The Big Garden Birdwatch

I thought it would be interesting to take part in ‘The Big Garden Birdwatch’. Another of my bright ideas.

I downloaded a recording sheet with its pictures of the 20 most common British birds. It was a little discouraging that I hadn’t realised that a pigeon isn’t just a pigeon; it can be a collared dove, a woodpigeon or a feral pigeon.

I decided to split my hour’s observation into two, half an hour looking out of the back window, across the council’s lawns, where feeding birds is FORBIDDEN, and over a school playing field. And then out of the front to look across the road towards houses where people actually have gardens.

For 10 minutes I saw nothing at all, and then a flock of small birds flashed past. What the hell were they? I quickly consulted the pictures. Sparrows? But I thought their tails were a bitty stubby. So, coal tits? I hoped to God they weren’t dunnocks.

I saw a couple of crows. That was easy enough. Then I saw something hovering high in the sky. Maybe a hawk of some kind. That would be a treat. But no, it was a seagull coasting around and caught by the wind.

Then a pair of magpies flew past. Two for joy. I wished them good morrow, as is the custom. There was a lot of avian activity on the other side of the playing field, where the houses are more affluent. We have to eat our own crumbs where I live.

I move to the front of the flat and drew the blinds back. Immediately I felt like a peeping Tom and it didn’t help that I’d only got a dressing-gown on. I closed the blinds again and peeked through. Oh Christ, that’s worse. I moved to the bedroom where there are net curtains and looked down. It was the first time I’d noticed that the old woman downstairs has got a bird-table, WHICH IS AGAINST THE RULES.

But it meant I got to see a few more birds. Sometimes the low hedge down there is buzzing with birds and there were half a dozen little fellows hopping about. I’d always thought they were chaffinches, but I noticed they’d got streaks on their back. Sparrows then.

One little chap was struggling with a large piece of bread, until a couple of blackbirds relieved him of it. Bastards!

And that was about it. A bit disappointing really. I wasn’t expecting golden eagles or peregrine falcons, but a few sparrows are hardly something you’d sell tickets for.

But I can see the fascination of birdwatching. They can be so graceful floating around in the sky, just the occasional stroke of the wings propelling them along. Or flapping furiously directly to some unknown destination. I love those swirling patterns of starlings, the deadly dives of hawks, and the evil courage of magpies. To see a kingfisher, or a woodpecker, or an owl is a privilege I’m rarely granted.

But I think that will do for one year. And I still don’t know whether those gulls were common or herring.

Pigs

Pigs are popular. I like pigs. After Eeyore, Piglet was my favourite character in Winnie the Pooh. I was always fond of piglets, with their big floppy ears too big for their bodies.

When I was at primary school I used to take buckets of left-overs from school dinners to the house next door, where a man kept a couple of pigs. It wouldn't be allowed today, of course. My father had a couple once.

Some pigs are not lovable. Those creatures in Hannibal, for example. And Richard III made a propaganda mistake in choosing the wild boar as his emblem.

Winston Churchill liked pigs. What was it he said? 'A dog looks up to you. A cat looks down on you. But a pig looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal'.

And they don't half taste nice.

Here are a few links:

http://pigofknowledge.blogspot.com/

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiPIGINEB4.html

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-pig/

Red Dust on Green Leaves

Red Dust on Green Leaves
by John Gay (1973)

Liberia

I suppose I first heard of Liberia from ‘The Boy’s Book of Interesting Facts’, or some such title.

I was struck by the fact that the President seemed to have an American name, complete with middle initial, and by its description as a stable African democracy. Even then I knew that to be something unusual in that benighted continent. And when I read that it had begun as a colony for freed American slaves, I even felt proud of the place.

So when it all collapsed into incredibly cruel civil war 30 years ago I felt oddly disappointed. But I soon learned that, while it had been a long time coming, it was all probably inevitable. Because for 150 years Liberia had been divided into two great classes of society – the American descendants, who had always considered themselves superior and civilised, and the indigenous people, who had always been excluded from the democratic process, partly through prejudice, partly through their own reluctance to abandon traditional ways.

