Signs I like #24

Seen at Scotland's Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh today

Signs of the times: Autumn #14

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

'The pheasant cries

As if it just noticed

The mountain'

Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1827) ('The pheasant cries' – translated by Robert Haas)

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)

Autumn Picture 14

A lovely Autumnal painting of pheasants and fungi. There are two brightly coloured cock pheasants perched up on a tree stump, with two more camouflaged, brown-coloured hen pheasants on the ground in the background. A clump of fungal fruiting bodies (toadstools) have emerged from the tree stump and, to the top-right of the picture, we can see the delicate pink and orange seed capsules of a spindle tree opening their valves to reveal a single seed in each one. The bracken at the base of the stump has turned a wonderful Autumnal golden-brown. I looked at bracken previously, here, when it first appeared in the Spring pictures.

The pheasant, or Common pheasant (Latin name: Phasianus colchicus) is not a native species in the UK. In fact, looking closely at the cock pheasants, the picture shows two sub-species of pheasant, from the black-necked and the white-ringed neck races. I have a new information source for the remainder of the Ladybird book blog posts, a new set of two books, a glorious new publication, 'The Birds of Scotland', produced by the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. I’ll review the books properly soon but I’m happy to say already that they are damned good and are going to be extremely useful! And from this source, I can confirm that the common pheasant is a common and very widespread introduced resident to Scotland, particularly in the lowlands of the south and east.

The Romans introduced the pheasant to Britain sometime between 55 AD and 400 AD and, according to the Ladybird book’s accompanying text, this was the black-necked version shown as the left-hand cock pheasant in the picture, with the Chinese white ring-necked version being introduced later in this period of introduction. Although the species has been in Britain since that time, 'The Birds of Scotland' (See? Already useful!) suggests that it did not reach Scotland until the 16th Century, having become well established a century earlier in England. Its population expanded in Scotland through the 1970s and 1980s, but captive-reared pheasants are also released in MASSIVE numbers almost EVERYWHERE to supplement local populations for shooting. Reared pheasants are thought to be quite sedentary, probably moving no more than 5 km from their release point. In Scotland, the pheasant population was estimated in 2000 to be 348,000 to 367,000, about one-fifth of the UK population of 1.8 to 1.9 million but, with the releasing of all those game birds, it is difficult to know how many there really are. The trend in Scotland is probably for a slightly declining wild population.

Those fungi on the stump? They could be any of many possible species but are clearly a species that grows in and on rotting wood (a “saprophyte”). Many other fungi live commensally with trees and other plants, assisting with nutrient transfer to the higher plant while being provided with a habitat on their roots. Saprophyte fungi are essential elements of the nutrient cycles that liberate nitrogen, carbon and other substances from dead wood. Otherwise, we’d be waist-deep in twigs, bark and branches!

The spindle tree (Euonymus europaeus) is a shrub or small tree of hedgerows, scrub and deciduous woodland. With a preference for calcareous soils, it is native to England, Wales and Ireland, but only to the very southern part of Scotland, although it has been planted as an introduced species in other parts of Scotland. The New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora indicates that there has been a considerable increase in the records of this species in Britain in the past 50 years, since the 1962 Atlas was published. This might, however, be due to better recording rather than an increase in its range or populations. 

I’ve recently found a very interesting website, for the organisation Plants For A Future , which promotes the conservation of plants for human use, whether for food, medicine or other uses (my interpretation of their “About us” text). It turns out that the spindle tree is resplendent with uses, including as a source of yellow dye from the seeds, and the bark is an “alterive, cholagogue, hepatic, laxative, stimulant and tonic”, and I only know what some of those words mean... and the fresh leaves and dried fruit and seeds are used “externally to treat scabies, lice, ticks and other skin parasites”. Wow... It doesn’t end there. The whole plant produces a volatile oil used in soap-making and the wood is used for “spindles, skewers, knitting needles, toothpicks, carving” and for artists’ high quality charcoal. Actually, I’m not quite sure why somebody isn’t farming this stuff!

A ukulele, Stephen Fry and a probably-unrequited love

Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States is clearly a wonderful academic institution. It is also the oldest higher education institution in the USA and has had many significant figures through its educational doors, including George W and Barack Obama. That great musical genius, Tom Lehrer, is another alumnus of the University (see here for an example).

But perhaps the greatest thing ever to come out of Harvard is this short performance, combining, as it does, two of my favourite subjects - the ukulele and the living wonder that is Stephen Fry. Let's just say that the marvelous Mr Fry, attending Harvard to receive a, no doubt, very well-deserved award (the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University - chosen by a group of students for his endeavours in the arts), also received some rather unexpected attention in the nicest and most flattering way from a lovely and very talented young woman armed with a ukulele, a song and a heart-felt and well-thought through proposal.

