Its fur is black and its tail is strong
And grips the branches as it it goes along
Famed in legend, dance and song
From Sandakan to old Hong Kong
One billion Asians can't be wrong
To praise the wonderful binturong
So take me back where I belong
Far from this teeming Western throng
To the land of gamelan and gong
Kretek, kris and batik sarong
The bumbung dance and the barong
To the fabled forests of binturong!
To the home of the wonderful binturong!
The word 'excrement' leads me down a side track. W B Yeats famously wrote in his poem Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop that Love has pitched his mansion inThe place of excrement. Popular imagination as changed the line into a couplet and changed the word 'mansion' into 'tent'. At least that is what I think happened but perhaps Yeats took the phrase from elsewhere. Perhaps one of you knows the answer.
Back to X and Y. As I was saying, unlike Newcastle-u-Lyme the village where they live is not the sort of place where dog poo is allowed to lie for long on the public highway. It a taboo and crime of the highest order leading to the tar and feathering and running out of town of anyone involved in such a thing, both human and dog. So X and Y were quick to scoop up the offending substance. All well and good I thought, until I was amazed and deeply shocked to the see that instead of finding a suitable litter bin they were stuffing it through their neighbours letterboxes. Well, I did not actually witness the letter box offence but I clearly saw X stuffing dog poo into an ash tray outside the Village Hall and Youth Club. A spot frequented by youngsters and old folk who gather there for a friendly chat and a fag on most evenings.
It is a very short step from ash tray to letter box, as I'm sure you will all agree.
I was never to discover the motive for such vindictive behaviour. I can only assume it has something to do with some deep and long-lasting vendetta of the kind one frequently comes across in these out of the way English villages.
Otherwise, my stay was delightful. I was taken on the Saturday to a nearby zoo, (Hamerton Zoo Park) where I was pleased and surprised to find four binturong. I have searched for binturong several times in the forests of South East Asia but never succeeded to see them in the wild. They are not even commonly seen in zoos, though I don't think they are yet an endangered species, and to see four was amazing.
Sunday was cold and wet but we dragged Chester out for a walk in the woods and picnicked - with hot soup. It was that sort of picnic.- in a bird watching hide. Despite the rain we were lucky enough to see a spotted woodpecker on the feeder just in front of us.
On Monday I left my old friends who had looked after me so well - I had long ago forgiven them their slight eccentricity conceding dog poo - and set off to Birmingham where I had promised to help Viv with a problem concerning foxes.
It turned out I could do nothing. The foxes have constructed a kind of fox palace beneath her shed. The scale is enormous and the shed on the verge of collapse. I think it is a job for the army, though I did not say so at the time. Instead I moved huge sacks of wood chips that are to be used for some esoteric gardening purpose I don't really understand. What you, my readers, should understand is that I was in a great deal of pain from my injured leg. Yet I still carried countless heavy sacks. The reason I did this is that I heard a Vicar on that inspirational programme Thought For the Day say that we should all suffer for Jesus in an imaginative and symbolic way. So I did, and all good and charitable people will be impressed and humbled by my action.
Since foxes were on our minds that evening we watched the film The Fox and the Child. Set in the stunningly beautiful Plateau de Retord in Eastern France the film is only let down by the presence of the Fox and the child. Otherwise I recommend it.
I'm now back in Newcastle-u-Lyme. This morning I signed on at the Job Centre (Plus) - i must write more about that place -, I received a long email from Madison who is doing an expanded version of my Durga/Umayi show at her university. I wish I could be there! I'm sure, like most things she does, it will be brilliant, and tomorrow I'm off for a walk in the Roaches wit Liz and Sharon and then back to see Kit in Liverpool who is playing at an old friend, Ruth's birthday party.