I've suddenly got very busy. Damn it. So I'll have to finish off WB - Part IV later. For now this. Anyone who has young children will probably have heard of Adam Mansbach's "Go The Fuck To Sleep". It is a one trick pony of a book of course, but here it is, read, no less, by the wonderful Werner Herzog. Five minutes of light amusement at least.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Tsujigiri
I’m just in the mood to commit a bit of Tsujigiri right now. Except I haven’t got a new katana so, strictly speaking, can’t. Damn.
Recently I wrenched my left hip forward out of line with its partner the right hip when turning to retrieve a ball from deep in the right-hand back corner of the court. As a consequence much pain, considerable immobility and, in a way I don’t really understand, my left leg became longer than my right turning me into a repeatedly bewildered Quasimodo every time the foot scuffed pavement.
Apparently this is not too unusual, the injury not the transmogrification, and a bit of physio has put it back in place. The side effects on ligaments and muscles has been rather frustrating. Continuing pain, inability to sit, inability to get up from sitting, lack of sleep and total lack of any exercise. Hence a bit of Tsujigiri would really cheer me up.
Tsujigiri?
No?
Well I only heard about it yesterday when someone on the wireless said the word, or at least the word's meaning is one of their favourites.
Tsujigiri is and I quote, “trying out a new sword on a chance passerby”.
To do list for Saturday:
1) Do food shopping
2) Buy child #2 new shoes
3) Try out new sword on chance passerby.
4) Re-grout shower
What a lovely concept. As long as you aren’t the chance passerby I suppose.
Recently I wrenched my left hip forward out of line with its partner the right hip when turning to retrieve a ball from deep in the right-hand back corner of the court. As a consequence much pain, considerable immobility and, in a way I don’t really understand, my left leg became longer than my right turning me into a repeatedly bewildered Quasimodo every time the foot scuffed pavement.
Apparently this is not too unusual, the injury not the transmogrification, and a bit of physio has put it back in place. The side effects on ligaments and muscles has been rather frustrating. Continuing pain, inability to sit, inability to get up from sitting, lack of sleep and total lack of any exercise. Hence a bit of Tsujigiri would really cheer me up.
Tsujigiri?
No?
Well I only heard about it yesterday when someone on the wireless said the word, or at least the word's meaning is one of their favourites.
Tsujigiri is and I quote, “trying out a new sword on a chance passerby”.
To do list for Saturday:
1) Do food shopping
2) Buy child #2 new shoes
3) Try out new sword on chance passerby.
4) Re-grout shower
What a lovely concept. As long as you aren’t the chance passerby I suppose.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Walks
We all went for a walk out the back, in the woods, up the hill. As there was still a dusting of snow on the ground and tracks stood out I thought it would be an opportunity to educate the weans a little more about the nature of the woods they were travelling through and the variety of life that lived and co-existed among the trees. To my surprise one of them encouraged by the other (“no, don’t want to, wanna watch The Exorcist, she can do it all by herself”) made an annotated map on our return. Here I reproduce the conversation we had during the walk that informed the map below.
The Woods (not to scale)
Slipping off the road leading to the woods we promptly came across the tracks of a deer. I informed the children that this was a common sight. Every Sunday one of the deer from the woodland herd is delegated to go and take tea with Mrs Schopenhauer. She has an Artois hound who can sing the Marseilles with such fortitude that it is really no wonder Mr Schopenhauer committed suicide by force feeding himself foie gras until his liver burst. The virulence of the dogs performance has been a long standing concern to the woods community and in a meeting held the deer were delegated for distraction duty. The deer did protest but the wolves looked at them very hard and that was the end of that. Every Sunday since, one deer goes to take tea with Mrs Schopenhauer and this very act stops the dog from singing so astonished is it to have a deer sitting in its front parlour, drinking Earl Grey from bone china cups and talking about dialectical materialism. The dog forgets all about it during the week and is astonished all over again the following Sunday. Which at least goes to show, as if there was really any question, that dogs are much more stupid than goldfish.
The Lower Woods (objects in the picture are closer than they appear)
Round the corner we came across the tracks of old Mr Hilbert. A wolf who, having left the venery of his Donaldson clan to live life on his own, liked to take a stroll after his Sunday lunch. Pipe ash littered his foot prints for he was fond of a good bowl of perique and we imagined the grizzled old bastard replete with osso buco ambling quietly beneath the wind tossed trees puffing on his pipe as he walked. We lost his tracks before we turned left up the hill at Crossfire Alley. The Alley as it is more colloquially known, is an infamous section of path hereabouts. Deer hunters have built a line of tree-stands and when ensconced take potshots at each other because they are so unutterably bored. Some of them haven’t seen a deer in a decade and the only reason they return here year after year is that it is close to the road and therefore their truck; there is nothing like the old man of the woods, lean, fit, prepared to track their quarry across miles of harsh terrain and these hunters are nothing like that. Once in while a deer does come along. The hunters know not the reason for this and will later, in the bar drinking Pabst, claim it as a sign of their uncanny knowledge of the forest and the denizens therein. The reality is that the deer use Crossfire Alley as a form of capitol punishment. Deer sentenced to death, invariably for offending Mrs Shopenhauer (a deer taking tea with the old bat would be very unwise to say something like “that Hegel, lovely fellow and my, didn’t he have a wheelbarrow full of great ideas”) are sent to Crossfire Alley in season. It can take some time for their punishment to be meted out as the hunters, jealous that someone else might get ‘their’ deer tend to shoot each other before aiming at the animal. A sentenced deer sometimes has to parade up and down the path and then stand very, very still opposite the last hunter standing. Even then given the hunter’s accuracy, many deer are reprieved.
Turning up from crossfire alley one passes the small section of woodland where the squirrels lay their eggs. Our little ones scurried around like, squirrels picking up the branches with all the spent egg shells, brown cone like things, still attached. On being asked what they were I told them and explained that a hatching squirrel had to be very careful. If it didn’t manage to grasp the branch on which the egg was attached immediately, and as a result fell to the ground, it would be the end of it. There are carnivorous plants sitting below, wide mouths agape just waiting for a fat, juicy and dextrously challenged baby squirrel to fall. Of course everyone knows of these plants, they are if not common then not exceptionally rare wherever squirrel egg trees are sited. However, in these woods the density of the plants is astonishing. Some say the chipmunks sneak in and plant extra ones to help keep the squirrel population in check (worse than rabbits if left to their own devices). Chipmunks and squirrels have a feud that has been running for many, many generations, a feud the squirrels never best as they do not control the woodland trade and therefore cannot barter for automatic weapons. But that is another story.
Tigerland and the Hummingbird Acorns (choking hazard).
On, a quick jink across another path and then the long climb. Down precipitously on the right lies Tigerland. The denizens are indeed tigers come from Siberia where the economic plight of their native land pissed them off to the extent that they crossed the Bering Sea and ended up in Alaska. Although at first it seemed like the promised land they quickly realised it was not safe. Not only did they stand a very good chance of becoming a rug but the then governor was particularly unfriendly to both endangered animals and immigrants. So they trekked once more, found themselves in Pennsylvania after mistaking it for somewhere progressive but were to knackered to go any further. They settled here. Surprisingly hard to see for such a large animal they are said to exist on hunters shot off their perches in nearby Crossfire Alley and the occasional walrus.
We finally breached the top of the long incline, reached the fir woods and decided to stop, have some juice and a snack. The children scouted around for odds and ends and eventually came back to show their hoard.
“Acorns,” they said, little eyes gleaming, tears beginning to freeze to their skin in the vicious, icy blast sweeping across the top of the ridge. We hurried them along the path deeper into the wood.
