The title is an homage to William Boot’s column in The Beast (vide Scoop, Evelyn Waugh, 1933). Whether it is mild weather or competition from feeders in the cemetery, our avian amigos are not making their way, ‘feather footed through the plashy fen’, to the feeders in the back garden.
In the last month I have seen a wren, a robin and a pair of tits. Pigeons don’t count. On offer at the buffet are suet pellets, niger seed and regular bird seed. The suet is the first to go but that is because a mouse eats it. Yesterday for the first time a squirrel made an appearance but did not use the feeders. I bought online a plastic baffler to stop squirrels hoping it would baffle mice too. It was much too big and I re-gifted it to friends in Oxfordshire who tell me that it makes their feeders squirrel proof and keeps the birds dry while they are feeding.
I have finished Nigel Nicolson’s diaries. I have a strong suspicion that he withholds information about his private life. Anyway I have turned to something lighter, a Christmas present; an homage to PG Wodehouse, Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott. It’s nice of him to append a bonus ‘pip pip!’
I am a hundred pages in and enjoying it very much. However, stylistically it differs from classic Plum, but that’s not to say it’s plum duff. The story is told by Bertie in the first person and there is much more dialogue than usual. It reads like a preparation for a film, which is perhaps what Ben Schott intends, and a fine film it would make too.
Pip pip.