Country Wisdom
June 14, 2008
Spring will soon be upon us, the shrubbery trees are full to the brim with dead starlings, the pond newts have ravaged the frog spawn and my nesting boxes are overflowing with the rotting carcasus of putrid bluetits. This month Avid Blackbird will be concentrating on our countryside that can kill. All these can be found on Bay - all year round.
AFLATOXIN
If your cattle go blind and mad maybe fungal groundnut meal is to blame. Moo!
ANTU
Dogs are dropping like flies in the village, Edna may be controlling the Bays rat population. But a Terrier drowning in its own body fluids is not a sight to behold. Hold back on those rat pellets Edna. Don’t eat anything brown.
ATROPINE
Vera the auchamist better be careful with her Belladonna, Hepbane and Thorn Apple. Love potions may be all the rage, but you try selling a blind spasming hog at Whiby Pig Sales and see how far you get!
BUTTERCUPS
Lovely to look at or hold beneath a childs chin, but deadly to one and all when crushed to the vesicant oil protoanemonine. Steer clear of those yellow devils Old Blackbird says.
CARBON TETRACHLORIDE
Lactacting ewes, dogs and cats beware. Farmer Giles is out to get you with his sheep dip. Keep Fido on a tight lead.
CASTOR SEED
That Chinese meal could be harbouring Ricin. A very slow, painful death.
CYANIDES
Beware the Cherry Laurel and Linseed. Lung haemorrhage is not to be sniffed at.
D NITRO COMPOUNDS
Most insecticides and herbicides contain considerable toxic DNOC compounds. Eat up those greens.
ERGOT
Deadly Rye fungus. Don’t eat bread. Ever.
HEMLOCK
Known to depress cows.
KALE
Kills cattle, full stop.
LABURNHAM
Rarely fatal but don’t take any chances. Don’t go on the Moors and shower frequently if you do. This includes dogs as well as tourists.
METALDEHYDE
Slug pellets should never, ever, ever be handled. Can induce a coma in a Whippet in twenty minutes. Not even Bob the Nutter can beat that.
ORGANOCHLORINE
An insecticide found in milk. Blows your lungs apart. Very,very brutal. Drink Soya.
OVALATE
If you touch Dock leaf, Rhubarb leaf or Beet and Marigold tops wash your hands thoroughly or you’ll be dead within hours. No cure.
RAGWORT
Probably the most dangerous poisonous plant in Britain. Found in hay. There is no treatment. Bunches can be found in Harry Pearsons field on Bay Top.
SALICYLATES
Aspirin is one of the fastest known ways to kill a cat. Not really a poison found so much in the countryside as in the medicine cabinet. But I thought you’d like to know anyway.
TOAD
The common Toad (Bufo Vulgaris) secretes a venom which can kill pets in a matter of hours. Bastards.
UREA
Fertiliser. Unlikely to kill sheep and cattle as they rapidly acquire a tolerance. But deadly to tourists not used to it. Can be purchased as a food supplement at the post office. 10g should lay waste to a busload of schoolchildren.
YEW
The most poisonous tree in Yorkshire. Symptoms include muscular tremors and sudden collapse. No antidote to toxine. Don’t bloody go near this tree. Ever.
Dont let me put you off the countryside. Just don’t touch anything or look at anything a bit strangely.
Happy Hunting, Wild Blackbird.
Ken’s Story
June 4, 2008
Chief Volunteer Fireman - Fryer Tucks Bay
Another Bank Holiday, another bloody fiasco. Tourists are trouble. Thousands of them even more so.
I’ve turned my milking sheds into a visitor’s center up Top Bay. Filled it up with fridge magnets and the like. Give the kids danger rides on the back of me tractor around Bob The Nutter’s cow fields and sometimes race Dave Lee Travis around the village in his Range Rover. He lives up in Fylingdale these days. Top bloke. Bit sad his beard went rotten and he had all that trouble with his chin but since he had the surgery and the plastic jawline added he’s much better.
Well, we had awful problems last week. We nneded an ‘added’ attraction for the tourists and Harry bloddy Pearson suggests we make our own crop circle up on his fields. You know, like what them space aliens do. Anyway, I designed it and Harry persuaded a load of the kids from the Whitby Naughty Bus who are doing Community Service at the old peoples home in Hawksby to help out.
Well all I can say is if you give a nutter a scythe you deserve all you get. Bloody Hell. Four ambulances we got. Two from Scarborough, one from Hull and one from Berwick of all places. Some local tea leaf started swinging his about, lopped a Fresians head off and took the leg clean down to the bone of this nice lass from Staithes. She only got 20 hours for non payment of fines, now she’s only got one leg.
Well, it’s enough to say the crop circle only got half finished and the bit that was cut down was soaked in blood. Drew more of a crowd over the Bank Holiday than if the bloody Martians had done it. And we roasted the dead cow for charity. Raised £400 for me summer holidays. I’d already bought a bag of cola off old ‘Bob The Coal’ from up the coalyard and I’d been sellin it off to thick tourists at three quid a pop telling them it was bloody Whitby Jet. There’s one born every minute, I tell yer.
