Rolling Stones...

I read, on the Guardian website, about the latest Rolling Stones mega-tour. Bloody hell, they’re still going! It seems like a generation ago that they were written off as being too old. The Beatles sang “When I’m 64”, picking that age, presumably, because, at the time Paul McCartney wrote the song, 64 must have seemed inconceivably ancient. Though some of the Beatles’ songs will live on, John Lennon and George Harrison didn’t live long enough to collect their pensions. On the other hand, and despite years off dissolute over-indulgence, the Stones refuse to vacate the stage. They will no doubt carry on until, one by one, they fall off their perch. Jagger will probably be the last: still marrying women young another to be his daughter, still fathering children, still preening and posturing.

According to the Guardian article, “it is 37 years since the Rolling Stones more or less singlehandedly invented the latterday mega-tour. Huge artists had toured huge sports arenas before the Stones’ 1981 jaunt around the US, but not on that scale, not with that profit, and not with corporate sponsorship – courtesy of Jōvan Musk, an aftershave one suspects Mick Jagger was no more likely to wear than he was to spray himself with manure.” That left me feeling rather chastened, since Jōvan Musk is my cologne of choice: ideal after a shower (or, on occasions, instead of a shower). It’s cheap and cheerful, just like me; I’m wearing some today. Mmmm, it smells good. I just can’t imagine that Jōvan makes enough money to sponsor mega-tours by superannuated megastars…

Birders at Lakenheath Fen...

Panic attacks...

One of the themes today, on Radio 5 Live’s breakfast show, was panic attacks: something that’s been part of my life since the age of twenty. The first time I had a panic attack I thought I was dying. It was so violent, so unexpected; I had no experience to compare it with. The symptoms that would become familiar in subsequent attacks were all new to me, all devastating and all happening simultaneously. My heart beat like hammer blows against my chest; if this was a heart attack I surely wouldn’t survive it. At the same time I was overtaken by a feeling of dread... not about the prospect of dying, but of going mad. If the hammering of my heart seemed impossible to survive physically, then these overwhelming feelings seemed impossible to survive mentally. Everything felt unreal; there was a roaring in my head; I was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of dread. Something terrible was happening to me, and it was going to get worse; I just didn’t know what it was.

My heart didn’t burst. My brain didn’t burst either. After a few minutes - time had lost all meaning - the worst was over. I felt weak, clammy, exhausted, bewildered, disorientated... but whatever it was had abated. The tide had gone out. The only thing I knew for sure was that I never wanted to go through anything like that again.

I’m not sure how long it was until I had my next attack. I didn’t keep a diary. Perhaps I was hoping the experience was a one-off visitation. It wasn’t. The second time was as bad as the first: sudden, unanticipated, violent, terrifying. There were many more attacks, often accompanied by other symptoms too, which, though not as frightening, created an experience that left me drained: sweating, difficulty in breathing, pins and needles - or numbness - in hands and feet, hot and cold flushes, the ‘shakes’, feeling faint and dizzy… and always feeling unreal. For years, in between panic attacks, there was a pervasive sense of unattributable anxiety. 

A panic attack isn’t something that happens to you. It is you: a sudden and terrifying apprehension that nothing is right and everything is wrong. The major and minor manifestations - physical and mental - were not symptoms that I could look at with any kind of detachment or objectivity. One moment I was ‘me’ - whatever that was - and a moment later I was something entirely different. Wherever I was, I had to be somewhere else. If I was out, I had to get home; if I was home, I had to get out. There was no place of safety. I wanted to escape, but how can you escape from your own self?

Though every panic attack was terrifying, I eventually understood that they weren’t a threat to life. I learned a few ways to anticipate and deal with them, and I’m happy to say that I haven’t had a full-blown panic attack for about ten years…

Black winged stilt...

