What has three hearts, nine brains, eight legs, blue blood and a beak?
I feel sure there’s a joke in there somewhere about the royal family and a pet parrot…. but I think you probably know the answer and it lies, not in the soil, but in the sea.
There is something slightly surreal and beautiful about the octopus and I’ve rather fallen in love with this remarkable creature. Apart from having an overabundance of hearts and brains, octopuses (octopi?) are amongst only 1% of animals which use tools, they are notorious escape artists, they can change colour, texture and shape in an instant, and even regenerate missing arms at will. Once you start reading and learning about them it just gets more and more fantastical. I've long believed that there's a lot more going on in the animal kingdom than we can even begin to comprehend, no matter how much scientific research takes place.
My affectionate admiration towards them really came to the fore last year after watching, quite by chance, a documentary which focused on the intelligence and behaviour of one particular individual and her extraordinary relationship with humans. In ‘The Octopus In My House’ a professor and his teenage daughter bond with their cephalopod protegée called Heidi. In return, she shows them how she can solve puzzles, distinguish between different people, pass memory tests and use planning strategies. She even watches TV with the family from her huge tank inside the house, moving to the edge to be closer to the screen. I find myself wondering what she’s thinking, but I’m happy just to wonder and not to know.
There is, inevitably, a darker side to their lives too - and they don't live for very long. Once a female has laid eggs, it effectively spells the beginning of her end. She stops eating, becomes listless and wastes away - the female octopus in captivity even seems to go on an active suicide mission – she's very unlikely to make it through to see her new young emerge. Nature being what it is, there's no need for her to do so - they'll fend for themselves, and thus it seems octopuses are never going to have a population problem.
But putting that grimness aside, I’ve discovered a whole new form of therapy to help soothe away some of the worries of life in 2020. The other evening I'd been stupid enough to catch up on the news before I was about to go to bed and I needed something to offset all the doom and gloom... so I tuned into youtube and watched some octopuses. Octopuses swimming, octopuses playing, octopuses hiding in shells, octopuses interacting gently with the sweeter variety of human, octopuses solving problems, octopuses shape-shifting: job done. Kittens, watch out.
“… The nearest thing to having wings and flying yourself,”
said Joy. “Gorgeous!” was the word Mary
used. I never thought I’d be writing
about it here, but having found myself
unexpectedly drawn in by a BBC Four programme on Monday
night, I too found myself enamoured with a tiny single-seater fighter
‘plane, the wonderfully named Spitfire. I was also enthralled by its pilots.
Joy Lofthouse and Mary Ellis, who both died in the last few
years aged 94 and 101 respectively, were among a particularly unusual group of
women who piloted ‘planes during WWII as part of the 'Air Transport
Auxiliary'.Bearing in mind that this
was at a time when it was thought odd that women would even want to fly a
‘plane, you realise just how special a job this must have been and
how much it defied convention.These ‘Attagirls’, as they were known, flew thousands of warplanes, usually
delivering them from factories to RAF air bases, solo and without
compass or radio help, navigating only with maps and following railway lines or rivers.Although not involved in combat,
they still faced danger daily from enemy attack or collision with the huge
barrage balloons that were deployed as anti-aircraft obstacles.
And as for the male fighter pilots – I find it hard to
imagine just how they handled it, many of them aged just 18 or 19, cooped up in
a cockpit so small that they had to get into it sideways, tasked with
intercepting, outwitting and shooting down enemy aircraft. There they were, alone in a
lightweight metal killing machine that could reach a speed of nearly 400mph - feeling
the fear, knowing it was “them or us” – as anyone in a direct
conflict situation surely must.Several of
these surviving pilots appeared in the programme and, in voices weakened by the intervening decades, solemnly expressed their hatred of war.But their love of the
Spitfire was indisputable.
As with classic cars, especially the small, sleek, sportier ones, I think there's something about the Spitfire which is aesthetically pleasing.I like its scale and simplicity. Seeing them
in flight is like watching swifts; graceful,
wheeling, fast, intrepid.Maybe my love
of birds and the excitement I feel when I witness their aerobatic displays is linked, I don’t know.Whatever, although
aeroplanes aren’t exactly my thing, I can absolutely understand the appeal of this diminutive
yet high performance model.
Mary Ellis was particularly fond of the Spitfire and one day,
on delivering a new one from the factory, she signed her name on it.The airplane in question was never used in combat and survives today - along with her youthful signature.On being asked, just before her 100th
birthday, why she'd done that, she said with a gleam in her eye that it had
really just been a romantic thing; she’d
hoped that perhaps a dashing young airman would see it and get in touch. At that moment I think I knew just how Mary felt.
