Fisher of Kings

Cycling along the abandoned canal on my way to work, a flash of electric blue catches my eye, describing rapid but gentle parabolas from overhanging willow bough to ivy-clad birch branch.

A kingfisher!

I am pleased. Although not especially rare, they are evasive and seldom seen, particularly on a canal, even one that is relatively unused by anyone other than cyclists and dog-feaces depositors. I stop my bike for a moment, and watch enraptured as it doesn't immediately disappear, maybe being a little more used to wandering bipeds than most others of its kind. Still though, it is only visible for a second or two at a time.

Its dazzling plumage is at odds with its inherent shyness, as if embarrassed by its own splendour. No artist has ever created a colour so full of vivid life, so effortlessly natural and yet so striking. It is a humbling exercise in the superior achievement of unconscious selection over the ever-striving efforts of our intellectual and artistic endeavours.

S'pretty.

Luckily, to capture the moment, I am a modern human, with all the advantages of superior technology that allow me to share this image, perhaps save a small, frozen portion of this ephemeral scene with other members of my species. With you, my friends, with you. We are a creature that generally uses sight as our prominent sense, and and this is reflected in our tools.

I take out my phone, thinking of the adverts where opportunistic photographers take super-sharp images for posterity, whipping out their handsets and snap!, capturing the elusive snow leopard or plummeting falcon and winning awards from the BBC and National Geographic for their efforts.

My turn.

Snap!

Oh . . . kay.

Too fast. I have to be patient. There it is again. Try another one but hold the phone still. 

Snap!

Missed it. Damn. The bird was moving too quickly this time. Bloody thing.Try again.

Snap!

Arse. Low light levels, that one. Hang on, it's flying again, quick!

Snap!

No? No. 

Oh sod it. Have some ducks in a line on high zoom instead:

Snap!

Brown they are. Very, very brown, and not at all shy about letting you know it. Now to wait for National Geographic to get in touch. I'll see you at the exhibition.

Quantum Motherf***ing Leap

What's this thing?

Ooh, a blog. Whose is it?

Ah, mine. 

Oh yes, I remember, it's all coming back now. I occasionally blog about stuff, if I'm not attending to super-interesting extra-internet stuff like being a double-secret undercover agent battling evil rocket ninjas on the moon! Yeah, that's what I've been doing. Fighting evil rocket ninjas with laser-shurikens and anti-gravity slippers, and everyone knows rocket ninjas are the worst type of ninja because not only are they deadly and silent, apart from when their rockets are turned on, but they're also fast. What with the rockets and that.

Also, I went on holiday to Ibiza, and I've done a shit load of overtime at work to post-pay off my credit card, now-pay for the shopping and pre-pay for my car to be fixed after it decided it didn't need things like a catalytic converter or power steering fluid anymore. I did get the opportunity to drive it for three and a half hours to Luton airport without power steering though, which reminded me of the elderly Vauxhall Cavalier I drove when I was nineteen, only with more nappies and less Rizlas.

I parked the parent-mobile in a hotel, like so:

And tried to ignore the confidence-building broken glass in the bay a couple of spaces along:

Sadly, when I returned from holiday a week later, the car was still there, completely unstolen, and I had to drive it back across the southern bits of England with it making a SCREE-UNKUNKUNK noise on every roundabout.

So that's my lame-O excuses solid reasons for not blogging for three weeks covered.

Of course, the reality of the situation is that life with dependents means you have to be very dependable, and put the things you like behind the things you love.

Damn you, things I love! *shakes fist at things I love*

Anyway, enough with the moaning. It's not all bad. Occasionally I get to do things for myself. Just the other week I brushed my teeth and, sometimes, just now and then, I get that rarest of pearls, that most delicate wisp of ephemera, that tiny nugget of real meat in the Fray Bentos pie of time.

A moment to myself.

The wife is out. The kids are unconscious sleeping peacefully. The housework has been hidden. Suddenly, I can do something for me! I could read some poetry. I could do some of that professional development stuff I've heard we're supposed to do for work. I could research why everyone in Crime and Punishment seems to have three names. I could paint the front doorstep so it looks less like a sandcastle. Lots of productive, important, beneficial things, ripe for the taking, plucking and goosing. It's almost a luxury.