I returned for an early-morning session at Rutland Water and my luck was in. A black-winged stilt, an impossibly graceful wader, with impossibly long legs, was feeding on the lagoon. It stayed all morning, so everyone who arrived in the hide was lucky to see it too. There were plenty of other birds as well: three grey plover, a pair of ospreys, a solitary little tern among the common terns, and a flock of about thirty ringed plovers, which included some dunlin and sanderling. I’m really impressed with the lagoons and scrapes that been created at one end of Rutland Water, and the birds that occur on passage; I’ll make sure to visit next time I’m in the area…

Melton Mowbray...

In Melton Mowbray today, where the pies come from. There are a few pubs in town where I'll be able to see the Liverpool v Real Madrid game this evening, and I've even placed a bet: Mo Salah to score two goals (or more). I don't usually get excited about a football game, but this is THE BIG ONE...

Black terns...

A day of two halves. The morning was spent getting new brake-pads for the Romahome. The afternoon was spent, on a whim, at Rutland Water. With no expectations about what I might see, I was pleasantly surprised to see hobbies hawking for dragonflies, then an osprey soaring over the lake. There’s a nesting pair here. I moved on to another hide, and spent a couple of tranquil hours with a local bird watcher… finding a fair few birds: redshank, common tern, gadwall, ringed plover. An egyptian goose was guarding her goslings. Coots were rounding up their ugly offspring. A great crested grebe was on the nest. A tiny wader breezed in: a sanderling, we finally decided. The afternoon’s highlight was a pair of black terns which landed among the common terns.

Richard Dawkins and I have precious little in common, except that we both went to Oundle School. He was there just before me - we could never have met - but the man who inspired him to study biology was my housemaster. Dawkins tells a story about headmaster Kenneth Fisher, who was chairing a staff meeting when there was a timid knock on the door and a small boy came in: “Please, sir, there are black terns down by the river.” “This can wait,” said Fisher decisively to the assembled committee. He rose from the chair, seized his binoculars from the door and cycled off in the company of the small ornithologist.

I remember knocking at that same door, clutching a note which informed the headmaster that I was there to be beaten. Happy days.

Still licensing a few church pix; this is Salle, Norfolk...

Actuality...

An excerpt from Krishnamurti's Book of Life arrived in my email in-tray this morning.

"If you are a Christian, your visions follow a certain pattern; if you are a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Muslim, they follow a different pattern. You see Christ or Krishna, according to your conditioning; your education, the culture in which you have been brought up, determines your visions. Which is the actuality: the vision, or the mind which has been shaped in a certain mold? The vision is the projection of the particular tradition which happens to form the background of the mind. This conditioning, not the vision which it projects, is the actuality, the fact. To understand the fact is simple; but it is made difficult by our likes and dislikes, by our condemnation of the fact, by the opinions or judgments we have about the fact. To be free of these various forms of evaluation is to understand the actual, the what is."

Licensed this shot of the marketplace in Thirsk...

St Ives...

Had an enjoyable evening with son Chas: drinking too much wine, putting the world to rights, then building a fire and sitting so close to it that we were showered with sparks.

Only four river bridges incorporate a chapel: Wakefield, Rotherham, Bradford-on-Avon and this one, St Ives in Cambridgeshire, spanning the River Great Ouse. The bridge and chapel date back to 1426. The chapel served two roles: as a toll-house and a place for travellers to offer prayers (or give thanks) for a safe journey...

Oakham

I’ve found myself another cosy little campsite near Oakham. Everyone is friendly, there aren’t any officious notices, the showers are warm, the wifi dependable and the shop is unmanned; you take what you need and put your money in a tin. The same goes for the washing machine. There's even a swimming pool (though I've seen bigger bird-baths). I’ve processed and uploaded seventy pix, and cracked on with editing the book. Off soon, to see son Chas in Coventry.

The statue of Oliver Cromwell in St Ives...

Spring birds...

I totted up the birds I've seen this spring, in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk: a total of 131.

