I added quite a lot to my photographic archive on Wednesday. I now have a fine selection of shots of water where a bird just dived (particularly the dabchick), a number of new shots of empty twigs where birds just flew off, and some good ones of partial birds. The Starlings were excellent for that on Wednesday as they were close and quick. Added to my framing difficulties there was also the issue of the sun. It was at an angle where i couldn’t see what I was photographing, but I was getting a great reflection of a bearded elderly man muttering to himself. Take away the camera and add a can of strong drink and you would have the archetypal man sitting in a park shouting at the birds.
It is a worry.
They say that civilisation is only skin deep, and you can see that once a rumour gets round about a shortage of toilet rolls, but you can at least look at it happening and comfort yourself with the thought that it is “other people”. Examine yourself using the “sitting in the park” test and the result does not look quite so far from home.
When I had a junk shop on one of Nottingham’s mess salubrious thoroughfares (Mansfield Road a few hundred yards up from the Victoria Centre if you are local) we had a bus stop outside, that was a regular haunt of street drinkers. One of them used to fascinate me, because he always arrived with a large pack of sandwiches wrapped in foil.I assume he was in some sort of sheltered accomodation and they used to pack him up each morning for a hard day of picnicking. abusing his liver and shouting at pigeons.
Ah, the things you think about when your mind starts to freewheel, which is, of course, another story.
Starling running out of shot…
I think a freewheeling mind is a normal state as we age. Or at least I hope it is.
Yes, it’s always difficult to know if we are typical or mad. My main fear is that I get to the end of my life and find that I’d have enjoyed it just as much as a rough-sleeping alcoholic. No bills, no responsibilities and no disappointed expectations…
🙂 However, at the moment I am cheering up and working on being an inappropriate old codger.
It may be time to write that novel, Quercus. You seem to have collected quite a few observations of humanity at its best and worst.
I was thinking that just a few days ago, I really must get on with it before I begin to mellow. 🙂
An hilarious image
What with that and the page of criminals that cropped up when I searched my photograph I’m feeling that the world does not like me. 🙂
🙂
A very amusing post…. but there is a long way from photographing birds (sober presumably?) and drinking on a park bench (and possibly shouting at human passers-by as well) 😊
Still, civilisation is only a veneer. ‘Lord of the Flies’ is just around the corner. Although maybe not, as I think I’ve heard a critique of the said book putting forward the idea that society doesn’t ultimately act in such a negative way.
I like to think of someone packing sandwiches for that man. Everyone needs someone like that.
Sandwiches are always better if someone else packs them for you. 🙂
Little packets of love.
Yes, they were always well done. It was like somebody did care. The free school meals kids used to bring to the farm, on th other hand, looked like a deliberate insult. However, they were free and the kids often left the fresh fruit.
Just for fun – https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/media/uj0fzdgf/8-3-attach-4-drinking-in-carlisle-st.pdf
This is for the greater Melbourne area and so covers about 4.5 million.