It’s been a while since I have consulted the Twitter feed of Steve Stewart-Williams. Of his recent tweets, this is my favourite.
Plus see also Dog retrieves tennis ball from pool without getting wet, and the human animal in 2020.
Category: Other creatures
Falcons flying
I photoed this photo way back in 2004, at Twickenham railway station:
And ever since, although as sporting photos go it’s nothing special, I’ve always been rather fond of it. It conjures up a world of fandom and fellowship, because if any other Falcons fan sees this guy, for instance on a train from Twickenham to Newcastle, he’s going to know he’s met a soulmate, and they’re going to have plenty to talk about. Nothing transforms public transport quite like sports fans embarking on it en masse, because sports fans, unlike regular travellers, all communicate with each other. This can be annoying, but it is certainly different.
I did some digging concerning the recent form of the Newcastle Falcons, and it turns out it’s been rather good. They got relegated from the Premiership at the end of the season before last, but bounced back in style. It was decided that they should be promoted by a committee, but since the Falcons had won fifteen out of fifteen games down there in Nearly The Premier Division and were heading for victory before Covid abolished the last few games of the season, they surely deserved their instant reinstatement.
Confirmation that they deserved to be back to the Prem came in the form of the Falcons winning all their three games so far. So they’re now eighteen for eighteen. Only the mighty Exeter Chiefs are now above them, with three stonking wins compared to the three close wins that the Falcons have got.
All this falconry is because it’s Friday and that’s my day for non-human creatures of every sort. Humans have a habit of calling their sports teams after animals and insects and fishes and whatnot. In the Premier League, the members of whom you can see at the other end of the above link, there’s the Newcastle Falcons, the Bristol Bears, Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers, and of course there’s Wasps. Gloucester just call themselves Gloucester but there’s a big old red lion on the shield they promote themselves with.
Such creaturely ruminations aside, the one big fact that all rugby civilians should be aware of is who the most famous Newcastle Falcon has so far been. It’s this guy.
The Frisby dog in 2014 and the Frisby dog now
In February 2014 Dominic Frisby performed with his usual brilliance at my Last Friday of the Month meeting. He attracted a good crowd, and also brought his dog with him. Here’s a photo I took of the crowd, and the dog:
I still remember with pleasure how impeccably the dog behaved. Not a sound.
And here, unless I am very much mistaken, is the exact same dog, a little older, as featured at the top of a recent Daily Telegraph piece about Frisby:
For those who, like me, do not care to pay their way past pay walls, here is the entire piece.
Another carnival of the animals posting
Starting with a new recording of Carnival of the Animals. Saint-Saëns at his harmonious and melodious best. It’s the Kanneh-Mason clan, with additions. Sheku, as of now the most celebrated of this much celebrated classical family, has his big cello moment with the Swan.
Relatedly, “i” reports that the way animals communicate is evolving so that it remains audible above the din made by humans.
This Is Why I’m Broke tells of a squirrel proof bird feeder, with explanatory video.
And then there’s this: Canada battles Norway for tallest moose statue.
More seriously, it is being said the Brexit has enabled Boris Johnson to unveil a ban on live animal exports.
Most significantly of all, when it comes to the ever changing relationship between animals and humans, Singapore becomes the first country to approve the sale of lab-grown meat. See also this earlier posting here, about steps in that same direction in Israel.
LATER: No official ephemera this Friday at David Thompsons, but via the a comment on the latest posting there, here’s a competitive canine in action. The enjoyment is palpable. I love how the dogs in the audience join in with their encouraging barks.
OOPS: There are some David Thompson ephemera today, starting with a couple of cats.
A dog and a rabbit photoing in New York
Came across this in the New York Times, New York being where this double sculpture is to be seen, or was in January of last year:
The internet wander that took me to these sculptures began with the Diamond Geezer, who, in this posting, says:
Mon 16: A sculpture of a dog and a rabbit on a bike has appeared at Canary Wharf, entirely off the radar of the usual websites and social media influencers who’d normally be going nuts over it (because nobody’s getting out and about any more).
That got me to Gillie and Marc, who made this double thing. There I saw a photo of a sculpture of a pack of photoer dogs could learn no more about that there, so I did an image search, and that got me to the New Yorker piece linked to above, with the above photo at the top of it.
I love the internet.
Salisbury Cathedral behind sheep
Another notable James Cook photo of his local and favourite cathedral:
It’s nice how the sheep are mostly looking, vaguely curious but in no way troubled, at the camera.
And note how, in the summer, with all those leaves, the tree in the middle would spoil everything.
Extraordinary tree
Mick Hartley has been checking out the Alexandra Palace part of London. And his basic point in this posting is that real birds perching on the heads of pretend birds is quite amusing. But then he includes this photo, like it was an afterthought that was too good to ignore, which has nothing to do with birds perching on other birds:
So far as I can tell, this tree looks entirely different from how it would have looked if humans hadn’t constantly been decided where each bit of it would go next.
Whether that’s right or not, I for one am very sure that trees are usually much more interesting when they aren’t smothered in leaves. This one definitely is.
Butterflies in the windows of Harrods – 2011
Yes, in February 2011, I was photoing butterflies, in shopwindows:
And yes, Harrods.
There’s another art that must surely have become a bit more elaborate since the arrival of digital photography. If your window display s temporary, why bother to go to too much bother? But if you can easily go snap and make it rather more permanent, then you’ll surely bother that little bit more.
One of the better talks I have ever given concerned the impact of digital photography, and in that I recall mentioning someone who used digital photography to “collect”, to so speak, butterflies. Real ones. By photoing them rather than by stabbing them with pins. If I’d thought of shop-window displays when preparing that talk, I might have mentioned them also, along with graffiti and ice sculpture.
Two dogs and two e-scooters
Spotted by me this afternoon, as soon as I set out to the Medical Centre:
That’s two dogs there, and two e-scooters. You can tell they’re e-scooters rather than just scooters, because of the wires, and because what couple, with dogs, would have, you know, scooters? That they had to push along? Also, they walked right past me, and I got a close look.
This charmingly convivial scene doesn’t tell us that e-scooters will survive the resumption of, if you get my meaning, London. When the traffic finally roars back, will e-scooters be safe enough for such people? I now somewhat doubt it. But maybe they’ll find their niches, in the quieter and more bike-friendly bits of London, like the bit where I live, the quiet bit between Horseferry Road and Vauxhall Bridge Road and north (or is it east?) towards Vincent Square. I saw several other e-scooter drivers today, including, rather interestingly, a guy with an e-scooter which had a wider platform than usual, so he could stand with his feet next to each other, in the manner of this gizmo.
What the above photo does tell us is that there are maybe more people than is widely realised who would like e-scooters to have a future in London. This couple are not your normal e-scooter drivers, burly singleton types speeding to and from work, or with rucksacks on their backs and delivering at speed. These two look like they’ve settled down, and would like that settling down to include e-scooters.
Like I’ve been saying for months now, we shall see.
Rabbits in a tray on a hamper
I am about to embark upon various medical complications involving things like blood tests, so am rather preoccupied today. I’ll probably manage more later, but meanwhile, since it’s Friday, here are some rabbits I photoed somewhere in the vicinity of Victoria Station, in 2013:
Also plates, a hamper, a sofa, some flowers. But it was the rabbits that got my attention.
More to come, I hope. I don’t actually promise, but I nearly do.
LATER: Another rabbit, made of metal, on a church, in Scotland.