It's less than a week until the greatest day ever. And I
mean the GREATEST day ever. Shit me I'm excited. Iron
Maiden, Twickenham Stadium, 52,000 sell out crowd,
Somewhere Back in Time World Tour. Fuck you Alicia
Keyes!
17th June
Link mania
Guess who was in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago?
That's right, me. This spectacular website was featured
in their
blog roll, and I didn't even know until I got a text
saying "have your hits gone up loads since yesterday?"
The Guardian is the best newspaper in the world,
especially when it has me in, and obviously I now take
back what I said about Simon Jenkins being a twat.
I suppose I'd better start updating more often.
Loads and loads and loads of links today. Loads. So lets
get started. Loads.
It's back! If you missed it the first time round then
don't be a stupid cunt and miss it again. The old
Leicester Llamas site was the greatest birding website
of all time, and the new one is shaping up to follow
suit. If you don't lose a lung laughing at
this post then, well, then you're just not right.
Being a country gent with a few thousand acres, the
ability to sniff out a good claret at five-hundred paces and far
too much time on my hands, my favourite monthly magazine
is The Field, the world's oldest magazine dedicated to
killing things. Obviously towny scum
like you just wouldn't understand it, but to try and
tempt sub-strata filth such as your good selves in from
the cold, this month's issue of The Field has a short piece designed to
appeal to the base needs of the disease-riddled working
man and woman who aren't expecting to inherit
Gloucestershire in the near future: fieldsport porn! The 2008
Women in Waders calendar, just as in previous years,
features wazzo birds with great jugs and heavily trimmed
clams, wearing nought but bikinis and waders whilst
looking a bit cold and baffled. Happy wanking! And if
that doesn't have your local Kleenex supplier completely
sold out of stock within minutes, then give this a try:
Beauty and the Bass.
And finally, two blogs to check out immediately (do it
now!) before the world ends from credit crisis disease
and global inflation of the rainforests: The
Yorkshire Wandering Tattler and
Worcestershire Source. Go to both now, go to both
regularly and tell others to go to both as well. Only if
we share the love can we guarantee that W.A.S.P. will
one day be back at the top of the Hit Parade where they
quite rightly belong.
9th June
"There's a bird in my garage," my non-birding pal James
said over the phone. Hmmm... It was obviously going to
be a Feral Pigeon, obviously, so it was quite a surprise
when he text me a photo of a Cuckoo! Not a bad bird for
central Manchester just five minutes away from United's
ground.
It transpired that the poor thing was on its last legs,
and despite attempts to give it some water and sit it up
in a tree, he eventually left it outside in a safe place
away from the local cats, and the RSPCA picked it up
yesterday evening. Head trauma from a foolish window
collision seems the most likely cause of injury,
probably sustained whilst zooming around like a lunatic
looking for a poor Dunnock's nest to massacre with its
own bastard offspring. Cuckoos are evil, but extremely
cool.
I can't think of anything amusing today. I've tried but
it's just not working. I was going to write
something about Simon King, Kate Humble, four ounces of
butcher's finest brisket and sticky belly flap cocks,
but I decided not to. Probably for the best. So instead
I'll just say that we (spouse and myself) went to
Northumberland to see the Lesser Grey Shrike. It was
just luvverly and even sang for us (Girl From Ipanema
and then my all time favourite song Bright Eyes from
Watership Down). Hats off to the
Newton Stringer for finding it.
The sparkle in your eyes, keeps me
alive
And the world and the world... the
world turns around
We also took a peek at the impressive tern colony on the
beach. It took me some time to realise that this
outstandingly beautiful Arctic Tern was less than two
metres away from me, in fact it was so close that I had
to move back a fair bit until my scope would focus.
Hole in the nose. A post-punk effect
of facial jewellery removal. I have no idea what I'm
talking about.
"Anyone see The Apprentice the other
night? Neither did I. I don't think this series is as
good as the others. I think I might watch it on BBC iPlayer
later. Mind you, it's Casualty tonight. I never
know what to watch on a Saturday night, it's a real
nightmare! I can't wait for the new series of
Strictly Come Dancing. It's a shame Kelly Brook had
to pull out of the last series, I reckon she had a good
chance of winning. And she's got great tits as well. I
saw a picture of them in The Sunday Mirror last year"
I suppose I should attempt to define my Glossop
recording area at some point, but that's a bit too anal
for me, and when I say anal ... I'm pretty sure Lees
Hill wouldn't fall into the Glossop recording area, in
fact it definitely wouldn't. For a start it's not even
in the same county; Lees Hill is in mighty Manchester,
whereas Glossop lies comfortably within dazzling
Derbyshire, the two counties often acknowledged as being
the greatest on the planet. I'm not wearing any trousers
as I write this.
There's been a Hobby at Lees Hill on and off for about a
week or so, and with a Red Kite having been seen in the
area it made the slog up there worthwhile. At least it
would have been worthwhile if either bird had been
there, which they weren't. No less then 7 other local
birders were there, and just as the evening seemed to
have drawn a blank, there was suddenly a shout for
Marsh Harrier as a female cruised along the edge of
Higher Swineshaw Reservoir, put on a decent show for ten
minutes and then vanished in a kind of northerly-ish
direction. Mambo! I am wearing (under)pants though.