Red Dust on the Green Leaves

This book, written just before the troubles and set 30 years earlier, gives, albeit read with hindsight, an inkling of this great divide.

It is the story of twin Kpelle boys, born into a village a long way from the coastal ‘Kwii’, or Westernised Africans and Whites. As they grow up they come to represent the divide in Liberian society, as one learns the lore of the jungle and the other is increasingly attracted by the wonders of the coming world.

The book is not a work of non-fiction, but neither according to the author (an American Episcopalian missionary) is it fiction. The customs of the village, the upbringing of the boys, the attitudes and actions all reflect reality and are brought together to form a narrative.

See this link:


http://www.thewitness.org/agw/gaysliberia.030402.html

The most remarkable thing about the book is that it is written, as it were, ‘from the inside’. The author succeeds admirably in avoiding any judgment or comment or the intrusion of his own culture or beliefs. No doubt he would be the first to acknowledge the contribution her of his research associate, John Kellemu, who may well have travelled the same journey as one of the twins.

We share the ignorance of the new world, established on the coast, which is gradually, inexorably creeping into the jungle and represented by dark references to ‘Firestone’, for example, or ‘The DC’. Nothing is explained. We have to learn as we go the meaning of ‘Kwii’ or guess what is going on with ‘The Forest Thing’ or ‘The Bush School’.

The civilisation of the village is based on tradition and rooted in the various cycles of life, the crops and the seasons, childhood, adulthood and marriage death. But overall it is static and unchanging. Conversation and decisions are made on the basis of proverbs and wisdom received from the ancestors. There is a social hierarchy, roles for men and women, polygamy allowed but checked by poverty. Questioning is discouraged.

Men’s minds are full of superstition, fears of witchcraft and faith in sacrifices, little different from the new faith from over the water. But there is knowledge of the efficacy of plants and herbs for the forest in healing, and harming.

There are rivalries, jealousies and squabbles, betrayals and immorality. But there are also courts, wise counsel and commitment to the village’s way of life.

But things are changing. Men are tempted – or forced - away by the delights of the coast, such as work, women, cheap consumer goods, and in the case of one of the boys, curiosity and ambition.

The book ends with this boy, well-established in school, having turned his back on village life. His twin remains devoted to the traditional ways, learning his trade of blacksmithing and the secrets of the forest. The ending is melancholic and strangely, in view of the author’s profession, holds out little hope.

Patience Strong

The other day I came across a friend who was sitting reading a book. She looked a little subdued. I asked politely if all was well and realised she was near to tears.

A little concerned, I looked at what she was reading and saw she had on her a number of poems by Patience Strong. I must confess that my reaction was hardly supportive. I’d cry myself if I read that sort of pap. That was my first reaction.

But then I felt guilty. Who am I to be so contemptuous of what creates emotion in others? I, who struggle with metre and rhyme for weeks and still fail to come up with a decent poem. At least old Patience had facility.

Here’s a poem of hers, picked at random:

Sometimes we walk in the shadows.
Sometimes we bask in the sun.
Joys interchanging with sorrows.
That is how life seems to run.

We can’t keep a hold on its treasures.
We snatch at our dreams as they fade.
But taking the pains with the pleasure,
They’re just about evenly weighed.

OK, it’s banal and predictable, but people take comfort in sentiments like this. And frankly I think it’s better as poetry than the rubbish I heard being read on Radio 4 last week when they were sampling the contenders for the T S Eliot poetry prize. So much of that was prose, as far as I was concerned, declaimed in a funny ‘poetic’ voice.

I wonder what people think of Kipling’s If. That’s an example of a ‘good advice’ poem and suffers from being very popular, although technically it is very sound. Elizabeth Browning’s sonnet How do I love thee, let me count the ways, again, is yet another metrically excellent poem about love, which tops the popularity lists. Is that hackneyed and banal?

