, it was his sneezes, not his farts that were charmed.  Whenever he sneezed, the magic happened and he sneezed straight after eating cheese.  Rocky loved cheese.

I had written about 40,000 words of this “delightful and charming story”, as I imagined the reviewers would be describing it, when Lucy, my daughter, rang me.

“You know that blog you wrote a few years ago about a dog that had magic farts?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that kid didn’t think up that story.  He got it from a book called ‘Walter the farting dog goes on a cruise’.  A friend told me about it.”

Crikey!  Had Rozzard divulged his plot to a writer or could he possibly have written he book himself?

“When was it published?”

“I don’t know.  Susan has just read it to her son.”

I googled “Walter the farting dog goes on a cruise”.

Published in 2006.

Rozzard, you monster.  You’ve caused me to waste weeks and weeks of my life.

199 Things ain't what they used to be

This year (2025) it will be 60 years since I started at Durham University.  I find it almost mind boggling when I realise that 60 years before then it was 1905.  As I prove regularly, someone dressed in the typical attire of 1965 wouldn’t look much out of place today, whereas someone in the clothes of 1905 would have looked very odd indeed in 1965.

Science fiction films about events that take place in the future, show people in tight fitting clothes of pastel shades that are obviously made of synthetic material.  Study of Star Trek reveals that the woollen pullover will have completely disappeared by Stardate 1207.3 (Sunday, May 11th, 2256).

If wool is no longer required in 200 years, what does the future hold for sheep?  I’ve read that just as we regard slavery and the burning of witches with horror and revulsion today, people quite soon in the future will regard our eating of meat in the same way.  

Because of the popularity of betting and gambling, the future of the horse seems secure but if it weren’t for our dietary preferences and clothing needs, the cow and the sheep would surely have gone the way of the mammoth, the quagga and the Tasmanian tiger by now.  What do vegans have to say about that?

Looking at street scenes from 1905, 1965 and 2025, the most obvious change is the reduction in the number of people visible, the absence of horses and the corresponding increase in cars, vans and lorries.  

It can’t be seen but the 1965 street noise level must be much greater than that of 60 years earlier.  I suspect that the city centre noise is at its all-time highest now in 2025 but with the relatively rapid introduction of electric vehicles, our streets will become quieter.  

My nephew is a frequent visitor to Shanghai where virtually all vehicles are electrically powered.  He says that street noise there is almost silence - just a constant background hum.  I have no idea how noisy hydrogen fuelled vehicles will be but they must surely be quieter than petrol engines.

A striking difference in street scenes over the 120 years is the change in the ethnicity of the crowds of people.  Pedestrians in photographs from 1905 are exclusively white.  Spectators at football matches are not only white but they are exclusively male too. 

In a photograph I have of the students at Hatfield College, Durham taken in 1968, there is just one black student among the 350 in shot.   Today, more than 30% of undergraduate students at Durham are from a Black or Minority Ethnic background and that figure has trebled since 2010.

By just looking at photographs of heads, it is fairly easy to tell those from 1905 and to some extent, their social class.  Every man and woman wore a hat when outside.  Working class men wore what almost seem to be cricket caps.  Indeed, Oscar Wilde in The Ballard of Reading Gaol written in 1897, describes a convicted murderer taking exercise in the yard “In a suit of shabby gray;  A cricket cap was on his head,….” 

Most women in the street wore bonnets that were fairly small, on top of a pile of hair, while those of a higher class wore hats that soared above their head. These were known as “3 Story” or “Flower Pots”.

In 1965, hats had all but disappeared. They were no longer a fashion accessory and seem only to have been worn in the event of rain or extreme cold.  Today, in 2025, head covering is becoming fashionable again but mainly, it appears, among shoplifters.

The jeans that I wear today would not have attracted attention or odd looks in 1965 but jeans were virtually unknown in the UK in 1905.  

I have a shirt in my wardrobe today that I am possibly wearing in a photograph that was taken in 1975 or was bought later but they both have the same pattern and the same collar shape.  It may not be the same shirt but it is exactly similar.  It could therefore be 60 years old but I have no idea when I acquired it. 