Public Service Broadcasting: Spitfire
The BBC Four programme 'Spitfire' is currently available on iPlayer:
I feel I can’t let this weekend slip by without a little
acknowledgement of something very special which should have taken place but which has sadly had to go by the wayside
for obvious reasons.
A few of us would have been waking up this morning in an
Edinburgh hotel room (presumably not the same one…) ready to greet a couple of days full of who-knows-what exactly, but I suspect it would have involved exploring the Old Town and The Royal Mile, diving into coffee shops, smiles and food and laughter, soaking
up both culture and wine, and lots and lots of talking.A lovely 'mini bloggers’ meet-up' was
on the calendar; one that wouldn’t be too
overwhelming for those of us who are less comfortable with big groups and new faces, but perhaps
a precursor to more. For me it would have been both a reunion and an introduction, andmy first trip over the border into Scotland too, I was looking forward to everything about it. Huge thanks to John for getting the ball rolling and making it happen at least as far as it did – that is, of course, until this year's unprecedented events overcame us all.But it’s just postponed, not cancelled, and I hope some time in 2021 we may be talking about it retrospectively.
In the meantime this presents an excuse to indulge in a perfect post-punk single by a great band who take me back to my youth and who hailed from Edinburgh, plus a lovely
video, very much of its time, featuring some of the sights from the city (as well as lots of scarves and slippers...)
A fantastic stash of vintage magazines came into our possession recently.* Well, I say fantastic... They're fantastic if, like me, you find there's nothing like a little tackiness to bring some brightness to a gloomy day.
Tackiness comes in many forms but you can't beat a bit of kitsch knitwear, can you? There's plenty of it to be found within the pages of 'Pins and Needles' and it seems only apt that I ended up with the condition of the same name after unwisely kneeling on the floor to browse through them. But, oh you know how it is, you see a 1963 article on how to crochet a doily and you're hooked. (No pun intended.)
Anyway, I can't keep them all to myself! Let me treat you to some of the images and ads from that bygone age when the sound of our mothers' knitting needles clacking away was loaded with a strange sense of doom for us children of the '60s. We just knew we might end up looking something like this...
Life wasn't so great for our mums, either. 40-22-35? "Where do you fail?" Ffs!
There's nothing like a disembodied dog's head on a trophy shield to give you nightmares...
...oh, other than a wild-eyed, demented Gonk who wants to lick you. Lucky? I think not.
Still, if you seek something a little more sophisticated, you could always install a quilted cocktail bar:
- and invite Eric and Ernie over to compare sweaters
"What do you think of it so far?"
"Rubbish!"
He'll grow out of it...
Magic ones?
More creepy ideas to scare the children
The ultimate in suave
And finally, is it a dress? Is it a tablecloth? It's both!
What is it about some faces that just draw you in? Especially
when they’re not conventionally beautiful. I must stop inadvertently staring at people….
I forget where I am sometimes and find myself becoming preoccupied with the
features of strangers – men and women, young or old - on trains, in waiting
rooms, at the local curry house – one of these days it’s sure to land me in
trouble. (Maybe the wearing of face coverings is good thing in that respect too right now...)
How would I explain
myself?“I was just admiring your extremely
large nose” or “I can’t take my eyes off your luxuriously bushy eyebrows!” It might
just be because I spend so much time drawing and I think my brain has got stuck
in that mode – absorbing angles and curves and proportions, kind of sketching them out with my eyes like virtual portraiture, but, hmm - how would you tell that to the target of your unwelcome observation without sounding incredibly
creepy?!It would be sure not to end
well.
Thankfully I’m safe to share my thoughts on this particular
face without judgement here.
It is the wonderfully compelling countenance of Mario Fabrizi, a comedian and actor who is probably familiar to anyone who's seen The Army Game or (as in my case), when he was working alongside Tony Hancock in Hancock's Half Hour and his two films, The Rebel (I love this - see clip below) and The Punch And Judy Man.
I had to look up a bit more about him and was sad to read that
he died very young (in his late thirties); in fact it would have been only a short while after
filming The Punch And Judy Man in 1963 and, according to Wikipedia, his death
was due to a ‘stress-related illness’. This sounds particularly tragic and perhaps
poses more questions than it answers, especially given that just a week prior
to his demise he had apparently announced he would be leaving
showbusiness.I am so sorry that we could not witness more of his talent and his marvellous appearance, both of which I'm sure would have aged magnificently.