Mute swan, greylag goose, canada goose, barnacle goose, brent goose, shelduck, egyptian goose, mallard, gadwall, pintail, shoveler, wigeon, teal, pochard, red-crested pochard, tufted duck, goldeneye, gooseander, red-legged partridge, pheasant, little grebe, great crested grebe, cormorant, bittern, little egret, great egret, heron, spoonbill, red kite, osprey, marsh harrier, hen harrier, buzzard, sparrowhawk, kestrel, hobby, moorhen, coot, crane, oystercatcher, avocet, stone curlew, little ringed plover, ringed plover, grey plover, lapwing, knot, turnstone, sanderling, dunlin, temminck’s stint, common sandpiper, redshank, spotted redshank, greenshank, black winged stilt, black-tailed godwit, bar-tailed godwit, curlew, whimbrel, snipe, ruff, pectoral sandpiper, black headed gull, common gull, mediterranean gull, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull, great black-backed gull, little gull, kittiwake, common tern, sandwich tern, little tern, black tern, wood pigeon, collared dove, turtle dove, cuckoo, swift, green woodpecker, great spotted woodpecker, tawny owl, skylark, swallow, sand martin, house martin, meadow pipit, pied wagtail, yellow wagtail, grey wagtail, dunnock, robin, nightingale, wheatear, stonechat, whinchat, song thrush, mistle thrush, blackbird, garden warbler, blackcap, whitethroat, dartford warbler, sedge warbler, cetti’s warbler, reed warbler, willow warbler, chiffchaff, wren, great tit, coal tit, blue tit, long-tailed tit, bearded tit, nuthatch, treecreeper, magpie, jay, jackdaw, rook, carrion crow, starling, house sparrow, chaffinch, bullfinch, linnet, goldfinch, greenfinch, reed bunting, yellowhammer.

Every picture tells a story...

Hobbies...

I had another session on Cley marshes. One hide was crowded with birders (not always a pretty sight) training their telescopes and long lenses on a tiny and inconspicuous wader: a Temminck’s stint. That’s a first sighting for me (though I doubt if I would have been able to recognise it if I'd been on my own). Most exciting was seeing two male ruffs, in full breeding plumage, displaying in front of a female, who seemed singularly unimpressed by their bowing and scraping.

Yesterday afternoon, to avoid royal wedding craziness, I joined other anti-monarchists at Lakenheath Fen. It was my third visit. There aren’t big numbers of birds, as at Cley or Minsmere or other coastal wetlands, but I always see something interesting there. A month ago it was a bittern and (another first for me) two common cranes; on this occasion it was the hobbies. The reserve is full of dragonflies, which is what hobbies like to eat: catching them, acrobatically, in flight. I sat overlooking the lake and reedbeds, at the far end of the reserve, hypnotised by the sight of about fifty of these beautiful birds of prey. The sky was full of them. That’s the end of my springtime bird watching in East Anglia; what a memorable way to finish.

Birders going fully-armed at Cley, in search of a temminck's stint...

Hobby in flight (photo: Creative Commons)...

Little gulls...

I wandered around Titchwell, another RSPB reserve, with the hedgerows heavy with blossom and the sky full of swifts. A big, ruddy-faced man was trying to photograph swifts in flight. “Good luck with that!”, I said. He was rhapsodising about their flying abilities. Having just arrived back from sub-Saharan Africa, they might deserve - or require - a few day’s rest. But no. While a lot of the ducks, godwits, gulls and avocets seemed to be asleep (some balanced on one leg) the swifts were tearing around the sky. Inactivity isn’t in their nature; they can even sleep on the wing.

I found a long-tailed tit’s nest, ten feet up in a tree, where three branches met; it was about the same shape and size as a child’s rugby ball and looked to be made entirely of moss and feathers. In the marshes were ducks and geese, with their ducklings and goslings. A marsh harrier was ‘quartering’ over open water, rather than the reedbeds, trying to catch one. The best sightings were a whimbrel: like a curlew, but smaller and much less common. And I spotted half a dozen little gulls among the hundreds of black headed gulls. They are small, dainty and, in flight, look more like terns.

How did they know I was coming?

Deepdale...

