Bill Oddie Unplucked: Columns, Blogs and Musings (Bloomsbury Nature Writing)

by Bill Oddie

  Well, there were those half-dozen gigs – oh ok, ‘shows’, talks, ‘evenings with’ type things. The ‘with’ being me and my longtime BBC TV producer Stephen Moss. Well, he isn’t just mine; he’s done lots of stuff on his own too. Anyway, we treat the audience to an evening of the ‘best of’ wildlife clips from over 10 years’ worth of my own natural history series, introduced by and garnished with anecdotes and revelations. It is called ‘Bill Oddie Unplucked’, which means nothing but is further evidence that I wish I had been a musician (as in ‘Unplugged’, geddit?) It went rather well and we will probably do it again, so watch this space, as they say. So, that is a week ‘on the road’ accounted for, plus a couple of days recovering for me, while Stephen wrote another couple of books, no doubt now available from the appropriate website or even a real bookshop.

  Tweet tweet

  Writing is something else that has taken up quite a bit of my time. I have been tweeting with a regularity and occasionally an enthusiasm that has even surprised me. Anyone who has been following me will know that even my obsessions show little consistency, and the range of topics and targets could be described as ‘scattergun’. Anything from the Queen’s Speech to leaf blowers, via recent music releases, sport and, of course, conservation and animal rights.

  My Twitter page is called Bill Oddie Official, to distinguish it from the disturbingly large number of tweeters pretending to be me. OK, it’s maybe only two or three but it’s still weird.

  BBC

  At rather greater length than 140 characters, I have produced two more monthly pages for BBC Wildlife Magazine, composed a letter from PETA to the Beeb protesting at the Great British Menu featuring recipes using foie gras (which involves hideously cruel force-feeding of geese, and in any case is not British). I also wrote a foreword for a forthcoming book called The Dog That Survived the Titanic, featuring heroic birds and mammals, both wild and domestic. It is hardly erudite but it is fun.

  Daisy Daisy

  During the time I have not been performing, writing or watching Chelsea do unlikely things to teams that are obviously better than them (but congratulations, especially to Big Drog) or keeping up with Nordic thrillers or English talent shows (not so thrilling), I have quite often ventured outside; proper outdoors, that is. The most distant excursions were to Norfolk. First, to the splendid Pensthorpe (for two years the home of Springwatch) for a delightful day celebrating the local River Wensum. I was accompanied by my new friend Daisy, who is yellow and has instant rapport with little children, even though they have not met her before. I am not sure exactly what species Daisy is. She says she is a Nature Bug, but as one precocious infant announced: ‘She is not real!’ Mind you, this didn’t stop him wanting a cuddle. Daisy is a dispenser of awesome hugs which the kids accepted gleefully. Unlike my daughter Rosie, who at the age of four was introduced to Mickey Mouse at Disney World and instantly screamed and dived under the table at the ‘Character Breakfast’. By the time she emerged it was time for the Character Lunch! I admit Rosie had my sympathy; my instinct was to do exactly the same. Out-of-work actors in character costumes with enormous heads but no voices give me the creeps. Daisy is not like that at all. Check her out. Check us both out.

  Happy birthday

  After the Pensthorpe day I drove up to Cley on the north Norfolk coast in the role of a sort of roving ambassador for the Wildlife Trusts, which were 100 years old in mid-May. That stretch of coastline is one of the most impressive demonstrations of what organised conservation can achieve. From the Wash to Cromer is in effect one continuous nature reserve, with various segments owned and managed by different but cooperating groups, such as the RSPB, the Norfolk Ornithologists’ Association, Natural England, the National Trust and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Ah, if only the whole British coastline was protected like this! And the rivers, and the sea and – oh everything!

  Dream on.

