Autumnwatch - All hail the Emperor

Like many folk last week I was deeply distressed to hear about the fact that someone had gone and shot the Emperor, the pride of Exmoor. I actually heard about it on the Today programme on Radio 4 first thing in the morning, I listen to that now that I am boycotting Heart FM due to the summary dismissal of Hopps and Chapple and the closure of the North Devon studio. To be perfectly honest I was besides meself, livid ad just kept asking meself what sort of arrogant belddy bastard takes it upon themselves to pay off the landowner for hunting rights goes out to Rackenford and shoots what at this time of year, the rutting season, is a sitting duck? Where's the sport in that? Knowing what sort of rifle and ammunition they had to use to bring it down it probably was a humane kill but still it would have been rather messy and messier still if they took off the antlers in situ so to speak. It was reported that someone had heard shots by the link road and had seen someone loading the carcass of this giant beast, nine foot tall according to many into a van.
 As I was having my breakfast a bit bit of lava and bacon I thought I'd try and get hold of Johnny and see what was what. Of course due to the great media interest that this story had whipped up then he was quite in demand fielding calls from all over the world but I managed to get him on his personal skype number. He'd had a bit of a morning of it and was at the end of his tether complaining that he wasn't getting any money for it but I suppose he has brought it all on himself really and I had to point out that it would be good publicity for his forthcoming series on BBC Four*** He'd also been up to the Sportsman's the night before and had a bit of a cider head on him as this is where he'd first heard about it and people were buying him drinks for a few words of precious Kingdom wisdom. So I don't blame him for being a bit off with me. He was also going on about a dodgy Withycombe's hog's puddin. I tell you he can be, despite what you see on the telly, a right bleddy so and so from time to time. Anyway, according to Johnny he knew all about the Emperor as he has been following and filming him for years and has managed to get him on tape time and time again. So he was best placed to pass comment on this symbolic beast. However, although he agreed that it did sound like the Emperor, there were several factors which didn't quite add up. Firstly, if the stag that was shot in Rackenford was the Emperor then he wasn't strictly on Exmoor and was actually about ten miles from his stomping ground, which I'm sure you'll agree remains an open secret amoung us folk and the like and seeing that Stags are territorial and that this is the rutting season it isn't very likely that he would have bounded over  Tivvy way. Secondly, it would have required a bleddy gurt van in order to carry away the carcass antlers and all and would have also required a whole team of blokes to lift it on to the back of a truck or van. Since this story broke people have been traipsing all over the spot where he was said to have been shot and evidently there are absolutely no signs of slaughter. Although sceptical about the demise of the Emperor, Johnny maintains that this sort of thing is going on all the time on the moor and it's lowlands. Rich buggers from up country coming down here buying hunting rights off a farmer or landowner and then having a jolly with their mates blasting away at the fauna so he was glad that the story was highlighting this diabolical situation. So I let him get back to that there Giles Brandreth who was on the landline calling from the One Show and told him I'd see him for a pint in the Marshals on Tuesday and we get to the bottom of it.
So this story started to become rather puzzling and it became even more so the following evening when I went up to check on the Old Bey. He'd managed to get the old Wolsey going at long last and the first thing he'd decided to do was to take it out on the moor and go and have a look at the stags rutting. Which is a popular past time in this part of the world. First thing he said to me directly I walked in the door was that he'd seen the Emperor, he was darn sure of it, and also he'd captured it on his old VHS camera that he carts about with him. Apparently he'd been out Winsford way and had heard a stag bellowing so he pulls over and stalked through the woods till he came to a clearing where low and behold he came across a giant stag and about fifteen hind so camcorder at the ready he got them on tape. So we rigged up the video playback mechanism and after a few moments of some rather shaky images interspersed with some footage of the South Molton traction engine rally the emperor and his harem came into focus and blow me it had to be him, standing proud amid the herd bellowing his heart out, antlers held high for all to see while other young stags circled tentatively knowing their place. He'd obviously seen them off but they were still hanging about in the hope of servicing an errant hind.
In order to verify that this imperial beast was the Emperor or not we held up one of Johnny's framed photos that he'd given Father a while back, in front of the screen and compared the antler spread and other features. No doubt about it we both agreed that the Emperor is still alive and well and doing his thing out on the moor. At least he was last Thursday afternoon.
Still whatever the true story I reckon it has been rather good that such news has caused a certain amount of controversy in this area and beyond about the nature of hunting for sport rather than deer management. To my mind the collecting of trophies by certain moneyed folk all sounds a bit like the great white hunters in days of Empire. In spite of our reputation not all country folk are hunt supporters, infact I loathe the Hunt and it's toadie camp followers with a vengeance, thing is we just don't like being told that we shouldn't be. Finally I do have to admit that on high days and holy days I love a haunch or two of venison if it comes my way and call me a hypocrite but I seldom ask where it comes from. Terrible but true.

