Nature Calls

I was so naughty last weekend that I would say I now deserve a thoroughly good spanking to the bottom. It’s a pity I didn’t get one, I suppose (boom, boom!), but then that is the problem with my life – there’s nobody around to keep me in check and for whom I have to behave responsibly. There’s only me to set the standards for my behaviour and of course, I sometimes lower those standards to a level where the moral code is supposedly transgressed. Moral code? Whose moral code would that be? Surely, morality is in the mind of the beholder? Ah-ha, I hear you mutter, now we have a paradox – or maybe it’s just a conundrum – for how should morality be measured? Should it be a code imposed upon ourselves from within, or should it be something that is imposed upon us by society? To be sure, society has an obligation to create a framework in which it safe and decent for us all to live, but it is our responsibility to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.

And so on reflection, it could be said that what I did at the weekend was not wrong, even though in Society’s eyes it might have been immoral. I didn’t harm anyone (except perhaps myself), and I had a huge amount of fun too, so, what’s the problem? Well, I don’t know – most probably the gauge for that is that I still feel so guilty! It’s an eternal inner wrestle – if we set our standards too high and then dip beneath them, we feel bad; if we set the bar too low and behave accordingly, then society judges us as guilty (and might even lock us away). The dilemma is a bit like switching lanes on the motorway when there is a traffic hold up in front. Whatever we decide to do, we’re wrong. Eee by gum, the human condition, eh?

You will know that I don’t watch much television, and who can blame me when all I hear from those who do is complaints, criticism and grumbles? If it’s not someone moaning that a certain contestant on a selection show “woz robbed”, then it’s someone else protesting that the wrong Barbie (or Ken) has been fired from the Apprentice House by Sir Alan (or Sue-Ellen, as I call him). Failing that, you’ll hear people bemoaning the fact that Sir Alex’s boyz woz equally “robbed” last night by the Spanish; or that despite the title of the programme, it now transpires that Britain actually doesn’t have talent – all Britain has, is “freaks”.

So, my advice to you all is to forego these transitory glimpses of the so-called showbiz world of tawdry aspiring celebrities, and tune instead to the restful pageant of country life that can be found amongst the leafy glades featured on ‘Spring Watch’. Oh yes, here you will find coverage of badgers tearing young rabbits to pieces in the dead of night; a male goshawk snatching a bullfinch in mid-flight, roughly plucking it of all feathers, and then throwing its corpse into the nest for his wife to carve up for her fledglings. Here you will witness two male adders ‘wrestling’ for dominance in the bracken-covered hills of Wales; or a female stoat dashing across a busy car park, carrying away to safety one of her own young in her mouth.

However, it beats me how the presenters of this programme – all grown adults I might add – can get quite so excited about the sight of a mother chaffinch feeding a dragon-fly into the gaping mouths of her offspring, nor how they can become so very nearly hysterical over a one-second fleeting glimpse of the rear-end of a scurrying pole cat. I say, calm down presenters – it’s only the countryside! If you really want to watch some genuine animal behaviour in action, then you should pay a visit to my apartment one weekend. And bring your night-vision camera.

Enough said.