Right, what's on the telly? 

Yeah, that's the spirit. Something that doesn't involve strangely ripped children's TV presenters gallivanting about, or cartoons, or brainwashing babies into recycling. Something I might actually choose to watch!

Go to guide, press the button, forget there's always about a seconds delay till it displays the info, by then having pressed the button three more times, and then frantically try and get back to the page you want as the telly catches up with your button presses, finally only doing so when you force yourself to leave the damn thing alone for ten seconds, breathe deeply, and then see what's on.

Once again, abject crap.

Well, it is Tuesday, and everybody should be out partying I suppose.

It's no wonder I watch books instead. I'd read even more if someone hadn't invented the internet or made me have children.

That sounds like I'm suggesting my wife invented the internet, which I'm pretty sure she didn't. I think it was discovered rather than invented, like gravity and the Dyson.

Hey, look, I'm missing Pobyl Y Cum, on Welsh telly. That's been going on for years, and the only reason is because it's called Pobyl Y Cum, which is funny in any language. 

What else is there? Judge Judy Take Me Out? Ew. Oh wait, that's not one programme I have no wish to watch, but two. That's all right then. And Loose Women, which is . . . just . . . awful. I mean . . . just . . . awful.

Lot of repeats then, and I can't help but see that Quantum Leap is on, which I used to enjoy as a guilty geeky pleasure when I was a student. That dates me. Quantum Leap was a harmless, mildly entertaining, uncontroversial comedy drama where a scientist called Sam travels back in time to put the occasional bad thing right. Rather than kill Pol Pot, stop the Bhopal gas leak or suggest that the staff at Three Mile Island take the red flashing warning light seriously, he gets a bloke to tell some girl he loves her, or wins a race, or ejects out of a plane before it crashes, that sort of thing.

I don't remember this episode though, and judging by the description at the bottom, it's a saucy one, despite it being just six in the evening. Nudity, acts of violence and strong language? Does Sam leap into an orgy? Does the series try and revive flagging ratings by getting him to pop a cap in someones ass?

It was my type of description, and I clicked on it to discover whether Sam travels back in time to give Marilyn Monroe a damn good seeing to and thus prevent her early demise (which is what would've happened if I'd written it). Unfortunately, at that moment, my daughter decided to wake up and beckon me with the full-nappy alarm call, and my son with his "Why am I in bed when it's only six o'clock?" wail.

Sigh . . .

Bus of Ages

I note a number of superb bloggers get their muse whilst taking a ride on the bus. Apparently, this is a rich seam of human anthracite in the bedrock of society, ripe for the mining, ready to be thrown on the fire of blogging to warm the hearths of . . . well, you get the drift.

On the bus are people to write about.

We are a one car family and, apparently, I'm not allowed to take the kids to school on the motorbike no matter how much duct tape I use. Because of this, I must resort to the bus when the wife goes off on her little hobby of being a state-registered nurse.

So, after a morning spent wrangling a 4 year-old boy off his trampoline and wrestling a 1 year-old girl into her tights, off we go to the bus stop, which is just round the corner.

"What do we do now, daddy?" my son asks.

"Now," I narrow my eyes, look to the horizon and put on my Ray Bans. "We wait."

And wait we do. Past the time the bus is due, which is pretty much normal. Past, in fact, the time my boy is supposed to start school, which is also not uncommon.

My daughter pulls my Aviators off my face and licks the lenses. If she breaks them that'll be another twenty quid on ebay wasted.

Eventually, just as I'm about to give the school a ring to say we'll be forty minutes late because I'm going to have to walk there at the pace of a small boy, the public transport device hoves into view round the corner. It is elderly, and erratically driven, and about as aerodynamic as a sofa. It meanders down the road like a brick being pushed by a dog, hissing to a stop in front of me, a cloud of oily smoke arriving at about the same time.

"New model?" I ask the driver, conversationally. He turns his head slowly to look at me, then his left eye, and then his right one. His brow furrows, and he glances desperately at the signs on the wall. From past experience I know he is looking for the "Do Not Distract The Driver With Pleasantries Or Queries About The Age Of The Vehicle" sign, but they have been taken off because people want friendly drivers, not automatons. Unfortunately, they got neither.