**For more information on Johnny and his forthcoming new series on BBC Four please click on the links

http://www.johnnykingdom.co.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vnf8g

All hallow's eve - A nightmare on Ashford Strand

Clocks may have gone back my there is no extra hour in bed for me this morning as I've been up since the crack of dawn sorting out all me Halloween gear at the back of the old stable. Every year I like to put on a bit of a show for the kids. you see the thing is I have become something of a Halloween celebrity in the local area as basically I scare children apparently. I don't mean to but several folk with kids and the kids themselves reckon I am a bit scary. I suppose I can see their point as I don't look like your average townie middle-aged Dad type. On a good day when I dress up smart they say I look like a burglar or a basque terrorist and on a bad day I look like some bog monster dressed up in me every day clothes. I know I've caused a fright or two among holidaying cyclists who aren't used to seeing me coming back home after a morning's mudlarking carrying me bait buckets, a couple of perfectly legal caught salmon and festooned in me seaweed clagged nets and nightlines. Motorists have also been known to give me a second glance as I forage along the lanes between here and Braunton with a few tell tale tail feathers or furry limbs sticking out the top of me holdall. Still live and let live that's what I say although these days it's a pity that I seem to be the only bugger who lives up to this maxim.
Anyways, over the years I have become something of a curiosity for the local kids and on Halloween I was always getting loads of 'em  creeping down the lane and crawling through me sprouts trying to peer in at me windows to see what I was up to and one or two of the bravest ones would gather up enough courage to come knocking on me door. Originally, it made me livid and I would throw open the door and come out at them yelling me head off and chuck a few choice swede at them as the ran screaming and laughing back up the lane. I seen realized that this was just what they wanted so as I have mellowed a bit in my old age I play up to me own image and we have a bit of a laugh. I rig up some trip wires in me vegetable patch which trigger off all manner of ghastly noises I've got chainsaws going and this year I have edited together a BBC sound effects record that I got at Pottington car boot back in the summer. I like to finish off this spectacular by playing " Jack the Ripper" by my old mate Screaming Lord Sutch  and I throw a couple of me younger cats out of the pantry window. Last year the dummy dressed up to look like my Mother, as people reckon I've got here hidden away out the back when really she lives up at Sticklepath, stuck in an old Somerfield trolley that I had set up on pulleys at the top of the lane to roll down behind them proved to be a sensation. So as you can see I am expecting a bit of a crowd this evening as each year it gets bigger and bigger and parents have started bringing their kids along they now park up in the layby on the dual carriageway and walk them to the top of the lane where they stand and make sure that nothing goes awry during the ensuing mayhem. I am pleased to say that so far touch wood we have only had a few minor injuries and one of them was to one of me cats who fell badly during the feline throwing finale.
I put a bucket up the top and ask for a few bits of spare change to cover me costs and have a little bit left over for good causes this year it is my new club the Taw Estuary Cycle-Path Angling and Beverage Club who should have a good couple of quid coming their way.

Nice to see that Devon and Cornwall Contabulary are on the case....  should it all get a bit out of hand and they have knocked up a natty little poster that you can stick in your window.

Autumn watch - rats as big as cats...

This evening as I was coming back from Ashford Strand I stopped off in the Rolle Quay to get the measure of the new landlord. I'm glad to report that he keeps his pipes clean and the pint of Tribute they serve in there was delicious. I took me usual seat in the window looking out over the quay when some movement going on by under the bridge drew my attention I peered out over the way and soon it became obvious that what I was looking at was a whole nest of Barum's infamous cat sized rats. Their presence throughout the town has caused something of a folk panic in recent weeks. if recent reports are to be believed the town is suffering levels of infestation by these super-sized rodents  only superseded by the onslaught of a plague of biblical proportions.
Anyway concerned as I am with the habits of all manner of vermin and seeing the opportunity to make an extra bob or two I decided to take a closer look. I left the pub and approached the quayside stealthily so as not to disturb the buggers as I looked down to the river's edge I caught a quick look at one or two of the beasts before they scarpered back to their lair and to my amazement I was struck by the fact that what I was looking at was not bloody giant rats but beavers. Yep beavers, who'd have thought it. Beavers on the River Yeo! I headed back into the pub and announced to one and all the results of my findings. However, the regulars met my claims with a great deal of scepticism and most of 'em continued drooling into their pints. In one of my fits of consternation I stormed out not before levelling a few choice words of valediction at the miserable buggers. If they weren't   
Interested in my thrilling wildlife discovery then I knew a man who would be. So when I got back here I got my old buddy Johnny on skype he was having his dinner, a nice hogs puddin followed by junket and cream, but he was happy to help me out. It turns out that a few people had got on contact with him over the last view days about these giant rat sightings so he'd taken his video camera down to the river beneath long bridge to see if he could get them on film. Like me he realised soon enough that what he was looking at were not giant rats nor infant were they beaver but they were coypu. Coypu they don't half look like beavers but apparently they are not an unusual sight on British waterways even though they are native to Peru so they are a sort of large aquatic guinea pig. I suppose like guinea pig they might prove to be rather tasty and with a bit more meat on them than their Andean cousins. Now there's a thought coypu pasties. Where's me rabbit nets?

