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Hoots & Havers with James Irvine Robertson

April 06

OF COURSE, you should never believe what you read in the newspapers but it was not April 1st when The Times reported that NHS Tayside has produced a booklet called Good Defecation Dynamics. I tried to get a copy, or more information on the subject from their website, but failed. I even went to the Health Centre but could not find it amid the thousands of leaflets on offer.

One would think that most people knew how to defecate, adequately if not dynamically. In fact I do not recall ever being taught how to do it, but on the small information provided by The Times snippet, it seems I have been crapping wrong. You are supposed to avoid slumping and keep your mouth open.

The first does not surprise me, since I cannot think of any human activity for which slumping is recommended, but having to keep one’s mouth open worries me. Is it to prevent a build-up of pressure that might blow your head or your bottom off? Surely most people would be on prunes long before matters reached this stage.  And what experiments did the author of the pamphlet perform before coming to his conclusions?

The most interesting aspect of the booklet, and the plethora of others produced and likely never read, by the health authority is that you and I are paying the salary of the prats that authorised it, commissioned it, and wrote it. And they’re probably unfireable with inflation-proof pensions.

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BEING AWARE that we are not the only species of animal that regards our address as home, I have always taken an interest in the community of creatures with whom we share our patch.

Along with the small and fluffy dog, I war with the neighbourhood cats that would like to incorporate the garden into their hunting territory.  At the moment they can do no more than poach when our backs are turned, and have to be careful that a furious powder-puff does not erupt from the house and chase them off them. So far the bluff has not been called.

 On the whole, however, the various creatures manage to co-exist reasonably peacefully. The blackbirds, though, have had a rough winter. Earlier in the year, a cock which has been around for at least five years and with whom I had an amicable relationship, turned up it toes beneath a hedge. Another soon followed. I heard neither coughing before they died, so I assumed the cause was not bird flu and thus prevented the imposition of an exclusion zone round Aberfeldy. Blackbirds are a bit like the Chinese. Until you get to know them they all look alike, but once your eye is in, they do show considerable variations. My dead friend had one quizzical eyebrow and my current confidant has distinctively burnished breast feathers.

The one that really added to the gaiety of the neighbourhood was the piebald albino cock that turned up here 18 months ago. It was the garden boss, tirelessly chasing any rivals that thought they might have rights over any handouts we might offer, and it controlled the lane between us and the redundant church opposite. In fact it really deserved an ASBO.

But, last Sunday morning, I looked out the window, meditatively scratching my backside before my first coffee and a bath, and saw a very distinctive pile of feathers right in the middle of the lawn. The bird had met its Red Baron in the shape of a sparrow hawk and was no more. I was rather pissed off. Apart from anything else I had always promised it a final trip to the taxidermist at Ballinluig when it eventually croaked. But, with its feathers detached and arranged over a square yard of grass, this was out of the question. It has a mildly mottled female descendant, but she is not in the same league as her dad.

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SO FAR we have resisted attaching a satellite dish to the side of the house. I have played with satellite TV but the terrifying and barely comprehensible proliferation of remote controllers that is required if you have the full battery of gadgets – TV, satellite, DVD & video – deters me. We have two zappers, one combining both TV & video, and you have to play them like a virtuoso to achieve the desired effect, and I rarely remember which button on which remote does what.

I was once charged for not having a license and, to the fury of the post office, I was found not guilty and I have taken great care not to stray from the path of righteousness ever since. At the moment the license fee is £131.50 but, in this part of the world, we should really demand a reduction. I grant that the BBC is not responsible for our lack of Channel 5, but we cannot receive Beebs 3 and 4 even if we buy the box that they advertise so assiduously. This means that 50% of their TV output is unavailable. It is fair that we pay for radio and the BBC website but I’m thinking of sending them £100 next time & defending myself as far as the Court of Human Rights if they ask for more.

The drawback is, of course, that the BBC is another bureaucracy and, like the Health Authority, the Council and the rest of them, they have the bottomless pool of public money to spend in opposition. Any time I spent in the cause would be without recompense but, as a tax payer, I would continue to pay the opposing bureaucrats their full salaries. In fact they’d happily spend thousands to grind me down. It would be no skin off their noses and it would give them something to do.

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