All he can see are signs that say "DayRider Ticket - £3.50" and "Work For Us; Good Wages And All The Used Chewing Gum You Can Scrape From Under The Seats", so he is forced to interact.

"Uh . . ." he says.

"Single to the school, please." I say, putting him out of my misery.

"Uh . . ." he looks at the children, his mind wrestling with the concept of three people on a single ticket. I enlighten him that they are free because the company's own policy allows under-fives to travel gratis.

"Uh . . . wanton." He mumbles.

"Oh . . .kay . .?" I wonder how to respond to this, before my brain translates it into 'one pound and ten pence'. I consider giving him a tenner to see if he might explode, but the bus is late enough already so I hand over the correct change. Wanton.

By now, my son has managed to sit at the back next to a window, so I join him. Next to us, a kid in a hoodie, looking like he's trying to be cool, quiet and mysterious, looks at me, grins widely and says "Hello!"

"Hello." I say back, settling in.

"I have to go on this bus to school now because I've got to go to a new school, because it's further away, do you go on this bus a lot, because if you do I might see you, because I'll be on it every day, so I hope it's not too busy, but it was the only school that will take me, even after my tablet, where are you going to, do you know why I have to go to a new school?" He takes a deep breath in.

ADHD I immediately think, and we begin a conversation about the emergency exits, and about how a very fat person wouldn't be able to get out, about how he doesn't like his new school, or being twelve, and a load of other subjects in between.

"Have you heard of ADHD?" he asks me at one point. "They give you tablets, and you get these lessons where . . ." he actually looks quite perplexed at that point, almost sad. "I have to go to a new school," He concludes.

"I have." I say. I decide to confront the subject head on. "Got any hobbies?" I ask.

"Er . . ." His eyes flash left and right, trying to recall. "No!" He announces proudly.

"Get some." I tell him. "And do you like writing?"

"Yeah." He says, enthusiastically, "English! That's not so bad! I'm good at spelling"

"Get a note book and a pen." I say. "Write a load of stuff down. Don't show it anyone unless you want to. See how much you can write in one day, starting with who you saw in the bus."

"Why?"

"Helps with the ADHD." I say, "Maybe.

"Does it?" He asks, and I can see the expressions on his face chase the thoughts in his head, like watching the ripples on a pond made by a fast moving pike beneath.

"Yeah." I think about my own notebooks from those days. "I think it does."

Our stop arrives and we say goodbye. I gather my son up, preventing him from trying to touch the blackheads on an elderly chap's enormous ears on the seat in front of him.

In front of my son, not the elderly chap, because ears like that would be worth writing about.

We get off and, amazingly, aren't the last to arrive at school. My boy, the epitome of young confidence and wonderful carelessness, legs it into his classroom without even a backward glance.

Those notebooks are long gone, as are my school days, but I recall I always had a backward glance.

A Pox On None Of Our Houses.

Being a man who knows how to entertain children, I took them to see the birth place of immunisation last week:

Pass me my silver-ended bulls horn old chap.

As you can see, it was like a fairyland grotto for my kids. What four year-old boy doesn't dream of being taken to a museum dedicated to Edward Jenner? That's right kids, it's his genuine desk where he actually worked, or an accurate facsimile thereof yay!

Okay, so even I know the limits of the child psyche, although they did enjoy running around the rooms trying to eat original manuscripts and get some scalpels out of a locked cabinet. The real reason we went was because there was a hedgehog awareness day going on in the grounds, and I want to ensure my kids respect hedgehogs and are never seen smashing them against the wall trying to get the conker out.

Obviously, hedgehogs are the poster animal for immunisation, what with having a back full of needles, that and acupuncture, so it's not quite the topical non sequitur you might initially think, having a hedgehog open day in Jenner's garden.

It was pleasantly informative. They had various hedgehog accoutrement on display, including what they eat (anything smaller than them) and what eats them (anything that needs a toothpick), as well as other dangers inherent to being a wandering spiky insectivore, such as dogs, ponds and conker hunters, as well as a stunt hedgehog who only had three legs as a result of an entanglement with a strimmer.

