Birds 2

Birds 2
Making again took me back to town. The capitals of Guardianistan are Islington and Frome. A town in mourning for something they never understood. I suggested to get over their grief that they meet up in groups of say twelve. Play the rizla game. Each person should write their favourite MEP on a rizla and stick it to their neighbours forehead. Then, by asking questions over the legislation their person is best known for, which article of the Lisbon treaty they pressed hardest to form, they could work out who they were. Of course I joke. Nobody could say more than a couple, most couldn't name one. This referendum was a managerial decision hurled down to the shop floor. A decision of such nuance and complexity no one of the general public was equipped to make it. They huffed and puffed, grew red faced, but most hadn't a clue . Instead they took words that sounded good. Access to the single market requires free movement of people. In or out we would be subject to the same regulations. In or out our economy is sufficiently strong to survive the brief storm of exit.
But I turned away. By the river white cattle egrets soared by. Pure as Angels. Smaller birds enjoy the overgrowth their. A saviours warbler. Is their a sweeter birds name? A grasshopper warbler. At home the eaves of all the houses have sparrows, house martins and other nests. The parents return from sorties to feed the young. Each morning I awake to the chicks chirping for food. The flight patterns formed an ever changing bunting decorating the houses. Now some have flown, some still are fledging. The odd crow, jackdaw or woodpecker comes around looking to eat the young. From my windows I see the tiny heads peeping from the clay moulds of martins nests. Out in the fields swallows scim the ground, a foot above the grass tips, sweeping up flies and insects. Some come so close you imagine you could reach out and touch them. Overhead buzzards circle, enjoying the thermals that our eyes can not see. Last Sunday as I took my dog for a last walk a young sparrowhawk chanced upon some unlucky young bird. Their followed a whipping circuitous high speed ballet as the predator chased down the prey.
Saturday morning I woke exuberant. This was curtailed first be online attempts to pay tax etc and change addresses, a simple enough trifle, I had been informed. Two hours and I was seething with frustration. Reading the Saturday paper deepened my anger as the elite wrote articles on how losing the vote affected them. How their privileges were undermined by the stupid, racist and uneducated. The Guardian was awash with arrogance and bigotry. All their intelligent writers from Paul Mason, john Harris, Irvine Welsh
, Giles Fraser were omitted leaving an open field for the pompous new face of the 'progressives'. A left leaning self perception that disguises a right wing educated entitlement. Democracy was once their freind. Now a referendum saw their views in minority, democracy was at fault. Representative democracy they cried, not this direct democracy. Overlooking that the poor had just saved their skin from an endless path away from democracy, transparency, accountability. So subsumed by their own smug righteousness were they, reality was at fault. Throwing the turgid misery paper aside I stepped out. Taking my dog we set off over field. Through meadow and corn field, past hedgerow through pasture then deep into native woodland. Here in damp we slipped through branch and leaf down to the fields surrounding the river. We crossed, stepped a few yards on paved area before a pathway beneath a disused railway bridge took us back into grazing land and finally to my home. Here I doused myself with eth lad, cut my hair and beard then showered. Feeling refreshed we walked the return to Leigh on Mendip. Soon green effervescence overwhelmed me. Only my second eth lad experience but the first time to truly get it. Full visual lysergic spectrum yet focused and clear. Not so comedic and light as al lad. Greens and blues in sweeping structures. Earthy. Less of the swirl and red spectrum of Al lad. But the difference is more profound. Less challenging than meth lad, LSD 25, yet not without an edge. Introspective. Of the holy trinity I'd say the deepest in self reflection. Clear and deep thoughts. I am tempted to say that of the trio it's my favourite. Certainly the ease and carefree sensationalism of Al lad provides the gentlest ride, bereft of dark avenues. Yet eth lad isn't intoxicating nor blurring. The mind finds crystal clarity. Mulling over the recent politics all fell into place. The future is bright. What changes we now enjoy, freed of the shackles of personality politics for a while. Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, Farrage all gone from the scene, perhaps Corbyn too now he's said his piece to parliament over Blairs actions over Iraq. A new and open field. A reboot. Whichever way you voted the political class were given a kick in the teeth. Their pomposity and arrogance took a hit. Those who now look confounded deserve to be. Did they not understand that whole areas of Britain had been abandoned in their fight for the centre ground. Once free movement became inevitable, all governments cut back on training and education knowing jobs would be filled anyway. Why spend? They thought. But the uneducated were not stupid, nor in my view were they racist. Their number swung the vote. Surely, purely on maths alone, these abandoned people, cut adrift, insulted, called stupid racist and worse, surely now they must be listened to. Here is where Coebyn could win. His negligence in abandoning his euro sceptic convictions allowed the leave campaign to be spearheaded by the far right. But if the man has balls. If he can learn from this, speak to these forgotten people, labour could win the next election.
The afternoon was sun drenched. Village cricket plays out before me. The teams include boys coming of age, a peak core of six either side at competitive fitness, early twenties to thirties. Out field men as old as sixty still play. The villages manhood. Lives spent meeting each weekend to compete and talk. Flurry so of excitement and bouts of discussion. The footprint of the men in white from the air forms an oval. Strays tightening in number to the heart of the game. The bowler makes his run, bowls, batsman cracks the ball that flies out and a deep fielder suddenly alert dives to catch as cheers go up. Villagers, no more than two dozen watch the game with me. Sat on benches all named in carved letters. The cricketers now left the crease. My mind drifted to the global footprint of cricket. The fading shadow of the empire. The commonwealth countries that were rudely rejected as ted Heath joined the common market. Trade agreements drawn from wartime alliances. Men who fought and died in the trenches. Men from India, packistan, Sri lanca, New Zealand, Australia, all proud cricketing nations. Our commonwealth trading partners rejected for our new love of Europe. Cricket, being a gentlemen so game continued. England may now be throwing its lot in with the French and Germans but our respected cricketing brothers of all creeds and colours forgave and still play on. Perhaps it is only now through cricket that the friendships and alliances that fought off the menace of utopian European schemes still lives. My goal now is to join the village cricket team..


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