I have a new favourite campsite on the Norfolk coast, in Burnham Deepdale, which is handy for the best bird-watching haunts. The people were as friendly, when I booked in, as they had been officious at the Waveney River Centre a few days earlier… though I did wonder why they needed to know my mobile number. The lady leaned back in her chair and gave me a hypothetical situation: what if, while I was out walking, my Romahome went up in flames? I said I didn’t want to be rung up, just to be told that my Romahome was burning; I’d prefer them to put all their energies into putting the fire out… and I’d hear the bad news, soon enough, when I got back.

Once booked in, I was give two sides of A4 paper - with everything I needed to know - and another woman, riding a bike, led me to my pitch and electric hook-up. The wifi worked perfectly, with no signal ‘drop out’, so I’ve now got all my most recent pix edited and uploaded. The shower block looks brand-new. It's full of individual - and lockable - wet-rooms, each with shower, toilet and hand-basin. The shower was hot (but not too hot) the moment I switched it on. The price per night is reasonable, so I'll be back at the Deepdale Backpackers Hostel and Campsite before long.

Where I’m staying…

Wind power...

Read an article on the Guardian website this morning, about wind power overtaking the output of our eight nuclear power stations… not just for a day, but over a period of three months. That's great news. I know that wind turbines divide opinions, and they do seem to crown every hill, but I see them as a safe, renewable - though intermediary - source of electrical power. Once we get our act together and start harnessing the power of the ocean, we'll be able to do without wind turbines. The nuclear power stations, on the other hand, bequeath to forthcoming generations the responsibility for curating incredibly dangerous materials... for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years...

Digital nomad...

I read an article today (the Guardian, as usual) about ‘digital nomads (AKA “location-independent workers”). I’m now so accustomed to working remotely, with words ’n’ pix (I’ve been on the road now for four years) that it took me a few moments to identify with these terms. It no longer seems remarkable to be parked up - somewhere, anywhere - writing chapters of my book on a laptop. Later on today I’ll be in a campsite, processing and uploading another batch of pix.

Everything I wanted to do while traveling has proved to be possible, except, perhaps, having a constant wifi signal. I don’t actually need to be online all the time, maybe just once or twice a day. In fact, trying to write, while having internet access, just gives me one more excuse to prevaricate, check emails, count pic sales, etc. Today I’m parked up in Fakenham, sufficiently close to a Costa coffee shop to ‘piggyback’ on their wifi. So I’m busy fact-checking the book (and drinking Costa-made tea).

Colourful dinghies for hire at Thorpeness...

"They're back!"...

I’m in Fakenham and the swifts have arrived. Richard Mabey, one of my favourite authors on the natural world, watches the skies and waits, too, for the first returnees. This is from his book, A Brush with Nature...

“Spring is incomplete for me – no, it does not even begin – until the swifts are back. I spend the last days of April and first few of May in a fever of anxiety, wondering if the most thrilling birds in Britain… will make it again this year. Evening means binocular peerings over the spires of the town, or dashes down to Sunnyside where our local birds have their biggest colonies, for a glimpse of those careering scimitar wings. If they’re late, which they increasingly are, it’s on to the websites for those with Swift Obsessive Disorder, and hopes for messages like that posted from Spain last May: ''For those lacking common swifts in northern Europe, this afternoon was evidence of a huge arrival over Torremolinos.” Sure enough, two days later they brought the Costa del Sol to our shores. Enough for emails to begin flashing between swift addicts: “They’re back.”

A quiet corner of Bungay...

Milestone...

I don’t imagine that many people grow up wanting to be stock photographers. Like proctology or driving a cab, stock photography is more likely something we fall into once we realise that our great ambitions will remain unfulfilled. We’re not going to play Carnegie Hall, or write the great American novel, so let’s photograph two businessmen shaking hands or an attractive young woman eating salad.