Spank me! I dare you.

After a while we had exhausted the hogaciousness of the hedgehog gazebo and went for a wander through the grounds.

That day young, enthusiastic archeology students from Bristol University were rooting around in big square holes in the grounds. My one year-old daughter is fascinated by anything which feasibly involves a dangerous fall and went over at once to examine the dig. On that day they had various finds, such as a square shard of pottery, a triangular shard of pottery, a brown stone, a red stone, and a reddy-brown stone.

And two days after we'd been there, a skeleton.

Typical.

We moved from archeology to horticulture and went for a walk around Jenner's garden, which had lots of pretty things like borders, and grass, and flowers, and an orangery for growing grapes in. Technically a grapery, I believe.

Edward Jenner was one of those wealthy, scientific types with interests in natural history and medicine, but it was his research into vaccinations that earned him the epithet of Father of Immunology.

And Stabby McStabberson.

Vaccination involves introducing a denatured, weakened or dead version of a virus into your system so the body develops an immune response to it without actually having to go through all that palaver of being particularly ill.

But if you haven't got the technology to denature a virus (presumably some sort of small apple-corer) you need to look elsewhere. In the case of smallpox, Jenner found a naturally less potent but nonetheless related virus. Enter cowpox, essentially a wuss version of smallpox.

Folk lore had noted (and peer reviewed, by other folk) that people exposed to the relatively benign cowpox rarely went on to develop the much more dangerous, often fatal smallpox. Jenner inoculated a boy with cowpox, left it a few weeks, and then valiantly tried to give him smallpox but couldn't, thus providing and benefiting all humankind with the glory of vaccination.

Good job for the kid that it worked.

Word got around and vaccination became the thing to have done, and it shows a forward thinking mindset to be rather taken with the idea of vaccination and immunisation, because they came from miles around to be infected and protected. Farmers and field hands. maids and Morris men (presumably), all queued up to let Jenner inoculate them with cowpox in order to provide immunity from smallpox.

Of course, a gent such as Edward Jenner wouldn't want (potentially diseased) oiks dragging their muddy hooves through his gracious home, so he sensibly set up an external surgery where it could be done in the comfort of his own garden. Known as Jenner's Shed, it was where the actual vaccinations would take place. Jenner even named it The Temple of Vaccinia, showing he had the naming skills of a fourteen year-old writing a fantasy novel.

Anyway, it is rather pretty and any self respecting bloke would be proud to have it as a man-space. Here it is:

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up your sleeve!

The small urchin on the floor there is my daughter, The Bonobo, who has directly benefited from Jenner's work because she has herself been fully immunised from a host of once dangerous diseases. This is lucky as she's eating pebbles.

In  the late 1970s, an extensive survey of the world found no signs of smallpox in the human population with no natural reservoirs and so, in 1980, it was finally declared extinct in the wild.

Of course, like any decent horror story, it's not completely gone. There are still tiny pockets, small living colonies kept alive in laboratories under high security in case it or anything similar ever made an appearance in the future. Much discussion has gone in to whether we should destroy these stocks once and for all, with governments arguing that it would be foolish to burn our bridges, should we ever need to study it again, and critics suggesting that its genome has been fully sequenced so it could be recreated from closely related viruses should the need arise, which is a scary thought all on its own.

If we do go ahead and eliminate smallpox utterly, it would be the first deliberate extinction of another species by humankind in all our history, which opens up all sorts of ethical discussions.

Whatever the outcome, I'm hope that, with a thirty per cent fatality incidence from smallpox infection, there is at least ominous music playing in those storage labs just to remind the technicians exactly what they're responsible for, and to be extra, extra careful when storing their butties in the fridge next to the smallpox tin.

Bucket o' pies

Putting things in a bucket is a sound sales technique, obviously. Fried chicken, mussels, bolts, dinosaurs, worms, raw black pudding and, at last, pies!

This could easily  develop into  a rant on packaging, or wasting resources, or convenience foods, or obesity, or . . . are those pasties two for 99p there

The real reason I'm posting this is because I was testing Flickr out yesterday and sent it to my blog, whereupon it doesn't just save it as a draft but publishes it in all it's unprepared glory. I haven't yet worked out how to stop it doing that what with having the computer savvy of a dugong so I just ended up removing it. 