However, and I hope you agree, you cannot help but feel joy when
you see his lovely unconventional face in its prime.It’s just so full of character.Those laughing eyes, his long Roman nose, that slicked back hair
- and that massive moustache!
"No froth?!"
(A fondly remembered Mario Fabrizi featuring alongside Tony Hancock and Liz Fraser in a brilliant scene from 'The Rebel')
Most of the time my mum used the large Pyrex dish for baking Apple Crumble but as Spring turned to Summer and long yellow days stretched out ahead of us, the pie dish took up residence in my bedroom. Sometimes on the windowsill - or if it got too hot there, I'd move it out of the sunlight and make space for it between my felt tip pens and Puffin books on the little white desk. There in this modest container each year the magic would take place.
Tadpoles.
What a way to learn about life... To get up each morning and wonder how many of the funny little black beans with nostrils and diaphanous tails might have started to sprout tiny limbs during the night. Hind legs first, then front ones - I could almost, almost watch them grow in front of my eyes, I'm sure.
What a way to learn about death, too... occasionally having to scoop out a lifeless body, the unfortunate weaklings which were never going to have made it into froghood. But the rest - I was fascinated at each stage of their development, watching them gulp down the goldfish flakes with mouths which seemed to open almost mechanically, like those of a ventriloquist's dummy. Mesmerised by the way they swerved and darted about just below the surface. Excited as the weeks passed and legs got longer, tails got shorter and newly recognisable frog features began to form. Alchemy!
I don't think my mum ever made an Apple Crumble during the Summer; the tadpoles took priority.
Eventually they were ready to liberate - the timing was important, it needed to be just before there was any risk that they'd crawl out of the pie dish and end up inside the vacuum cleaner. We'd take them into the garden where the tortoises feasted on the dandelions in the lawn and where we had two small ponds. Neither was fancy; in fact one was simply an old-fashioned washing-up bowl sunk into the clay soil, but both were full of what seemed to be the most alien life-forms imaginable. Twitching, wriggling mosquito larvae with fan tails... wonderfully named Water Boatmen propelling themselves with oar-like limbs... and freshwater snails in tightly coiled transparent shells grazing on viridescent algae.
Some of the froglets may inevitably have been eaten by our cats, or the blackbirds, or a visiting hedgehog, but others would survive out there with the pondskaters, caddisflies and newts, growing into big bulky adults with beautifully long toes and inky speckled backs.
I'll be forever grateful to my arty, free-spirited (and occasionally clinically depressed) mum and her Pyrex dish for teaching me to grow tadpoles in my bedroom. And for her Apple Crumble too, of course, once the frogs were out in the pond...
Brilliant! Today Sun Dried Sparrows welcomes its first guest contribution and what a fine one it is. I'm delighted to be able to publish this fascinating, entertaining (and educational!) post by our talented fellow blogger John Medd, whose own place of residence can be found here: http://www.johnmedd.com/
(You're far too kind in your introduction below, John, but I'm dead chuffed that you felt inspired. Also very touched by your choice of subject matter.) I'm really grateful to John for this lovely piece and for stepping in to help me out; more contributions are always welcome. Enjoy,
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When C recently announced to the world that her writing mojo appeared to have temporarily deserted her and was asking for cover in the shop I thought OK, I could put a shift in on a midweek afternoon if it means she won't have to pull the shutters down; I can smile politely at the customers if they ask me any tricky questions - I'll just say, "that's a very interesting question, I'll get back to you on that if I may..."
So these are big shoes to fill, let me tell you, I've been reading C's captivating musings for nigh on a decade now and I can't even begin to get near the fine detail that she puts into her subject matter; whether it be drawing & illustration, Triumph Heralds, rambling, '70s punk bands (her love of Generation X's guitar player is unrivalled) or Bippity Boppity hats, I can only watch from the sidelines in wonderment.
And that is precisely why I shan't be exploring any of the above material - even if I feel some of them are pulling me in (Generation X, definitely). No, today I'm going to scribble a few words about - wait for it - worms; a topic I know is very near to C's heart. Her passion for and knowledge of worms and wormeries is something that she has touched upon in her writing often and, as with most people who are passionate about things, their affection for their subject matter just oozes off the page.
However, my ramblings today on these amazing invertebrates is going to concentrate on one or two of my favourites - a Worm Top 5 if you will, and no, it won't include the Alien chestburster that exploded out of John Hurt's chest cavity, nor will it have among its ranks Jeff the 600 foot subway worm in Men In Black 2. Hilarious though they both are. Ditto the talking worm in Jim Henson's Labyrinth.
