The Times - UK (2021-12-18)

38 Saturday December 18 2021 | the times

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Miriam Darlington Nature Notebook

not believe in the wickle baby Jesus.

And you can’t tone it down to

“holiday plans”, because that might

mean you thought they were

planning to go away, which isn’t

allowed.

You can’t ask someone what they

do, in case the answer is “nothing”;

you can’t tell someone they’re

looking great, because it suggests

you thought they were fat before;

you can’t ask if they saw the cricket

because nobody likes to see a grown

man cry, and you can’t ask if they

believe in Father Christmas because

their mummy might not have told

them it was up for debate.

On second thoughts, you know, I

think I’m going to pretend that

Covid test came up positive and blow

the party out after all. The chat’s just

better at home.

Big shoes to fill

T

he hot Christmas present of

2021 is a virtual Nike trainer —

or wearable non-fungible token

— that you buy in order to appear to

be wearing it in social media posts,

or for your avatar to wear in video

games, or something. Anyway, they

can cost up to £10,000 a pair and

exist only online, having no physical

manifestation at all. And that is all

fine and dandy. But unless Nike have

managed to make these virtual

sneakers slightly the wrong size, not

quite what she wanted, unreturnable

unless presented with the box that

has already been recycled and

magically susceptible to a massive

mayonnaise splat on the toe, seconds

after putting them on for the first

time, then they can never hope to

digitise the experience of purchasing

a real shoe.

Tapping when he was planning to

retire. What were they supposed to

do? Pretend he had just joined them,

fresh out of university? Congratulate

him on starting shaving? Ask him

where he hopes to be in 40 years’

time? (Are you going to tell him, or

am I?) All in order to spare him the

personal emotional trauma of

confronting the universal tragedy of

the passage of time?

Apparently so. Mr Tapping claimed

to have been “upset by the question”,

said it “would not have been asked of

a 35-year-old” and is to receive

compensation. Now, I am not sure

what the tribunal has in its power to

award that would be of any use to

poor Mr Tapping, but I fear that 20

more years tacked on to the end of

his natural span may be out of its gift.

I mean, sigh, plants hands on hips

and crumples visibly, if you can’t ask

someone when they plan to retire —

which is the goal to which we are all

working and approach in most cases

with joy in our hearts — well, what

the damn hell can you ask them?

You can’t ask a person whether

they have kids any more, nor

whether they want them, and, if so,

when, because if they turn out to be

a woman, which you can’t check first

because their gender is none of your

business, that would obviously be

chauvinistic, othering,

heteronormative and just plain rude.

And you certainly can’t ask “when

are you going to get married?” —

that was in the paper on Wednesday.

You can’t ask where they’re from

because, well, you just can’t. That’s

not cool any more. People think you

are telling them to go back there.

And you can’t ask them about their

Christmas plans because they might

much longer have you got, do you

reckon?”

And he replies: “I could probably

stop now, if I’m honest. Kids are

gone, mortgage is paid, folks are

dead... but I’ll do another five years

just to keep myself off the golf course

and then, well, my cholesterol’s OK

but with my lot it’s usually cancer,

I’ve got a couple of weird moles and

I can’t seem to kick the snouts, so,

probably 2035? 2040? And that’s my

lot.” And we clink glasses, cough, feel

a twinge in our hip and look for

somewhere to sit down.

Not any more. Not if we are to

abide by the findings of a tribunal

which ruled this week that the

Ministry of Defence was in breach of

age discrimination guidelines when

it asked 60-something employee Ian

I

am off to a party tonight, I think.
As long as it doesn’t get cancelled
at the last minute. I’m triple-
jabbed, still teeming with
antibodies from a serious bout of
the Alpha variant 12 months ago, and
I’ve just done a lateral flow test so
negative that the little plastic
window had a row of dancing girl
emojis and a party popper. I am so
buoyantly Covid-free that I feel it is
my civic responsibility to go to as
many Christmas shindigs as possible,
purely in order to suck up everyone
else’s Covid with my incredible
coronaviruslessness, and then
breathe it out as a swarm of flies, like
that guy in The Green Mile who
sucked death out of people, or like
when you put a potato into a soup
you’ve overseasoned and it
miraculously draws out all the salt.
Going to a party might sound a bit
irresponsible (which does not
especially bother me) but, you see, I
have no choice. My hosts emailed all
their guests on Monday to say they
perfectly understood why people
might feel they shouldn’t come out in
the current circs, so could everyone
who wasn’t attending please let them
know, as they didn’t want to
overstock on booze and food. Dozens
dropped out immediately (using the
excuse of the virus to win a quiet
night in with Netflix, I’m guessing)
but most of us said we would still
come. We high-fived each other for
our intrepidity on WhatsApp and

discreetly slandered the wussy

dropouts. But now that things have

moved on, and even I can see that

partying is not a good look, we’re

kind of stuck, aren’t we?

What else can we do? Cancel and

send them 50 quid a head for costs?

All drive round to their place in

hazmat suits to pick up the

unwanted smoked salmon blinis and

Taittinger and take them to care

homes and refuges, like good little

Emma Thompsons, as long as the

inmates promise to eat them in a

sombre, distanced fashion and not

use them to throw a party? Post all

the mini baked potatoes and cocktail

sausages to South Sudan? What is

the ethical thing?