Just gonna have another three or four pints then it’s up to Dommies up at Fylingdale. Bastards the lot of ‘em up there. They think we’re all in-breds. I’ll get Dave Lee Travis to put a load of maggots through their letterbox. Done that once. We goes fishing me and Dave. Once a month. Three bottles of gin, couple of rods and a bucket of maggots. Went sea fishing one Christmas. The bloated old fool only fell in taking all the maggots with him. No more fishing that day. We laughed after mind. Long while after. He was in a coma for a month.
RNLI said he’d drunk most of the North Sea. Ay, and two bottles of gin. Silly fucker.
Gotta phone Kate. Keep me babe on alert. She’ll be in charge of the hosepipes tonight and I know she’s already half-cut. Might need her and the tractor for the boys on the walk back to Bay after the match. Fylingdale Wankers.
Ken the Fireman.
Kate’s Story
June 2, 2008
As I sit here in a mildly drunken haze in the ‘Breaded Lamb’ public house, the wind rages outside and the sea has broken through the wall again.
I will probably be called out to fish children wave dodging out of the Bay. It’s after eight, they should have stopped that hours ago. I’m warming my toes by the open fire, the walls are festooned with old black and white photos of sea tragedies. I suspect some of them are drawings by the local school kids. The landlady has an obsession with cows. Bovine plates, ornaments and press cuttings adorn the walls and shelves. “Cow Stuck in Tree”. “Cow Stuck In Tree Again”. “Fire Service Call For Overtime For Rescuing Cow In Tree On Regular Basis”.
That was me and Ken. We work tirelessly for peanunts. We’re supposed to be volunteers but you’ve got to make a bloody living so we regularly dip into the charity box up at the Church.
The are copies of ‘The Dalesman’ scattered about the body of a seemingly dead dog. (I can’t stop thinking of my Worzal). There’s only a few other people in tonight. A couple of old blokes from Gloucester swearing like the local school children.
To my left the chalk board with today’s food. “Local Duck”. We wondered where he went. “Catch Of The Day” (That could be anything, it’s rarely fish). and the rest seem to have been drunkenly rubbed off and replaced with a joke involving Harry Pearson and a sheep. They don’t sell much food nowadays. Not since that botulism. The landlady is the size of Giant Haystacks and she’s bantering wildly about gigabytes and mp3 players to a local bloke who must be 85 and wouldn’t even know how to answer his own mobile. His daughter’s probably ringing him and she’ll think he’s had an accident then call us out again.
I think my Ken’s up the Dead Goat and Sun trying to get that twenty quid back off Bob The Nutter. He won it in a stupid bet involving them both scaring tourists by hiding in the bushes up at top car park toilets. My Ken won. He’s not stupid you know.
Tonight it’s darts and dommies away in Fylingdale. It would be pool but the silly fuckers have got one of those new round pool tables and they’re not allowed in the league.
The pub will be empty later but because all the lads are all walking up to Fylingdale, we’ll have to be on standby. Boys will be boys, especially when they get as madly drunk as our lot. There’s some right characters I can tell you. Whelkman Dave got stuck in a gorse hedge last September. Pissed as a newt. No amount of coersion could move the daft sod. He wanted to stay the night. It took five of us and a tractor to get him home.
His waife was mad. He’d forgotton her fish supper. It was probably still in the hedge, we didn’t look. It was so dark it wasn’t the first thing we thought about. Maybe if she had phoned him whilst he was still stuck in there - she did have a couple of hours - we could have had a rummage around for it. She is going through a bit of a rough time at present. Mainly his fault obviously. I don’t think his tree felling business has taken off really. He works part time at the ’Everything Past Its Sell By Date’ store next door, so a few quids still coming in and it’s got to be cash in hand because my Ken takes him to Whitby to sign on every other Thursday.
I’ve just filled in one of those Sudokus. I hate them. Can’t do them to save my life. I just fill in loads of random numbers to ruin somebody elses fun. I never had much of an education so why should some la-di-da tosser fill in my bloody Sudoku I’ve paid for.
I think the vodka might be getting to me. I’ve got to stop at half a bottle in case one of our lads gets darted again.
Oh I miss my Worzal. If you’ve ever had a sheepdog die in your lap it’s an experience you never forget. He was alive and full of play one moment and the next, well, you don’t like too talk about it.
I’ve just heard some shouting outside. I think the fishermen are coming. When I say ‘fishermen’ I use the phrase very lightly. These men haven’t caught a fish in years. The fuck off on mass on the 33 bus to Whitby to sign their invalidity slips and they’re back by early evening drunk and swearing at tourists. Most of them are’nt allowed in the pubs in top village, this pub will serve anybody with a shilling.
Anyway, I digress. My is that the time? I’ve just had a call to remove a man from a shed. He’s stuck. Pissed I don’t doubt, wedged in. It’s probably Jim. It’s normally Jim. He gets drunk and stuck quite alot recently. His girlfriend kicked him out and now he sleeps in the shed at the bottom of Harry Pearsons field. Mad Mandy lives with him. Apparently she’s stuck too.
I’d better call Ken. I think we’re going to need the tractor.
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