“Yes, hummingbird acorns,” I said. They looked at me quizzically. “You thought they went south?” Where to? Mexico? Ha, no, no. Well, maybe a few gullible ones who believe the biologists when the say what a lovely warm place it is in winter. Unfortunately those that do go become pickled in pulque and have to work as mules for the Chachalaca carrying clouser minnows to fly fishing tourists holidaying on the Yucatan Peninsula. They never come back the next spring. What with the pulque, the working conditions and the, as you well know, irresistibility of the clousers, most hummingbirds are too shagged ever to make a return journey. Sad but true. The ones we see in the summer are those that have hibernated here on our very doorstep, in fact hibernated in these very acorns you’ve been collecting.” I took one of the acorns and turned it round in my fingers before carrying on my explanation. “Only the best smoothest shells are selected and once found the hummingbird neatly cuts off the stalked cap and slips inside. When snug they replace the cap, seal it tight with their own venom and settle down for a long winter sleep.”
The children, eagle-eyed as ever, noticed that many of the best acorns had neat little holes drilled into the side.
“Ah yes, Draculus minutae,” I said, “interesting story there. Draculus minutae is a body heat parasite, a kind of succubus on the warmth of the hummingbird.”
The youngest interrupted, “what’s a succubus?”
“Ask your mother,” I replied and then continued, “now, Draculus drill a hole into the acorn shell, squeeze through, and then snuggle up in the feathers of the hummingbird already in situ. The small embers of heat given off by the hummingbird, even though it is only a therm or two, keep the parasite alive for the winter, something it wouldn’t be able to do for itself.”
The older child interjected, “then it’s a commensal relationship isn’t it? Not parasitic. They both get what they want?”
I looked at this precocious offspring of the paternal loins. “No, clever dick,” I said, “you are wrong. The small but constant transfer of the body heat over the course of the whole winter causes the hummingbird to sink ever deeper into torpor until by the spring they are too far gone ever to wake up again. Only Draculus minutae emerge from these acorns and they spend the summer cloning themselves and feeding on gooseberry sap.”
The Land of the Vaals and Baals (serving suggestions).
We moved off once more following the track up to a long fence.
“Restricted zone,” I said before they could ask, “very hush-hush. Word is they are reintroducing walrus.”
“What’s a walrus?” asked youngest, and before I could reply the Chest of Drawers, who had been strangely silent up until now, said loudly, “it’s a sort of pig with wings,” and then hurried on, “right, enough just for a moment or we’ll never get round. Which way do we go from here?”
“Well,” I replied, “if we go right we get to Acorn Pine Retirement Home for the Chronically Indulgent and then beyond that to The Wilds, the uncharted territory where all sort’s of bizarre things may be going on.”
“Yes,” she said unconvinced, “and left?”
“We should probably go left,” I nodded after catching her eye.
Following the fence round we started to scrabble over exposed rocks.
“We are now entering the territory of the Vaal,” I said. Go very carefully across here, smooth walking, no scuffing or tripping.”
One of the children stumbled and the loose rocks knocked together.
“Shhhhh!” I hissed at her. “Deary me. The Vaals get very pissed if you make too much noise. They don’t mind it if you go carefully, quite enjoy the vibrations actually, but if you make a noise and knock the rock together they’ll come out from underneath and then we’ll be in trouble.”
“What trouble? What do they look like? Are they terribly big and terribly bad?”
“Er, no.” I looked at the innocent faces of the children, “no,” I said carefully, “that bit comes later. The Vaal look like, well, they look like, do you know that animal in Rango, the one near the beginning that is in the desert when Rango first gets chased by the hawk, the one who said “I’ll let you kiss my sister”? Flat, squashy toad thing.
“Yea, but what do they do if we disturb them?” said almost oldest wanting to get to the point.
“It’s not nice,” I said, “they come out and insult you. And not in any tepid smelling of elderberries, mother was a hamster kind of way either. They use lots of dirty, nasty words. Very, very embarrassing. Especially if any deer overhear.”
We carried on and passed out of the rock outcrop only to come to another a few yards further on. “The Boulders of Baal,” I said sensationally, but catching a glance from the Oak Dresser I simply added, “ancient relations of the Vaals.”
Having passed through Baal we came out onto the great plain of Chitoomba. A slash of cleared trees running east-west through the woods. Though not very wide the plain stretched as far as the eye could see through the wind blown snow. The path ran through the centre bounded by tall grasses on either side and the occasional fetid pool. Many tracks were apparent and I explained that this was neutral territory, no animal chased, caught, fought or otherwise fed on any other here. But they did race for, like the great hippodromes of bygone times when the ancients used to mount their flatulent river-horses and goad them round the oval arenas by poking them with a pair of vestal virgins, this straightaway was a most popular race track. For some reason the tortoises always won. Beyond the plain to the north lived the Gruffalo but he only came off the farthest ridges in plague years.
“What’s a Gruffalo?” asked youngest with a look of feigned innocence on her face.
“Belt up,” I replied, “we are not doing that now.”
The family slipped and slide down the icy track, jumping in unison on any patch of frozen water to assuage that primitive but necessary urge to see if the ice would break. Finally we came to our exit and turned left to start our descent home. The path narrowed and became trammelled by high earth banks. We were in the land of the two great wolf clans in the area and presently we came across a large tree trunk reaching from one side of the path to the other and some three feet above the head of the Louis Quinze Parlour Chair. The children looked at me expectantly.
Wolves (danger of death)
“I’m out of my territory here girls, I said raising my arms in an eloquent shrug, “why don’t you ask you mother?”
The Escritoire paused, gave me one of those looks that makes grown men quail in their Zevin silver eye semi-dress work boots and then said, “it’s the runway between the two great wolf clans of the eastern woods. Here they meet and ask permission to cross over and travel in each others land. On this side, she indicated to the right, is the Peterson clan and on this side, indicating to the left, the Donaldson’s. The Petersen’s claim Scandinavian heritage direct from the great packs of Gandolf the Off-white and Radagest the Reddish while the Donaldson’s say they are descended from the last great Scottish wolf lineage of,” she looked at me pleadingly, “Rabcy Nesbitt the Inebriate?” I offered.
“What do they do when they get to the crossing tree?” said youngest getting caught up in this clearly ridiculous tale the Leather Armchair was fobbing off on them.
“They have to be very polite to each other,” answered the Charles II Four Poster, “they have to remember all the relatives of the wolf opposite and ask after them. Wife, mother, father, grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather, all the mother equilvalents, uncles and aunts, great uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. It can take a very long time and if one of them makes a mistake they have to stop and come back the next day and do it all over again. Wolves are a bit intractable like that.” She noticed the children were wavering, “it has been said,” she hurried into the breach, “that such is the difficulty in remembering all the other’s relatives that no wolf has crossed into the others territory for generations,” and finishing with a flourish, “it may be that this is why they are becoming inbred.”
Youngest tugged at my coat and whispered up, “what’s inbred?”
“Remember watching Deliverance?” the child nodded, “well think of that and ask your mother a bit later when I’m out of the way,” I smiled down and the child nodded sagely.
A little further still with the Kitchen Table talking about the cost of inbreeding on memory retention and how this might lead to war we came across an elaborate cat’s cradle of tree trunks and large branches criss-crossing the track. I looked at the Walnut Sideboard expectantly.
“Ah yes,” she said, “here is the other wolf runway. There is no restriction, she said, on the youngsters going backwards and forwards but they are not allowed to use the Great Tree so come and go along here.”
Wizards (risk of falling)
We continued on. Just before we got back to more familiar landmarks I took them all down a small detour to the wizards campsite. A pile of branches and a stone circle indicated the fireplace and surrounding the little glade were tall pines.