  Simon, Sir David and me

  The Trusts’ birthday celebrations continued back in London. In the morning, at Gunnersbury Triangle, an urban reserve threatened by further encroachment of blocks of flats. That was the serious side of the day. In the evening, came the fully fledged ‘posh do’. It was held at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington (maybe my favourite building in London). In the Great Hall, a massive towering dinosaur skeleton stands astride the orderly phalanxes of sparklingly coordinated round tables, bedecked in black and silver and each one sprouting a bouquet of wild flowers at the hub, which we were allowed – nay encouraged – to take home. The ‘we’ consisted of representatives past and present of sundry departments of the Wildlife Trusts and other NGOs (non-governmental organisations, i.e. charities). Neatly staged in natural breaks during the meal, we were treated to a sepia-tinted slide show of ‘the old days’. Followed by words of wisdom from Sir David Attenborough (I don’t think he knows any other kind of words!), a rallying cry by the current president, Simon King, and a quirky if perhaps slightly puzzling declamation from me of a letter I had been asked to write for my grandchildren to read in 50 years’ time! By then they would be in their sixties. I just wouldn’t be. A couple of people later told me that they found my performance ‘inspiring’. Maybe because it proved it is possible to take a totally confusing concept and make it sound as if it makes sense. Perhaps they were politicians.

  Talking of politicians

  Guess where I was on the evening of Tuesday 22 May? The Chelsea Flower Show? No, I was there in the afternoon. In the evening I was at the Houses of Parliament! No, not sitting on the pavement with a placard. Nor haranguing the House during Prime Minister’s question time. To be honest, I don’t know what the bit we were in was called, but it took clearing several security checks and clattering down endless stone corridors to get there. I do know that if you go out on the balcony you overlook the Thames, which was nice. I had been asked to arrive at 8.30pm-ish, by which time I assumed that the MPs would have been let out of school and would now be guzzling and gorging in the tuck shop. Actually, I passed a whole corridor of ‘tuck shops’, or small dining rooms, each one harbouring a table groaning with wine, spirits and food, with a clientele of gentlemen groaning from having gobbled it all down too quickly. Meetings, receptions, committees, gatherings, piss-ups, jollies? Whatever they were, one component was blatantly almost missing. Women. Happily, this was not the case in our room. I am pleased – nay smug! – to be able to say that gender equality is exemplary in the world of conservation and animal welfare. If anything, I dare say women predominate, which I consider totally a good thing.

  Cruel sports

  Unfortunately, the other side tend to be largely men. What do I mean by ‘the other side?’ I can best elucidate by telling you more about that particular evening. The event was convened by The League Against Cruel Sports. It was to celebrate the appointment of a team of 10 investigators, whose task it is to track down people breaking animal-rights laws, and gather enough evidence to lead to convictions. This is what one might call the dark and dangerous side of the sort of work done by the RSPCA. I could recount distressing details, but suffice it to say that there is an escalating amount of cruelty occurring in Britain, much of it under the sickeningly inappropriate heading of ‘sport’. Despite the ban on hunting with dogs, clandestine meets still take place, with a degree of attendant savagery. Even more shocking, there is a revival of the sort of practices that one might have thought became extinct during the Dark Ages. Badger-baiting, hare-coursing, cock-fighting and dog-fighting. The activities are, of course, illegal, as well as appallingly cruel. The perpetrators are also involved in betting on the outcomes of the fights, and also in many cases in drug-dealing, robbery and so on. These people are criminals. They are also almost without exception men. The League Against Cruel Sports operates on the front line. Other organisations fight their battles with political weapons: eloquence, argument, integrity, honesty, legality, unity of purpose and perhaps – most important of all – public opinion.

  Cull, destroy, trap

&nb
sp; Ironically, just as politicians are our allies –‘our side’ – so too are they often our enemies – ‘the other side’. That evening, a small contingent of MPs supporting the Countryside Alliance had duly announced their presence with the sort of heckling and jeering which seems to constitute the language of debate at Westminster. It sounds more like a farmyard than an assembly of honourable gentlemen. Rather appropriate I thought. By the time I gave my speech the room was much quieter. Maybe they’d been taken home to bed, or maybe they didn’t think I was worth heckling. Actually, I was rather disappointed not to have the opportunity of talking to some of the other side. I wanted to know why this Government is still minded to support the culling of Badgers. And why they are granting estate owners the right to destroy Buzzards’ nests and to trap and remove the birds, illegal measures sanctioned in the name of protecting the pheasant-shooting industry.

  And?

  I could go on. I already have done. No doubt I will again. Meanwhile, if you are curious or incensed enough to want to find out more, you know what to do: visit those websites. Listen to the ‘fors’ and the ‘againsts’. Examine your own beliefs and emotions. And ask yourself one of the most fundamental questions in life and folk song: ‘Which side are you on?’

