Pheasants

Out walking in the nearby Mayfield Valley this afternoon, I was startled by a cock pheasant. He squawked from undergrowth at the side of the path before running off. I have had similar surprises many times when out rambling. In the English countryside, pheasants seem to be everywhere.

I always think of common pheasants as particularly stupid birds which is probably a tad unfair. The male of the species has beautiful plumage while the female's dun feathers are designed for camouflage. The fact that they have been able to spread across our green and pleasant land demonstrates that they are not as dumb as they appear.

Pheasants are not native to The British Isles. Originally, they were confined to eastern regions of Asia. It is not known for certain how they arrived on our shores but generally it is believed that they were brought over during the Roman occupation of Britain. Perhaps Roman soldiers simply wanted to supplement their monotonous diets. They also introduced rabbits and sweet chestnuts.

Thousands of pheasants are shot every year by bloodthirsty field "sports" enthusiasts armed with shotguns. Though there's not a large amount of meat on your average bird, roasted pheasant is certainly tasty. In spite of the widespread annual killing, our country is still home to millions of pheasants. Plenty are specially bred for shooting but many thousands survive in the wild.

As I walked along Mark Lane by Mill View Farm, I spotted a second cock pheasant in a tussocky field up wind from me. He didn't spot me as he strutted nervously, sometimes stopping to observe his environment and to emit his characteristic chortled echo of a mating call. Naturally, I took the opportunity to shoot... some photographs..

Lists

For no particular reason, I woke up this morning and decided to make these four lists....

US States* I have visited
Hawaii
California
Arizona
Nevada
Oregon
Washington
Georgia
Florida
New York
New Hampshire
Massachusetts
Maine
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota
*Please note there are 50 states in total in the USA.

Countries* I have visited
Republic of Ireland
France
Luxembourg
Belgium
The Netherlands
Germany
Poland
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Spain
Italy
Portugal
Andorra
Liechtenstein
Austria
Hungary
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Greece
Croatia
Serbia
Slovenia
Macedonia
Switzerland
Turkey
Cyprus
Malta
Morocco
South Africa
Australia
New Zealand
India
Sri Lanka
United Arab Emirates
Bahrain
Fiji
Malaysia
Thailand
Hong Kong
Cambodia
Laos
The Vatican City
United States of America
Canada
Chile
Argentina
Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
* Please note there are 196 officially  recognised countries in the world and Rapa Nui is not one of them.

British cities* I have not visited
Armagh
Lisburn
Newry
St Asaph
Wolverhampton
Chelmsford
*please note that there are currently just 69 officially recognised cities in Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Today's Shopping* List
Bread
Milk
Orange juice
Sausages
Butter
Sparkling water
Salmon
Tomatoes
Green beans
Bananas
Apples
Stewing steak
Swede
Suet
Brussel sprouts
Pork loin joint (for Sunday)
Toilet paper
*please note I shall be buying these items from "Lidl" in order to save money we can then spend on other things.

Techniques

Last week, at my watercolour class, our tutor John showed us a watercolour portrait he has recently completed. It was brilliant - a picture of Harry his late father created with love but also with expert command of the medium. As I peered closely through the glass, the woollen cardigan that the old man was wearing looked so much like knitted wool, it was almost unbelievable.

For a moment, I felt like an ill-equipped walker looking up at the mountain top. To reach the standard that John has achieved in that portrait would surely take a lifetime of practice and dedication. Sadly, I haven't got a lifetime left.

The session on January 26th saw the assembled class members painting pictures of back street Italian doors. The plaster walls and doors we observed in photographs were rough and ancient and I am sure that is why John chose them - for their interesting textures. 

He showed us how to mask off the door area so that we could concentrate on the wall texture. This involved low adhesive decorators' "Frog" tape and amongst other things the gentle flicking of paint from a stiff brush.

I would have needed a couple of hours more to complete the exercise so I brought my board home and completed the door itself - still trying to concentrate on texture. Well, in the end, I was pretty happy with the wall but the door was very much experimental as I sought to learn what the paint could do and to be much bolder, less hesitant in my use of colour. Really, I ought to attempt that composition many more times - developing more effective techniques. I guess it's a never-ending learning process.

Death

The first image that Google produces after an image search for "death"

I tend not to think about death very much. Of course, it is the only certainty in our lives and I know that some people are secretly quite obsessive about it. But for me it is mostly something that lurks in the background like next December or 2018. It will come in some kind of costume and there's not much I can do about it.

Tomorrow I shall attend the funeral of Shirley's Uncle Chubby. He died a few days before his eighty fifth birthday. Only last summer we visited him unexpectedly and he showed me how his vegetable garden was doing on the west bank of The River Trent. I was jealous of his black riverside sediment-enriched soil. Very different from the heavy clay soil that I have to work with here in Sheffield. But isn't that nice to think that Chubby was still living happily at home and tending his vegetables just a few months before his death? No old folks' home for him with carers rushing around and the television blasting away in the corner. He lived a full, happy  life by the riverside he never left.

