Choughed to bits

For the last few weeks I'd be been pondering a trip to North Wales to visit friends who do volunteer work at RSPB Conwy. Being far more skilled birders than I, that would surely be a simple way of boosting my tally. After getting in touch and mentioning that Akira was planning a trip to the Isle of May, it was suggested that I book on a boat trip to Puffin Island where I ought to be able to pick up lots of coastal ticks.

So setting off early in glorious sunshine, here's what I saw:

6th July (Beaumaris / Puffin Island, off Anglesey)

Curlew
Sandwich tern
Eider
Razorbill
Shag
Great black-backed gull
Guillemot
Kittiwake
Gannet
Fulmar
Puffin

 

Spot the puffin

After the boat I had a couple of hours available to try and boost the list further, and had a couple of options: head into Snowdonia and try for a long-distance osprey perhaps? look for waders at Conwy? or travel across Anglesey where I'd be almost guaranteed to see choughs? Having only ever seen choughs once (briefly, in Cornwall a couple of years ago) the decision was obvious. Despite getting lost a couple of times, I made it to South Stack where I added three more species:


South Stack (Anglesey):
Raven
Chough
Stonechat


20th July (Huddersfield Narrow Canal, Stalybridge)
Mandarin duck


All of which takes me well past the century and onto 109 species. Many thanks to Rose and the rest of the boat team for pointing everything out and providing a great day. Without further trips afield my list is unlikely to get much longer so we'll see whether I manage to add to it in August.

Don't listen with mother

As part of their efforts to declutter and remove all of the junk I've hoarded over 20+ years, my parents recently deposited two boxes full of audio cassettes. I couldn't bin them without checking them out so over the last couple of weeks I've been working through them on the commute. Spot the oddball / attention-seeker with the bulky walkman.

100 Hz legend: Need to optimise those sound levels son

I might write more about some of the unearthed gems (and turds) another time, but right now I'm considering sexually-transmitted diseases in music. Haven't we all.

I was prompted to ponder this while a burst of Mansun popped up, taped off the Evening Session. Stripper Vicar - what an odd record!




I'm not aware of anything STD related among the tragic tale of a deceased, cross-dressing member of the priesthood. But hearing it  made me recall the delightful opening line of a previous Mansun single, Skinup Pinup:

'Syphilis, sniff on this'.





...which led me to Turin Brakes' line from Future Boy:
'Syphilis is a bitch, but contracting HIV is much worse'.
Err, yes, yes it is.





And then, like a post-watershed game of Mallet's Mallet, Beck's line on Milk & Honey, 'I can smell the VD in the club tonight'.
I had a similar experience once in the Cabaret Club, Oldham. Perhaps Beck has visited there too.





There's more. Plenty more once you start on hip-hop. For starters, here's the Wu-Tang Clan's 'Shame on a nigga', courtesy of Ol' Dirty Bastard:

"Yo...!
I come with that ol' loco
Style from my vocal
Couldn't peep it with a pair of bi-focals
I'm no joker! Play me as a joker
Be on you like a house on fire! Smoke ya!
Crews be actin like they gangs, anyway
Be like, "Warriors! Come out and playiyay!"
Burn me, I get into shit, I let it out like diarrhea
Got burnt once, but that was only gonorrhea"




Last night I stuck on some L'il Wayne and within 10 minutes I'd collected two more. First, the opening lines of 'A Milli':

'I’m a millionaire I’m a young money millionaire, tougher than Nigerian hair  
My criteria compared to your career just isn’t fair  
I’m a venereal disease like a menstrual bleed
Through the pencil I leak on the sheet of the tablet in my mind'

and then in the superb 'Dr Carter':

"Swagger tighter then a yeast infection
Fly go hard like geese erection.
Fashion patrol police detection
I stay tight like Chinese Connection"

Love the image of a goose flying with a lob-on.
While I'm at it, this website is very amusing in explaining rap lyrics.




Pondering this delightful issue yet further, I remembered 'So What' by Metallica, the source of much amusement during Sixth Form free periods:

"I've had crabs
I've had lice 
I've had the clap and that ain't nice 
So what, so what"



There's 'Crabs' by 18 Wheeler. But that could be about the crustaceans.

So there we have it. Someone could write a thesis on that. Know of any more? Leave a comment. A gold star to anyone rhyming 'human papillomavirus'.