Pigeon anyone?

I hear on the radio that the world is heading for a food production crisis. In that context it seems a sensible use of limited resources to husband vital naturally occurring foodstuffs to ensure a continuing supply of whatever is the cornerstone of the local diet. I was thus surprised and indeed gratified to find that this process is being embraced by the authorities up north as my picture today illustrates. Pigeon may not necessarily be the first choice for anyone brought up in the south, especially for those living close to Trafalgar Square, but they apparently provide a tasty and nutritious meal.

The cultivation of the pigeon

Pigeons are obviously a very important part of the local food economy and I am delighted to see that there is a feeding programme for them. Perish the thought that it should become and endangered species, except of course near any nice old building that is blighted by their faeces. Up north I hear they use that particular substance to garnish semolina. Anyway, the idea of having a pigeon feeding area seems to me to be very sensible. Fattening up the pigeons and providing entertainment for the locals at the same time is a masterstroke of planning. One could almost say it kills two birds with one stone, although the RSPCA may have something to say about dispatching pigeons with a stone. Also, two pigeons would not make much of a pie? Another thing concerns me though is harvest time. How do they catch the little blighters? If they were homing pigeons perhaps it would be easier? I suppose someone who wanted to make a joke out of this might say that it is a lofty aim, however regular readers will know that to suggest that I would make the most of a very poor gag would ruffle my feathers.

Yesterday was a reenactment of the great escape. I managed to leave pigeon land and head south back to my work with Currencies Direct, arriving back in late afternoon to the news that our central heating boiler was making an unpleasant noise. As I had been up north for six days I had been living with an unpleasant noise for some time. The escape started at around 11am, and I eventually arrived back in Arundel at around 5pm, after a brief pit stop for a pint at the very pretty English village of Chiddingfold. Due to the aforementioned cacophony, I was dispatched to the pub next door to find a heating engineer who was not deaf. This was a momentous task which was clearly going to take some time, and I was making progress until I was summoned back from the pub due to dinner being either on the table or in the dog without fully fulfilling my task.

After dinner I settled down to watch the World Cup qualifying football match  between England and Poland with, for the first time in nearly a week, a comfortable roof over my head. This was more than was afforded those charming underpaid international footballers who, despite the stadiums  provision of a roof to keep out the rain, the powers that be decided not to use it and postpone their match. Clearly their hairstyles are so expensive they could not possibly go out in the wet so things were looking gloomy until I found we had recorded the excellent new TV series of “Hunted” on Sky, as without it I was looking down the barrel of an evening of Poirot or Midsommers Murders. What a welcome return to sultry south that would have been.

Chris France

@Valbonne_News