Both Caroline’s hair and mine would not look out of place in 1965 but our hairstyles would both seem odd or eccentric in 1905.  Then, men had short hair containing Brilliantine that was combed back and often with a centre parting.  Women all had long hair.  Apart from its texture and a (slight) change in colour, my hair has looked exactly the same over the past 70 years.  

Body shapes have changed. This photograph taken of Lowestoft South beach in 1964 for the town’s tourist office sums it up. 

Not a single overweight person to be seen.  I suspect that is how a beach scene from 1905 would have looked similar if the women had been attired less modestly than they were.

Of course, it is technology that has changed more than anything since 1965. I would never have written anything like this even in 1995 unless I were a professional writer as the only person who could have read it would be Caroline.  Only professional writers and authors would have written for unknown readers. 

In 1965, if I wanted to know if the word preceding ‘shoplifters’ in an earlier paragraph should be ‘among’ or ‘amongst’, I would have had to visit the library and find a volume that helped.  

If I wanted to know the year that Oscar Wilde wrote The Ballard of Reading Gaol, I would have had to do something similar but instead, by using Google, I just entered “among  amongst” and then “wilde reading gaol” and had the answers almost immediately.  With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, it is impossible to even imagine what will be happening in 2085.

In 1965, there were three television channels.  Of course, in 1905 there weren’t any whereas today, there are around 500.

The winning exhibit of the 2024 Turner Prize was a red Ford Escort covered in an oversized doily with pop music blaring from its speakers.  The “artist” who collected £25,000 for this “immersive sonic score, reflecting inherited and withheld histories” was female and a Sikh so that was fashionably and suitably diverse; a concept that was unimaginable in 1965.

It’s not as if she built the car or crocheted the doily herself.  I doubt that she even covered the car with the doily on her own, but the idea of doing so was hers and so she is, by definition, a conceptual artist. 

Conceptual artists are those who create art where the idea is more important than the final product.  By that definition, I’m a conceptual artist because my ideas are always more important than the final product as there never is one.  No one from 1905 or 1965 would believe it.

There was controversy about art in the past.  In 1907 Picasso created Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. It shows five nude female prostitutes in a brothel in Barcelona.  It was hugely controversial and led to widespread anger and much argument.  Henri Matisse considered the work something of a bad joke. Today, it's considered a revolutionary piece that was the beginning of modern art.  Maybe, the Ford Escort will be revered in 2085.

Something that happened in 1965 but never in 1905 or, it seems in 2025, is hitchhiking.  Hitchhiking to Durham from Lowestoft and back in the mid-sixties saved me the train fare of £3 each way or, as I used to think of it, 36 pints of beer. Six times a year in those days, every roundabout along the A1 had three or four hitchhikers standing and waiting and often getting soaked.  I haven’t seen a student in a college scarf waving a thumb at traffic for more than 30 years.

In 1905, a pint of beer was one old penny (0.4p).            

43p a pint allowing for inflation.

In 1965 it was 1/8 (8½p) a pint).                                

£1.38p a pint allowing for inflation.

Today, beer is around £5.00 a pint.  

The only fast-food outlets throughout England in 1905 were more than 20,000 fish and chip shops.  There were also a few Chinese restaurants with the main concentration of them being in the Limehouse or Chinatown district of London.

I can remember the first Chinese restaurant to open in Lowestoft where I was at school.  It was in 1964 and the cost of the set lunch was 4/6 (22½p).  In 2025 there are around 20 Chinese and 8 Indian restaurants in Lowestoft.

Near to Hatfield College in 1965, was a Chinese restaurant and it was a rule that someone in the group had to order number 42 so that we could hear the waiter say, “Praw bambooshoo washay.”  

Yesterday evening, I saw the exact same dish on an online takeaway menu.  I had to have it.  I phoned and spoke to a young lady.  

“Praw bambooshoo washay,” I said.  

“Yes sir,” she said.  “Prawns, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.  Would you like any rice?”