“Sleeping trees,” I said. “The wizards usually delegate a couple of their group here and they sling their hammocks at the top of the trees when they need a bit of a kip.”
“How do they get up there?” eldest asked.
“They jump. Good jumpers wizards. Big thighs.”
“What are they here for?” she pestered.
“To stop the witches expanding west. Much of the witches power base is over there I waved vaguely to the east, “around Lemontia and we don’t see them over here all that often. But if they learnt there were no wizards patrolling they’d be over here like a shot, led by the indescribable Kroczynskya, and then we’d be in trouble.”
We followed the path on down and round back past the squirrel egg trees and out the mosquito gate and so home to hot cups of raspberry jam and some well toasted butter.
Slipping off the road leading to the woods we promptly came across the tracks of a deer. I informed the children that this was a common sight. Every Sunday one of the deer from the woodland herd is delegated to go and take tea with Mrs Schopenhauer. She has an Artois hound who can sing the Marseilles with such fortitude that it is really no wonder Mr Schopenhauer committed suicide by force feeding himself foie gras until his liver burst. The virulence of the dogs performance has been a long standing concern to the woods community and in a meeting held the deer were delegated for distraction duty. The deer did protest but the wolves looked at them very hard and that was the end of that. Every Sunday since, one deer goes to take tea with Mrs Schopenhauer and this very act stops the dog from singing so astonished is it to have a deer sitting in its front parlour, drinking Earl Grey from bone china cups and talking about dialectical materialism. The dog forgets all about it during the week and is astonished all over again the following Sunday. Which at least goes to show, as if there was really any question, that dogs are much more stupid than goldfish.
Round the corner we came across the tracks of old Mr Hilbert. A wolf who, having left the venery of his Donaldson clan to live life on his own, liked to take a stroll after his Sunday lunch. Pipe ash littered his foot prints for he was fond of a good bowl of perique and we imagined the grizzled old bastard replete with osso buco ambling quietly beneath the wind tossed trees puffing on his pipe as he walked. We lost his tracks before we turned left up the hill at Crossfire Alley. The Alley as it is more colloquially known, is an infamous section of path hereabouts. Deer hunters have built a line of tree-stands and when ensconced take potshots at each other because they are so unutterably bored. Some of them haven’t seen a deer in a decade and the only reason they return here year after year is that it is close to the road and therefore their truck; there is nothing like the old man of the woods, lean, fit, prepared to track their quarry across miles of harsh terrain and these hunters are nothing like that. Once in while a deer does come along. The hunters know not the reason for this and will later, in the bar drinking Pabst, claim it as a sign of their uncanny knowledge of the forest and the denizens therein. The reality is that the deer use Crossfire Alley as a form of capitol punishment. Deer sentenced to death, invariably for offending Mrs Shopenhauer (a deer taking tea with the old bat would be very unwise to say something like “that Hegel, lovely fellow and my, didn’t he have a wheelbarrow full of great ideas”) are sent to Crossfire Alley in season. It can take some time for their punishment to be meted out as the hunters, jealous that someone else might get ‘their’ deer tend to shoot each other before aiming at the animal. A sentenced deer sometimes has to parade up and down the path and then stand very, very still opposite the last hunter standing. Even then given the hunter’s accuracy, many deer are reprieved.
Turning up from crossfire alley one passes the small section of woodland where the squirrels lay their eggs. Our little ones scurried around like, squirrels picking up the branches with all the spent egg shells, brown cone like things, still attached. On being asked what they were I told them and explained that a hatching squirrel had to be very careful. If it didn’t manage to grasp the branch on which the egg was attached immediately, and as a result fell to the ground, it would be the end of it. There are carnivorous plants sitting below, wide mouths agape just waiting for a fat, juicy and dextrously challenged baby squirrel to fall. Of course everyone knows of these plants, they are if not common then not exceptionally rare wherever squirrel egg trees are sited. However, in these woods the density of the plants is astonishing. Some say the chipmunks sneak in and plant extra ones to help keep the squirrel population in check (worse than rabbits if left to their own devices). Chipmunks and squirrels have a feud that has been running for many, many generations, a feud the squirrels never best as they do not control the woodland trade and therefore cannot barter for automatic weapons. But that is another story.
On, a quick jink across another path and then the long climb. Down precipitously on the right lies Tigerland. The denizens are indeed tigers come from Siberia where the economic plight of their native land pissed them off to the extent that they crossed the Bering Sea and ended up in Alaska. Although at first it seemed like the promised land they quickly realised it was not safe. Not only did they stand a very good chance of becoming a rug but the then governor was particularly unfriendly to both endangered animals and immigrants. So they trekked once more, found themselves in Pennsylvania after mistaking it for somewhere progressive but were to knackered to go any further. They settled here. Surprisingly hard to see for such a large animal they are said to exist on hunters shot off their perches in nearby Crossfire Alley and the occasional walrus.
We finally breached the top of the long incline, reached the fir woods and decided to stop, have some juice and a snack. The children scouted around for odds and ends and eventually came back to show their hoard.
“Acorns,” they said, little eyes gleaming, tears beginning to freeze to their skin in the vicious, icy blast sweeping across the top of the ridge. We hurried them along the path deeper into the wood.
“Yes, hummingbird acorns,” I said. They looked at me quizzically. “You thought they went south?” Where to? Mexico? Ha, no, no. Well, maybe a few gullible ones who believe the biologists when the say what a lovely warm place it is in winter. Unfortunately those that do go become pickled in pulque and have to work as mules for the Chachalaca carrying clouser minnows to fly fishing tourists holidaying on the Yucatan Peninsula. They never come back the next spring. What with the pulque, the working conditions and the, as you well know, irresistibility of the clousers, most hummingbirds are too shagged ever to make a return journey. Sad but true. The ones we see in the summer are those that have hibernated here on our very doorstep, in fact hibernated in these very acorns you’ve been collecting.” I took one of the acorns and turned it round in my fingers before carrying on my explanation. “Only the best smoothest shells are selected and once found the hummingbird neatly cuts off the stalked cap and slips inside. When snug they replace the cap, seal it tight with their own venom and settle down for a long winter sleep.”
The children, eagle-eyed as ever, noticed that many of the best acorns had neat little holes drilled into the side.
“Ah yes, Draculus minutae,” I said, “interesting story there. Draculus minutae is a body heat parasite, a kind of succubus on the warmth of the hummingbird.”
The youngest interrupted, “what’s a succubus?”
“Ask your mother,” I replied and then continued, “now, Draculus drill a hole into the acorn shell, squeeze through, and then snuggle up in the feathers of the hummingbird already in situ. The small embers of heat given off by the hummingbird, even though it is only a therm or two, keep the parasite alive for the winter, something it wouldn’t be able to do for itself.”
The older child interjected, “then it’s a commensal relationship isn’t it? Not parasitic. They both get what they want?”
I looked at this precocious offspring of the paternal loins. “No, clever dick,” I said, “you are wrong. The small but constant transfer of the body heat over the course of the whole winter causes the hummingbird to sink ever deeper into torpor until by the spring they are too far gone ever to wake up again. Only Draculus minutae emerge from these acorns and they spend the summer cloning themselves and feeding on gooseberry sap.”
We moved off once more following the track up to a long fence.
“Restricted zone,” I said before they could ask, “very hush-hush. Word is they are reintroducing walrus.”
“What’s a walrus?” asked youngest, and before I could reply the Chest of Drawers, who had been strangely silent up until now, said loudly, “it’s a sort of pig with wings,” and then hurried on, “right, enough just for a moment or we’ll never get round. Which way do we go from here?”
