London Squawking: The Rise of the Ring-Necked Parakeet

 Who's a pretty boy then? 

Photo by Tim Blackburn / PA

I.

Originally from Africa, the bright green ring-necked parakeet that now thrives in London and SE England, is one invasive species that we can all welcome; for surely everyone loves parrots which make a colourful (if rather noisy) addition to British wildlife.  

Well, probably not everyone, but I don't wish to discuss those who hate parrots here; I would like, rather, to discuss the question of how the tropical birds were introduced into the UK, as this has been a subject of contention and, indeed, urban legend ...


II.

One such legend, for example, traces their origin to a pair released by Jimi Hendrix on Carnaby Street, in the heart of Swinging London, in 1968.

Another slightly less groovy story suggests that the parrots arrived seventeen years earlier, when Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were in Town to film scenes for The African Queen (1951) and various exotic animals were required on set by director John Huston, some of which - including the parrots - are believed to have escaped.*  

Alas, it seems that neither of the above legends relating to the origins of the UK's parakeets are true; at least not according to a team of academic researchers at Queen Mary University (London) who have looked into the question.

Their work has led them to conclude (rather mundanely) that the booming parakeet population has grown from multiple small-scale releases, some of which were accidental and others due to the intentional actions of nervous pet owners worried by sensational media reports of parrot fever (psittacosis) dating back to the 1930s. 

However they got here, we should be grateful and happy to have the birds (along with the 33 other countries that this avian migrant has made a home in). Those who call for a cull of the parrots due to expanding numbers - and who often express false concerns about their impact on native species - should, in my view, be tarred and feathered. And then shot.  

I would fully endorse what the author Nick Hunt writes here:

"In an age of climate emergency, with mass extinction ripping apart the fabric of the living world, when the dominant narrative of our times is one of loss and disappearance, collapse and diminishment, parakeets tell a different story. These plucky newcomers beat the odds, not only surviving but thriving. In a nature-depleted culture, when city dwellers are supposedly alienated from the environment and anything that is feral or wild, parakeets are the subject of outlandish speculation, the source of mystery, imagination and everyday wonder."**

     

Notes

* Although much of the movie was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo, many scenes were, in fact, filmed at Isleworth Studios, in Middlesex.

** Nick Hunt, 'The great green expansion: how ring-necked parakeets took over London', The Guardian (6 June 2019): click here to read online.

See also: Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell, The Parakeeting of London, (Paradise Road, 2019). 

Women in Trousers 1: The Case of Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn (1907 - 2003)

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt (1939)

One of the things that Roland Barthes doesn't like is women wearing trousers.

Obviously, he's not alone in this. Indeed, I prefer to see women in skirts myself. But it depends on the woman. And it depends on the skirt or slacks in question ...

For some skirts are very ugly. Whilst some trousers - such as a classic cut pair of Capri pants as worn by Grace Kelly - are very beautiful. And some women look so sexy and stylish in trousers that this is how they are best remembered within the cultural imagination. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn are very obvious examples.*

And let's be clear, when these women pulled on a pair of pants it took real courage. For in the twenties and thirties clothing was regarded as an outward sign of gender rooted naturally and essentially in biology. Crazy as it seems in our gender fluid non-binary times, women could be arrested for wearing trousers in public back then as it was illegal to masquerade as a man (particularly for the purposes of deception).**

Further, many medical professionals were convinced that if a woman persisted in her desire to wear trousers it was clear evidence of lesbianism or mental illness, both of which were stigmatised as conditions betraying some kind of moral failing or weakness.

Hepburn in particular took a lot of criticism for her provocative appearance and prickly personality. Intelligent, outspoken, and fiercely independent, she refused to conform to society's narrow definition of womanhood and was equally contemptuous of the Hollywood lifestyle. One article, written in 1934, accused her of being a strutting revolutionary who aimed to destroy models of traditional (and cinematic) femininity - which, of course, was true.      

My favourite story concerning Hepburn, however, comes from the time she was still under contract at RKO: Studio heads decided they didn't like her turning up to work wearing blue jeans, so one day had them removed from her dressing room whilst she was on set filming. Far from persuading her to toe the line and put on a skirt, however, she returned to the set in just her knickers and refused to cover up until her jeans were returned.

As Dewey Finn would say, that is so punk rock ...


* The argument has been made by her biographer that Hepburn's androgyny was angular and sexless in comparison to the undeniably erotic allure projected by Garbo and Dietrich. Whilst I agree that for Hepburn her dress sense was more about personal freedom and comfort, rather than cultivating a seductive queer style, I find it hard to ever think of her as sexless - in or out of trousers. See William J. Mann; Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn (Henry Holt and Company, 2006). 

** Various US cities passed legislation barring women from wearing trousers in the 19th and 20th centuries, including San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston. But before any Europeans smile at their American cousins and congratulate themselves on their own sophisticated liberalism, it's worth noting that it was only in 2013 that the French finally revoked a 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris (unless riding a bicycle or on horseback). If interested in this subject, see Clare Sears, Arresting Dress (Duke University Press, 2015). 

To read part 2 of this post - a brief history of Capri pants (featuring Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn) - click here.