It’s a few years since a friend introduced me to stock photography in general, and Alamy in particular. He showed me the portfolio of a friend of his, who had amassed - gulp - a portfolio of 20,000 pix. Twenty thousand images! That would take a lifetime, wouldn’t it? Well, here I am, with my Alamy folio having hit 20,000 this week. Being licensed at more than one a day, on average, the pix provide a regular income, even though the price per pic has fallen since I started with Alamy. With the proliferation of digital cameras, and computer-based processing (no more ‘darkroom magic’), there’s a lot of competition for picture sales. But stock photography is still a viable option for a ‘man on the move’.

The ferryboat taking pedestrians from Southwold harbour to Walberswick...

Godwits...

A bit more bird watching this morning, as I saw the avocets swap nest-sitting duties. I saw a couple of bar-tailed godwits in a flock of the commoner black-tailed godwits, which made it easier to tell these two rather similar species apart. The black-tailed godwits are quite aggressive, always up for a fight (though they never seem to hurt each other… even with that dagger of a beak). The highlight of the morning was a pair of ruffs, coming into their elaborate breeding plumage. Then, after all these days of unclouded blue skies, the rains came.

Home delivery...

Cley marshes...

On the North Norfolk coast now, so spent the morning on Cley Marshes, which is probably the best-known haunt for birds in England. The session started well with a pair of hobbies and a spoonbill, a bird I would never have expected to see twenty years ago. A kestrel hovered, a sparrowhawk careened across the water and marsh harriers were chased away by anxious avocets guarding their nests (and, for one pair of avocets, a chick). The most plentiful birds were black-tailed godwits, joined by a few other waders: bar-tailed godwits, dunlin, knot, redshank, common sandpiper, ringed plover, little ringed plover, lapwing and oystercatcher. I heard skylarks, goldfinches, sedge warblers and the weak little song of reed buntings. A pair of bearded tits dived into the reedbeds, and a quartet of little terns sunned themselves on a sandbank. Sunny day, friendly faces, no complaints…

Unloading fish on Aldeburgh beach...

Swifts...

Phew... I've edited, processed and uploaded a total of 165 pix in the last couple of days: some sort of record, I think.

The people of Aldeburgh obviously feel very proprietorial about 'their' swifts, according to this banner. I haven't yet seen a swift this year; they're one of the last of the summer visitors to arrive. And it's a great day when they do. As Ted Hughes wrote: “They’re back, which means the globe’s still working"...

River Waverney...

Where I'm staying: the Waveney River Centre...

Strumpshaw Fen...

On a blazing hot Bank Holiday Monday, I didn’t want to be stuck for a couple of hours in a coast-bound traffic jam, so I headed inland to Strumpshaw Fen, an RSPB reserve I’d visited a couple of years ago. There weren’t so many birds, but it was good to be sitting in a hide with a few like-minded folk, far from Bank Holiday craziness. We saw one bird of prey: like a peregrine, but smaller. The heat had brought out the insects, and the insects had brought out a hobby. It went after dragonflies, dismembering them in flight, and was soon joined by others. For a mesmeric couple of hours we watched marsh harriers drifting lazily over the reedbeds, and hobbies which, in flight, looked like large swallows. They’re beautiful birds.

I’m staying tonight at the Waveney River Centre, near Burgh St Peter, which incorporates a campsite. The situation is fantastic, right on the river… yet there’s something missing. Booking a pitch took ages, with an unsmiling operative, when it should have taken two minutes. The hand basin taps work automatically, when you put your hands under them; unfortunately the force of the water is so great that it immediately soaks your trousers (and that's not a good look for an old man!). There’s a pub on the site, where I just had a meal. The beef pie, not cheap, was a bowl of stew with a stupid pastry ‘hat’ on top (they put in in a microwave, I think, to make it ‘rise’), and that’s not a pie. If I’d paid £5.99 for it, I wouldn’t have complained. Never mind, I’ve processed fifty pix this afternoon, and may manage the same again tomorrow morning. I’d thought of spending another night here, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find a friendlier site, even if the views aren’t as good…

Strumpshaw Fen...

Royal wedding tat...