“Well,” I replied, “if we go right we get to Acorn Pine Retirement Home for the Chronically Indulgent and then beyond that to The Wilds, the uncharted territory where all sort’s of bizarre things may be going on.”
“Yes,” she said unconvinced, “and left?”
“We should probably go left,” I nodded after catching her eye.
Following the fence round we started to scrabble over exposed rocks.
“We are now entering the territory of the Vaal,” I said. Go very carefully across here, smooth walking, no scuffing or tripping.”
One of the children stumbled and the loose rocks knocked together.
“Shhhhh!” I hissed at her. “Deary me. The Vaals get very pissed if you make too much noise. They don’t mind it if you go carefully, quite enjoy the vibrations actually, but if you make a noise and knock the rock together they’ll come out from underneath and then we’ll be in trouble.”
“What trouble? What do they look like? Are they terribly big and terribly bad?”
“Er, no.” I looked at the innocent faces of the children, “no,” I said carefully, “that bit comes later. The Vaal look like, well, they look like, do you know that animal in Rango, the one near the beginning that is in the desert when Rango first gets chased by the hawk, the one who said “I’ll let you kiss my sister”? Flat, squashy toad thing.
“Yea, but what do they do if we disturb them?” said almost oldest wanting to get to the point.
“It’s not nice,” I said, “they come out and insult you. And not in any tepid smelling of elderberries, mother was a hamster kind of way either. They use lots of dirty, nasty words. Very, very embarrassing. Especially if any deer overhear.”
We carried on and passed out of the rock outcrop only to come to another a few yards further on. “The Boulders of Baal,” I said sensationally, but catching a glance from the Oak Dresser I simply added, “ancient relations of the Vaals.”
Having passed through Baal we came out onto the great plain of Chitoomba. A slash of cleared trees running east-west through the woods. Though not very wide the plain stretched as far as the eye could see through the wind blown snow. The path ran through the centre bounded by tall grasses on either side and the occasional fetid pool. Many tracks were apparent and I explained that this was neutral territory, no animal chased, caught, fought or otherwise fed on any other here. But they did race for, like the great hippodromes of bygone times when the ancients used to mount their flatulent river-horses and goad them round the oval arenas by poking them with a pair of vestal virgins, this straightaway was a most popular race track. For some reason the tortoises always won. Beyond the plain to the north lived the Gruffalo but he only came off the farthest ridges in plague years.
“What’s a Gruffalo?” asked youngest with a look of feigned innocence on her face.
“Belt up,” I replied, “we are not doing that now.”
The family slipped and slide down the icy track, jumping in unison on any patch of frozen water to assuage that primitive but necessary urge to see if the ice would break. Finally we came to our exit and turned left to start our descent home. The path narrowed and became trammelled by high earth banks. We were in the land of the two great wolf clans in the area and presently we came across a large tree trunk reaching from one side of the path to the other and some three feet above the head of the Louis Quinze Parlour Chair. The children looked at me expectantly.
“I’m out of my territory here girls, I said raising my arms in an eloquent shrug, “why don’t you ask you mother?”
The Escritoire paused, gave me one of those looks that makes grown men quail in their Zevin silver eye semi-dress work boots and then said, “it’s the runway between the two great wolf clans of the eastern woods. Here they meet and ask permission to cross over and travel in each others land. On this side, she indicated to the right, is the Peterson clan and on this side, indicating to the left, the Donaldson’s. The Petersen’s claim Scandinavian heritage direct from the great packs of Gandolf the Off-white and Radagest the Reddish while the Donaldson’s say they are descended from the last great Scottish wolf lineage of,” she looked at me pleadingly, “Rabcy Nesbitt the Inebriate?” I offered.
“What do they do when they get to the crossing tree?” said youngest getting caught up in this clearly ridiculous tale the Leather Armchair was fobbing off on them.
“They have to be very polite to each other,” answered the Charles II Four Poster, “they have to remember all the relatives of the wolf opposite and ask after them. Wife, mother, father, grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather, all the mother equilvalents, uncles and aunts, great uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. It can take a very long time and if one of them makes a mistake they have to stop and come back the next day and do it all over again. Wolves are a bit intractable like that.” She noticed the children were wavering, “it has been said,” she hurried into the breach, “that such is the difficulty in remembering all the other’s relatives that no wolf has crossed into the others territory for generations,” and finishing with a flourish, “it may be that this is why they are becoming inbred.”
Youngest tugged at my coat and whispered up, “what’s inbred?”
“Remember watching Deliverance?” the child nodded, “well think of that and ask your mother a bit later when I’m out of the way,” I smiled down and the child nodded sagely.
A little further still with the Kitchen Table talking about the cost of inbreeding on memory retention and how this might lead to war we came across an elaborate cat’s cradle of tree trunks and large branches criss-crossing the track. I looked at the Walnut Sideboard expectantly.
“Ah yes,” she said, “here is the other wolf runway. There is no restriction, she said, on the youngsters going backwards and forwards but they are not allowed to use the Great Tree so come and go along here.”
We continued on. Just before we got back to more familiar landmarks I took them all down a small detour to the wizards campsite. A pile of branches and a stone circle indicated the fireplace and surrounding the little glade were tall pines.
“Sleeping trees,” I said. “The wizards usually delegate a couple of their group here and they sling their hammocks at the top of the trees when they need a bit of a kip.”
“How do they get up there?” eldest asked.
“They jump. Good jumpers wizards. Big thighs.”
“What are they here for?” she pestered.
“To stop the witches expanding west. Much of the witches power base is over there I waved vaguely to the east, “around Lemontia and we don’t see them over here all that often. But if they learnt there were no wizards patrolling they’d be over here like a shot, led by the indescribable Kroczynskya, and then we’d be in trouble.”
We followed the path on down and round back past the squirrel egg trees and out the mosquito gate and so home to hot cups of raspberry jam and some well toasted butter.
Monday, January 28, 2013
2 books
I am running late on posting the last of the 'Wyatt Burp' posts. This is partly because I haven't finished writing the last one. It's also partly because I haven't finished writing the last one so that I could have a quick glance through two books that have just arrived in the post. Both of them feature in essays and formal papers on the ethics of angling. A. A. Luce's particularly so. Bryn Hammond's less but with some interesting quotes lifted from his Halcyon Days.
Hammond I didn't really know of previously. The book is relatively new (1992 - of course that is now 20+ years ago so I suppose it would depend on your definition of new) and the inside cover says he's a regular contributor to fishing magazines. These must have passed me by but with chapters on "Catch and Release" and "Cruelty and Angling" there would at least appear to be a few pages written on these subjects, a few more than the pathetically ill considered electronic missives I have seen anyway. He may talk rubbish and be as disappointing as Schullery's awful "If Fish Could Scream" but you pays your money and takes your choice.
A. A. Luce is a different matter. He features a lot in both fishing's considerations of its own potential cruelty and in the ethics literature. This may be because for those writing critical essays on fishing this is the only text they can use from a fishing standpoint to balance those from an animal rights and environmental ethics point of view. Luce is also a different matter because he was an ordained catholic precentor (no, even having looked it up I am not really sure what that is) and therefore, in my eyes, and I freely admit my huge prejudice in the matter, someone whose thinking must be hugely suspect, especially as the catholic church is one the "greatest forces for evil in the world". It could be argued that Luce was around in a gentler time, when the catholic church actually did some good. But that would be an obvious and blatant lie. What would help is that he was, though woefully misguided, an otherwise erudite, thoughtful individual who could construct a cogent argument, something his academic work strongly suggests. So it is something of a pity that when I dipped into the ethics chapter this evening, I find he spends the first two pages talking about how christ's disciples were fishermen. As if that has any relevance whatsoever, as if they fished recreationally (if they actually existed at all). He did start the chapter well by saying;
This, in slightly different language, is almost exactly the argument most anglers make now. "Fuck off you bunch of muesli eating, sandal wearing, bleeding hearts, liberal vegetarians." Or words to that effect. But Luce, writing in the late 1950s, doesn't seem to agree with that, bless him.
