Gordon’s Dunkirk Moment

“. . . Britain at its best in the past 24 hours”, with the evacuation of the Royal Marsden and the splendid work of the emergency services in evacuating patients and staff etc. etc., according to the Dear Leader (a man so lacking in charisma and charm, that he makes the Vulcan ~ you know whom I mean: John Redwood ~ seem entirely normal. Mr. Bean? At least he was funny). Anyway, leaving aside that the evacuation (which undoubtedly was carried out superbly) is what the emergency services are for, try telling commuters on the Western Main Line that this past day has seen Britain at its best.

Bleak January

Reports in the legal press today, and the obituary in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, of the death of Nicholas Pumfrey. All praising him, rightly, as a one of the foremost judges of his generation. He was a year ahead of me at school, and the captain of our ‘Top of the Form’ team (we never made it past the regional heats, losing to the Girls’ High School in front of a dragooned audience in Big School). 56 is no age: so much ahead of him. And a bleak reminder on a cold, dank day that Death is no respecter of age, rank, or wisdom.

Law firms; Don’t ya love them?

I missed the latest example of law firm meanness just before Christmas. HBJ Gately Wareing, according to Legal Week, asked its legal staff to contribute towards (I take it this means pay for) presents for the support staff. I love the idea that the firm stressed that the scheme was voluntary: aren’t they always! Must be the Scottish influence. Not surprisingly, the scheme was well received by secretaries and support teams.

Red Letter Days

2007 has been the year we have started birdwatching in earnest: see A Birdie Year. We are very lucky living where we do: Yarner Wood, the best place in the South West to see Pied Flycatchers, is 15 minutes down the road. 15 minutes in another direction will take you to the High Moor (Golden Plover at this time of year; Skylarks and Meadow Pipits for much of the Spring and Summer; and always the magical Ravens), or to Soussons Woods or the Fernworthy Plantations. Only a little longer and we can be on Dawlish Warren, watching waders along the Exe, or Slavonian Grebes and Common Scoters off shore.

We never know quite what we are going to see, and rarely set out with the intention of finding a particular bird. We don’t have life lists, and such records as we keep are more to help us remember what we have had the good fortune to watch, than to boast of our sightings. I see each day we are out as a red letter day, but some this past twelve months have been the reddest of such days: the afternoon of 14 April, with leafbreak just happening in Yarner and the first Pied Flycatchers arriving; the Ravens on Snowdon as we came off the Bwlch Main in very early May; the trip to the lighthouse at the tip of the Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge on Nantucket Island in October. These are days that will live in the memory.

To desire some good friends. . .

As I look forward to 2008, and consider what resolutions I should perhaps make, I realise that Samuel Johnson said it all before, and that I can do no better than follow him:

Not to marry a young Woman.

Not to keep young company, unless they really desire it.

Not to be peevish, or morose, or suspicious.

Not to scorn present Ways, or Wits, or Fashions, or Men, or War, &c.

Not to be fond of children.

Not to tell the same Story over and over to the same People.

Not to be covetous.

Not to neglect decency, or cleanliness, for fear of falling into Nastiness.

Not to be oversevere with young People, but give allowances for their youthful follys and weaknesses.

Not to be influenced by or give ear to knavish tattling servants, or others.

Not to be too free of advice, nor trouble any but those that desire it.

To desire some good Friends to inform me which of these Resolutions I break, or neglect, & wherein; and reform accordingly.