Psychics banned from Pilton Church Rooms......

Local witch unhappy with church hall ban

Dear oh dear what is the world coming to this week's front page story in the North Devon Journal is concerned with the small matter of the local psychic woman's coven being banned from using Pilton Church Rooms, also referred to by assorted incomers and the like as the "village hall". In a week when the government's csr has cast a rather gloomy cloud over our area which is disproportionately reliant on public jobs and services and state investment, the Journal decides to daub it's front page with the sensational story that a psychic group whose activities and practices are not compatible with the teachings of the Church of England are being "banned" from holding their seances on Church property.  This does not come as a surprise to me or is that particularly newsworthy. The head necromancer claims that she is a victim of religious discrimination, not withstanding that she has already found a secular community centre to hold her rites in, and has decided after already resolving the matter to air her grievances and levy such a heinous slander upon the good people who run the comings and goings at the church hall and make it the vibrant centre for our community that it always has been long before this sorceress and her English Psychic Company turned up in Pilton Street.
Now on purely theological matters I'm no fan of the C of E nor of spiritualist fakirs being as I am an adherent of the Old Faith but I do seem to recall that though the church rooms belong to the church they are actually run for the benefit of the community as a whole and in that regard they do not hold any religious functions instead they concentrate on enabling the use of the hall for playschools, dance classes, the Cubs and Brownies, pantomimes, concerts and bingo nights none of which these days are overtly religious and are in fact all good wholesome family entertainments. I know I wouldn't want to go down there on a bingo or euchre night and have it ruined by voices from the other side or constant banging coming from the upstairs meeting rooms it would put you right off your concentration and during a euchre drive you could miss a trick and find yourself down on the evening. Also how do you explain all these goings on to the kiddies." Unckie Pitt, what have all these long faced gloomy looking people been doing traipsing in and out all evening?". No, that would be just too much.

I was speaking to one of the committee members just last evening down at The Windsor and over a couple of pints of Barum he let slip that the main reason they decided not to let the spiritualists use the premises was due to health and safety concerns as firstly; people could find themselves slipping up all over the ectoplasm which apparently they never properly cleaned up leaving it splattered all over the stairs and the communal kitchen causing a potential hazard and secondly; there were problems over insurance. Seeing as they could never account for how many people living or deceased might make an appearance over the course of any given evening. The hall is only licensed for use by a definite number of souls.

Ectoplasm was causing something of a mess 

To my mind once again this is another case of rather vain, self minded, self important people frustrated by their rootless existence and lack of understanding of local sensibilities trying to ride a coach and horses over established practices and concerns. From a quick straw poll at the bar, the tea leaf reader in question doesn't really seem to have done herself any favours by seeking out the local press and by closing time a good few of the lads were keen to go up to the furniture factory and make a ducking stool or to throw her in the Taw and see if she floats. Fortunately, that was just the Barum talking.

I feel I have to claim a little bit of a vested interest in this story as the English Psychic Company have their headquarters in what used to be me Granfer's shop where he did bike repairs, charged batteries and sold vinegar and parafin. Ah happy days. Apparently, Pilton no longer needs this kind of service but to my way of thinking, it's a crying shame. Inow  know where I can go if I  want to get in touch with the old bugger on the other side but where on earth can I get a gallon of parafin when I want it?

Follow the link for a psychic supper

Bonjour mes amis... Aux armes citoyens.