Maybe it was nostalgia that affected my friend. Sometimes a poem can revive memories of childhood, of parents, of children’s first words, of loss and bereavement, of past joys and loves. A poem, no matter how ‘bad’, can concentrate emotion and there’s something about the heartbeat rhythm that heightens those feelings.

Do not go gentle into that good night does that. So does When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes. And that reminds me of another reason we read poetry sometimes. It’s to recreate emotions, even to make ourselves cry. It can accompany our mood and purge us of pent-up sorrow or happiness or humour.

Music (and what else is poetry?) can do the same. Some music, without words, can inspire humour, grief, patriotism even. But I can’t explain why some music can bring tears to the eyes simply by being so beautiful. Mozart springs to mind.

Going back to Patience Strong, I don’t want to sound patronising. You know, she’s all right for those who can’t cope with Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas. After all I’m the man who loves Hank Williams, to whom I go when I feel miserable and whose simple heartfelt lyrics so often reflect my own periodic loneliness and depressions.

I’m the man who cried when Hugh Grant finally won Julia Roberts at the end of Notting Hill and takes comfort from Patience’s lines:

There’s a song at the heart of your sorrow,
And happiness waiting for you.

Mma Ramotswe

I see BBC Radio is broadcasting dramatisations of Alexander McCall Smith's Mma Ramotswe stories. This one can be heard again for a week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/afternoon_play.shtml

Test results

I’ve done a couple of on-line tests recently. First of all, a personality test, found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/whatamilike/

Apparently I’m a realist, an introvert, inclined to plan rather than be spontaneous, prefer facts to ideas, and follow my head rather than my heart.

And I thought I was the greatest visionary and radical thinker since William Blake. I think I shall have to keep myself to myself for a while, list all the reasons why I’m like this and set out a programme for self-renewal. It will take some thinking about. I wouldn’t want to do anything rash.

I also checked out my political orientation at:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/index

I tried this and found I was absolutely in the middle in economic terms and only slightly in the libertarian camp.

I know that can’t be right. I am very much a libertarian in social matters and believe strongly in the market in the economic sphere. I suppose that comes from being an introvert who uses his head rather than his heart.

So what’s wrong with this test?

How are the questions chosen? There seemed to be a lot on sex, for example, none about smoking. I found it difficult to answer the question about prison, because I was asked whether it was more for punishment than rehabilitation. What about deterrence and public protection?

And whether you agree ‘strongly’ or ‘very strongly’ depends on your mood and personality.

I think the test fails fundamentally because it judges you by symptoms rather than your fundamental condition. It’s like saying that if you’ve got hair, four legs and are vegetarian, you must be a cow, even though you are a moose. What a stupid analogy!

Maggie, Tony and Gordon

I don't know what happened here. I tried to change the font size and my blog just disappeared.

My words of wisdom lost forever.

Enthusiasms

I’ve just started to read The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I heard about it in passing and only then did I realise that it’s pretty famous.

It’s based on the idea (or is it a fact now?) that it’s the right-hand side of the brain which is the creative side and that we need to harness it consciously to make the best use of it.

I can see where Betty’s coming from. Ask me to draw something and I’ll start slavishly copying it and wondering if squared paper would help. In other words adopting a very intellectual, left-brain, approach.

It’s not new. People have been saying for centuries things like ‘Don’t try, do’ or ‘Don’t think about it too much, just be yourself, be natural, go with your instincts, you’ll never be any good if you’re not enjoying yourself’ – I’m sure they’re all connected. No doubt the right-hand side of the brain can help in all forms of creative endeavour. Writing sonnets, perhaps.

I seem to have spent my life throwing myself in one thing after another, always taking it very seriously, reading, practising, never becoming as good as I would like, and often giving up. A bit like Bouvard and Pecuchet in Flaubert’s (unfinished!) novel. Here’s a few of them, ignoring the really serious enthusiasms like work, sex and religion.

Music: I started with the harmonica and moved on to the guitar. I still have that guitar. It’s standing in a corner of the room, stringless. Once I attached one of those contraptions, so that I could play the mouth organ at the same time. But I never managed to sound like Sonny Boy Williamson or Chet Atkins. I seemed to best with the paper and comb.