My thanks to my friend Murray for making me aware of it and to the young woman concerned, Molly Lewis - bless you for a wonderful performance, and for trying!

Signs of the times: Autumn #13

More comparisons between the British countryside of today and that from 1959-1961 in the paintings of Charles Tunnicliffe in the Ladybird "What to look for..." series of books.

"Then the sudden rush

Of the rain, and the riot

Of the shrieking, tearing gale

Breaks loose in the night,

With a fusillade of hail!

Hear the forest fight,

With its tossing arms that crack and clash

In the thunder's cannonade,

While the lightning's forked flash

Brings the old hero-trees to the ground with a crash!

Hear the breakers' deepening roar,

Driven like a herd of cattle

In the wild stampede of battle,

Trampling, trampling, trampling, to overwhelm the shore!"

Henry Van Dyke (from: "Storm-Music")

 

(Copyright: Ladybird Books)






Autumn Picture 13


Well, when I started this set of blog posts on these Ladybird books, I had rather hoped to be able to keep pace with the four seasons as I progressed through the four books, starting with Spring. Clearly, although I managed this for Spring and largely for the Summer book, the timetable went out of the window when I was busy in the Autumn. So, here we are, in June and I’m writing about Autumn. Never mind, I hope you are still enjoying these posts regardless of what it looks like outside your window. I will be satisfied if I finish the series in the 50 year time window since the books were published, which was 2009-2011. That means I have the rest of the year to finish the second half of the autumn book and the Winter volume. On, on...


Here’s a wild picture. Until last month’s unprecedented extreme weather conditions in Scotland, I would have said it seems a bit odd to be writing about wild Autumn weather in June but hey ho... Here, a herd of young cows are sheltering behind a high hedge from a gale and lashing rain. Some starlings and magpies are sheltering as best they can behind the cattle. Growing under a fallen, broken tree, there are some puffballs. The only part of this scene that you couldn’t have found here last week was the puffballs – it’s a bit early for those in June! But hey, this is supposed to be a picture from Autumn. In fact, as far as the theme of these posts goes, comparing our natural history today with that displayed in paintings from 50 years ago, I don’t have much to say for this one. I’ve already covered starlings here and magpies here and, as I’ve said elsewhere in these Autumn posts, we actually don’t have good information on the changes in the distribution of many of our native fungi over time, even the relatively large ones like puffballs.

Having lived in the Stirling area for 22 years, I’ve seen many little puffballs around here, but never a giant puffball, the edible (in fact, gourmet) giant puffball beloved of gourmands, and delicious when sliced and fried; until last Autumn that is, when O and I were walking near Dunblane and found the shattered and largely decomposed remains of a giant puffball, but which was still capable of producing clouds of spores. So we took some pieces and scattered them along the edge of the field we found it in and, from late summer, we will start checking for signs of growth, just in case!

Signs I like #23 (and a special Titanic memory from Stirling)

You might have heard on the news that yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the launch of RMS Titanic from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. As we all know, the Titanic's maiden voyage ended in disaster and tragedy following a collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on 12th April 1912, resulting in 1517 deaths among the passengers and crew, and leaving 1517 families on both sides of the Atlantic to contemplate their own personal tragedies.

If you look at the Wikipedia entry for the Titanic, you will find that it lists all the passengers and crew, identifying those who lived and those who died. One of the engineering crew who died was a Mr William Y. Moyes, Senior Sixth Engineer. He is listed in the record as being from "Stirling, Scotland" and lived, in fact, in the street next to the one in which we live, where this featured sign is fixed to the fence of the house in which he once dwelt.

Apologies that image isn't great but the light was very poor. The plaque has a picture of the Titanic at the top. Below it, the wording says:

"Here lived
WILLIAM YOUNG MOYES
Senior Sixth Engineer
on
RMS TITANIC
who lost his life when the liner sank
on
APRIL 14th 1912
with the loss of 1635 lives",

just one of the many moving stories from that terrible day. Note the discrepancy in the number of deaths (1635 vs 1715). The higher figure is the official death toll, I think.

Lovely to see the flowers that someone tied up there for the anniversary. We'll raise a glass to his memory (and all those who died) next April 12th, 100 years to the day.

Signs I like #22

I found this graffito on the seaward side of a seawall at North Berwick today and found it strangely moving. I read it and thought: "Me too...". I grew up in East Lothian with a view of the sea, but I no longer live by the sea and miss it every day. So, this struck a loud chord today! Sometimes I go to the sea too... but not often enough!

What a Rush!

