The Capercaillie

"I used a low point of view and positioned myself between clumps of vegetation to try to get as clean and as natural a shot as possible of this wild rogue bird." - John.

 

 

This is the capercaillie. In order to counter-balance the gravity of my previous blog post and to make up for the lack of activity recently, I have decided to post about my new favourite bird.

My previous favourite bird was the chicken. Common, uninspiring, lacking in flavour; these were criticism that could be levelled at the chicken. Not so the capercaillie.

My least favourite bird is the toucan. It is a horrible looking creature. Its beak is vicious and its demeanour horrifying. It eats children with a sickening grin plastered across its face.

I really like the duck-billed platypus, but unfortunately it is not a bird. The duck-billed platypus is venomous. Many people think they look ridiculous but I find them charming.

The name Capercaillie comes from the original Gaelic, meaning horse of the woods. The largest ever recorded capercaillie in captivity weighed 7.2kg. They remind me of the chocobos in the Final Fantasy series of games, which were ridden in the same way as horses. They were much larger than the capercaillie.

Capercaillies are an endangered species as their natural habitat is being gradually eroded. There are many conservation projects on Scotland that work to protect suitable breeding areas and develop new ones.

I wish I had a giant capercaillie that I could ride about Brighton. It would be large enough to fit both me and either Amy McDonald or KT Tunstall on the back and we could ride off up onto the Sussex Downs and have a picnic. Their partners would be slightly annoyed by this.

The capercaillie would be too large to stay in our flat so I would have to look at stabling. This would either be taken care of in Woodingdean or Lewes. In between trips I would allow it to graze in the New Steine garden.

I would hate to have a nightmare about a toucan. Imagine lying in your bed, being awoken in the middle of the night by a tapping on your window. Roused from slumber, you would stagger up and throw back the curtains, to be met with the shocking sight of a dark shadow with wicked orange beak! As lightning strikes, illuminating the hellish fiend, you swoon and fall to the floor! The last thing you hear is the crack of glass and relentless, furious tapping...

I would like to think that there is a real ale in existence called Capercaillie. If so, hopefully it would taste like a beautiful oaty forest.

The forests of Scotland are magnificent, and would be more so were the capercaillie as common as the swift or raven.

Oh! Capercaillie! In all the world beneath the firmament there is not beast nor bird as wondrous as thee!

Supermarket - Aisle 1

clutching at strings
tied to worse than aluminium
sighing into empty ears
fumbling with/at electronics
an escort of bloodhounds could not
guide me through the pines
socially exceptionless, yet
calling off the hunt is the same
as dialling for takeaway
aluminium foil encasing hope
a small bag of onion salad
is the bulwark against this
this iconic oubliette
self-contained, throw away the keynote
speaker
dash their brains out on the running track
in love with pixels
your pixie avatar resembles
a fog-laden midnight
gas lamps and rippers
I yearn to stalk the cobbles
with my very best magnifying glass
ticking off the wanted posters
rounding corners with/out abandon/ing
principles forged in aluminium
titanic and recyclable
I have drunk from the same can twice before
yet thirst like a pug
is it true to manufacture desires
selling mass-production as home-made?
This is a home-made problem
of breathing problems and back-issues of the heart
an aluminium respiratory system
clean and cheap
this is the top of the range
no strings attached
the heart has a ring-pull instead
open with your fourth finger
metal has a taste
like blood

On Shaving

      "'Shaving the upper lip,' I remarked, 'is a curse which canaries and women have been spared.' [The canary] cocked its ear. 'Except, of course, certain aunts,' I added, evoking a squawk of alarm from the feathered f.
       'On the other hand,' I mused, fondling the bare ruined choir where once the sweet-briar sprang, 'you and they will never know the bliss of being freshly shaven.'"

Bonfiglioli, Kyril. The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery (1999). (St.Ives: Clays Ltd, 2002), pp.173

Putting the FUN in funeral

Tonight I am embarking on a holiday with Chloe Stapleton, Claire Sissons, Graham Pether, Tim Huzar and eventually Emma Turvey. We are going to catch a sleeper train up to Glasgow where, tomorrow morning, we shall eat a hearty breakfast and hopefully get a quick bit of quality time with Henry King. From then on it will be strictly business, as we walk from Glasgow along the West Highland Way to Fort William. At Fort William we shall bathe in luxury at a hostel before attempting to scale Ben Nevis, the mountain of heaven. The plan from then on will be to traverse the Great Glen Way to Inverness where we will purchase lots of rum and catch a sleeper train home. Hoorah!

Now, walking can be a perilous thing. My last attempted long distance walk, the Coast to Coast walk across through the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and Yorkshire Moors saw me do something to my ankle and have to abandon my comrades after but a day's walking. The first photo depicts us before setting out.

This photo is me looking a bit sorry for myself at 90 degrees, resting behind an abandoned overgrown house with my ankle feeling like it had been kicked by a moose, whilst the others went to find a nearby campsite. The next day I was on the train back to Brighton (via Carlisle, eesh).

As Scotland is just more hardcore than England in most respects I am a bit more wary this time out. A swift perusal of a Ben Nevis safety website has left me thinking about what would happen should the worst come to pass. Namely, me falling off the side and ending. A couple of select episodes of Northern Exposure that we've watched recently have looked at life, ageing and dying, and so with the fragility of human life in mind I have decided to jot down some quick thoughts about how I'd like to be dealt with if I do happen to tumble to a horrible doom at some point over the next few days.

