Blackbird Behaviour

We have a male blackbird who has been attacking his reflection in a window here for the past two days.    He is making quite a racket and has made the window absolutely filthy.     Yet he persists.   It is mating season, and clearly his reflection is seen as a rival.

We have tried shining a light out from the window, scaring him off from inside ….. and outside, but he is still going at the window hammer and tongs when he gets a chance.

Our latest tactic has been to hang an old pillowcase outside the window.   He is still in the tree outside, looking mighty puzzled.    At least the noise has stopped for now.

Police Cordon

We had a bit of excitement in our village this week.   A police cordon appeared with cones and tape blocking off the whole pavement on one side and parking on both sides of the street.    A white boxy trailer thing (mobile incident room) appeared, and there were a series of rather chilly looking policemen standing guard in rota.     Then a minibus of the white suited brigade rolled up to get stuck into forensics.    It was the whole works.  

Like everywhere else, we get our share of vandalism, and we had a stabbing in the 1970s, but being good the Taggart watchers that we are (supporting Scottish acting talent of course) it looked all set for the big man himself to roll up, climb out of his car and announce ”there’s been a murder”.

Well, not exactly.    A cannabis factory had been discovered - a whole house growing cannabis plants.    500 plants, according to the local paper.    Apparently these places are springing up all over the place these days, but to be honest, we did not expect it in our busy Main Street.

The Police set up the cordon on Monday night, and it was only lifted late on Thursday afternoon.    To the layman like me, that’s a long time to deal with 500 cannabis plants and get a few fingerprints.    It was very disruptive to the shops round about and casued significant loss of business.

Still, the law must take its course.   Currently not sure if anyone has been arrested for this.

HMRC Apology

Like the other 24,999,999 people who have their account details lost by HMRC, we received a letter of apology this week.    I am still not sure whether to be worried about this, or not, although I probably should be I suppose.

Whatever - that’s still a huge postage bill for HMRC (paid by us taxpayers).    Think of the logistics of ordering a cool 25 million envelopes and 50,000 reams of paper, never mind the cost of the post to go on top.    It a is pretty mind-boggling exercise, particularly when you consider that all the letters were personalised - no general circular this.

Last swallows

The last swallows have finally left today.    There was a very late brood in a nest in my workshop.    They make a spectacular mess under their nests which will now have to be cleared up.

But I hope these now very late migrants make it to Africa OK.

Late Ash Trees

It is the 20th May today, and some ash trees are still not in leaf.   I really cannot remember them being so late before.    It is very odd.

Oak Trees - warm spring.

What has happened to the oak trees this year?    Round here, they are already bursting into leaf.   That’s ahead of the beeches and of course, the ash.     And it is before the swallows have arrived.    It is really unusual, as oak usually comes into leaf in May. 

As the saying goes:

“If the oak flowers before the ash, then be ready for a splash;    if the ash flowers before the oak, then get ready for a soak”.

We must be in for a really scorching summer then.

New Year - Flambeaux

We are planning to go to Comrie for Hogmanay where there is a procession of flaming torches called Flambeaux.   These are birch poles soaked in the river Earn for six weeks before having tarry sackcloth wired to their tops ready for the procession.    They are lit and paraded through the village with a pipe band leading the way as well as a fancy dress parade.    It is a unique spectacle.

The weather forecast is particularly foul for the 31st - rain and big gales, so we will need to dress up.       Last time we were due to go to Comrie for New Year, the snow came down really heavily from 4pm onwards and blocked all the roads making travel especially dangerous.

Low Flying Helicopters

Not sure what has been going on these past two evenings, but we have had very low flying helicopters across the farm at night.

They looked like Sea Kings and had very few navigational lights on, so perhaps they were on an exercise.    Normally if there is going to be night-time low flying, there is an announcement in the Dundee Courier, but if there was, I missed it.     I don’t mind them doing it - they have to practice somewhere, but unannounced, it is a bit alarming.

I do worry that they will fly into sets of power lines in the dark.   And last night, the weather was filthy.

No more 0870 numbers

Many companies and public agencies use 0870 phone numbers for the public to contact them.    These numbers are expensive, and too often, the company you are phoning gets a cut.

Very often, there are alternative numbers that staff can use etc. which go to the same place as the 0870 numbers.    These can be geographic area codes, or 0845 numbers, which are generally national rate, or even 0800 numbers, which are free.    Sometimes the organisations give out a number to phone from abroad beginning with +44 and all you have to do is remove this and add a zero.

A brilliant person has pulled this together in a website called saynoto0870.com where alternative numbers are shown, and you can add your own.

I phoned up a national government agency using an 0800 number instead of an 0870 number.   It was a call centre, and it felt rather good to realise that working my way through the options and listening to the ‘on hold’ music was costing them, not me, for a change.

Highly recommended.

Digital Radio DAB and “the Pips”

One of the most popular household purchases made recently was a DAB radio which we use every day in our kitchen.    Not only do you get lots of extra channels, but there is a remote which changes radio stations TV style.   We listen to a lot of radio.

But I do have some reservations:    the sound quality is not always as good as FM - even on the main BBC stations received at full signal.    Strange, because I thought that digital was supposed to be pretty perfect soundwise.     Turns out it is to do with bandwidth, and there has been a whole debate on the  BBC Radio 3 website about this.   

Also, nobody has thought of a standard to synchronise the broadcasting of DAB radio.    At the moment, if you have FM radios turned on all over the house, they all play at the same time:   the pips all sound together.    If you have two DAB radios in the house, they both play at different rates - even receiving the same signal.    And of course Freeview broadcasts at a different rate again.    I don’t know about Sky.

Time was when you could put on Radio 3 for last night of the proms and it was in synch with the TV.   Not a chance now.   Terrestrial TV and freeview TV are also at very different rates.

Which begs the question …….. which set of time pips are the correct ones?    The National Maritime Museum has an interesting article on this.    Apparently the delay can be as much as 7 seconds between receivers.