It will come as no surprise that worms feature heavily in mythology and legends. They are often associated with snakes, serpents and dragons and the worm's symbolic meaning is divided between death and renewal. Compost Corner, anyone?
The legend of the Cockburn Worm has its roots in the North East of England - a part of the world raided by the Vikings for centuries during the Dark Ages. The Viking longboats often had worms carved into their bows. One particular raider, personified as a monstrous Viking worm dragon, plundered the village of Cockburn in the Tees Valley but was finally slain by John Conyers. Even the fact that Lewis Carroll would later borrow the story as the basis for his nonsense poem Jabberwocky still didn't guarantee it a place in my Top 5.
That position is occupied by Walter the Worm. He's the brainchild of Roger Hargreaves, creator of the Mr Men series. Walter had many cameo appearances in various Mr Men adventures, but was given his own book later on in the run. A big shout out to the early bird too.
The Number 4 slot is a strange choice. I'll tell you for why. I'm no Whovian - my love of Dr Who began and ended with Troughton and Baker with Pertwee in the middle - but here's a cracking little worm related tale. It stars Matt 'Boxhead' Smith, an oft used science fiction trope - memory wiping. Long story short, if you touch the Memory Worm it takes the last hour of your memory away; get bitten by it and you lose decades. Watch this three and a bit minute knockabout clip and all will become clear. Will you remember to do that?
In at Number 3 is the Mongolian Death Worm. A cryptozoological creature reported to exist in the Gobi Desert. Like Big Foot, sightings are rare. But it's bright red in colour and two foot long. Allegedly. Oh, and it will kill you just by touching it. If you're looking for excuses not to go to the Gobi Desert for your holiday this year, I think this may well be it.
I love this next one. Number 2 in my worm countdown is The Lowly Worm. He pops up from time to time in Richard Scarry's delightful children's books. And just in case you confuse him for any of the other worms I've mentioned here, he'll be the one wearing the Tyrollean hat.
Toppermost of the Poppermost is my favouritest worm ever. It's Danny Kaye's Inch Worm - and is taken from the 1952 movie Hans Christian Anderson. (And yes, something of an ear worm!)
The song, written by Loesser Frank, has many fans, not least David Bowie. This is what the artist formerly known as David Jones had to say about it:
"I loved it as a kid and it's stayed with me forever. I keep going back to it. You wouldn't believe the amount of my songs that have sort of spun off from that one song. Not that you'd really recognise it. Something like 'Ashes To Ashes' wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for 'Inchworm'. There's a child's nursery rhyme element in it, and there's something so sad and mournful and poignant about it. It kept bringing me back to the feeligns of those pure thoughts of sadness that you have as a child, and how they're so identifiable even when you're an adult. There's a connection that can be made between being a somewhat lost five-year-old and feeling a little abandoned and having the same feeling when you're in your twenties. And it was that song that did that for me."
I'm so sorry! I have (once again) misplaced my blogging groove. I just don't seem to be able to get in the right mood. I've an awful lot of work on, so my mind is elsewhere most of the time, but I've had that before and it hasn't stopped me. Maybe it's just the situation we're all in as, although I know just how incredibly fortunate I am in so many ways, I can't rid myself of a constant low-level sense of anxiety just about the world as a whole... more now than ever. I can put it to the back most of the time and still derive pleasure from other things, but perhaps it's at the root of why I seem to become full of self-doubt as soon as I try to write more here.
Anyway - a thought! A few of my lovely fellow bloggers with music-themed blogs have been opening up their doors to guest posts - it's great, and works well for everyone. But of course I don't want to tread on anyone else's toes so I wondered if I could offer a different platform here if there's anyone out there who wants it...
Therefore, if you fancy contributing a guest post here some time, on any topic that might fit into this place comfortably (no restrictions other than that of libel and extremism, you know what I'm saying) then please write in. Perhaps you - or your secret alter-ego! - have an urge to wax lyrical about pylons, Lloyd Loom chairs or the joy of shelling peas, for instance. Not that I'm suggesting those at all, but.... who knows?! I have a fondness for the random and the eclectic, the funny, playful and intriguing - and would really appreciate some original input.
You can get in touch via the contact details top right if you're feeling more inspired than I am and could help inject some life back into these pages. It may also get me back into the groove...
Publication at my discretion but anonymity will be fully respected if desired!