He essentially accuses all fishermen who dismiss the cruelty claim as idiots. Non-thinkers. Cool. He does then dip into the fishing disciples bit which, as I say above, dampened my ardour somewhat, and it also looks like he is doing what we all do, building up a sense of fair play so it looks as though his arguments for angling (not only does he say he can refute the cruelty charge in the quote above but the ethics section comes in the twelfth chapter of twelve and for the previous eleven he has been fishing - practicing what he preaches I can only assume) are that much stronger when they come. I'm intrigued to see what they are (no I haven't got that far yet, have to cook the dinner, wipe the children's arses, fill the Horsehead Nebula's gin flagon etc, etc) because I have yet to see an argument for fishing, in the face of the negative claims, that stands up to scrutiny. I mean real scrutiny, not simply "I like fishing; We do so much good for the environment/economy/peoples well being/youth; fish can't feel pain," against all of which strong counter arguments have already been made. Anyway I'll read on, see what he says and then what Hammond has to say for himself. If a mushroom cloud forms over what was once a small, quiet town in central PA sometime in the next couple of days you can take it for granted that neither author impressed.
A. A. Luce is a different matter. He features a lot in both fishing's considerations of its own potential cruelty and in the ethics literature. This may be because for those writing critical essays on fishing this is the only text they can use from a fishing standpoint to balance those from an animal rights and environmental ethics point of view. Luce is also a different matter because he was an ordained catholic precentor (no, even having looked it up I am not really sure what that is) and therefore, in my eyes, and I freely admit my huge prejudice in the matter, someone whose thinking must be hugely suspect, especially as the catholic church is one the "greatest forces for evil in the world". It could be argued that Luce was around in a gentler time, when the catholic church actually did some good. But that would be an obvious and blatant lie. What would help is that he was, though woefully misguided, an otherwise erudite, thoughtful individual who could construct a cogent argument, something his academic work strongly suggests. So it is something of a pity that when I dipped into the ethics chapter this evening, I find he spends the first two pages talking about how christ's disciples were fishermen. As if that has any relevance whatsoever, as if they fished recreationally (if they actually existed at all). He did start the chapter well by saying;
"Some readers may feel disposed to brush the charge [that fishing is cruel] aside without more ado. They like fishing; it never did them any harm; their fathers and grandfathers before them fished; it is in the blood, and there are many worse ways of spending a day. Fishing keeps the lads out of mischief. Why bother about a handful of croakers who cannot catch fish themselves and grudge us our amusement?"
This, in slightly different language, is almost exactly the argument most anglers make now. "Fuck off you bunch of muesli eating, sandal wearing, bleeding hearts, liberal vegetarians." Or words to that effect. But Luce, writing in the late 1950s, doesn't seem to agree with that, bless him.
"Those who fish and think will not be satisfied with any such reply. The charge of cruelty must be taken seriously; for it is a serious charge. It can be refuted, I believe, but there is a case to meet; and if the case is to be met effectively, we must be prepared to do some close thinking and to make some fine distinctions; it is on those distinctions that the case really turns."
He essentially accuses all fishermen who dismiss the cruelty claim as idiots. Non-thinkers. Cool. He does then dip into the fishing disciples bit which, as I say above, dampened my ardour somewhat, and it also looks like he is doing what we all do, building up a sense of fair play so it looks as though his arguments for angling (not only does he say he can refute the cruelty charge in the quote above but the ethics section comes in the twelfth chapter of twelve and for the previous eleven he has been fishing - practicing what he preaches I can only assume) are that much stronger when they come. I'm intrigued to see what they are (no I haven't got that far yet, have to cook the dinner, wipe the children's arses, fill the Horsehead Nebula's gin flagon etc, etc) because I have yet to see an argument for fishing, in the face of the negative claims, that stands up to scrutiny. I mean real scrutiny, not simply "I like fishing; We do so much good for the environment/economy/peoples well being/youth; fish can't feel pain," against all of which strong counter arguments have already been made. Anyway I'll read on, see what he says and then what Hammond has to say for himself. If a mushroom cloud forms over what was once a small, quiet town in central PA sometime in the next couple of days you can take it for granted that neither author impressed.
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Shadow of the Sun
The title of this post comes from the Ryszard Kapuściński book of the same name. It is a collection of essays about his time as a journalist in Africa during the late 1950s and on. An interesting time as they say. The book is fantastic you should get it and read it. In fact you should probably get and read everything Kapuscinski wrote. He is that good. But this post is not about the book. It is about this.
This is the photograph that adorns the front cover of my Vintage paperback edition taken by the French photographer, Françoise Huguier. I have no idea if it is on the cover of other editions, of the hardback or what. I don’t care. I am just very glad that this picture is on my copy. The book was down by the side of my bed but half covered in the wreckage so that the picture itself was framed without the strap-line at the top or the title or author’s name at the bottom.
What a photo. The deep ebony of the boatman, the jet fissure in his back valleyed by the tremendous musculature. And then the camel, lean, long-legged, framed by the oar. Beyond there is nothing, the boatman is taking you to nowhere. As far as your eye can see just the sere landscape, the wind rippled water simply miniature dunes, an expectation of the sand beyond, an extension of desert.
Can you imagine yourself there? It would be an oven. Feel it. That particular pricking of the skin a hot desert provokes, the inside of an AGA. Like the old one we had in Scotland, brick lined, eroding, dusty, fired by the burning coals in a next door chamber, the source of all the desiccation. Wonderful. To feel yourself dry around your bones, to be crumbled to sand, flesh dog-turd white, friable, skin weathered to tattered papyrus parchment, teeth grinning through, gone back into the earth.
Perhaps the boatman is really Charon made flesh. On the other side of this Styx, a real inferno through which wander strange and impervious Dolittlian animals.
As I said, nice photo. Puts your imagination to work.
What a photo. The deep ebony of the boatman, the jet fissure in his back valleyed by the tremendous musculature. And then the camel, lean, long-legged, framed by the oar. Beyond there is nothing, the boatman is taking you to nowhere. As far as your eye can see just the sere landscape, the wind rippled water simply miniature dunes, an expectation of the sand beyond, an extension of desert.
Can you imagine yourself there? It would be an oven. Feel it. That particular pricking of the skin a hot desert provokes, the inside of an AGA. Like the old one we had in Scotland, brick lined, eroding, dusty, fired by the burning coals in a next door chamber, the source of all the desiccation. Wonderful. To feel yourself dry around your bones, to be crumbled to sand, flesh dog-turd white, friable, skin weathered to tattered papyrus parchment, teeth grinning through, gone back into the earth.
Perhaps the boatman is really Charon made flesh. On the other side of this Styx, a real inferno through which wander strange and impervious Dolittlian animals.
As I said, nice photo. Puts your imagination to work.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Wyatt Burp - Part III
The series of posts using the excerpt from Bob Wyatt’s new book as a jumping off point for discussions on the ethics of fishing has reached its third half. Before I get into that a recent email exchange has made me think that I have got the order of the posts a bit squiffy. Maybe I should have introduced Wyatt’s piece (WB - Part I) and then gone with the pain and cruelty as the meat of the debate before doing the more diffuse arguments against angling (WB - Part II). But I didn’t get that right. This is the pain and cruelty one. I could offer you my proportionally pneumatic selective mind reseting device (pat. pending) so that you can come afresh, as it were, to these posts but it would cost you more than your miserable lives are worth20.