  What’s been eating my spawn?

  Oh blimey! I have just realised! Here I am, utterly immersed in a swamp of contention and lost in a labyrinth of polemics, and I have forgotten to answer the one question that has been keeping you on tenterhooks for six weeks of sleepless nights. What happened to my tadpoles? For anyone who does not have the story indelibly and permanently emblazoned on their consciousness, may I suggest that you click on my last blog (yes, I know it was the middle of April, sorry, sorry) and remind yourself of the story. For those who can’t be arsed, I shall rapidly reiterate for you.

  Small pond in my garden. Overflowing with frogspawn. One morning, all gone! My theory: a Fox had swallowed the lot. Sort of Fox sushi. However, I had rescued about a dozen taddies and put them in a fish tank on the garden table. For a while, doing fine. Then one morning, fish tank devoid of life. Taddies on table nearby, dead or dying! What did that? Surely not a Fox! Surely a bird, but why didn’t it eat them? Sheer devilment? Which bird? Chief suspects, all seen on table now and then: Magpie, Jay, Great Tit, domestic pigeons, Wren, Blackbird, Robin. Only one species actually caught in the act of tadpole dipping. The Robin! But surely he didn’t have all the spawn as well? Expert comment by Simon King: ‘I can believe the Robin, but not the Fox.’ So, Simon, what did take all the frogspawn? ‘I honestly don’t know,’ said Simon.

  That is the mark of true authorities – when they don’t know something, they admit it.

  Politicians take note.

  Blog four

  Weather Report

  Seen it, hate it

  I feel as if I ought to write about the weather, ’cos everybody else does. Of course by the time you read this we could be sloshing around in floods caused by a sudden thaw, but for the moment the view from my window is as bleak, white and icy as the Arctic. It’s not the least bit pretty, and it wasn’t even after the first fall, which was about a week ago although it feels more like a year. In fact, it is as if January’s weather has linked up with December’s and the whole of spring, summer and autumn never happened. At least I enjoyed it in January. I did slip over three times on Hampstead Heath’s notoriously treacherous pathways and cracked a rack of ribs – mine, not from the butchers – but I still had a backdrop of a white wonderland and an audience of some of the biggest and best dressed snowmen I have ever seen. This year, though, there are no snowmen, and everyone is trudging around with a doleful expression that says: ‘Snow? Seen it. Hate it.’

  Flustered

  At chilly times like these it is customary to ask ‘what about the wildlife’? Any day now the RSPB will be exhorting us to ‘feed the birds, and don’t forget to provide unfrozen water’, while the classier Sunday papers will carry artfully photographed snowscapes, with shadows, silhouettes and deer or ponies. At least, hopefully, we will no longer have to stomach seasonal scenes of stampedes of scarlet-clad ‘country folk’ eager to match the red of their coats with the blood of a terrified Fox. Talking of which, I have just witnessed something rather striking in my garden. No, the Hampstead Hunt hasn’t just galloped through, but I did see their quarry. At midday, in broad daylight, a truly handsome fellow peered down from my shed roof as if he had just that second risen from beneath a blanket of snow as white as his own chin. His nose shone, his eyes twinkled and his coat glowed so brightly it looked as if you could warm your hands on it. If only. Even as I made a flustered grab for my camera, he popped down out of sight, and popped up again on our next-door neighbour’s shed roof, which – unlike my flat one – has a steep slope, down which Foxy duly slid. He dropped – well, OK, tumbled – behind a privet hedge, hopefully in a nice soft snowdrift.

  Dangle

  I have yet to notice any of my garden birds looking unusually hungry. This is because they are continuously gorging themselves on the three kinds of high-class birdseed I put out for them, or on the top grade peanuts, or the extra-nutritious fat balls, or the three bowls of live mealworms. Not that they look terribly alive in these temperatures. I wonder if mealworms feel the cold? Never mind, they’ll soon be snug and warm inside a Blackbird’s tummy. Or a Song Thrush’s, or a Robin’s, or any one of three species of tits, or a Jay’s or a Magpie’s. Jays and Magpies aren’t supposed to dangle. Especially not on small plastic feeders with conical lids on them to deter larger birds such as, for instance, Jays or Magpies, both of which have in my garden learnt to dangle almost as deftly as the Blue Tits to get at the mealworms. Mind you, it took them a bit of practice before they got the idea, and a lot of frantic wing flapping and falling off, which I have to admit gave me hours of enjoyment. Let’s face it, Jays and Magpies are such cocky blighters they could do with losing their dignity now and then.