As an atheist, I have absolutely no expectation of any sort of existence beyond this life. To me the idea of an afterlife is absurd. I believe that the only way I will live on in any form is in the memories of my family, friends and others who knew me. In addition, I would like to think that some of my words will succeed me. In that respect, I really do need to get round to making an e-book of my poetry so it's captured for good. This was something that the now dormant Australian blogger Carol in Cairns encouraged me to do.

Nowadays, it is fashionable and co-incidentally economical for the bodies of the deceased to be disposed of through cremation. That's what happened to my mother and father and it is what will happen to Uncle Chubby's body too. But, perhaps romantically, I am drawn more towards burial. My brother Paul lies beneath the clod in a remote graveyard in County Clare, Ireland. His little plot is close to the ancient boundary wall, protecting him from Atlantic winter winds that whistle across the bog. His wife, daughter and sons can visit him there and remember him with fondness. But after a cremation all that is left is dust.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited a poet's simple grave and blogged about it here. On Philip Larkin's gravestone there was just his name, the years of his birth and death and the single word "Writer". If you were to be buried what single word would you suggest for your gravestone? A single word that somehow sums up who you were or why you were here. It might concern work, family, aspirations or character. I think I might choose - Dreamer.

Comparisons

Google does not rest on its laurels. Change and improvement are always in the air as those clever Google boffins fiddle around with possible innovations.

All of us are familiar with the incredible search facility that Google has blessed us with. They have placed nearly all human knowledge at our fingertips. Everything is just a click away.

But did you know that you can search images? By this, I mean that you let your cursor hover over a particular image, then using the right hand button on your mouse or laptop you will find a drop down menu with one of the choices being "Search Google for Image". Click on this and you will soon find other locations where this image has been used - if any - and also a small mosaic of "Visually Similar Images".

Yesterday, I posted a striking image by the street artist Phlegm - it was a detail from his mural on Snuff Mill Lane. Hovering over the image and following the process described above, Google provided me with these "visually similar images", all black and white street art:-

The legendary Welsh blogger John Archibald Gray (or JAG for short) has several pictures in his sidebar. This is one of them:-

 And here's one of the "visually similar images" that Google quickly called up:-

Here's Ms Lee George's profile picture from "Kitchen Connection":-

 And here's a bunch of what Google consider to be "visually similar images":-

Finally here's the superb parrot header logo from the brilliant "Shooting Parrots" blog by the equally brilliant and exceedingly handsome Ian Rhodes from Greater Manchester:-

 Following the same process, Google quickly takes us to this visually similar image:-

Not only is this "search image" facility useful in numerous ways, it can also be fun as you see the kind of imagery that Google's wheels come up with in visual comparison. Lord knows how they do this so rapidly. To me it's rather magical.

Outlook

Above, the garden view from our bedroom window yesterday afternoon. You can perhaps just make out our pet sheep - Beau and Peep and the path that leads to our vegetable patch and the compost bins. Our rear neighbours' houses are a hundred yards beyond our back door.

Below, from our window I looked to the right where you can see the telecommunications mast on Tapton Hill and the "Ranmoor Village" University of Sheffield halls of residence below it.

Sheffield has some great street artists. I don't know about you but I rather like murals by skilful street artists. In my opinion, they make the urban scene appear more lively and attractive. In contrast.I think that hastily sprayed tags and unskilful imagery look horrible and rather spoil our environment.

One of Sheffield's best known street artists is known as "Phlegm". Finally, this morning. I got round to taking some pictures of one of his  newest murals. It appeared on Snuff Mill Lane last October. These strange black and white elongated figures are typical of Phlegm's distinctive style:-

And here's a detail from the same mural. Phlegm has cleverly incorporated the television aerial within his overall design:-

Here's another detail in which an intruder alarm and a security light  have also been embraced as part of the design:-

Teresa

Teresa May - glamour model

It is easy to get names mixed up. For example, our lovely daughter Frances often finds her name being mis-spelt in the masculine form - Francis. I guess that all Franceses and Francises have to battle with this - like all Lesleys and Leslies.

Very recently, over in Washington D.C., our esteemed prime minister was visiting that  Trump thing. You probably noticed this on your television screen or computer. It seems that in some of the official U.S. documentation, Theresa May's first name was wrongly spelt in the alternative manner - Teresa.

This was a very embarrassing mistake because there is in fact an English glamour model called Teresa May. In 1997, she appeared in the music video for The Prodigy's single "Smack My Bitch Up". She moved into acting later in her career in B movies such as "Exterminator City" and "One Man and his Dog". In addition to films, this alternative Teresa May has appeared in numerous tabloids and men's magazines including "Hustler", "Men Only", and "Razzle". Yes - this other Teresa May has been around the block and for that reason, I suspect that she is the kind of woman that The Donald is more used to dealing with.

He must have been very excited sitting behind his desk in The Oval Office, flicking through back copies of  "Hustler", waiting for Teresa May to turn up. Instead he got this Theresa May:-

Oh dear! Not quite the same... but Trump still grabbed her hand. It is to be hoped that he didn't grab anything else.