Thunderflash Cufflink and a Fear of Scanners

Here goes with another tranche of guff, and bare with me here because tapping away at a keyboard hurts as does standing up, walking around and bending over. It's been quite a week for chopping down trees and throwing wood around and plus I gave my ribs a bang while performing stunts with a chainsaw bouncing on a branch sticking out over the flight pond. A little like one of those funny videos when the gymnast gets it wrong on the asymmetrical bars with the addition of an orange chainsaw some wet chainsaw trousers and a gymnast approaching his half century. To the list of activities that cause pain we can now add breathing coughing and sneezing.

None of this discomfort was picked up on a recent MOT and well done the NHS for that. Chest Xrays revealed some lovely lungs while blood tests confirmed normal heart, liver and kidney function. The pumpy thing that squeezes your arm gave a reading of 120 over 80 the only thing of any real concern was the cholesterol reading of 6.2. Ideally the Doc had hoped for 5 but conceded that the National average was probably somewhere around 6. No pills or prescriptions just a little less red meat and we'll measure the thing again next year. It's the first time I've ever had such a thing measured and who knows, it could have been at that level all of my life. I forgot to mention to our doctor of twenty five years that for the preceding six days we had been living relatively high on the hog "en France" and why I mentioned it to madam on my return I don't know because vin rouge consumption has been trimmed and I am required to consume a small bowl of seeds and nuts sans sel that I have taken to eating after sundown as I am convinced that should I eat them in daylight the window sill would soon be crammed with concerned tits and finches eager to know why such provender has been diverted away from their bird table.

Anyway, now that we have established that I am lucky to have made it this far into November onto the week's movements.

As I've already said it's been all about the saw. Work around the pond is complete and we have pulled out in order to let the ducks find it during the day before our first shoot in ten days time. A few pheasants are always quite inquisitive of chainsaw work and on returning post lunch it is not unusual to find one or two poking around where we have been working in the morning. We have moved on to the settlement pond that used to serve the fish rearing ponds behind the fishing hut, it is only a splash but willow has been cut right back in order to make it easier for quackers to get on and off the pond and the margins planted up with sedge and reed. It's always been a bit of a mystery to me as to why we don't see more ducks in the bag on our driven days, Ok we only used to feed in one place and many ducks were drawn to spend a night on the flight pond but in a bag for a driven day of fifty it was rare to see more than one or two duck. Last year's resumption of driven shooting saw a small bag but half were duck, we had not only fed the flight pond but also the spring ditches up and down the valley which seems to have resulted in duck spending more time in the day in this part of the valley rather than just visiting in numbers for the night. I might be wrong but it will be interesting to see how many duck we put up in the air in ten days time.

It may now be prescient to suggest that the requisite photo of the dog is imminent.

Nope, that's a chicken.

There he is, I was right

The dog

He's going to have to pace himself a little as last year he ran out of steam with one drive remaining. I might suggest a few stretches before we set out.



Just come back from the Itchen where I bumped into a tame local who has some clever cameras that have caught all manner of local wildlife out and about at night. he also informs me that a Hoopoe was sighted in the environs recently. I've never seen such an exotic avian in the UK but once caught sight of one when fishing in central France and also on the Ebro in Spain. There are also reports of a sighting in Basingstoke last week which I imagine is the same bird. They can't be confused with any other bird other than a Jay heavily into Punk Rock.

This week the end of season newsletter from The Test & Itchen Association dropped through the door (and into the Inbox)

Well done!

Supercilious preaching - gone

Aloof "sciencey" tone - gone

Cosying up to Big Business et al who put on discussion groups with nice biscuits while simultaneously trashing a chalk stream - hopefully gone.

It reads well, is informative and gets the right message across regarding the principle threat to groundwater fed rivers of over abstraction. It even calls out the water companies for the weasels that they are.

The message that effective habitat management over a fetish for preserving genetic lines of individual strains of a single species being key to maximising biodiversity in the aquatic environment of a chalk valley went unheard for a few years.

Once again, well done.

In other News:

Today we are told that our much loved Eurotunnel is to change. A smartly dressed and well remunerated team have, after much agonising and no little deliberation decreed that Eurotunnel will now be known as "Getlink"

Nothing to do with leaving the EU and a subsequent switch of destination from Calais to Cowes. It will depart from and arrive at the same two stations, the journey will take the same length of time and be undertaken on the same trains manned by the same people.

What times we live in.

And at this point after a similar amount of unremunerated agonising and deliberation in my slightly stained stripy shirt I'd like to announce that with a nod to Eurotunnel as was, I am implementing a similar rebrand, have cast off the shackles that is the moniker "Chris de Cani" and will now go by the name of Thunderflash Cufflink.

Same old bones, brain and bits but a more contemporary feel that should open a few more doors in the coming years.

Also in the news are the results of a survey that suggest that Silver surfers and Baby boomers are intimidated by supermarket self service check outs and self service scanning machines, and while we're on these hand held scanners why is that whenever I have a bit of a dicky back and am required to visit the principle fleshpot of local town society the scanner that always flashes once my card is presented is always on the lowest row.

Anyway

I don't believe that pensioners are intimidated by self scanning machines and if they are they are savvy enough to go to a till/checkout where they will be served by a human being and perhaps even the bonus of a chat, human contact which is important as the years progress and possibly a reason for some pensioners eschewing the scanner.






A bogus survey unworthy pf news coverage. Regular visitors to this parish will be aware of the house's views on some sections of the media, (and once again we look towards you Jeremy Vine), who take the view that

"if we're not frightened, they're not doing their job"

I like The Smiths and yes, Morrissey has said some pretty daft things across the ages, but he gets it right in his latest assault on the hit parade,

"Stop watching the news, because the news contrives to frighten you"

Ahem.....Pensioners

Don't fear the scanners, ignore bogus surveys and if you prefer to use a manned checkout that's absolutely fine too.

Come on UK News media, up your game.

Here's a few photos of the sinister forces of crack willow with which we have been engaged this week.

It's on a bend a hundred yards upstream from the fishing hut and I last attended to it six years ago. In that time it has grown to a size that its excessive shading has impacted upon marginal growth in the immediate vicinity and in partnership with another crack willow has begun to restrict light to the whole bend whihc has begun to affect weed growth.

It took the best part of three days to complete and it looks a little stark but margins will be replanted and it will soon grown up again in spring. A note has been made to attend to this particular specimen every three or four years. rather than six.

Last week we once again attended the Countryside Day which is the first day of the three day meeting at Cheltenham which heralds the opening of the National Hunt season.

It's a terrific place to spend half a day and there were many thousands in attendance. I didn't do very well in the betting stakes and I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing about horse racing but it is a fantastic sporting venue a great atmosphere and on this occasion, a fine warm day.