I see, on reviewing the messages I have placed in this half-drained bottle and thrown into the sea of cyberspace, that I started talking about my enthusiasms a while ago.

Something for which I have no enthusiasm at all is technology. I’ve nothing against machines. After all, I prefer to use a rolling machine for my cigarettes, don’t I? So I can hardly be described as a technophobe.

What I’m not is one of those men – and they’re always men, aren’t they? – who will spend thousands on a camera just to take snaps of the kids eating candy floss at Skegness; or quadraphonic sound systems with huge woofers and spiky tweeters all the better to listen to Daniel O’Donnell; or some long red phallus of a car in which to take the little woman to Tesco.

No. I’m more in touch with my feminine side, which probably explains why I’ve not written much recently. I couldn’t get a word in.

In other words, I read books. This was an early enthusiasm. Don’t disparage Enid Blyton to me. I learnt to read from Noddy. Why wait for the stumbling efforts of teachers? I moved on to Captain W E Johns and I have to say I thought Biggles was a snobbish, racist bastard, which is not bad insight for a nine year old. Next I discovered C S Forester in the school library, but soon realised I was reading the ‘Cadet’ edition, the one with the more graphic violence and what little sex there was removed. I was furious and joined Boston public library, where I could get the real thing.

There I discovered Denis Wheatley, especially his black magic stuff. The Devil Rides Out terrified me. So I went back to find To the Devil a Daughter.

It wasn’t long before I discovered The Camp on Blood Island, which was passed from boy to boy in the fifth form (archaic phrase that), until it was confiscated by a master (another archaism).

Of course, we were more sophisticated in the sixth form and passed around Lady Chatterley’s Lover. What a boring book. You would think that a writer of Lawrence’s quality could knock out better pornography than that if he put his mind to it.

I was also introduced to Chaucer (The Miller’s Tale, obviously) and Shakespeare. Shakespeare. Shakespeare. Julius Caesar was the play, and I loved it. ‘Wherefore rejoice, what conquest brings he home To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels . . .’ I had to learn that speech and I still remember it.

Off hand, there are two things I particularly like about Shakespeare. One is his earthiness, his concrete imagery. As when he says, ‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we may.’ It’s an abstraction expressed in a very homely way.

Similarly, he’s fond of – and there’s a word for this –attributing human emotions to inanimate objects, or shall I say transferring those emotions. For example, when he talks about a boy atop a ‘giddy mast.’

I would like to be able to rhapsodise about the great man, but my talents are too puny even to contemplate that task. Suffice it to say that I love him.

Currently, my enthusiasm is for poetry, or at least the technique of it. As when I start to talk in iambic feet. Like that. No doubt it will pass, because I have trouble just writing an e-mail.

At last I’ve shaken off my writer’s block
And finally emerged from mental fog,
To raise two fingers to the ones who mock
My puerile attempts to write a blog.

Flashbulb Memories

BBC Radio 4 did a series on memory last year and has just returned to the subject. One of the programmes dealt with ‘flashbulb memories', the vivid, detailed and enduring recollection of a moment or a day when some momentous event occurred.

The results of a survey revealed that we in Britain chose the following three events as flashbulb memories:

The death of Princess Diana
The death of JFK
The attack on the Twin Towers

Others were Churchill’s funeral, the first moon landing and the coronation. Considering all that’s happened worthy of the mind’s camera, it’s surprising that JFK’s murder is still remembered with such clarity.

I wondered which events sprang to my mind with this combination of shock and awe or, in retrospect, seem life-changing.

I thought of what one might call ‘world events’ and I’m old enough to recall the trauma I felt when Jack Kennedy was murdered in Dallas on the 21st November 1963. A Friday afternoon it was, and I was sitting in my parents’ living-room when the news came through, tentative at first, leaving room for a hope, which was soon to be dashed.

Why was it so traumatic? Kennedy, for all his charisma, had not achieved what, say, Lincoln had. Was it just his incredibly courageous calling of the Russian bluff over Cuba? He had presided for only 3 years, nothing like the reign of Roosevelt which had included the emergence from depression and the Second World War. Was his sudden death met with such grief?

It’s similar to the public affection for Princess Diana. It seems that to be loved, you have to be young and attractive, and, preferably, suffer a bit. I still find the hysterical reaction to her death rather disturbing. It was as if something had gone fundamentally wrong with the British character.