France

Devon

France what a big lovely country although being part Slovenian gypsy I do not actually hold with their recent policy of repatriating my Romany bretheren, bruvvers whatever. But still I feel I have cause to celebrate the great nation of France as this weekend marks my first anniversary of the few days that I went all Bonnie Tyler and got lost in France.
I had missed the boat back from Santander in Northern Spain and Brittany Ferries steadfastly refused to allow me to travel on the next days crossing back to Plymouth if I didn't pay up £75. In a bit of a fit of pique and fortified by some rather good Cantabrian cider I told 'em where to put it. I had what I thought at the time was a rather good idea and decided to walk back to England. So off I set. I basically did the camino de santiago the wrong way round. A mixture of good fortune and public transport got me as far as Angouleme in France in only a few hours. However, that is when things came rather unstuck I knew I had £28 in my Abbey National account but when I tried to take some money out the atm rebooted itself and ate my card. So there I was in France with 7 euros to my name and a wineskin of Cantabrian cider. There was nothing else  for it. I walked and walked and walked and eventually after five days out on the road sleeping in churchyards, parks and a Red Cross hostal in Poitiers I made it to Lille. Where fortunately I managed to pick up a moneygram payment from Ian Stokey. I spent the seven euros on a phone carnet to get some cash out of him. He owed me a few quid for the work I did on his gran's hen house.
I have to say that the French people were marvelous during this oddysey. A few people just asked if I wanted a lift, the train guard after hearing my plight just wrote me out a proper ticket, the Gendarmes put me in touch with the social services who were relieved to discover that I had no intention of staying in France but were happy to give me some vouchers to get a meal and fill my knapsack at the PS headquarters in Poitiers.
I just think to myself would a skint Frenchie find such accommodation in the UK ? I have to say I think not. France and it's great republican secular espirit du coeur is a fabulous country even better when it has a lefty president.  Vive La France! Thank you France for the plums, the grapes, the walnuts, the baguettes and the response  that I, a rather footweary traveler,  received. Thank you to the people of Poitiers, Brie, La Rosnac, Ruffec and Tourniers.
Please accept this rendition of the Marsellaise as a token of my gratitude

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K1q9Ntcr5g

One day we also may become true republicans!

This is a public service announcement..

As a good citizen I feel obliged to draw your attention to a new hazard of which visitors to North Devon should be made aware of.  A new danger which could prove to be of a greater threat to life and limb than perilous rip tides, or walking along straggly paths high on windswept precipitous cliffs or, heaven forbid, finding yourself lost in outer Ilfracombe. The threat posed by this new peril is even the more alarming as it a potential hazard which could be encountered by visitor and local alike, such is it's ubiquitous and apparently innocuous presence throughout our region. So it is with a deep sense of social responsibility that I issue this warning in order to prevent further injury and deep distress. We don't want another holiday ruined or a person traumatised and scarred both physically and emotionally especially when all it takes is a for a few words of caution to be heeded in order for such tragedies to be averted.
Therefore I urge you please, please beware of the hot steak and gravy pasty. You have to be aware that these savoury delights, although a local specialty should be only eaten with extreme caution as when they are fresh out of the oven they tend to be hot.
Unfortunately,  it is with a heavy heart that I have to report that the existing warnings have proved to be wholly inadequate in the wake of last weeks tragic maiming and permanent disfigurement of a visitor.
The Journal has reported that this poor woman had her whole weekend break ruined after biting into a Warren's steak and gravy pasty. The gravy was apparently at a temperature that was excessive, above boiling point, supra-heated and as it dribbled down her chin it caused extensive scarring which could still be seen the following day. She complained that not only was the pasty too hot but also there was too much gravy and she should have been warned by the staff at Warren's outlet in Braunton of this fact. from what I gather they apparently failed to treat the lady's grievance with the gravity it deserved. Instead of administering to the customers wounds I believe that they greeted her justifiable consternation with hoots of derision. Shocking. Now the injured party is in two minds as to whether she will be visiting North Devon again and as she works with members of the public and this disfigurement has caused her to become extremely self conscious, she is considering litigation. She is of the opinion that nobody is taking her plight seriously.
On behalf of myself I would like to assure the lady concerned that this is far from the truth. I was so deeply distressed by this incident that I took it upon myself to make up some relevant warning signage and I caught the bus, post haste, down to Braunton, where I marched into the said branch of Warren's and demanded that my warning signs which I may add I have also submitted along with details of the case to ROSPA, be displayed prominently in and around the pasty counter. Head office had obviously had a word with them as they were nothing but courteous to my good self and assured me that the signs would go up as soon as the next batch of steak and gravy pasties were out of the thermo-nuclear device they call an oven. Of course I don't think they would have extended me such courtesy had I not explained to them that I am one of their best customers and that Warren's is an advertiser on my site. I also consider myself to be  something of a local expert on health and safety matters after having been on a course when I was working up at Tucker's Turkey Farm out at Goodleigh last Xmas.
I am happy that in the future visitors to North Devon can fully appreciate the beauty of our region, the long sandy beaches, the fine coastal views, the wooded valleys and high moors without the threat of it all being ruined by the nightmare scenario of having hot pasty gravy dribbling down your chin.