New Year's Eve 2020: Fireworks, Propaganda, and an Avian Mortality Event

 

Picture credits: BBC News / IOPA Facebook

 

 

I have already expressed my reservations regarding New Year's Eve fireworks in a post entitled Panem et Pyrotechnics - namely, that they make North Koreans of us all. 

 

This opinion was reinforced a few days ago, when that idiotic little weasel posing as the Mayor of London, Mr. Sadiq Khan, decided to light up the night sky above the Millennium Dome with a clenched fist symbol in support of Black Lives Matter. 

 

The locked down masses prohibited from attending the event in person - because of the virus - were, thanks to a complicit state broadcaster, able to enjoy the £1.5 million spectacle (described by some as a virtue signalling political stunt) live on TV and social media.    

 

Other highlights of the show included the turning of London's bridges blue and yellow with lasers on the eve that the Brexit transition period ended and the UK finally left the EU, and 300 drones forming the shape of a giant turtle with a map of Africa on its shell to express concern about the so-called climate crisis. 

 

As provocative and divisive as this was, it didn't have the heartbreaking horror of events in Rome, where a New Year's Eve firework display resulted in the deaths of hundreds of birds, mostly starlings, that were roosting nearby. 

 

Footage filmed from outside the city's main train station, showed the bodies of the birds littering the streets, as some reports insensitively described the scene, as if they were just feathered pieces of trash waiting to be swept away and their lives didn't matter.

 

A spokesperson for the Italian branch of the International Organisation for the Protection of Animals claimed that the poor things were essentially scared to death by the fireworks and although the RSPB claims that there is little evidence to suggest that fireworks present a grave danger to wild birds, I do not believe them and would challenge their record of protecting birds over the last 50 years when avian numbers have (in some cases dramatically) declined.

 

 

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). 

A Liquid History: On the Death and Resurrection of the River Thames

Mercedes Leon: 'River Thames' (from her
2012 print collection London and You)

merchesico.com

It's important when considering the natural environment not to view the subject through rosy-green tinted spectacles and imagine that things were always better in the past, because, as a matter of fact, they were very often worse - much, much worse.

Take the River Thames, for example ...

As early as the 14th century, London's dark river was effectively functioning as an open sewer. An ever-expanding population greatly increased the amount of human and animal waste deposited in the water and, in 1357, even the royal nose of Edward III had detected the abominable stench that resulted from the dung and other filth accumulated along the banks.

Five hundred years later and things hadn't improved. Indeed, the condition of the Thames had significantly deteriorated. For not only was raw sewage still being cheerfully dumped into the River, but the many new factories built alongside were now discharging industrial waste products, including ammonia, cyanide, and carbolic acid.

These and other lethal elements eventually poisoned whatever wildlife remained. And, perhaps not surprisingly, between 1832 and 1865 tens of thousands of Londoners died due to outbreaks of cholera; some historians have also attributed Prince Albert's death in 1861 to typhoid, caused by the disease-ridden waters around Windsor Castle.   

If Edward III found things intolerable in his day, one wonders what he would have made of the so-called Great Stink of 1858 when the stench of the River became so overpowering that proceedings in the House of Commons were suspended; this despite the fact that chlorine-soaked curtains had been hung in the windows of Parliament in an attempt to neutralise the odour. 

Although the decline of heavy industry and the closing of the docks during the twentieth century led to improved water quality, nevertheless the River still sweated oil and tar and still bubbled with methane gas. Finally, in 1957, the Thames was officially declared to be biologically dead; there was insufficient oxygen to support any life bigger than shit-eating bacteria.

Today, however, things are better - much, much better and the River lives once more! Thanks to a raised level of concern for the natural environment, there are now much tighter regulations governing what can and cannot be dumped in UK rivers and waterways and sewage systems have gradually been either repaired or replaced.

It's believed there are 125 species of fish - including salmon - once more inhabiting the Thames and a wide variety of other creatures have also remade a home in (or on) the river; including eels, birds and marine mammals such as seals and porpoises. 

But of course, it's important not to get carried away; if the River is cleaner and healthier than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, one still wouldn't want to go swimming in it. For one thing, the sewage problem hasn't been completely solved. Not only does treated waste matter from the towns and villages in the region continue to flow into the Thames, but heavy rainfall typically overburdens London's ancient sewers and the excess rainwater mixed with untreated effluence is released into the River to prevent flooding.

Such discharge events - which happen once a week on average - obviously have a negative impact. However, the Thames Tideway Scheme - currently under construction at a projected cost of £4.2 billion - aims to collect the raw sewage before it overflows and it is hoped that the project will ultimately result in a 90% reduction of shit entering the River. Again, that's good news. But the real problem, however, remains a very modern form of waste - plastic ...

