Six things, Volume 1

Feather, sign, TV art, one-minute film, baby elephant, every city

Nov 17, 2022

Thing 1: jay feather

Every encounter feels like a blessing.

Odd, that. They’re not rare. Shy, certainly, and always likely to keep their distance. But they’re also noisy. That hoarse shriek that rips through the canopy – nothing else makes a sound quite like it.

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Perhaps it’s because they’re the only colourful members of the crow family in the UK. A peach-chested, white-rumped aberration with a comedy greasepaint moustache and wild-eyed stare. And then there’s that band of blue on the wing.

A walk round the local cemetery without encountering a jay? Yes, fine. Thank you.

A walk round the local cemetery graced by the sight of a jay’s flare-winged, pot-bellied flight as it tries to get the hell away from me? Now you’re talking.

And just occasionally, they leave you a gift.

It is in fact a group of three feathers, from their owner's wing untimely ripped. Vibrant sky blue, the feathers have delicate black bars throughout. Fluffy down gathered at the featherbase completes the ensemble.

Picking up feathers is an everyday pleasure.

Some are dull, as feathers go. Pigeon feathers are a dime a dozen round here. I’ll pick one up, look at it for a bit, then drop it.

But think about it for just a second, and you’ll never take a feather for granted again.

You’d be hard pushed to design something as excellent as a feather. They’re light, waterproof, superb insulators, and protection against the elements and spiky foliage. You can make them drab and use them as camouflage, or gaudy them up and use them to attract mates. Long-tailed tits collect them in their hundreds and use them as nest lining. Grebes eat them and regurgitate them as food for their young.

And of course they’re useful if you want to fly. A single flight feather has an aerodynamic shape. Attach ten or eleven of them to a bone in an overlapping series and you have an efficient airfoil – a solid surface, malleable and adaptable enough to give you control over your aerial manoeuvres. Don’t just stick them to your arms with wax, though – Icarus tried that, and just look where he ended up.

They’re not just for the birds. We’ve used them, too. Pens, jewellery, dusters, pillow stuffing, arrow stabilisers, medicine, bait, biofuels, art materials, and much more.

But sometimes all you want to do is look at them and admire their perfection.

Thing 2: it is forbidden to read

A white plastic sign with red writing in block capitals: "IL EST INTERDIT DE LIRE. IT IS FORBIDDEN TO READ. E VIETATO DI LEGGERE."

One of my most treasured possessions, this sign resurfaced the other day as I undertook a small – and YES as yet unfinished thank you very much for asking – office clear out.

You need a bit of background.

My mother was an antiquarian bookseller, and an avid reader. Books, therefore, featured large. Her office was crammed from wall to wall and floor to ceiling with books of all kinds, but mostly her speciality, early printed books – the kind of books that, dare I say it, are nowadays more often collected than read.

This sign was given to her by a kindly colleague, who had (let’s not judge him – it was in a good cause) stolen it from the bookstall at the Café de Paris in Monte Carlo (and if you come away from that sentence with judgements about the social aspirations and ethical standards of antiquarian booksellers, you… well, actually, you might have a point – not my mum, though. She was honest as the day is long). Presumably the owners of the stall had become fed up with those pesky customers showing an interest in the contents of what they wanted them to buy.

The sign pleased my mother greatly. She propped it up on an eye-level shelf in her office. And so did I, until it got subsumed by General Stuff (included, but not restricted to – ah there’s irony for you – piles of books that I have yet to read).

General Stuff gets moved around from time to time, and when that happens good things float to the surface.

The moral of the story is: have clutter, but disturb it occasionally.

Thing 3: ‘Two Soups’ by Jack Vettriano, and other masterworks

christhebarker @christhebarker

Two Soups by Jack Vettriano

It’s one thing to have an idea; quite another to execute it to perfection. Chris Barker’s extensive thread of Famous Art Meets British TV does just that.

You could do easily do this and not quite get it right. He didn’t do that.

‘Fawlty Towers’ by John Constable and ‘The Goodies’ by Claude Monet both have a particular charm. But the prize surely goes to ‘The Roundabout of Magic Delights’ by Hieronymous Bosch. Do tell me your favourite.

Thing 4: the perfect one-minute film

Don’t think of this as a cricket clip. Think of it as a Life clip.

That’s So Village @ThatsSoVillage

To celebrate reaching 100,000 followers, here’s our favourite village cricket video of all-time. Legendary.

It has everything. Hope, despair, relief, embarrassment, exasperation, self-loathing, fury, and ultimately redemption. It’s the perfect one-minute film, each role played to perfection. Even the wicket-keeper’s Folded Arms of Fury tell their own story.