Bryan Islip's Blog, page 57

The skull

For those who try to avoid the somewhat macabre, please look away. We found this little skull on our mid-day walk the other day. It was in a scattering of bones down by the sea shore. A bedraggled clump of fur (rabbit?) appeared to be wedged between the creatures's teeth. I've been trying to identify it. It measures 10cm x 7cm across and has the teeth of a carnivore. Otter? Cat? Pine marten? These are the only possibilities, I think. Any ideas?

From crazy to sublime to more crazy

We returned home last evening from a few days in the steamy south. Our niece got herself married down in the New Forest. I wore suit and tartan waistcoast, consumed much of the blackstuff and not a little of the water of life.

But oh, what a joy to be back! As the Westerbus rolled over the hills I thought about motorlife on the M27, about youths with speckled faces and girls with small dresses falling about drunk on Fareham High Street, about the wail of police and ambulance sirens ... Not lon...

Life and death

Today something happened to remind me of the fallibility of that thread which separates life from death.

It sometimes seems that everyone we know is suffering some kind of intense pressure: either illness, set-backs financial, accident or 'bad luck', the inadequacies of youth or the debilities of old age - it's never easy for any great length of time, is it? Not so strange then, that humanity Western style is so utterly security obsessed, so fanatically intent on reducing risk, protecting hea...

Starting to get it

A friend sent me today's article in The Mail about the steep rise in human male infertility. (male and mail in one sentence - how awful is that!) I submitted and the newspaper published the following comment ...

'I read Paul Burgoyne's 2002 Mill Hill Lecture, 'The Rise in Human Infertility - tragedy or godsend?' . It's still there on-line. Dr Burgoyne concludes the latter and for incontrovertible reasons. It made a big impression on me. I'm not allowed under Rule 7 to advertise the novel I...

Nothing much

9th May 2010

They say mad Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned:
In all the years since then what have we learned?

Westminster is a gambler's busted flush,
And faced with nothing, nature's breathless hush,
And money changers, given a nation's keys
Have stolen all from weak democracies.

Whilst shuffling smoke in some dark place this day
One B, two C's, will with their fiddles play.

Bryan Islip
9th May 2010

Real politics.

Politics! I've had enough of it to last me ...

The longer this pre-election charade goes on, the more Westminster seems to me to be a two hundred and fifty years old busted flush. Great for Great Britain yesterday but now well 'past its sell-by date', 'not fit for purpose', all those latter day truisms. Yes time, Mr Clegg, for change. Real change not the tweaking of the edges of a bankrupt system such as is proposed by you - and incidentally in a fractionally diluted form by both of your main...

In the End

The lawn outside our kitchen window is overshadowed by a group of conifers; dense, prickly, darkly brooding trees accessible only to the birds that Dee attracts with her scatterings of seeds and crumbs on the grass below.

Yesterday we noticed robins and sparrows pecking at what, upon investigation, turned out to be the dessicated body of an unidentifiable small bird. Probably they were after the feathers to line their nests, this being the time of building. If so it struck me as somehow 'righ...

All change

Here in the UK we've had a bit of a wake up call. I'm referring to the clouds of ash from Iceland's erupting volcano of course. Nature shaking an angry fist at those who presume to rule her world.

We had a son marooned on a North Sea oil platform, another son whose fishing holiday in Florida had to be aborted at the last moment and a local friend whose long awaited trip to Venice also had to be aborted.

On Monday I ventured out on a sales trip - stocking up the Wester-Ross shops with our card...

Birds and a dog

Today we borrowed a black labrador dog from some friends who wanted a day out without him. Great. 'Kaylah Baig' (Gaelic / phonetic) is his name; 'Best Mate' in English. We struck off into the hills with him for our mid-day walk. He carried a stick all the way there and back - dropping it at our feet now and again so we could throw it into the tangle for him to retrieve - a born gundog.

Now and again it's good to get away from all signs of humanity and you don't have to go far from here to do s...

To Whom It May Hopefully Concern

In each Saturday Times - books section - appears the following invitation...

'In about 100 words tell us about a book that you would recommend for a book group and why. Send submissions (with "you're reading" in the subject lime) to books@the times.co.uk or Books, The Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. Include your name, age, profession address and telephone number, and a head and shoulders photograph (digital if you submit by e-mail) We cannot return or acknowledge entries.'

Yesterday...