Today, I am getting a second-hand keyboard from my son. Will I never learn? Or, will I ever learn?

Art: I tried drawing once before. I remember filling sheet after sheet with ovals, dissected with lines to indicate the basic composition of the human face. I practised eyes, ears and mouths. I drew a fantastic disembodied nose once, which made the whole exercise almost worthwhile, but that’s as far as I got, even though I diversified into cartoons and calligraphy.

Sport: I was never any good at sport, especially team games, unless I was captain of course, but that does require a modicum of skill. At school I signed up for cross-country running as a way of avoiding football, and played a bit of squash, because it involved less running after the ball.

I tried pool, probably inspired by Paul Newman in The Hustler. I bought a six-foot table and played at home. I had to push it against a wall and learn to play with only three sides of the table available. I would still enjoy it, I suppose, but tables seem have disappeared from pubs.

But darts was my passion for a year or two. It started when a few of us from the library entered the council’s annual darts competition. We were knocked out in the first round, but were so pleased with our performance (against the Personnel department) that we thought all we had to do was practice for a year and we’d walk away with the trophy. So we put up a board in the staff room, went to a darts pub every Monday night. Most of us bought boards and tungsten darts and practiced, practiced, practiced.

After a year, we drew the Fire Brigade and were knocked out in the first round.

But for me at least the bug had well and truly bitten. I memorised finishes, had a strict training schedule – round the board on doubles, round the board on shanghais, finishes from 41 up and back again, all interspersed by sessions on the treble twenty. I tried different stances, different weights of dart and different lengths of dart.

After all that I only once scored a treble twenty in competition, and then lost the leg because I couldn’t manage double one.

I’d better continue this tomorrow.

Sexual Orientation Regulations

It looks like the protests have failed, as have the moves in the House of Lords, and gay rights regulations will become law. I, for one, am disappointed.

Now, as soon as I say that, I will be categorised as either a 'homophobe' or a right wing religious fundamentalist. I am neither.

I am not going to use the old cliche about some of my best friends being homosexuals, because it isn't true. In any case, 'best friend' is a phrase I use very sparingly. But I have had homosexual friends and acquaintances. I used to spend a lot of time with a fellow called Robert, a pretty promiscuous gay, but our relationship was mainly based on an anorak-ish love of films. He was having an on-off affair with Ben. While Rob was extravert and displayed many typical 'gay' mannerisms - and they do exist - Ben was much more reserved. He liked to sit with a quiet pint and chat about Frank Sinatra. Sometimes he would confide his hurt feelings over Rob's behaviour and I would share my own romantic troubles.

If this pair had wanted to share a bed in my flat I would have raised no objection. My only problem would have been the same that I would have felt if a heterosexual couple were enjoying themselves in the next bedroom, while I was drinking a cup of cocoa and listening to Book at Bedtime.

But I still object to these regulations. Obviously I could not tolerate any inoffensive, law-abiding citizen's being excluded from a pub or a train or a hotel because of their colour, religion or sexual orientation.

But I can't help worrying about the small private B&B, to pick just one example, run by a couple with 'old-fashioned' views on morality. The are not just running a business. They are living in their home. And that gives them the right to set rules. If they don't want unmarried couples or children or pets or people without luggage, why should they be forced to take them? And if it upsets them to lie awake in bed knowing that anal penetration is going on under their roof, I don't see why they should have to suffer it.

It is one thing to tolerate behaviour of which you disapprove, quite another to be obliged to embrace it, even encourage it. And it's behaviour we are talking about, which is where the analogy with blacks falls down. Blackness is a state of 'being', homosexual practice is behaviour.

Why can't we let the market decide these matters. In Lincoln, for example,we have 'gay' pubs, which 'straights' avoid, and some pretty tough pubs, which are avoided by practically everybody. To live and let live is a pretty good principle, but it should not be imposed.

New presbyter is but old priest writ large.

Slaid Cleaves

I've always liked Country music, but I've always been choosy. Probably because I'm always hearing these jibes about dead dogs and other miseries.