Now, on with the story Horatio.
Wyatt, along with the majority of vocal anglers in the press and on social media doesn’t think we fishermen are cruel. He says:-
Now, on with the story Horatio.
Wyatt, along with the majority of vocal anglers in the press and on social media doesn’t think we fishermen are cruel. He says:-
“For starters, like any fly fisher, I don’t believe catch and release fly fishing is cruel, even unintentionally. Strictly speaking, cruelty requires the intention to be cruel - the merciless indifference to, or even pleasure in inflicting suffering. No angler I have ever met intends to be cruel.”21
And so begins the tricky bit. Note that Wyatt says catch and release fishing isn’t cruel. Just to belabour the point, thus far the national legislation against fishing in some countries is driven by the perception that, ethically, catch and release is a step beyond the pail, a practice solely for the enjoyment of one animal at the expense of another and, because it does inflict suffering and maybe pain, is unnecessarily cruel. Catch and kill has not been legislated against as it is closer to other activities involved in the harvesting of animals for consumption22. This is the point of the comparisons to hunting (shooting really) which has public support when the intention is to kill game for food. Killing game for sport receives much more limited support (see Part II)23. The second point to immediately note is that Wyatt breaks cruelty into intentional and unintentional but only goes on to defend anglers from the accusation of intentional cruelty. I’ll get back to look at this later.
So what about cruelty. What is it? How on earth can anglers be accused of being cruel especially when one considers that the object of their supposed cruelty is a group of animals that do a very good job of epitomising the cold, slimy and callously indifferent nature we might expect of non-terrestrial, non-furred, unfeathered animals. They aren’t, it has to be said, good sales-organisms for themselves24.
The cruelty charge against angling has to be proven categorically. At least that is what the angling community say and is the foundation of Wyatt’s attitude. In this debate cruelty has become synonymous with pain. Thus fish must not only have the relevant pain receptors and transmitters, but also the ability to be consciously aware of the pain (and the right sort of pain at that) inflicted on them. Consciousness and pain go hand in hand, can’t have the latter if the former isn’t present. Rose et al.’s recent paper25 takes pretty much all the significant previous empirical studies and syntheses of these studies and asks a very simple question. Do fish have the human-like capacity for pain?
So what about cruelty. What is it? How on earth can anglers be accused of being cruel especially when one considers that the object of their supposed cruelty is a group of animals that do a very good job of epitomising the cold, slimy and callously indifferent nature we might expect of non-terrestrial, non-furred, unfeathered animals. They aren’t, it has to be said, good sales-organisms for themselves24.
The cruelty charge against angling has to be proven categorically. At least that is what the angling community say and is the foundation of Wyatt’s attitude. In this debate cruelty has become synonymous with pain. Thus fish must not only have the relevant pain receptors and transmitters, but also the ability to be consciously aware of the pain (and the right sort of pain at that) inflicted on them. Consciousness and pain go hand in hand, can’t have the latter if the former isn’t present. Rose et al.’s recent paper25 takes pretty much all the significant previous empirical studies and syntheses of these studies and asks a very simple question. Do fish have the human-like capacity for pain?
“We evaluate recent claims for consciousness in fish, but find these claims lack adequate supporting evidence, neurological feasibility, or the likelihood that consciousness would be adaptive. Even if fishes were conscious, it is unwarranted to assume that they posses a human-like capacity for pain.”
Rose has ventured into the fish pain debate before26 and with this piece writes a good new review, very thorough, well argued and persuasive. And fundamentally I agree with the authors conclusions. There is as yet, no solid evidence to say that fish are conscious in a human way or that they feel human-like pain. But, well, that really does seem like very narrow criteria. And actually one might ask, who cares whether or not fish feel pain in a ‘human-like’ way27? It is slightly disingenuous to suggest that this is the overriding aspect that should be considered from a fish welfare point of view and the stance Rose and his co-authors have taken has left them a little like an island in a stream. As mentioned above some nations have passed legislation to improve fish welfare and minimise cruel actions largely based on their reading of the research that Rose and co-writers so heavily criticise. Other organisations, like the European Food Safety Authority, agree and acknowledge that fish feel pain. In addition, rules governing the use of animals in research stipulate that analgesics have to be used to avoid suffering and pain in fish. All these suggest that groups of law- and rule-makers are accepting the conclusions of workers who call the observed responses of fish painful, over Rose and his co-authors well argued, likely correct, but very narrow alternative definition. At the other end of the room anglers, who would prefer a nice, short, precise answer and who pay much more attention to one which confirms rather than refuting their long standing beliefs, will like Rose et al.’s conclusions. This is exemplified by places like Midcurrent who report on the review by copying another angling site’s brief write-up. Once again, just to be really pedantic, it is not as Midcurrent report, that fish don’t feel pain per se but that the review study suggests they don’t possess a “human-like capacity for pain”28.
There is a disjunct then between Rose and a small handful of other scientists who have also criticised claims of pain, and conversely, a rather large and increasing number of papers from the other side who have claimed that fish do feel pain and that they do suffer29. Why does this difference in interpretation still persist when, at least for my, admittedly not particularly well educated, money, Rose makes a good argument? His review paper is based on two fundamentals. The first is that it is necessary to have a very clear definition of what is consciousness and pain. The second is that experiments have to meet these clear definitions if the authors want to make statements claiming that fish feel pain. His criticism in the review is directed at those who have not made this critical connection between the observed responses of fish to injurious stimulation and the criteria for human-like consciousness and pain. The other scientists are HARKing (Hypothesising After the Results are Known) and taking a feelings-based approach to interpretations of the data. Yet despite this the pain and consciousness papers keep coming and fish welfare rules keep being amended. There must be more to it. Funnily enough clues as to the basis of the difference between Rose’s interpretation and those mentioned above might be captured in a couple of sections in Rose’s own review paper. One is this description;
There is a disjunct then between Rose and a small handful of other scientists who have also criticised claims of pain, and conversely, a rather large and increasing number of papers from the other side who have claimed that fish do feel pain and that they do suffer29. Why does this difference in interpretation still persist when, at least for my, admittedly not particularly well educated, money, Rose makes a good argument? His review paper is based on two fundamentals. The first is that it is necessary to have a very clear definition of what is consciousness and pain. The second is that experiments have to meet these clear definitions if the authors want to make statements claiming that fish feel pain. His criticism in the review is directed at those who have not made this critical connection between the observed responses of fish to injurious stimulation and the criteria for human-like consciousness and pain. The other scientists are HARKing (Hypothesising After the Results are Known) and taking a feelings-based approach to interpretations of the data. Yet despite this the pain and consciousness papers keep coming and fish welfare rules keep being amended. There must be more to it. Funnily enough clues as to the basis of the difference between Rose’s interpretation and those mentioned above might be captured in a couple of sections in Rose’s own review paper. One is this description;
“Similarly, grimacing, vocalization, and organized avoidance reactions made in response to a nociceptive stimulus by an unconscious human, such as a decorticate individual, a person in a persistent vegetative state, or a lightly anesthetized person are nocifensive reactions alone because such people are incapable of consciousness, the essential condition for the experience of pain. Thus, purely nocifensive behaviors can be simple or relatively complex and exhibited by humans or other vertebrates [..] with critical parts of their central nervous system damaged.”