Despite that I remember the events of the week between her death and funeral pretty well. All those damned flowers; the Queen being dragooned into appearing on TV and criticised for not making a nauseating display of grief, while the rest of the country was ululating like savages; Tony Blair doing what he does best (making speeches).

For some reason the public reaction seems to tie in with the report published today by UNICEF, which declares that British children have the lowest sense of ‘well-being’ in the developed world. In other words, despite all their advantages, they’re consumed with self-pity. Pathetic.

But the day of the funeral is what stays in my mind, partly because it was such a triumph of organisation. Like the Queen Mother’s funeral, indeed like the Coronation, which older people still recall vividly.

But it stays in my mind for entirely personal reasons. It was on that day I made formal farewell to someone very dear to me. This is where I give in to self-pity.

The Creature

A friend of mine, Ken, likes to take a long walk each morning, usually round a local nature reserve. It's his habit to stop off in one the hides, where he can smoke a cigarette and watch kingfishers on the lake and observe a friendly hedgehog who lives nearby. He doesn't seem to be bothering to hibernate this year. He seems to like bananas, by the way. The hedgehog, that is, not just my friend.

Sometime before Christmas, Ken heard a rustling in the hide. It came from above his head, where there is some sort of shelf. He thought a bird might be nesting there, but when managed to see it, it appeared to have fur and so might be a bat.

However, are they any bats which don't hang upside down when at rest?

Rather bravely, I think, Ken reached out to touch it. Sure enough, it felt furry, but it immediately started hisssing and spitting. It even squirted piss at him.

The thing was there the next day and for the next three months. Various conversations took place and various suggestions were made, the most popular being that it was a Tasmanian devil, or simply that Ken was hallucinating after a heavy night. Eventually Ken managed to take a photograph of it. (And I have just managed to download it and add it to this post. It's in the wrong place, but I'm definitely not trying to move it.)

It looks like a blue tit's tail sticking out of a spherical nest, but the 'nest' is the creature's body, which is about the size of a man's fist.

The photo was passed around and eventually someone recognised it, we think. If true, this has to be the coincidence of the decade. A regular drinking companion of ours had managed to miss all conversations on this topic for weeks, but as soon as he saw the photo he said, 'That's my kakariki. It flew off last year.'

The kakariki is a New Zealand parakeet. It's name means 'small (or green) parrot in Maori. I have to confess that I'd never heard of it, though it is a popular pet.

So maybe the mystery is solved.

My Goldfish

I've had my fish for nigh on 9 years. I believe that's a pretty good age for a goldfish.

I like to think it's a female, although I've no idea how I'm supposed to confirm that. Her name is supposed to be Dolly but somehow 'the fish' is her only appellation. It's difficult to have a very personal relationship with a fish.

This is not to say she doesn't have a personality of sorts.

I have been dipping into The Book of General Ignorance, one of my Christmas presents. Fascinating stuff, packed with 'interesting facts' with which to impress and irritate others in conversation.

For example, Sir Walter Raleigh appears to most famous for things he did not do. Such as introduce tobacco and potatoes to England and spread out his cloak over a puddle for the queen. That's according to my book. It doesn't mention the story of a servant throwing a bucket of water over Raleigh when he found him smoking.

That's just reminded me. Turkeys. I don't suppose Raleigh introduce them either, but I must check whether their price has plummeted. this might be a good time to stock up.

But Dolly. She is a beautiful little fish, with long flowing fins which trail behind her as she glides effortlessly round her bowl. Her eyes are impressive too, the kind that demand Disneyesque lashes around them. I have known for a long time that it is a myth that she has a memory of 3 seconds. Not Dolly. She knows me and always seems to get excited when I enter the room, especially in the morning when she has come to expect food.

I'm convinced, from her body language, she likes company. It must be a boring life after all.

According to the book goldfish have a memory of at least 3 months and can distinguish between different shapes and colours. They can also learn to operate levers to release food.

Disappointingly, it appears to be a myth that a pregnant goldfish is called a 'twat'. So That's another 'interesting fact' to be consigned to the rubbish bin, along with Herr Titzling, Alfred's cakes and Robert the Bruce's spider.