So, I like Waylon and Willie, Hank and Jimmy, Bill Monroe, Box Car and Doc Watson, and Cajun stuff, and that old bloke I heard in Oh, Brother, Where art Thou?

And don't you think that only Dolly can sing I will always love you? Whitney Houston, please shut that huge mouth.

That's why I always listen to Bob Harris on a Thursday night. He seems to appreciate the same sort of music. And last week, he introduced me to Slaid Cleaves and Slaid's song New Year's Day. It is fantastic. I've listened to it 50 times trying to copy out the words. I shall buy the album, I shall re-string my guitar, I shall have it played at my funeral.

You can sample it here.

Dictatorship in Northern Ireland

I am surprised so little is made of the fact that Northern Ireland is a dictatorship.

Because its legislative assembly cannot agree on an executive, it is suspended and the UK imposes direct rule. This does not mean that NI is treated as an integral part of the UK, given adequate representation in Parliament and subject to laws passed their along with the rest of us.

It means, in fact, that their Secretary of State rules by diktat. Smoking in public places, for example. In devolved Scotland, the act outlawing it was debated and agreed in a democratic manner. Similarly in England and Wales. In Northern Ireland, Peter Hain just signed a piece of paper.

to anyone who believes in constitutional procedure this is quite obnoxious. And quite unnecessary. It seems to me that the government does not understand the fundamentally separate functions of an executive and a legislature. Government does not have to be parliamentary, as in Britain and Canada. Look at the US.

Let's accept that NI should have a devolved government, let's accept that it has to be based on power-sharing, let's accept that the politicians there are not yet capable of forming one. But why are the NI assemblymen, elected, paid, and idle, not told to do the job of legislating if not governing. Peter Hain would still have the power to veto and to introduce legislation.

Who knows. They might learn to work positively together.

My site meter

I thought it would be interesting to set up a site meter on my blogs, of which I have several. I suppose it's my old librarian training which makes me want to set up 'discrete' categories of blog.

It wasn't easy. I thought I had to copy a whole screed of Java or HTML and type it onto my layout. What is this Java, etc? Why do I have to keep keying in letters to get paragraph breaks? Anyway, I managed to get some instructions copied and pasted. Except that I managed to get two blogs mixed up.

Is it just me, or do other people have trouble with these 'so simple' procedures for signing up to services? For example, I wanted to set up a team blog recently. The instructions seemed straightforward and everyone followed them and wondered why it didn't work. Then by at the end you discovered 'By the way, you will need to have set up a blog of your own before you can join this team.'

Now, of course, I'm getting neurotic about who is reading me and where they come from. It's very hurtful when somebody stays for '0 seconds'.

At first I thought someone in Cambridge, UK, was viewing my pages a lot, until I realised that it was me, because I'd neglected to instruct the meter to ignore visits from my own site and more than that I'd got the latitude and longitude for Lincoln wrong. Well, I got that sorted and now I find I have to ignore my own site every time I view my own blog. Is it worth it, I ask myself.

But I must stop moaning. After all, I've had one visitor from Bangalore, another from South Korea, others from the USA and Canada.

Maybe if I keep banging on about Mma Ramotswe, somebody from Botswana will find me.

I drank some bush tea the other day. It tasted terrible.

Update

The pro-hunting lobby won the Today law repeal competition. And what are people saying? They're saying it isn't fair but because the hunters were organised. Well, good for them. It's a pity the anti-EU brigade, myself included, didn't get our act together. We could have 'sent a message' to the government, couldn't we?

Has anyone else noticed that politicians and other spokesmen are always asking what kind of message a proposed course of action will send. No-one seems bothered about whether anything is right or wrong, just how it will be perceived.

It reminds me of all that fuss about those cartoons of Muhammad. By the way, why do Muslims always add something like 'Blessings upon him', when they mention the prophet's name, while God' is just 'God'. What kind of message does that send?