Then I get comments hassling me about the bucket o' pies post that was only up for a few minutes and telling me to get on with it.

I'm looking at you Pearl.

Also, although I'm currently up to my earballs with domestic and employemental drudgery at the moment, I  couldn't let the beginning of June arrive without at least the semblance of a post, so what better way to celebrate Summer than showing a picture of a bucket? With pies in it.

Right, I'm off to see if I can find a bucket full of diversions for the kids.

Simply the Pest! Petter than all the rest.

I recently wrote a post from my time as a pest controller where I discussed a lady's fear of cockroaches. Phobias are always good to hear about as they are both cruel and funny, like giving Kendal Mint Cake to an elderly aunt with badly fitting dentures.

It reminded me of a time when I was contracted to clear a particularly impressive rat infestation from a farm in deepest, darkest Berkshire, where racehorses roam freely from sauna to hydrotherapy pool, where tiny, rich ex-jockeys from Ireland stare up at you and hope you haven't noticed their pointy, pointy ears, and where people who pop the collars on their polo shirts in the unfathomable belief that it's cool drive "Discos" or "Scoobies" which are always, without fail, green.

Occasionally, in amongst the unnaturally flat fields of the racehorse training grounds, you might come across a real, proper farm where they grow crops and worthwhile, useful animals like cows and pigs.

Don't get me wrong, for these farms are very different from the olden days where, heaven forbid, a real, actual farmer would own and live on the premises. Here, the farms have been bought out by large companies that have converted the buildings into desirable barn conversions that local people can't afford and, for the crops, send in a locum farmer a couple of times a week to make sure things are still alive. For this reason, any old farm buildings can become quite neglected and a haven for pesty critters.

Here was a good example of a wide-spread infestation left to run riot for many years, and centred on a dilapidated old barn once used as an animal feed store.

I considered contacting Bonzo for some mercenary assistance, but he specialised in battles, and this was a war. Also, he didn't like coming down past Nottingham because he thought the cops would be on his tail. Literally.

The substitute farmer met me on site as I arrived to set up the pest control measures (which consisted of, in technical parlance, a shit-load of poison). Once again, I was treated to someone eager to tell me about their phobia. I'm not sure why. I must look like I'm not going to take advantage. Here, the farmer said he didn't like rats. Properly didn't like them. Brought him out in cold sweats.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Me."  I scoffed, "Nah. I've got no phobias."

"Really?" he asked, genuinely interested. "None at all?"

I thought for a moment and shook my head. "Nope," I boasted, "No phobias. No fears. No panic attacks. No anxieties. I have a psychology of steel. I wouldn't even flinch." I wish I chewed matches so I could have taken it out of the corner of my mouth, before saying "You can't. Not in this line of work."

Being twenty-five and enthusiastic, as well as being less likely to chew matches because I might get a splinter and, you know, mouth ulcers are ever so, ever so sore, I proceeded to give him a demonstration about why it wasn't good to be too scared of rats, because they were everywhere in a place like this. I thumped the corrugated iron cladding on the side of the barn wall in which we were standing, and was rewarded with a huge amount of scuttling and running as the hordes of rats behind scrambled for deeper hiding places.

Unfortunately, one of them decided that a better escape route would be from a hole in the cladding above my head, where it leaped to freedom, landing on the nearest available tall thing in the vicinity.

Me.

Or in particular, the bit where my head joins my torso. I believe it's called the neck.

I may have shrieked.

In fact, I may have made a noise that I wasn't even aware I was capable of making since before puberty, so high-pitched with surprise that all dogs within a two mile radius sat up and wondered who was whistling.

"Golly!" I said, (or something similar) "Look at that one!" I pointed as it ran down the entire length of my body, jumped to the floor from knee height and rushed back to it's peers behind the wall. I turned for moral support to the farmer, only to find an empty space echoing only to the sound of running foot falls outside.

He wasn't taking any chances, he later told me when we met up later for a cup of thermos-cool tea and a sandwich, as he didn't want anything like that happening to him, demonstrating a strange take on working-class solidarity.

