Our Wanker this Week is André Farrar who is a spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
No doubt everyone is by now familiar with the story of the two hen harriers allegedly shot on the edge of the Sandringham Estate, allegedly by a member or, or servant of, the Royal Family. Hen harriers are protected birds and rather rare, mainly because they have the habit of eating grouse which makes them unpopular with gamekeepers, whose job it is to protect the grouse which is why they're called "gamekeepers".
Incidentally, it's an odd name, isn't it, "hen harrier"? I wonder how the male birds feel about being called "hen harriers"? Or have we perhaps discovered a hitherto unknown secret of Mother Nature - a gay bird of prey?
Three people saw the birds being shot, they say, although one has heard it suggested that as they say they were looking westward at around six in the evening on a clear day, the setting sun would have been in their eyes so their observation may not have been very reliable. And at least one of them was some sort of tree-hugger which also may or may not have a bearing on their reliability as witnesses. Nevertheless, no bodies were found and the police investigation found not a single person who knew anything about the shooting. The police have therefore concluded, reasonably enough, that with no bodies and no culprit there probably is no case to answer either, and have dropped the matter so they can concentrate on more important duties like preventing little boys from playing with toy guns and little girls from drawing hopscotch squares on the pavement.
Now The GOS has no strong feelings either way about hen harriers. From the photos they look pretty enough, but we have plenty of other similar birds who aren't quite so precious about where and how they live, and who eat useless things like rats instead of carefully-nurtured grouse that enable our land-owners to make a few bob out of Japanese businessmen. But to the RSPB the idea that anyone should so much as scowl at a hen harrier in passing is anathema, and the thought that a person or persons unknown may or may not have actually shot two of them (bloody good shooting, mind) has them spitting blood (and possibly feathers, I imagine).
Which brought spokesman André Farrar to a fine pitch of condemnation. "We are very disappointed that nobody is going to be prosecuted for this crime," he said. "It's yet another example of two hen harriers that have been shot illegally with nobody being brought to book".
Now, André, did you actually put your brain in gear before opening your mouth? What does your little diatribe actually mean?
"… shot illegally …"? Well, yes, that makes sense. The birds are protected, so shooting them is presumably illegal.
"… two hen harriers …"? Not quite so clear on this one, André. Are you absolutely certain they were hen harriers? Your observers thought they saw two birds being shot, and immediately identified the tumbling balls of feathers as hen harriers. Goodness, they must be tremendously sharp-eyed to be able to reliably identify a bird while it's being shot, and extremely experienced and knowledgeable to recognise birds of which there are, apparently, only forty in the country so not the sort of thing you see every day while you're walking the dog. And for two of them to be shot simultaneously - was this an amazing coincidence or were the birds, being gay, flying along holding hands?
… and "yet another example …"? Now, André, you really need to explain this. Are you suggesting that there has been a whole string of unsolved double hen harrier murders in recent years? That the villainous perpetrators turn their noses up at kestrels, hobbies, fish eagles, peregrine falcons, kites and buzzards, but wait patiently until a hen harrier comes along? And that they then wait even longer because, well, shooting just one hen harrier is too easy … I mean, where's the challenge in that? So they wait patiently in thicket or brake, their guns cocked, their breath bated, bloody dying for a wee, until a whole pair of these gay little birds come flitting by with their characteristic cry of "Ooh, get you!" …
And this word "yet"? A little hint of exasperation there? Just the merest suggestion that these double murders have happened with such regularity that the RSPB is getting sick and tired of them? Is that what you meant to imply? Because if so, the rest of us ordinary people out here in ordinary land where the birds are ordinary things like ordinary pigeons, ordinary blackbirds, ordinary magpies and ordinary chickens are going to have a little bit of a problem with believing you. I mean, a national population of forty doesn't provide much of an opportunity for these serial-killers, does it? It's rather like one of those old Agatha Christie plots, with twelve people shut up in an old house somewhere, unable to escape as the killer stalks them one by one. Nice reading, but not exactly true to life. Real serial killers tend to operate in rather larger confines where there are plenty of targets and a measure of anonymity.
To say "yet another example of two hen harriers that have been shot illegally with nobody being brought to book" is rather like saying "yet another case where a four-year-old girl called Madeleine on holiday with her parents in Portugal is abducted and the police can't find her because they're incompetent".
Or "yet again we see the age-old scenario of a perverted murderer called Fred or something, who kills dozens of young women including his own daughter, gets his wife to help him, and buries them under the patio in his garden".
Or "yet again we are pestered by yet another jumped-up little dictator with yet another dodgy right arm and yet another very small moustache who mobilises the gigantic war machine of yet another powerful nation and sweeps, predictably, across Europe, smashing his enemies aside again, re-enslaving the defeated peoples and once more sending millions to the gas ovens. I dunno, same old, same old."
Come on, André, admit it. I'm sure you're a lovely bloke and a tremendous bird-watcher and a mighty bulwark for the beleaguered wildlife of this country, but you really haven't got the hang of this spokesman thing, have you? The one thing a spokesman has to do is to choose his words carefully and weigh up the exact implications of what he has to say because he knows the press will be doing exactly the same.
So … didn't go too well this time, did it?
The GOS says: We have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to things like shooting, and I find it dreadfully annoying and very thoughtless. What actually is the problem with it? A load of fairly attractive birds are born, have pleasant, lazy, well-fed lives and then a (usually) quick death. How is that different from killing sheep and chickens and cows for food?
And this practice benefits us all. It means that large areas of countryside are kept free of intensive agriculture, the vermin like stoats and foxes that we are supposed to feel so protective about have a ready-made larder on which to graze, owls and other birds of prey can frolic and make free with the tasty little chicks, mice and voles and shrews benefit from the grain that is scattered for the gamebirds, country people like gamekeepers and beaters have work, nice dogs like labradors and retrievers and spaniels have the time of their lives doing just what they've been bred for, farmers and their friends have a convivial day out on land which is, let's face it, their own, the owners of large estates get to make money from commercial shoots which keeps the estates together and benefits the estate workers …
When you think about it rationally, the unnecessary births and deaths of the gamebirds seem a small price to pay for the great benefit to so many different creatures and people. Let's face it, how necessary is the birth of any creature or, indeed, person? Life isn't precious, or we'd take more care of it.
How useful to society are the sprogs of 15-year-old schoolgirls on rundown council estates? If they thought their own births were all that wonderful, would arab youths strap explosives round their waists and try to kill as many innocent bystanders as they can? If our rulers thought our own existence was all that special they'd have taken far more trouble to prevent us being snuffed out by illnesses contracted in hospitals. If life was truly sacrosanct, why did they take thousands of squaddies to Christmas Island and sit them down in their shirts and shorts to watch the nice H-bombs while the scientists shuffled around in full-body protective suits? For them, indeed, the saying was true: "Life's a beach, and then you die".
I think it's high time we faced up to a few facts in this class-ridden society of ours. The toffs might be objectionable, we may feel jealous of their mansions and their big cars and their public schools and their drunken bonk-fests, but like the rest of us they serve a purpose. That purpose is to safeguard some of the finest countryside and some of the most beautiful and remarkable properties this country can boast, and despite the depradations of successive governments they've managed it rather well. A good bit of our heritage, the envy of younger nations, is intact. We may not always be able to go and see it, but we know it's there.
So if they want to go round shooting little dicky-birds for fun, frankly … I don't give a stuff. And if you live in a city, you can p*ss off, it's none of your business.
(Thank you, my lord. Could you make the cheque out to cash?)
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