Anyway, when the storm broke, all the liberals came scurrying out of the woodwork to condemn the cartoons. Now normally liberals are very keen on free speech, but they're not too keen on challenges to their pet hobby horses, like feminism, race, rape, smoking, abortion, animal rights and, most of all, the need to keep their heads attached to their bodies.

So what was the justification offered by these champions of democracy for censorship in this case? The cartoons, they said, were not funny.

Well, that raises a few questions, doesn't it? By the way, note that I said 'raises', not 'begs'. (See http://begthequestion.info/ )

Such as, how do you judge funniness? I like to think I have a reasonable sense of humour and I laughed at at least one of them. Supposing they were hilarious. Do they the qualify for front-page publication in The Guardian? And what kind of message does it send? (Sorry). Is Jimmy Tarbuck to be interned in the Tower of London? Is Escort to be banned because it's not erotic enough?

How did I get here? Oh yes, the Today Repeal. I notice that the anti-EU vote was second-highest. I have yet to meet an ordinary person, as opposed to establishment figures, who is in favour of the EU. I was chatting to three of 'the blonde ladies', the ones for whom I wrote that sonnet, and their opposition came out quite naturally in conversation. If you're reading this, by the way, 'Good morning'.

One of the other short-listed 'bad laws' was the Human Rights Act. The Chief Constable of Derbyshire used it yesterday to support his decision not to publish photographs of two escaped murderers, lest it infringe their rights. He was soon slapped down by the Attorney-General, but nonetheless it shows the paranoia this law produces in otherwise intelligent people.

Apparently anorexia is considered a 'life-style choice' by some. Has the world gone crazy or is it just me?

Idiot of the day: The head of the prison service who says the Prison Service (sic) has no procedure for keeping count of escaped and recaptured prisoners. I suggest a piece of paper and a calculator.

Today's cliches (first heard at 4.45 am): Today it's the magic and the romance of the FA cup, which is a great leveller, and may produce a few giant-killers and even kick-start the season for some clubs. There are abound to be a few upsets, not to mention shocks. I advise the minnows to play their normal game and just enjoy the day. As for the big boys, they've a lot to lose and little to gain, although for some, if they avoid banana skins, it might be their only chance to salvage their season and lift some silverware.

Before I forget I want to return to my list of books for teenage boys and add Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch (if they like football and girls) or High Fidelity (if they like rock music and girls).

Rra Bolingbroke writes

I'm onto my third Mma Ramotswe book, Morality for Beautiful Girls. I suppose there are people out there who don't know how good these novels are. I'm in danger of boring people to death singing their praises, which, I suppose, they find a refreshing change from all the other things I bore them about.

Since I've always considered myself a bit of an existentialist - I say 'a bit' because I've never quite been able to understand what Monsieur Sartre was talking about - I was interested in Mma Ramotswe's take on the subject.

She was musing on morality and deploring the modern inclination towards individualism, which led people to devise their own personal code, which of course just means selfishness.

She was particularly perplexed by these 'existentialists', who live in France and feel the need to be 'real'. Therefore the real thing to do is the right thing to do. She realises that she has met many existentialists in her life without knowing they were such. Her former husband, for example, who beat her and had other women, (obviously existentialist women). It is a good life, she thinks, being an existentialist, although not too good for all the other, non-existentialist, people around one.

Mma's faith is in the morality of her forefathers and the 10 commandments. But what are we to do, who have no god and whose forefathers kept changing their minds?

Mind you, she got Sartre's character right, the old hypocritical goat.

Chewing the fat

One of my pastimes is solving The Times crossword. Most days I do it in concert with my friend, Ken, and there is a fair bit of friendly rivalry involved. He's better than I at the lateral thinking element of the process, while I, as he would say adopt a more analytical, indeed anal, approach.

To be a successful cruciverbalist you need a decent general knowledge and a wide vocabulary. More than that you need to take an interest in how words are formed, their origins and variations. To ask the question, for example, is there any connection between 'anal' and 'analytical'? Probably not. It's an example of what my old Latin master, Joe Gledhill, use to call 'Macedon and Monmouth' - now did he make that up or does it come from somewhere. You see, already two things to look up.

