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Something In The Air...

Wednesday 22nd May, same heavy cloud as yesterday, but still and not too cold. The swifts are satisfied with this weather, they were hawking under the cloud all morning, over the valley outside my window.

Today the Nature Conservation bodies of the UK published their ominously titles State Of Nature report, and as you would expect, it's not good news. Nor will there ever be good news for the State Of Nature, until all the people who don't care by natural inclination realise they need to care. Starting with our government, whose antics just get loonier and loonier, as if to make amends; while the real live loons (the great divers, whose cry is like the mourning of lost souls) are set to vanish. Along with the butterflies, the hedgehogs, the toads, the swifts. The bees. Hey, BBC, what about that other news item you posted today, all about the bumper apple crop, our reward for a long cold winter. Not without the bees, there won't be (to quote one of the few non-facetious comments this story garnered).

Anyway, that lovely lad in the keynote image today is Karlheinz Stockhausen, in commemoration of a rare performance of Stimmung that we attended on Saturday night in the Jubilee Library, courtesy of the estimable MOOT (a screaming party of swifts chasing us joyously down Roundhill Crescent, as we left the house). Six singers, one chord, and a medley of interwoven "lyrics", notably including the highly graphic erotic poetry Karlheinz had just written on his honeymoon (the piece is dedicated to his second wife, artist Mary Bauermeister). But the word means atmosphere, and I'm so taken with it I think I'll change the name of one of the characters in my current work-in-progress. Ah, 1968 and all that! I will not attempt to describe Stimmung to you, but the singers (Intimate Voices) were great, the Irishfusionrock on the Great Escape stage outside shut up after the first ten minutes; I personally loved it, and the venue wonderfuly well chosen. We don't often get to see what a beautiful majestic space the library hall is, with its floating mezzanine floor above. (But couldn't help reflecting, me, that the Council must have been mad to think we'd ever pay off the never-never...)

This afternoon have taken delivery of a breeding pair of 3 spined sticklebacks, from Carp Co of Kent. Buying sticklebacks is like buying a hamster btw: the livestock pretty much free, the packaging is the expensive bit. But better than taking them from some wild habitat, and I fell out with the idea of snow melt minnows. They have now vanished into the depths of the "wildlife pond", from whence I sincerly hope they will emerge to make forays on the mosquito larvae. I love nature, but I really refuse to live with a mosquito-ridden swamp at the bottom of the garden.

Picked up Alif the Unseen at the Jubilee yesterday. I wonder if I'll like it, having not very positive feelings about the Arab Spring, owing to the legend of its origins besides everything else. I mean The Slap.

A woman in uniform has the temerity to slap a man (actually she didn't) and this sparks off a glorious democratic Islamic revolution... Well, that's just great. That just about sums it up.

Of which more later, when we've been drowned at King Lear.

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