There are four key areas that need to be addressed:

My physical estate
This will be the easiest thing to take care of. A meeting shall be held between my family and my flatmates and they can divvy everything up. I imagine there'll be some arguments over who gets the Chuckle Brothers poster and the Madagascar promo cardboard box but they are all sensible people and should be able to thrash something out.

Disposal of the body
I'm not sure what sort of state my body will be in following this sort of demise. It would be nice to be buried so that my body can return usefully to nature. I'd quite like all my organs to be donated (including eyes) but I've not filled out a donor card. Hopefully the NHS can accept blogs as a form of consent. As an NHS employee with a sound mind I can assure any doctors that this is what I would like to happen. It would be nice to have a headstone somewhere also. With an epitaph. I can't really think of anything as good as Spike Milligan's right now, so I'd probably have to go for something like, "Don't end up like me, start writing your great piece of children's literature NOW." That's a bit glum, so most of the merry-making will have to take place at the service/wake.

Service/Wake
This is the most important bit really. First of all, everybody is invited. Second of all, there will be karaoke. Somebody needs to sing Bridge Over Troubled Water and somebody needs to sing Tie Me Kangaroo Down. There will be lots of drinking. It should be held in a pub; perhaps Northern Lights as it is my favourite pub currently, but if numbers threaten to be too much for it then a suitable alternative venue can be sort. I would like a band to play, preferably a really good one. If Philanthropy were to play a set of Electric Six covers that would be swell. Alternatively Frankie Solo, 2-Shay, The Sneaky Frog and the Scoundrel or the Red Diamond Dragon Club would also be deemed suitable. I would also quite like Paul Hawkins to sing Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from Les Miserables. That would bring people down to earth. Also I would like a team of artisans to construct an effigy of me to be used as a piñata, so that any unresolved anger issues can be addressed and that any kids present can get some sweets. (Unsure why that's been italicised).

Imagine Paul singing this. People may need to do a whip around in order to get the money for his plane ticket. It would be well worth it though. I realise that this is all becoming deeply narcissistic but then, I wouldn't be having anymore birthdays, so the potential total of time that would have been spent focusing on me needs to be condensed into one day. Overall, the feel of the day would be a bit like one of the Irish cop wakes in the Wire.

Intellectual Property
All bands that I am currently in must continue. Where necessary, suitable replacements can be utilised i.e Lois Huzar, Steve Kelly, Chris Butler
My Facebook account is to remain active, under the control of Tim Huzar. He may utilise it as he wishes.
Someone needs to write The Adventures of Captain Iguanadon. Mike Sykes would probably be my first choice, though anyone is welcome to the project. As long as it conveys a strong environmental message, tackles important polemics making them accessible to children and is a shit-hot read then I don't mind too much.

Steve Kelly needs to get his ass into gear and start filming Chasing Frames 2.

I think that's about it. Ultimately I'm probably not going to die over the next fortnight. It'll probably be just as well that I don't, as all of that narcissism would cost a lot of money.

Nick Cave

"But in the ordinary run of affairs how many people go out of their way to pass even five or ten minutes in a good deep cave completely cut off from the outside world and take the opportunity to hear themselves speak and really listen to themselves? It can come to seem strange that people pay good money to entertain or instruct themselves with drugs or sex or universities or even submit themselves to psychiatric counselling when they could just as well spend a few free minutes in the silence of an impressively tucked-away cave and experience this ordinary auditory apocalypse, discover themselves as never before."

Royle, Nicholas. Quilt. (Reading: Cox & Wyman Ltd, 2010), pp.30



Thanks Nick. I kind of wish you'd suggested that before I signed up to your MA. Although really, universities should function as caves to hold conversations in. It is interesting seeing how in this respect a cave could be seen as something enlightening whereas in other texts it is used as something quite the opposite (The Republic). There's an exciting ambivalence at play here. Perhaps I could write my dissertation on caves.

Who says the devil has all the tunes?

This is an epic tune of biblical proportions. I love seeing a crowd in raptures.

SmoothGay Love Song aka Justin Bieber Sex Tape

Just uncovered these lyrics in my bedroom, written by myself and Michael Sykes, which will no doubt feature on the upcoming SmoothGay album...

I think you're pretty swell
Just might mean we'll get on well
But I want to put it to the test
Get these feelings off my chest
So I'll leave a voicemail on the phone
Which doesn't express the love I own
I'll leave a box of chocolates out on the doorstep
I forgot my umbrella so I got pretty wet

So it rained
Like my pain
Just kept coming in floods of shame
I'm Noah without animals
I'm drowning
And I need a towel
You've got me speaking only in vowels

I like the way that you smile
I've been thinking about that for a while
As I construct my visage
Too worthy for any homage
I hope you're ready for what I can give
The heart must beat if we are to live
Like letters sentenced to commit
A lifelong intimacy incarnate

Love sustained
Amour is the name
And it protects me from disdain
I'm James Joyce forced to write sensibly
Digging myself a hole
With a paper trowel
You've got me speaking only in vowels

So I form this literate sponge
Into which all my love I do plunge
Are you ready for my glove?
I flutter with peace next to you like a dove
Because...
We had drunk quite a lot when we wrote that. Lord knows what musical accompaniment it had.