Birds are among nature’s most marvelous creations. Descendants of the dinosaurs, they take to the skies with ease that other species can only dream of. It’s no surprise, then, that someone would be drawn to compile a book of strikingly realistic bird paintings, such as Les oiseaux de l’Indochine Française, or Birds of French Indochina, published in 1931.
Written and illustrated by the duo of J. Delacour and P. Jabouille, the book depicts an impressive array of birds from what is now Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Take a look at some of these renditions below:
Left: Cambodian babbler (top) and black-headed babbler (bottom). Right: Two subspecies of red nectar.
Left: Red-breasted sucker (top) and yellow-bellied sucker (bottom). Right: Plum blossom (top) and yellow-bellied sparrow (bottom).
Left: Subspecies of the maroon oriole. Right: Yellow-billed jay.
Left photo: Blue jay. Right: Yellow-bellied jay.
Left: Bar-bellied pitta. Right photo: Gray-headed cochoa (top) and blue-headed cochoa (bottom).
Left (from top): Gold-breasted splenic, red-tailed babbler, blue-winged pygmy, silver earring. Right: Red-headed green woodpecker (left) and black-headed woodpecker (right).
Left: Pink-tailed waterfowl. Right (from top to bottom): Striped babbler, scaly babbler, rufous-chinned laughingthrush.
And Relax!
Love and peace especially if you live in the Yemen! John.
God it was boring! He was a cream man, in a cream and grey office, if he stood against the wall he was invisible. ‘I’m the invisible man, incredible how you can, see right through me!’ But there were no Freddie Mercury frantic drums for Reg Moorcroft. Coffee four times a day, that was it. A piece of cake if it was someone’s birthday!
God it was exciting, dark hard blue metal, beautiful old chequered wood, powerful, life changing! But changes meant risk, excitement meant danger, the power of life and death came in a package labelled ‘fear.’ Still it was better than washing the car and cutting the lawn.
It wasn’t supposed to be like that. He had to make amends, he couldn’t continue his life in front of a computer even if he did some good, he just felt like an on/off switch that could read. Get out now Reg, change your life, ‘Got to leave you all behind and face the truth!’
If someone sneezes, will it change the world? Maybe, possibly, perhaps. Are there no rules if you’re rich? What’s ‘The Law’? They’re just some rules made by some men. Vodka, champagne, Paracetamol, tramadol, Benzo’s Amphets anything to make it be quiet. Anything, it doesn’t matter what it is. Mother will give it to me, she always does. Grissholme De Montry Burlingham. lockers, Eton, Cambridge, then what? Somewhere safe for his brilliant mind.
A fictional novel set against the juxtaposed backgrounds of life on the lower deck of British aircraft carrier in the 1960’s and the emerging new age eco minded pot smoking hippy culture.The galvanizing catalyst is the UK defense establishment. At that time, ruthlessly creating people with no recorded identity to carry out their bidding. Deliberately targeting the vulnerable vacuum of the ‘flower power’ era. Ambitious ruthless patriotic ‘Civil Servants’ eagerly exceed the boundaries of state involvement. Using the police and the Criminal Justice System as a tool of coercion they create expendable people. Persons with no recorded identity who could be threatened and forced to carry out illegal government tasks under the shadow of their own unnoticed disappearance should they refuse. Leonard Flower Welham a young sailor drawn by the glamour and adventure of the Fleet Air Arm. Roaring powerful dangerous flying machines. Alien and foreign places and cultures. Grey unstoppable warships that policed the world’s oceans and offered a safe home. A voyage of discovery as he changed from a boy to a man. In the mid sixties he is drafted to join HMS Bulwark. The ship is undergoing a refit in Plymouth dockyard. He is confronted with its sheer magnitude and majestic presence. Climbing aboard up the steep gangway he enters a special world of smells, sensations, sights, sounds and the beginning of the trip of his life. Joel. Born in a damp Yurt in a green wet valley in Mid-Wales to a thin depressed hippy eternally searching for her own happiness. Her low self esteem restricting her to abusive relationships leading to her coerced insemination and a boy child. He was to grow to be the only thing of true value in her life. Joel spends his happy free childhood unfettered by the expectations of school and conventional society. Accepting his alternative life as nothing unusual he is taught by his own curiosity and associations with people who knew the answers to his questions and who could teach him what he needed to know.The lives of the two young men come together. Life becomes familiar and normal. Friendships develop, fun is shared and enjoyed. The eastern world is paraded before them to be dipped into and experienced whilst having the safety of a floating ‘England’ to run back to.All this time Joel cannot escape the lurking incredible officialdom. Their awful instruction and the dislike for himself and his own weak compliance.
Synopsis – Black Nothing.(Sequel to ‘Subject to Status’ Kindle ref B004JHYMOU)Joel is happily living with Janey on her farm in Mid-Wales when his unconventional past careers’ back into his life. His mother is on the verge of death when he’s arrested. Incarceration in prison exposes him to a new level of society, new people and new habits that drastically change his life. His quandary is when, and to whom should he disclose the circumstances of his predicament. He chooses badly and coupled with the untimely intervention of fate, remains in prison.Eventually he’s removed and given an illusion of freedom as Her Majesties Government make him an offer he can’t refuse.His task see’s him travel to Nepal and Vietnam. One location leading to the other as dilemmas multiply into a personal morass of conflicting feelings, emotions and necessities.The dry dust of Kathmandu reflected against the soaking humidity of the Mekong Delta. Extreme poverty reflected by wealth and privilege. Bizarre surreal experiences that take him to see sights few people have ever seen. Sadhu’s and burning bodies. High peaks. Snake swallowing drum majors at funeral ceremonies. It was if death surrounded him. Experiences and new perceptions of life impacted strongly on him. Making his simplistic mission anything but! New people entered his life. All were not what he expected. His return home was hopeful, supported by his ‘payment’ Joel hopes for a conventional life. One more simple task in England and his life could resume its uneventful course. The green bleakness of the Marches comforts him as mundane normal people reappear in his life. The rattle of trains. The lilting Welsh voices ease him back home. Once home he finds again that nothing is simple as he descends into a whirlwind downward spiral triggered by awful events.Joel searches and ponders how anyone who is good can do so many bad things.Is there anyone he can truly rely on?