Despite a recent campaign to raise public awareness of the issue, there's still a huge amount of plastic waste material floating in the Thames, putting animals large and small at risk not only of becoming trapped in it, but of digesting it too (next time you apply your facial scrub with microbeads you might want to think about this).

Thames Water claims to remove 25,000 tonnes of plastic waste from their sewage system every year. Unfortunately, tiny pieces of plastic routinely pass through the filters and screens in treatment plants, thus entering the River (and the food chain) where they take decades to decompose.        

Still, despite this, the fact remains that the Thames is in a better condition now than it was when D. H. Lawrence went for a riverside walk in the village of Pangbourne, on a monstrous hot day in August 1919, and complained afterwards in a letter to a friend about the repulsive smell of the water. So cheer up David Brock!  


See: The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Volume 3, October 1916 - June 1921, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984).

D. H. Lawrence: The Reluctant Londoner

Unused design for the 14th International 

D. H. Lawrence Conference (London, 3-8 July 2017) 

by Stephen Alexander 

(Based on a 1929 film poster by the Stenberg Brothers)

Asked to name places associated with D. H. Lawrence and his fiction, many readers will say Italy, whilst others immediately mention Mexico. Those familiar with the novel Kangaroo often fondly recall his descriptions of the Australian bush. Mostly, however, they think back to the dreary coal mining district in the East Midlands from out of which Lawrence rather miraculously extracted himself. 

One thing's for sure: not many readers will say London - even though he and a surprising number of his characters have interesting connections to the capital. In fact, according to Lawrence scholar Catherine Brown, Lawrence visited the city around fifty times between October 1908 and September 1926 and not only did he live and work there at certain periods, he even married Frieda at a registry office in Kensington. 

Of course, given his aggressive anti-urbanism, it's not surprising to discover that Lawrence didn't much like being in the Smoke and that many of his comments and fictional portrayals of the city tend to be negative - although he does admit in a newspaper article written in 1928 to having found it exhilarating upon arrival as a young man:

"Twenty years ago, London was to me thrilling, thrilling, thrilling, the vast and roaring heart of all adventure. It was not only the heart of the world, it was the heart of the world’s living adventure. How wonderful the Strand, the Bank, Charing Cross at night, Hyde Park in the morning!"

But today, says Lawrence in the same article, all the excitement seems crushed out of the city - not least by the sheer weight of traffic, massively rolling nowhere.

Thus, I suppose Lawrence might at best be described as a reluctant Londoner; one who quickly grew tired of its charms - including the West End girls who had at one time fascinated the Eastwood boy as they paraded along Piccadilly, displaying their non-provincial beauty. Not because he was tired of life, as Samuel Johnson would have it, but, on the contrary, because he found it lacking in vitality and full of deathly dullness and the noise of endless chatter ...

And speaking of endless chatter - though hopefully it won't be deathly dull in character - the 14th International D. H. Lawrence Conference will be held in London this summer (3-8 July). Readers interested in finding out more can click here.

Notes

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Why I Don't Like Living in London', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22. 

See also Catherine Brown, 'London in D. H. Lawrence's Words', which can be found as an article on her website - catherinebrown.org - or accessed directly by clicking here. 

Readers interested in a related post to this one might like to click here.

On the Politics of Beach Body Readiness

D. H. Lawrence wrote a series of poems sneering at modern sunbathers in all their beach body readiness. Yes they looked fit and healthy (healthy, healthy, healthy). And yes, they even looked good enough to eat. But somehow their flesh lacked meaning and vitality; their great inert thighs leading nowhere.  

So, far from feeling bad about his own emaciated and disease-ravaged physique when confronted with those bodies deemed biologically admirable, Lawrence defiantly affirmed his own contrasting quickness.  

I thought of this last year when there was a great hoo-ha over a poster for Protein World's weight-loss collection featuring a perfectly formed bikini-clad model (Renee Somerfield). The Advertising Standards Authority received almost 400 complaints from those who found the campaign objectifying and socially irresponsible. There was also a protest in Hyde Park and an online petition that attracted more than 70,000 signatures.   

Eventually, the fuss died down and everyone either forgot about the case, or found something else to get het up over. But now this issue of body shaming is back in the headlines thanks to the new London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, who has said he will ban all ads on the Tube and bus network that might offend commuters or make them feel pressured to conform to an ideal body type.

Speaking as a father of two teenage daughters, Khan warned that images such as the above demeaned women and caused confidence issues among young people. It is high time, he said, that such advertising came to an end.         

Obviously, this is an astonishing and, to my mind, rather worrying development. For it means that the Mayor is making policy on the basis of a Helen Lovejoy approach to decision making; one that effectively turns all Londoners into Sadiq's little girls in need of daddy's protection and wise authority.    

Ultimately, I'm no more beach body ready than Lawrence. But nor am I ready for Khan's progressive paternalism which offers a soft form of sharia and censorship in the name of feminism and thinking of the children.