Yesterday, someone asked, 'Why do we say ''in the offing''?' I wondered. Something to do with 'offering' or 'on offer'? Apparently not. It's a nautical term, referring to that part of the sea that is most distant from the land while remaining visible. Thus a ship approaching harbour might be said to be in the offing.

The other day I heard a radio programme called Back to Square One. Why was it called that when it was about the history of football commentating? According to the contributors it's because when the football matches were first broadcast on radio, listeners were assisted by means of squared charts published in The Radio Times. Thus, if a ball was passed back to the goalkeeper, it was sent back to square one.

Others say it is merely a reference to board games like Snakes and Ladders, which seems more likely to me.

I wonder if this phrase is one of those that the Oxford Dictionary is asking the public to help it research. Apparently there are only very recent datable occurrences of phrases like 'Jack the Lad', 'Bloody Mary' and 'Codswallop'.

Often people like to give knowledgeable-sounding but totally false explanations of how words and phrases arose. For example, I was told once that Massachusetts got its name when the first governor, wondering what to call his new jurisdiction, asked his black slave if he had any ideas. 'No,' said the man. 'Massa chuse it.' That wasn't supposed to be a joke, either.

Another one was the claim that New Zealand is nicknamed the Land of the Long White Cloud because of the masses of sheep that can be seen from the air.

If you take the tour bus of historic Lincoln during the summer you will be shown where public hangings used to take place in the Castle. You will be told the the practice led to two expressions in general circulation today: 'Hangers-on' and 'Money for old rope.'

'Hangers-on' is supposed to relate to the relatives of the condemned man or woman who would often be left to dangle and choke. The relatives would hang on to his legs to speed up his death and end his suffering. Who knows, but it's more colourful than the obvious explanation that it means a simple parasite or leech.

'Money for old rope'. Ghoulish onlookers at these executions would be willing to buy pieces of the rope as a souvenir. The executioner would cut it up into as many pieces as possible to maximise his profit. Hence the expression. Others say it merely meant being paid for inferior rope of any kind, rope once being used for far more purposes than it is today. In other words, the same sort of thing as ' a pig in a poke'.

At least the tour guide doesn't say that the phrase 'left hanging around' originated at these events.

And by the way, I want no more Saddam jokes.

New Year Resolutions

I don't recall how I celebrated the New Year last night. This is not because I was drunk, merely asleep. No doubt I dreamt of health, wealth and happiness.

Maybe I dreamt of Mavis too. I often do. Or possibly it was some inferior, but more easily available, substitute.

So, how can I improve myself this year. Out of modesty, I shall keep my plans for improving the lot of others secret

1. Smoking: the most important thing is to work out how to deal with July 1st, when the ban on smoking in public places (ie pubs) takes effect. We are going to need some sort of speakeasy arrangement. Maybe there's money to be made.

Regularise my supply. Check out methods of growing and curing tobacco, which might be possible in Lincolnshire as global warming kicks in.

2. Drinking: I don't see much room for improvement here. I have a decent pub which sells decent beer at decent prices. I don't think I need to increase my consumption. July 1st is a problem. Check out brewing my own.

3. Sex: Please. But don't be tempted to pay for it. Review that rule after one month.

4. Money: Take steps to increase income. I have a couple of stories that might suit Woman's Weekly. I could recast them for Cosmopolitan or Escort if necessary. Failing that, I think I might be reduced to finding a proper job.

5. Writing: move all 'creative' stuff to the RJD blog. Post on it regularly. Write that novel, if only for fun. One film review a week for Will Kane's blog. Finish that long essay on Comanche Station. Implement the birth year essays for relatives. Write more letters rather than e-mails.

6. Health: Walk to the pub more, if it's not raining or not too hot, or if I don't have a book I need to finish on the bus, or if the buses aren't running, or if it doesn't mean walking in the dark, and if I get those walking shoes I've been meaning to buy. Or if there's no y in the day.

7. Sex - oh, I've done that, if memory serves.