Peacockery

Earlier this afternoon, in Holland Park, I was watching a peacock fanning his preposterous tail feathers and shaking his booty for the benefit of a wholly uninterested peahen. Thwarted, he then gave it a try with the pigeons, and finally with the knot of human spectators. This display is a glorious blend of beauty and absurdity, and watching it is always a chastening experience for us gentlemen. It is all to easy to deconstruct our own behaviour into something very like the peacock's fanning and shaking, but without the beauty...
Now, I know it's an old chestnut, but it is extraordinarily hard to see how evolution by natural selction managed to come up with such astonishing prodigality, something so completely de trop and beyond any reasonable notion of utility. The same goes for many such extravagances of nature, including of course the wings of the peacock butterfly. Why on earth should the 'eyes' on the wings of a common British butterfly so precisely mimic those on the tail feathers of an exotic Asian fowl? They are way beyond anything sported by other butterflies for defence against birds (the birds peck at the 'eyes', thereby missing the butterfly's body). It's doubtful birds even see such elaborately overspecified markings as eyes at all - they are like no actual eyes a bird is ever likely to see. It does sometimes seem that nature is a bit of an artist...

Not Good To Talk

So this fellow reckons we could/should be 'talking to Al Qaeda'. Er, about what? What are the negotiable demands of a group that basically wants us all dead, and that, to all appearances, practises terrorism for its own sake. We can be sure that Al Qaeda, had it the nuclear firepower, would obliterate the US, the UK and whomever else they especially dislike. So what do we do - negotiate them down from a 100percent kill to, say, 80percent, maybe trading submission of the survivors to their particular brand of Islam in return for this concession? Sometimes it really isn't good to talk.

Cold (Very) Calls

Dear lord - here's what our 'listening leader' is up to now. It smacks not only of desperation but of derangement (and note he's not even giving his own repsonse but something lashed together by his office). So, what do you do if you get a call from Broon? A referee's whistle is said to be effective with nuisance calls, but that's a bit harsh. Any other ideas? Pretend to be Tony Blair? Tell him you've got all the double glazing you want?

Stonehenge. Sorry...

Over at Thought Experiments (where I often drop in to borrow a cup of sugar), controversy rages over Stonehenge. Well, I once paid a serious visit to this monument, having rashly volunteered to write a piece about it for a newspaper. Things might have changed since then (I believe the 'visitor centre' has had a makeover - I certainly hope so), but I have to say that I found it among the least atmospheric sites I have ever visited. The dead hand of the Ministry of Works (or whatever department of state it was) had robbed it of all mystery and magic. The approach to the stones was appallingly badly designed, as if to minimise their impact, there were notices and fences everywhere, and of course there's that bloody road, with traffic whooshing past all the time. It's much like one of those similarly done-over and killed stone dead castles that the state looks after (i.e. tidies up, stabilises, turfs and mows, and covers with 'interpretative' notices and safe, H&S approved walkways). Just because Stonehenge is the biggest and best known doesn't make it the most interesting, still less the most atmospheric. For myself, the standing stones that survive in Derbyshire, often barely marked, offer far more magic. I'd recommend Arbor Low any day over Stonehenge - and I'm sure my more northerly readers (Malty?) will have plenty to suggest... Sorry Susan, sorry Frank.

The Condition of Muzak

Stepping into my local supermarket last night for a few necessities, I was startled to be greeted by an unmistakable Al Kooper organ riff and - wham - Like A Rolling Stone came pouring forth from the PA (or tannoy or whatever it is). Naturally I lingered in the aisles until it was over, enjoying a truly great song and ruminating on the passage of time. I can still remember the horripilating shock of hearing it (and the still more vitriolic Positively 4th Street) for the first time - and now here it was, pouring out as supermarket muzak, with nobody but me even noticing, let alone listening. Can any (pop/rock) music resist lapsing over the years into bland, background acceptability, achieving the condition of muzak? What will I hear when I next step into that supermarket?

Filth

Last night on TV, I caught a very watchable, and surprisingly sympathetic docu-comedy-drama about Mary Whitehouse (a Times piece about it here). What struck me most about it was Hugh Bonneville's portrayal of Sir Hugh Carleton Greene - - in liberal mythology, the urbane guardian of free expression against the legion of small-minded Mrs Grundys - as a smug, foul-mouthed, raging, supremely arrogant monster. . In fact, this drama exposed the adamantine smugness of the BBC mindset - which basically hasn't changed since Greene's time (I've worked in the belly of that beast) - like nothing else I've seen, least of all on the BBC. Did they realise?

Back When We Were Serious

Mindful as ever of the mental health of my readers, I shall not provide a link to the Daily Mirror's interview with our Home Secretary, 'Jacqui' Smith, mistress of the glottal stop. In it she informs readers that she fancies half the Cabinet, not least Gordon 'Phwoar' Brown. However, she could never, she asserts, fancy a Tory. Do we laugh or cry? Do we imagine a Tory Home Sec informing readers of the Telegraph that he doesn't half fancy that Theresa May, but he could never go for socialist totty? This seems unlikely - double standards prevail here, as elsewhere. Maybe we should just sigh and think back to when we were serious, and serious men (and latterly women) held the high offices of state. In tomorrow's Daily Mirror - Chuter Ede exclusive! I wouldn't mind giving that Barbara Castle one...