I glanced at this article on the Guardian website, entitled, in typical Guardian fashion, 'Gilt by association: where to buy your royal wedding tat'. Collectables of the future, no doubt. Heading away from the coast today, to see what birds I can find at Strumpshaw Fen, an RSPB reserve. On the hottest May bank holiday since the beginning of time, I'd prefer to escape the crowds...

Southwold...

A library is good for writing (except when there’s a class in circus skills going on, as happened one day in Otley). And any old lay-by will do for tapping out a thousand words. But for intense concentration, without distractions, the middle of the night is the best place to be. Last night I propped the laptop up against my knees, and edited the book for about three productive hours. I’m up to my estimate now: 90,000 words. The keyboard on my Macbook Air lights up when it’s dark, so I don’t need to turn on the light or use a torch.

I was parked up in Southwold, having taken lots of pix. I saw a fish & chip shop and went in: a big mistake. The shop’s method of dealing with customers was rather quixotic. I gave my order, paid, was asked my name and then ushered into an alleyway to wait. Most busy chip shops cook loads of fish, loads of chips and get customers in and out as quickly as possible. But this place worked on a different system, and the alleyway was full of hungry people. We looked like a load of well-heeled heroin addicts, waiting for a fix.

Names were called one by one. It took about twenty minutes for them to call my name (maybe giving my name as Rumplestiltskin was a mistake). If any chippy in West Yorkshire made people wait like that, they’d be out of business within a week (if an angry mob hadn’t already burnt the place to the ground).

Southwold, the home of Adnams’s beers, is quite posh. There were plenty of people out and about, enjoying the sunshine on the first day of the bank holiday. As I was taking pix, I saw a guy in a fancy yellow sports car. A few minutes later I saw him again. And again. On a sunny bank holiday the best thing this guy could imagine doing was to cruise slowly around the streets of his home town with the top down. Ownership of a fancy yellow sports car makes a distinct statement. Unfortunately it’s not a very profound statement, just “Look, I’ve got a fancy yellow sports car”…

Westleton Heath...

Having spent yesterday shooting pix, I parked discreetly in a car park on Westleton Heath. I was hoping to hear a nightjar, but no luck (another guy taking a twilight stroll on the heath reckoned they would be ‘churring’ later in the month). But we heard a nightingale, singing solo as the light faded. I had another walk around the heath this morning, hearing more nightingales, whitethroat, willow warbler… and another dartford warbler (just as a bittern was booming from nearby Minsmere)…

Quakers...

Just read an article in the Guardian about the Quakers voting whether to remove all mentions of God from their (mostly) silent meetings, because the word “makes some Quakers feel uncomfortable”. The article also suggests that 43% of Quakers felt “unable to profess a belief in God” (with 14%, like me, being atheists). Hmmm, maybe I'm not so unusual, in taking my unbelief to Quaker meetings once or twice a month. Certainly, no one questions me about what I believe, or don't believe, and I have used Quakers as an example, in my book, of a sane, non-coercive, non-judgemental religious community. A Quaker street gang would intimidate nobody, and an extremist Quaker would be someone who really believes in peace, social justice and human rights. It's just a shame that numbers are falling. In thirty years there may be no more Quakers.

Dunwich Heath, a pic just licensed (and I was there yesterday, taking more pix)...

Seeing a nightingale...

I took a walk in early morning sunshine over Westleton Heath, in the hope of seeing a dartford warbler. I heard a couple of nightingales singing, and was soon joined by a few other people, happy to stand still for a few minutes, in rapt attention, while letting the song wash over them. Uncommon they may be, but when nightingales are around, they announce their presence in the most unmistakable way. The song is acoustically sophisticated, like Dolby surround-sound: sometimes appearing to come from two places at once, sometimes sounding like two birds rather than one. I was able to get a good view of one male, because it was singing from a tree rather than thick undergrowth.