Although I may not have developed a fear of falling rats, I did from then on show a healthy respect for overhead infestations, as well the leaping ability of our furry friends and the overatedness of thermos flasks.

Coroner kick

Warning! Ambulance related post! And possibly a bit of a rant too. Avert your eyes if you must.

Recently, I was called to a man threatening to jump off a motorway bridge, hanging precariously from the outer edge, one foot dangling and white hands grasping the rail with a shaking grip. The police asked me to talk to him as he was only willing to talk to a (neutral?) paramedic, and the police negotiators couldn't get on scene for another 45 minutes.

I called upon all my negotiating training (i.e. none) and proceeded to have a chat.

At one point, quite early on, he really looked like he was going to do it. I mean a proper 'This Is It' look of resigned defeat in his eyes. I decided that this wasn't due solely to my conversational style (although it wouldn't be the first time) and I adjusted my stance accordingly.

Once, not even that long ago, I might have stepped in at that moment and gone for a securing bear hug. There is an inherent risk in doing this as they can take you with them, and no-one will ever think less of you for not doing it. In the old days, it was a risk that I might have deemed worth taking.

Now, I'm not so sure.

My baby daughter is sitting on my lap as I type this with one hand, giggling and eloquently reminding me exactly where my priorities lie.

Instead, in this case, I braced my foot against the base of the railings, examined his jacket, identified a suitable hand-hold and resolved to grab it and it alone, should he do a very mediocre Superman impression. I reasoned that, should the worst case scenario occur, I would have a reasonable (but admittedly reduced) chance at preventing a plunge, but wouldn't succumb to being dragged over the rail and onto the carriageway below.

And to anyone who might say that this isn't enough? Well, tough titty. I'd rather have to explain to a coroner why I didn't put more effort into saving someone than have someone else tell my wife that she needs to find another sucker partner to help pay the bills and look after the kids.

Of course, this might sound like a straw man argument, because who in their right mind would suggest a rescuer put themselves at undue risk when on duty?

Well, the coroner involved in examining the recent Derrick Bird massacre, for a start.

I wouldn't usually post a link to the Daily Fail, what with it being a right-wing homophobic, racist rag with the moral compass of a blood-hungry mosquito, but the headline is a grabber.

There is an old saying that a good rescuer is a selfish rescuer, in that they shouldn't do anything that turns them into just another casualty. Complete emotional detachment is neither possible nor desirable, but neither is getting so involved that you become of no use to the patient, and possibly just a drain on already stretched resources.

I wonder what the coroner's judgement would have been had a member of the emergency services gone in and been shot as well, especially if it subsequently turned out the original victim had been beyond help anyway.

Who would thank me for getting myself killed or injured trying to save someone else? The victim? The victim's family? My family? My employer?

We take risks all the time in this job. In the unfamiliar, dark house with the only information being "He's been cut!"; in the nightclub toilets where someone has been beaten unconscious; at the industrial accident where unfamiliar machinery is still running, or to the extremely well-known patient with a tenuous grasp of whether or not he's allowed to hit ambulance crews.

Often, with single occupant response cars being de rigeur at the moment until the media discover what a cop-out it is, we do these things alone, at night, with our hands full, and with only the briefest of information about what's been going on passed to us via the radio.

We make a decision, depending on whether or not we think the danger outweighs the response, on our familiarity with the location, on how we're currently feeling, and we hope out decision is the right one, both for ourselves and for the patient.

From a personal point of view, a victim apparently dead from a shotgun blast with the killer still possibly on scene is not something I would attend without armed police securing the area first.

If this is construed as cowardly, or health and safety gone mad, then you can colour me yellow and stick a Slippery When Wet sign on me, but at least I'll have a higher chance of going home at the end of the shift. 

It's not something I feel the need to apologise for.

And the man on the bridge?

Well persuasion, and a graphic description of what injuries I would have to treat should he quite feasibly survive the drop, led to a happy (for us) conclusion, in that he decided to let me help him off the ledge and into a warm car, for a chat with the negotiators.

I think we both made the right decision.

Rant over.

Thanks for listening.