  Clammy

  So how are the rest of my garden critters reacting to the mini ice age? Foxy looked fine. The squirrels are, if anything, even more hyperactive, especially when they leap onto a snow-covered branch and give themselves a cold shower. The effect is even more spectacular when they jump straight onto a hanging bird feeder so that their weight pulls on the wire, releasing a veritable avalanche of snow from the tree above. It’s like one of those rope and bucket showers intrepid campers set up, only they are probably in a clammy jungle, not a frozen garden.

  Scare

  The local Wood Mice really don’t care for this weather at all. I know there’s at least one living in the shed, because I have been putting out a bowl of seed, which is duly eaten every night. I know it’s a mouse because of the teeny black droppings around the bowl. Also because I had a right old scare the other day when a plastic bag started to rustle and move across the floor, and when I plucked up courage to touch it a Wood Mouse literally leapt out vertically as if it had been fired from a catapult. The shed is not warm. I reckon the spring-heeled leaper really is the only mouse in there. Why? Because the rest of them are inside our house!

  Goodies

  It has happened before. Even at times when it hasn’t been so cold. In fact, I am not convinced that it is the inclement weather that causes my Wood Mice to move into our living space. I think they just like it. I know they enjoy shredding the paper covers off my irreplaceable collection of Goodies’ vinyl singles, which I had understandably banished into the corner of a dark cupboard. Just the sort of place mice love. Another one, or possibly two, completely stripped a pink fluffy plant-pot cover my wife had been given as a birthday present. She had not been grateful to the donor, but she was grateful to the mice for ruining it. She also loved the idea of a brood of baby mice being raised in a pink fluffy nest.

  Unsavoury

  However, the mice’s favourite bit of our house is what we call the TV room, because the only thing we do in there is watch TV. It is quite a big TV (HD but not 3D), in quite a small room, but there i
s just enough space to accommodate a large cosy couch and a slightly dilapidated armchair. The armchair is mine. A detective could tell it belongs to a man of grandad age, because the carpet in front of it is stained with blotches of spilt wine and takeaway curries, plus a scattering of crisp crumbs, and the occasional grape or blueberry. This unsavoury – or maybe savoury – detritus is no doubt the mouse equivalent of a help-yourself buffet, so it’s not surprising they are frequent visitors. Not that I ever see them for long.

  Climax

  Their appearances are almost subliminal, but their timing is ruthlessly impeccable. There I will be, slouched on my greasy yet comfy cushions, enjoying Match of the Day or Live at the Apollo. A climax is nigh. The centre forward is bearing down on goal, or the ‘stand-up’ comic is just about to deliver his punchline, when… zip! What was that? I am distracted for barely a second, but by the time I turn back to the screen, the ball is nestling in the back of the net or the audience is screaming with laughter. As is also, I suspect, the mouse. I know he does it on purpose. He hides under the settee, checks out what’s on the telly, waits for a vital moment, then propels himself across the hearthrug and vanishes behind the waste-paper basket. There is no point in me creeping over and peering round, under or in the basket. He won’t be there. And he won’t be anywhere else I look either. Frankly, I could strip the whole room of every piece of furniture, and I still won’t find him. Like as not, I won’t even find any potential mouse holes that he may have escaped down either. A magic mouse? I needed to know. So…

  Paranoid

  Late one night last week, I missed a vital wicket in the Test Match because just as the bowler was running up, the bottom of the curtain moved and I looked away from the screen. The triumphant cry of ‘Owzat!’ seemed aimed personally at me. I imagined a gleeful mouse, hiding behind the curtain, revelling in his mischief. ‘Ha-ha. Gotcha Oddie!’ But hang on. Was it a mouse that had got me, or my own imagination? The fact was, I hadn’t seen anything at all. Except the curtain moved. Or did it? Was I becoming paranoid? Was it a hallucinatory mouse, or a real mouse? Before I retired for the night, I set a small humane trap – baited with Haith’s finest birdseed – right in front of the telly.