I love heathland, partly because it’s a type of landscape we don’t get up north (I think of heathland as a lowland version of Yorkshire’s heather moorland). The walking is easy along sandy paths and tracks, between the heather, flowering gorse bushes and silver birches. I heard cuckoo, skylark, linnet, a turtle dove ‘purring’ and a whitethoat’s rasping song, but was nearly back at the Romahome before I heard a dartford warbler (it’s a scratchy yet distinctive little song) and then saw one, where I’d expect to see it, on top of a gorse bush. Nightingale and dartford warbler… before I’d even had breakfast…

Religion...

A timely quotation from Krishnamurti, which arrived in my email in-tray this morning...

"Religion as we generally know it or acknowledge it, is a series of beliefs, of dogmas, of rituals, of superstitions, of worship of idols, of charms and gurus that will lead you to what you want as an ultimate goal. The ultimate truth is your projection, that is what you want, which will make you happy, which will give a certainty of the deathless state. So the mind caught in all this creates a religion, a religion of dogmas, of priest-craft, of superstitions and idol-worship and in that, you are caught, and the mind stagnates. 

Is that religion? Is religion a matter of belief, a matter of knowledge of other people's experiences and assertions? Or is religion merely the following of morality? You know it is comparatively easy to be moral to do this and not to do that. Because it is easy, you can imitate a moral system. Behind that morality, lurks the self, growing, expanding, aggressive, dominating. But is that religion?You have to find out what truth is because that is the only thing that matters, not whether you are rich or poor, not whether you are happily married and have children, because they all come to an end, there is always death. So, without any form of belief, you must find out; you must have the vigor, the self-reliance, the initiative, so that for yourself you know what truth is, what God is. Belief will not give you anything; belief only corrupts, binds, darkens. The mind can only be free through vigor, through self-reliance".

Another church pic licensed (Kirkby Stephen)...

C'mon you Reds...

I watch a few games of football, generally on a pub TV, but, more often than not, they disappoint. The great Pelé insisted that football was “the beautiful game”, but I’m not so sure. The cheating, the diving, the time-wasting, the needless ‘claiming’ of throw-ins, corners and penalties, the haranguing of the referee: all tend to make the average game a bad-tempered affair. Sometimes I prefer to listen to a game on the radio, because “the pictures are better”.

Yet, despite my misgivings, some games I have to see, and one of them is on TV tonight. After the first leg at Anfield, Liverpool are leading Roma 5-3, and tonight is the second leg in Rome, with the winner going on to meet Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League. Games don’t come much bigger than that. A sub-plot is that Liverpool’s Mo Salah was bought from Roma last season. He cost £30,000,000 which, by the grotesque financial standards of the Premiere League, is beginning to look like a bargain.

Salah is an appealing character, especially for a footballer. He doesn't dive; he doesn't need to. He plays with a smile on his face, hasn't been given a yellow card this season, is breaking all records for scoring goals (43 for the season so far) and, unlike most footballers, doesn’t spend too much time in the barber’s chair. Salah thanks God for every goal he scores (when I think he ought to take most of the credit himself) and seems to thrive on the big occasions. So I’ll be in the pub tonight, rooting for the Reds.

Licensed this shot today, of a pub in Grasmere...

Wildlife photography...

Read an article in the Guardian today about photographers who fake wildlife pix. One photographer, Marcio Cabral, has been stripped of his prize, in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, because the anteater in his photographer was revealed to be stuffed. The quality of wildlife images is now very high, and not everyone is willing or able to sit in a hide for day after day, waiting for the perfect shot. Time is money for any professional wildlife photographer, so there’s a big temptation to cut corners and cross an ethical line in the treatment of animals.

There’s a lot of jiggery-pokery going on: using trained animals is common, and the photographer may visit a zoo or safari park rather than the Serengheti. Insects of erratic habits can be glued in place. There are dozens of tricks that can be performed, in post-production, with sophisticated software like Photoshop. I interviewed Chris Packham, many years ago, when he was trying to make his way in wildlife photography. He admitted putting butterflies in the freezer, to slow them down and make them easier to photographer. I wasn’t impressed.

My last sale of the month was also the best price, for this unremarkable shot of the broken lock-gates at the seaward end of England's shortest - and straightest - canal, in Ulverston...