Guess, just guess, how I happen to be holding the great tit's child in my hand? You're absolutely right. Dear Tilly came bounding in and leapt onto the piano keys, jaws full of desperate flutter: look what I've brought you! So then I was bad:rescued the little bird from her soft mouth (she'd make a good gun dog), got her by the scruff, shouted at her and dumped her outdoors. The juvenile great tit was fine: bright-eyed, cheerful and brave . . . as you'd expect from the family's general demeanour, but cat was outdoors, bird indoors, exactly the opposite of what I needed. A useful moral lesson, more haste less speed, if only I could profit from my mistakes (never happens). I had to leave the infant in a box in my office & and cajole Tilly, while she sat on Claire and Steve's compost bin two fences away, very hurt and ostentatiously not looking my way. Anyway, it ended well. The infant flew away, soon as I was sure it was undamaged, and Tilly has forgiven me.



It was a privilege to see a beautiful little bird so close up, anyway. Thank you, Tills.



& This is what a condemned elm tree looks like . . . The last of the mature elm trees on the Upper Lewes Road has got to go. It doesn't have the bug, it has fungal rot, and the Council has decided to remove it rather than risk having to pay up if it suddenly falls on someone's car or something. A reasonable decision or a detestable mindset? On this occasion, I could go either way. But the rise of UK local and national government's pogrom of the trees is certainly a detestable phenomenon, and inexplicable to me. Trees embellish the land (that's Chekov). They make our cities beautiful and liveable; they improve the air, they steady the traffic in towns, they improve human well-being, they're an economic asset. Destroying them, however, seems to be a vital element in UKGov's strategic planning:



https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/11/priest-chain-tree-protest-euston-hs2-felling-plans-london

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/29/millions-trees-mapped-drone-network-rail-felling-programme/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34749065



Along with destroying renewable energy, "building" new Nuclear Power Plants, at cataclysmic public expense (but thankfully without success); destroying lives and the economy by throwing out all known or suspected "immigrants", sucking up to Donald Trump and the DUP; etc etc.



But what do I know? Only that I'm certainly not getting more conservative as I grow old. Except in the protect and survive sense of the term. Not getting any more resigned, either. Just annoyed that all I can do is haul in the opposite direction, on a whole raft of issues, any small and decent way I can: no reasoned argument possible.



My Fracking Round Up



Oh, look, fracking in the UK is in parliament, how exciting!



https://drillordrop.com/2018/05/30/minister-quizzed-on-evidence-behind-fracking-proposals/#more-64264



Nah, not very exciting. "The Minister contradicted herself ". . . hardly even news. The message: "exploration has to go ahead" no matter what the evidence against these developments, could not be more clear. INEOS has acquired extrajudicial rights over nearly half the land area of the UK, and presumably "Jim Ratcliffe" (a general term, meaning the fracking industry profiteers) has paid for the package, under the table somewhere.



Latest news on the ground is that support grows (notably from individual investors, who don't live near well-pads, and are just hoping, like Lucky Jim, for a quick killing); and resistance grows. Outcomes (ie wells in production) there are as yet none.



https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/fracking-body-slams-claim-uk-needs-6000-shale-gas-wells/10030436.article



https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-the-return-of-uk-fracking-and-what-it-could-mean-for-the-climate (Long, but comprehensive.)



Books



Eleanor Marx: A Life, Rachel Holmes



Eleanor Marx, youngest of Karl Marx's three surviving children (others died in childhood and infancy), a political radical and Bohemian by birth and passion; active in the Paris Commune disaster as a teenager; ran away to Brighton to support herself at eighteen, as (unlike the rest of her family), it upset her to be leeching on the long-suffering Engels the whole time . . . What a grim world for women! So many pregnancies, so few surviving children, so many fine minds and talented individuals, crushed under the wheels of radical politics. Derisory numbers, of course, compared to "crushed under the wheels of privilege and rampant capitalism", but a shocking reminder that the women were always there. As gifted, as dedicated, as resolute, but doomed by biology, custom, and the complacency of the men they supported.



A big fat biography recommended by my friend Elly last year. I'm slowly getting through it, I'll be sorry when it's gone. It's very interesting, moving, and a real education; esp if, like me, you've read the fictional versions of this story: eg Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm,(sublime to the ridiculous-but-enjoyable) Mrs Humphrey Ward (various); or "Baroness Von Hutten's" Pam; What Became Of Pam.



The Storyteller and His Three Daughters, Liam Hearn



This book is just lovely. Set in 1884, in a Japan just opening up to "the West", but actually far more interested in its Korean adventures. Not as fantastical as the more famous Otori series (although there's a spooky strand), or its Shikanado historical prequels, but a really delightful reading experience from start to finish.