I have fought in my way to be free

Each morning I feed pigeons on my window sill. I live near Trafalgar Square so I am lucky enough to have plenty of pigeons to play with. The same ones come every day – really beautiful ones, a white one who I guess is almost a dove and my favourite a little grubby skanky one with bright orange eyes. He looks like he needs a bath and has a few bald patches – I love him the most; perhaps he is unwell, he may not make old bones but he will always have few seeds if he sits on my sill. Pigeons are sexually complex creatures; in many ways watching them in breeding season is like watching human mating rituals. The male puffs himself up and circles the female, the female acts disinterested and walks away quickly and yet not quiet quickly enough. He leaps on her if she concedes then great if she protests he moves on the next pigeon. Pigeons rape and even commit acts of necrophilia. I actually witnessed a number of birds having sex with the headless corpse of fellow pigeon. Dark.

Love the one you're with

For lunch today my trusty hound and I shared 3 Charbonnel & Walker truffles.

One Cafe Creme Truffle
One Milk Truffle
One Pink Marc De Champagne Truffle

A goddess of small things

So far this month I have provided assistance for three baby birds. The first one was a tiny Bluetit, I kept long enough to call Edward, I found him in Covent Garden on Monmouth Street alone outside a hotel, I took him home, created a small apartment for him out of a shoe box and fed him soaked meal worms that I purchased from the hardware shop on St Martins Lane. Eventually I took him to the Blue Cross animal hospital who transfered him to a bird sanctuary a few days later. Later that week I found another older Bluetit baby under a tree with his mother frantically flapping away in the branches. I picked him up since he appeared not to be able to fly back into his nest unaided. A tall man was passing by and he pulled down a branch which I lifted the bird back on to. Gentley (as to avoid any black comedy error) he let the branch back up into the tree and we left the bird mummy to take it from there. This morning I found a baby Blackbird sitting on my step, I have seen him before as he lives in a hedgerow in the recess between my building and the offices behind. I would evaluate his flying skills as poor - intermediate so I left him alone as he bobbed down the steps. I kept looking out of the window, he was sitting alone in a corner, his mummy came to see him but was unable to coax him back into the nest. After an hour I picked him up and popped him back into the hedgerow that his mother disappears into, I gave him a fruit'n'suet ball to be getting on with he seemed happy enough when I left. It's a tricky thing finding baby animals since if you look on websites they always tell you to leave them alone and the last thing I would want to do is harm them but I find it impossible not to help if I think the alternative is that they get trodden on or die alone and frightened.

Pissing on the great big lamp post in the sky

I am moved to acknowledge the sad passing of Mickey Rourkes long time life partner Loki

I wonder who he will take to the Oscars now.

Cecil Court

The other day walking my Chihuahua home from her after lunch stroll around the St Martins Hotel, we spotted a large speckled bird walking along the pavement near our home. I picked up my dog since she can be somewhat xenophobic and followed the bird as he marched confidently down the alley past the book shops, print shops and antiques. Despite his cheerful demeanour I was concerned that a feathery young man like him could very soon become the victim of misfortune in ‘the heart of London’s theatre district’. I over took him and called out to a friend from Brett’s bookshop on the corner. Richard a self confessed bird fancier sprung out of the shop and observed the bird who was now surrounded by Japanese tourists blinding him with their camera flashes. “Its a baby Seagull” he observed. The bird displeased with his sudden celebrity took off hastily towards Charing Cross Road. “We had better save him” I said fixing Richard with a hard stare. Richard stubbed out his roll up and took off after the Seagull who had dashed around the corner pursued by the happy snappers. I heard an angry squawk and Richard reappeared with the large bird under his arm. He was put in a box and a few hours later collected by the RSPCA and taken to a bird sanctuary in North London where he can complete his adolescence in safety. We called him Cecil naturally; so far he has neither written nor called.

A dogs life

Every dog I meet in New York is a neutered male. The American Kennel Club is a notoriously brutal organisation, constantly hacking and snipping at puppy flesh as though they were born incomplete and sent to America for ‘finishing’. I haven’t seen a set of furry balls since I got here – there must be a ‘ball mountain’ some where upstate, I expect they appear unannounced in fast food joints all over town or perhaps they are processed and fed back to the dogs in the form of puppy chow ‘with extra vitality’ . Its very strange, in Manhattan I see no female dogs and no last season dogs. Last year pretty much every one had a Pug – this year no Pugs only French Bull Dogs – what happened to the Pugs? Are their pictures peering pitifully out of the sides of milk cartons in the mid west? Dogs live around 10 years they can’t have all died of natural causes, are they being bumped off in favour of seasonal changes – thrown aside like last years sneakers?

My heart belongs to little dog

Marco
16th April 2008 – 17th April 2008
The little dog who came to stay for just one day

Dark I am but lovely

Daubentonia madagascariensis


Native only to the rain forests of Madagascar the Aye-aye is a ‘cousin’ of the Lemur and the largest nocturnal primate weighing in at around 2.5 kilos. He forages by night and sleeps by day in nests built high in forks of trees. They are highly athletic and prefer to swing around high in the forest canopy, while they are supreme trapeze artists they less graceful when walking and standing on the ground. Aye-ayes have an extra long middle finger used in a process called echolocation – tap taping on trees to locate wood boring insect bugs which they then hook out using the same digit. The super long finger is also useful for scooping out flesh of coconuts and other fruits that supplement its insect diet. Sadly, some superstitious natives of Madagascar consider the Aye-aye an omen of ill fortune – a harbinger of evil no less! Some believed that should you happen across one and he pointed his long finger at you – your number was up - Finito. Others believed that if an Aye-aye came into a village, which increasingly due to the destruction of the rain forest it was forced to do in search of food, then its presence meant a villager would die unless the Aye-aye was murdered first. This ‘kill on sight’ practice along with the destruction of it natural habitat has, unsurprisingly left the Aye-aye an endangered species. These guys are natural born libertines they are not monogamous. Thankfully they are now protected by law.