Nociception and pain are at the core of this assessment. Nociception is the unconscious response to injurious stimuli. It can involve many behaviours, is signalled by a bunch of receptors (A-delta nociceptors) and doesn’t require a neocortex to process. Pain requires a further set of receptors (C fibre nociceptors - of which there are very few in fish) and, at least in humans a neocortical region of the brain to consciously perceive what is termed second pain (simple nociception deals with first pain), the deep, sustained and acute pain (toothache, crush injuries etc) that possibly stimulates healing behaviours. The crux, the real difficulty is that “nocifencive behaviors”, as mentioned above, can be very complex;
“Chronically decerebrate rats, which have the entire brain above the midbrain removed [..], still react strongly to the insertion of a feeding tube, struggling, pushing at it with the forepaws, and vocalizing. When receiving an injection, these rats react indistinguishably from a normal rat: vocalizing, attempting to bite the syringe or experimenter’s hand, and licking the injection site.”
When one looks at the suite of reactions described here it is difficult, certainly for a lay person, not to have classed them as showing a pain reaction particularly if you didn’t already have a clear definition of the distinction between pain and nociception. Now this doesn’t mean that every procedure results in such a reaction or that every animal will react the same way - fish for example may not be quite as bothered as rats. Nevertheless, when describing the complexity of responses I would defy anyone to look at the last paragraph quoted and not say that the animal was in pain. The fact that it is not, “human-like” just goes to show what an inappropriate measure this might be for cruelty. It certainly would seem like the rat is under considerable stress and is suffering. It certainly appears that the rat would like it, in as much as one can infer rats like anything, to stop. It appears that while Rose et al. might be strictly correct the response of fish is dramatic enough that being strictly correct can go blow itself. Pain, or perhaps pain instead of Pain, is still the closest word we have for describing the reactions shown by fish.
This difference between the very formal definition of pain, the behaviours that are one level ‘below’ pain termed nociception and our own emotional interpretation of how we see an animal responding when we do something to that animal (whether that be hooking and playing a fish or injecting a rat) is at the core of why some people consider fishing to be cruel and others do not. In isolation one might accept the level of response shown by fish particularly when the catching is done well and caught fish don’t show the extensive suite of negative responses described for the rat30. But do we get to parse out pain and nociception? Are we allowed to do that as fishermen? Given the potential behaviours, the avoidance learning and memory retention associated with the “cruel” capture event are we omniscient enough to know where the boundary between justified “pain” and unjustified pain lies?
I’ll finish this series by looking at the other aspects that affect fish after capture, the stress, the loss in fitness, the personality disorders and the like. No? Well, find out in Wyatt Burp - Part IV.
This difference between the very formal definition of pain, the behaviours that are one level ‘below’ pain termed nociception and our own emotional interpretation of how we see an animal responding when we do something to that animal (whether that be hooking and playing a fish or injecting a rat) is at the core of why some people consider fishing to be cruel and others do not. In isolation one might accept the level of response shown by fish particularly when the catching is done well and caught fish don’t show the extensive suite of negative responses described for the rat30. But do we get to parse out pain and nociception? Are we allowed to do that as fishermen? Given the potential behaviours, the avoidance learning and memory retention associated with the “cruel” capture event are we omniscient enough to know where the boundary between justified “pain” and unjustified pain lies?
I’ll finish this series by looking at the other aspects that affect fish after capture, the stress, the loss in fitness, the personality disorders and the like. No? Well, find out in Wyatt Burp - Part IV.
20. Yes I know it looks like an old fashioned bicycle pump. But great leaps in design and surreptitious torture implements don’t come around with any sort of regularity. One has to make do with what one can. Anyhow it’s a snip at $50k. Why not buy one today - you know you want to.↩
21. I remember, when watching the odious Tony Blair, once lamentable Prime Minister of the home country and arse licker extraordinaire to the indescribably Bush, that he would often say “I believe …” and then lie about something. At which point I used to pick up whatever came to hand; a child, various pets or vermin, a Ford fiesta, the Amoco Cadiz, and hurl it at the television in an attempt to obliterate that smug, condescending wankers face from the screen. “I don’t,” I would yell at his image, “want to hear what you believe you criminal piece of something I pick up on the sole of my shoe when walking in the gutter, I want to know what your considered opinion is, based on lot and lots of detailed conversations and arguments with all those experts who have helped form said opinion, you fucking shambolick excuse for a …..” etc, etc. Wyatt actually has done either a little lite reading or listening and so ducks the full explosion but generally ‘I believe’ at the beginning of a statement about an opinion needing some thought, research and considerable cogitation sets my teeth on edge.↩
22. Legislation in Europe has taken this path of least resistance. However, some of the main ethical arguments against angling include both C&K and C&R. These are based on the fact that the sport is driven by the interests of the angler and not the interests of fish. The interests of fish is an odd term you might think but it is an accepted one, at least by the animal rights crowd and has been adopted as an ethical standard by some researchers:
"The interest that anglers demonstrate in sport fishing is recreational and not a basic, or necessary, survival instinct. Lots of people don't fish. The interests of fish, however, are basic survival interests, shared by many other animals." (de Leeuw (1996) Env Ethics, 18, 373-390).
Our unnecessary fun is interfering in and possibly jeopardising the lives of fish for no good reason. Not much respect for ones fellow vertebrate there - is the basic argument.↩23. A clarification is needed because I am using the word too loosely. Hunting, in American parlance, includes pretty much any firearm (bow and arrow, spear, petrified snake) aimed and fired at animals. Where I come from most of this would be described as shooting (the snake bit has its own terminology which I won’t divulge here). One did hunting with hounds either uncomfortably on top of a horse or on foot with hounds. Nevertheless being in the States I’ll continue to call what I would have called ‘shooting’ by its ‘cross the pond moniker, hunting. So hunting (shooting) and fishing where the quarry is shot/caught and killed quickly to be eaten has support (depending on where you live of course) whereas hunting for sport and catch and release much less so because in the latter at least it is sometimes seen as a mechanism where we can go about catching the same fish and torture it all over again.↩
24. Cold bloodedness is a big no-no. Who could love that? And not having warm fur, smooth (warm) skin or even colourful (warm) fluffy feathers is hardly going to endear you to anything. Look, bloody Nemo had to live in a (warm) tropical ocean didn’t he and garb himself in a parrot’s colours. And you didn’t really see any slime sloughing off him did you. But slime and fish go together like strawberries and cream. Yeuck! Callous? Oh boy yes. Don’t see any of the fish we catch giving their offspring a nice suckle of (warm) milk now do you? No. Chuck the sprogs out into the wide dangerous and very cold world as soon as they’re laid. Worse than reptiles.↩
25. Most of this comes from Rose et al. (2012) Fish and Fisheries, early view (see Part I ..i for full citation] for this and subsequent descriptions of pain processing. That might be a little naughty, relying on one source, but it is a review paper rather than a single experimental paper and they really have done a good job.↩
26. His two previous papers are; Rose, R. D. (2002) Rev. Fish. Sci, 10, 1-38 - the major review paper that the angling world relied on to counter work suggesting fish feel pain by Sneddon and other researchers (see Wyatt Burp - Part II ..i for a handful of relevant references); Rose J. D. (2007) Dis Aq. Org. 75, 139-154 - a response to the increasing number of studies that were supporting the idea that fish feel pain and are conscious. There is also a small piece in the NYT that I posted briefly on here.↩
27. It gets back to this very tricky thing about knowing what is going on in the minds of non-human animals. Anyone guessing, recreationally or professionally, would do well to read Thomas Nagel’s famous essay, mentioned a number of times before on TOSS, “What is it like to be a bat”.↩
28. This sort of flimsy reliance on science reporting sites or fishing sites to get news and interpretation of scientific findings is really annoying. Midcurrent do it all the time. Last December there was a news comment that went
“[I]f you needed more backing for the principle of catch and release, new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed that the best bass “parents” are targeted by recreational fishing. Thereby decreasing survivability of the young and ultimately, decreasing good fishing.”