I think we have to go. I’m not even

looking forward to it that much. Not

since I read in Thursday’s paper about

how it’s ageist to ask someone when

they are going to be retiring. I mean,

what the hell else do they think a

bunch of well-oiled 50-somethings

are going to talk about at a party?

Tik-Tok? Minecraft? Representational

issues in the (frankly disappointing)

PAW Patrol movie?

Nope. We talk about when this hell

is going to end. The hell of work and

the broader hell of living. You grab a

mushroom croquette from the young

waitress you’re not allowed to look at

or talk to in case she files a

complaint, slip it under your mask

and into your mouth and say to the

bloke standing next to you: “So how

What else can we do?

Cancel and send them

£50 a head for costs?

Giles

Coren

If you must attend a festive shindig

don’t you dare ask people questions

words must be hidden in rock-dells

and licheny crevices all over the

land.

Rhythms of the wild

O

ur walk had snatched what felt

like the last bloom of sunlight,

a bit of stolen time among the

shortening days and impending

longest night. My bones ached with a

strange kind of joy. We’d absorbed

some deep goodness and it would

stay with me for days. No hangover,

no shopping bills, just a pleasant

tiredness in the limbs, and a pint of

giggles, all free of charge.

Beneath the surface of things,

hidden in the world’s nearby places,

lingering just under the grass, some

deep magic lies. It’s in the digesting

of human-made things: footfall, deep

lanes, old hedges, reclaimed

earthworks, sacred dwellings of the

past. Walk through them on a bright

day and you touch something

ancient that ties us all together.

We pine for ceremony and

slowness, for marking the points of

the turning year, and for touching

and being touched by those

customary rhythms. And in my

pocket, a tiny cerulean feather, fallen

from a bird, saved as a talisman for

the oaks.

@mimdarling

cling on in spite of all the depressing

news of deforestation elsewhere,

perhaps partly because of jays and

their tree-planting habit.

Only connect

O

n the ascent towards Lustleigh

Cleave, slabs of crystalline

granite extrusion loomed,

creating dark clefts, caves and

scattered, random boulders the size

of bin lorries. The undulating,

unfenced land on Dartmoor glowed

beneath breaths of mist as if its

bones were showing through.

Skirting around the stones and

moss-eaten remains of old

settlements, looking out at our route

through a gap in the trees, I was

nervous about the distance. But

lulled by the softening rays of winter

sun over layer upon layer of rises and

valleys, my walking partner Jane

forged confidently onward.

Clambering over the rock-gnarls

and streams of the moor, your joints

loosen as you go. The brain-chatter

softens. Intrusive thoughts are

absorbed into something that is

distilled down to path, footfall and

breath. I look back now at the moor,

from my home, and can see its

contours up there, bluish in the

distance. I know the names of those

tors and slopes, and a feeling of

recognition rises in my muscle

memory. It flows through my veins; a

heartful, deep knowing. And all of a

sudden I realise what it is. I’m

blessed with a feeling of belonging.

I’ve lived in Devon more than 20

years now. The connection feels deep

and priceless.

A quick survey of my tattered

Dartmoor OS map (1:25,000, North

Sheet) to retrace our route brings out

the priceless names of the place. In

their quirkiness they appear to allude

to something else — but surely all

places have innuendos of sorts? I

think this particular area might win

the prize. I’d love to hear otherwise,

but from Lustleigh to Peck Farm, on

to Foxworthy, through Lustleigh

Cleave, via Heaven’s Gate, and back

via the Nutcrackers, gigglesome

of rusted oak and shaggy bracken

colours. The earth smelt of the deep-

down lanes of Dartmoor and their

mulchy, bestreamed, ankle-turning

moss traps. The bird landed in the

high branches with a bulging crop of

acorns. Its Latin name Garrulus

means talkative and glandarius refers

to gathering acorns and beech mast.

Jay has apparently nothing to do

with its bright, gay colouring, but the

harsh cawing contact sounds it

makes. In the old days, when

humans had more personal names

for the birds — Robin Redbreast,

Maggie Pie, Jenny Wren — this one

might have come from the Latin

Gaius, so perhaps it was a Guy, or a

Jay Pie. It’s nice to think of these old

connections.

The original tree planters, jays

are known to be the spreaders

of oak forest, creating an

upward spread of woodland

better than any human hand.

While caching their hoard

for winter, they allow the

trees to seed in wider and

wider swathes. In spring

the many forgotten acorns

sprout into saplings and

can colonise hills and parks,

pushing through where

before there was just grassland

or scrub. Here in the

southern edges of

Dartmoor the woods

T

he scratch of its call gave it
away: a “skaaak”, then the
unmistakable bold plumage
and looping flight through
the twiggy canopy. The
screaming jay, Chaucer called it.
Glimpsed through the branches, the
jay is conspicuous in its exotic
colouring — a streaked crest and
flash of white, stark against its
chocolate hues and soft,
dusky-rose breast. It offered
a soft chuckle and that
lovely pinkish front — and
the flecked-blue feathering
that you can sometimes
find shed on the forest
floor. I picked one up and
kept it safe in my pocket.
As it flew over our
heads, mottled amongst
the rise and fall of the
woodland path, it was joined
by another, their shadows
flitting between the trunks

Garrulous

gatherers

keeping oak

forests alive

Jays have a notable talent for gathering

acorns and beech mast (above)

No offence, partygoers, but these are the rules

Christmas dos are frowned upon as it is and the list of things you’re not allowed to say has already killed the conversation