Can really bad things just happen to good ordinary working folk? Duane, Frankie, Arthur, Syd, Slim, Harry, Dave, Jack. Reg, Sheila and Tony, make up “The Ten Bob Notes” a jobbing part time dance band playing in the Black Country ‘Brumijum’ in the 1950’s. (Yes there are eleven but Duane’s the leader/conductor so he doesn’t count!) Is Frankie really that bad? A ‘Ted’ with a dangerous quiff who dabbles in dodgy deals and a bit of fast transport with his black Austin Atlantic convertible.Syd, a very sad clarinet player who harbours dark thoughts since his soulmate suddenly died.Harry has unending talent but a propensity for beer and extra’s that he hates but cannot forsake.Jack is young and as smooth as the slide on his new trombone as he finally manages to separate his Dad from his 500cc BSA motorbike and sidecar. Only to find it leads him to uncertain decisions.Reg and Arthur who share work at the foundry, a green Ford Esquire van and a love of music and fishing. Sheila Salvadori the sultry dark haired singer who croons with Tony but swoons with Frankie.Slim who adores from afar, his chubby profile and safe personality confining him to the also rans of life, until fate makes him an attractive option. And Dave who’s tensions and compulsive obsessions find release in rhythms and beats. Bright ballroom lights provide essential relief for the men and women of the dirtier side of the industrial revolution as they provide the old time dance music of the forties and fifties. But what about Jonny?
It was behind him, he’d got away with it. He’d do it again if he had to. Now he was on the up, out of the street into the skies. Of course Jonny needed some help, they didn’t show you how to use a fish knife or a salad fork at his school, it was more flick knives and fags. Mum wasn’t coping well without dad so he had to make sure she was OK. Then life started getting difficult. Phill got cancer, he confessed and Harry got out of gaol. The Police didn’t want egg on their face so they had to do some digging to cover their backs. Not too much but once you open that bottle, the genie pops out and doesn’t want to go back in. He might have to do it again.
“Save me save me save me! I can’t face this life alone Save me save me save me! I’m naked and I’m far from home” Leonard Flower Joel saved by Sandra Hardwicke from heroin,Calypso Clay (Nee Fortnum-Guinness) saved from whisky. Constantine Ellis saved from his past. He had all the social bullets but they were blanks. Calypso, the most exotic bird imaginable trapped in a gilded cage. Leonard Flower Joel, made to do bad things, things he didn’t want to do before he could do good things.The rolling dice of life brings together three lost souls in the pastoral peace of ‘The Marches’. All hurt, all suffering, all in need. But people change. People fall in love, people fall out of love, circumstances come, go, ebb and flow. Sometimes there’s an amazing convenient coincidence but mostly not! Constantine has a dragon to slay in Istanbul, Calypso has lost her beautiful son to the inevitable Eton / Oxbridge machine that is demanded by wealth. Learning to lead, trained to manage in the ruthless smiling world of money. Salvador Clay hurts his multi-gened mother everyday but doesn’t know it. Joel – smart, sensible, makes all the right decisions but life still kicks him down. Maybe he should just make his own world. A world that no one else can touch. A world in a white room with Black curtains.
When you’ve been a policeman long enough to know that ‘it’s not working’ for many people over thirty trapped by drugs, crime, and prison. What do you do? The answer for PC Jack Carter, as he slid rapidly towards his retirement, was to create and run a small residential support home for guys who wanted help. wanted change, but couldn’t do it on their own. As a registered charity it needed trustees. Jack assumed that all trustees were good honest people but if they’re not! What do you do? When someone steals what you’ve created. When someone poisons the mind of your best friend.What do you do?
February in Wales just has to be bleak and wet, so what do you do after work? Who’s the group, who’s the singer? What’s the song? Of course it’s fiction. Or is it? Can you love a cat that much? When it’s cocaine and ‘Stoli’ between meals what’s real?
Terry was bigger, fitter, harder, stronger than all those around him, why should he stay locked up? Richard was a mild murderer, he had a strategy for prison. Keep quiet, don’t rock the boat, smile and do as you were told and you’d be out on your first parole board. For both of them time inside was time wasted. Irreplaceable and valuable . Terry had a plan, Richard was his cell mate, Terry’s plan needed two people. Richard was the man. But what about love? Happy Christmas!
When you’re the cousin of the Emperor of Japan. A Royal Prince of the Chrysanthemum Throne, no one looks into your eyes. No one smiles at your face. When your word kills thousands of people. It is a lonely place. Japan, China, The Philippines, South east Asia in the thirties and forties. All for gold, nothing else. The red and gold Chrysanthemum emblem on his chest marked him as the relative of a living God. But Prince Takeda was a man. he needed love, companionship and friendship as much as the naive innocent farm boy that brought his water and everything else. When you try to save thousands of lives and fail. When the flower dies and you become mortal. When you love but cannot have—. Did I mention love?
And finally!
‘What’s it all about – Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? (Burt Bacharach / Cilla Black 1966)
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