It is true that the most attentive bass parents are differentially targeted by angling. This is because they are of the bold personality type, therefore have higher metabolic rates, are more likely to mount an active defence of the nest site, chase intruders, hit lures. Naturally, if these adults are killed when caught it means all the eggs they were protecting will be lost to nest predators like bluegills. So put ‘em back. Except what the study, if it is read properly, you know, each page, instead of a report of the study, or just the abstract of the study (because the following bit wasn’t in there either), actually says in this regard is; ”[E]ven in the absence of harvest, any temporary removal (e.g., an angling event in a catch-and-release fishery) could mean a loss of at least some fitness to egg predators […].”
Which kinda changes the conclusion. It is not that C&K is bad and that this supports C&R but that C&K is the worst, C&R is still going to have detrimental effect and that not fishing for spawning bass at all is the best. So why wouldn’t that be the conclusion? Why can’t that be as simply reported instead of what was actually reported. Doesn’t take any extra words - but might take a little extra effort and not be what anglers want to hear especially as both angling methods might result in “decreasing good fishing”.↩29. Just this week a new paper was publishing clearly stating that crabs feel pain (Magee B. & Elwood, R. W. (2013) Shock avoidance by discrimination learning in the shore crab (Carcinus maenus) is consistent with a key criterion for pain. J. Exp. Biol. 26, 353-358). The found that crabs given an electric shock in a shaded hidey hole preferred to venture out into the brightly light tank rahter than stay and possibly get another shock. In other words the preferred to accet the risk of predation in the open rather than the risk of being shocked in safety. Rose would likely call this nociception as, ironically he did to this research groups other paper on pain and hermit crabs.↩
30. Indeed, it is a problem for those opposed to fishing on these grounds. They can’t simply lump all non-human animals together and call everything cruel. Vocalisation, licking the wound site and pushing with forepaws are obviously not part of a fish’s repertoire. A fish’s response can never appear as extreme as a rat’s. Not being so extreme this lesser response by the fish will diminish our emotional reaction to its distress. That is not to say that if a fish could respond like a rat (bearing in mind Nagel of course) if it were given a voice, paws etc, that it would. Or wouldn’t as the case may be. We just don’t know.↩
Friday, January 18, 2013
Random Quotes XXXII
A little while back I started to redress an omission in my fishing reading. That bordello keeper Mme Brayshaw forced me to start reading Russell Chatham. Forced, yes. Held me down and started to beat me over the head with blunt emails containing the latest price swings of Dark Waters, Angler’s Coast and Silent Seasons, the latter an essay collection by him, Thomas McGuane, William Hjortsberg, Jack Curtis, Harmon Henkin, Charles Waterman and Jim Harrison. He is very good and jumps straight into my small gang of eminently re-readable angling authors: Leeson, Babb, Gierach and a couple more. I wouldn’t quite heap the praise on him that I might on say Leeson or Babb. He falls sometimes into that trap of being a little pleased with himself, a trait made familiar by reading his contemporaries and friends like the poet Harrison and perhaps one common to those who lived their formative years during the 1960s and early 70s. Nevertheless he does the right thing, doesn’t shirk from including all the messy bits of life that surround and are even part of our fishing lives. Drugs and drug taking, sex and women, drink and getting unnecessarily drunk. A facet incredibly welcome in comparison to much of the modern output where the saccharine sweetness of some media makes me think it must be some sort of post modern comment on fishing and life. I mean nothing could be seriously that self reverential and so completely lacking in irony. Could it?
Back to Chatham. A recent contretemps about the Wyatt Burp series resulted in the suggestion that I should read the essay “about an emotional encounter with a jay”. Funnily enough I had already marked this passage for an RQ post. It appears in the essay collection, Dark Waters, in a piece called “Sporting Deaths”. It is this kind of experience that probably confirmed me, ironically given the kind of things I have been posting recently, more as a fisherman. The sight of a hare, shot in the back legs, crippled, crawling round and round in circles in front of me while I tried to get the spent, but stuck, 20-bore cartridge out from the single barrelled shotgun so I could finish the bloody thing off. Not a happy memory. Chatham’s is a tremendously affecting example.
“The other afternoon I went grouse hunting. I’d a nasty experience the week before, when, after a friend had shot and crippled a bird, I picked it up and cracked its head over a fencepost, then left it while we hunted. When we came back an hour later the bird was sitting looking at us. I nearly vomited at what I’d unwittingly done, and quickly broke its neck. But this incident had faded into the past as they all do and again I was walking in the woods.
A half hour passed without a bird when suddenly a shadow flushed overhead. I raised the shotgun instinctively, only to see a blue jay. During my motion I’d pushed the safety off and before I knew what I was doing I’d touched off a shot. A few feathers flew and the jay swerved unnaturally into a nearby tree. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. This was worthy of a nine-year-old and I was horrified. For a moment I hoped the jay was unhurt but I knew too well that he was hit somewhere. My dog raced aimlessly around the woods confused since she’d flushed no grouse nor seen any fall. My other dog, a completely useless Basenji that I’d taken along for the walk, stood by and whined. I walked over to the tree and looked up at the jay who stared down his beak half open. Several times I walked back from the tree thinking he’d fly away, thereby absolving me from the consequences of my hasty actions. But he didn’t as I knew he wouldn’t, because he was shot. Standing back. I pointed the gun at him for long minutes, then touched off another blast. At this he fluttered from the tree and flew over my head where I jerked off another crazed shot, missing him completely. This last can only have been part of some demented effort to be “sportsmanlike.” By now I was in shock, the dog was racing more feverishly than ever about the woods trying to figure it out and the Basenji whined even more loudly. The jay landed in an aspen, very wounded. I began to sob uncontrollably. Walking close, I aimed and with my fourth shot blew the thing to kingdom come. Laying down the gun, I cried for some time, then sat quietly in the late autumn afternoon, listening to the sounds in the woods and watching the light change as it glinted of the Yellowstone River in the far distance.
I’m a hunter and a fisherman, always have been always will be.
Why?”
A half hour passed without a bird when suddenly a shadow flushed overhead. I raised the shotgun instinctively, only to see a blue jay. During my motion I’d pushed the safety off and before I knew what I was doing I’d touched off a shot. A few feathers flew and the jay swerved unnaturally into a nearby tree. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. This was worthy of a nine-year-old and I was horrified. For a moment I hoped the jay was unhurt but I knew too well that he was hit somewhere. My dog raced aimlessly around the woods confused since she’d flushed no grouse nor seen any fall. My other dog, a completely useless Basenji that I’d taken along for the walk, stood by and whined. I walked over to the tree and looked up at the jay who stared down his beak half open. Several times I walked back from the tree thinking he’d fly away, thereby absolving me from the consequences of my hasty actions. But he didn’t as I knew he wouldn’t, because he was shot. Standing back. I pointed the gun at him for long minutes, then touched off another blast. At this he fluttered from the tree and flew over my head where I jerked off another crazed shot, missing him completely. This last can only have been part of some demented effort to be “sportsmanlike.” By now I was in shock, the dog was racing more feverishly than ever about the woods trying to figure it out and the Basenji whined even more loudly. The jay landed in an aspen, very wounded. I began to sob uncontrollably. Walking close, I aimed and with my fourth shot blew the thing to kingdom come. Laying down the gun, I cried for some time, then sat quietly in the late autumn afternoon, listening to the sounds in the woods and watching the light change as it glinted of the Yellowstone River in the far distance.
I’m a hunter and a fisherman, always have been always will be.
Why?”
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