I think it was probably 1978, round at Pete's house one schoolday lunchtime. He had just received a delivery, maybe his first, from one of those mail-order record clubs. In the delivery was Rainbow's 1976 album "Rainbow Rising" which, alone, was enough to blow young minds freshly arrived in the world of rock. But for me, a seminal and slightly life-changing encounter that day was with another 12 inch diameter piece of black vinyl that had arrived in the box - Rush's "Farewell to Kings" album:

 What was this? Who was that guy with the high voice and what on earth were they singing about? Three Canadians with songs about Spaceships, black holes, Kings, philosophers and ploughmen, and some sublime musicianship. To a teenage mind rapidly absorbing as much science fiction as I could lay my hands on and with a burgeoning taste in rock music, especially on the more melodic wing (and maybe even then in the progressive vein), this was heady stuff indeed! After a bit more rooting about in record shops (this was pre-internet of course), I came to realise that this was Rush's fifth studio album and I remember thinking at the time "Ah well, I guess I've missed their most productive period", as that was the usual pattern, wasn't it? A lifetime of preparing for the first album, spillover of that good material into the second and then a steady decline! I could never have guessed that I would still be listening to fresh new music appearing from Rush 33 years later, and still eagerly anticipating new albums from a band that had been recording for 37 years!

Anyone who knows me really well will know that the music of Rush has been one of the great musical loves of my life. I can't count the thousands of hours of activity that have been accompanied by Rush on vinlyl or tape, then on CD and now on mp3 or iPod. I'm a Rush fan or a fanboy or a geek or a nerd. Accordingly, I was delighted and excited to hear of another tour, the Time Machine tour, which they were to bring to the UK in May 2011. And so, accompanied by the same Pete who had inadvertently introduced me to Rush in the first place, and who has been to at least two other Rush gigs with me before, I went to see them in the Glasgow SECC (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) two weeks ago tonight, some 30 years since I first saw them.



The big excitement of the Time Machine tour for UK fans was that the band was going to play in its entirety, for the first time in the UK, their 1981 "Moving Pictures" album, one of my favourites and their biggest selling album in the U.S., and which remains the band's most popular and commercially successful studio recording to date. Here's a picture of the cover of my programme for the 1981 tour for "Moving Pictures" (in which shows, ironically, they didn't play the whole album). That was my first Rush gig (and Pete's) (at the Ingliston Showground in Edinburgh) and generated a splendid piece of rock memorabilia for both of us (see below).

My old programme from the Rush 1981 "Moving Pictures" tour

My much-treasured autographed page from the Moving Pictures tour programme, from the days when the band used to wheel themselves out to meet fans after the gig - and all three of the guys, not just Geddy and Alex who do most of the meet and greet (and interview) stuff these days. In fact, Pete and I were waiting for our lift home (Pete's Dad maybe?) outside the Ingliston venue. Most of the crowd had gone home, when suddenly a roadie sauntered over and said that the band were just coming out to a table and three chairs behind us to sign autographs. Blimey, talk about the right place and right time... I don't think I washed the hand that shook the hands for about a week! Hey, I was 16 - this was an important event! It has to be said, they don't look much like this anymore, but I've changed in 30 years too...

With the advent of camera phones, there is now a much greater opportunity to capture some great personal memories of gigs, so here is a selection of my photos from the Glasgow show on May 14th. No real spoilers here from me for anyone still to see the tour elsewhere on the planet. If you want a detailed set list or a review, look elsewhere!



Successful rock bands on tour need big trucks - here, Rush are using Stage Truck (did you notice what they did with that name there? Very clever!)

But a big show like the one that Rush puts on needs a lot more than one truck - ten, in fact, which needed a stitched-together panorama to capture then all!



A selection of the signs in the SECC that night - strobe lighting, smoke and pyrotechnics? I damn well hope so - that's what I paid my money for!




The guys from the band (as they were in 1976 at least) - this was a mini-highlight of the night for me - these three uber-fans must have had a couple of hundred photos taken - they were in the front block of the stalls - I hope they had a great night and I do hope the band spotted them!



Here's the original look from the 2112 album in 1976 - at least we now know from where George Lucas pinched the costume ideas for Luke Skywalker...

The audiences at Rush gigs these days feature a lot of heads like mine...

An eight-armed lighting rig, each arm multiply jointed and able to move independently, and each arm covered in lights - very impressive!

And a great video screen put to great, often split-image, effect. In this case, a little Geddy Lee and a big Geddy Lee!



During "Working Them Angels" from "Snakes and Arrows"



Little Geddy Lee and big Alex Lifeson with a mandolin close-up, again during "Working Them Angels"

The guys in the band...

 

The Professor, Neil Peart during his drum solo - the great overhead camera shows his three different drum kits on a rotating base, includin th electronic kit he's added in recent years. And was that a wee bit of film of Gene Krupa that I saw during the video show for the drum solo?

We're jammin'...

A bit of "2112" - what else could it be?

A great night - probably the best show I've seen Rush put on over the 30 years I've been going to see them! If you have the chance, go and catch the Time Machine tour - you won't regret it...