Section:GDN 1J PaGe:7 Edition Date:190724 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 23/7/2019 17:57 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Guardian •
7
Every minute of every day for a
thousand years a great roar has
greeted those who come to this part
of the river. It is thunder without a
beginning or an end; a tumultuous
rush of water down a mill race that
is engorged in fl ood and unchecked
by drought. Such is the consistency
of the Ivel’s fl ow through the
seasons that medieval millers dug
a leat along just about every mile of
the river’s length and harnessed the
ceaseless power of its current.
All through this summer, the bass
rumble picked up on the approach
to the mill race has been capped
by a shrill descant. In early May, a
male sedge warbler set up his stall
only a child’s stone throw from the
pounding surf, as if in opposition.
A willow tree became his backdrop,
the reeds his platform.
This bird has never suff ered
from stage fright. He often shins
up a stem, throwing his head this
way and that, in look-at-me poses,
exposing his light throat, the vivid
stripe through his eye cocked
provocatively.
Until a week ago, he was
behaving as a wannabe skylark,
making little bush-clearing
leaps into the air. Once I saw him
emboldened to mount the sky,
a 10-metre ascent that ended with
a jazz hands splay of fi xed wings
and a stiff parachute glide back
down to the reed tops.
And all the time he sings.
An unbroken chain of trills and
stuttering chatter, he fi lls the gaps
between notes with more notes,
bridging volleys of varying pitch
and rhythm with high cymbal-clash
whoops. He is in a dialogue with
self, a furious argument going
on in the back of his throat, an
inexhaustible tirade that exhausts
the listener.
Earlier in the month, the solo
became a duet. Another sedge
warbler from the weir upstream
crept closer until it settled for
a perch on the other side of the
willow. The two birds now trade
off their song like neighbours
boasting sound systems through
a party wall. There is probably
no aggressive intent in this, for
sedge warblers are thought only
to sing to attract a mate. And for
both these birds, a mate that is
dead, gone, or never came.
Derek Niemann- Reports in Friday’s paper gave
diff erent ages for the Minnesota
congresswoman Ilhan Omar when
she arrived in the US: aged eight ( ‘Vile’
chants at Trump rally raise fears for
Muslim congresswoman’s safety ,
page 26), and as a teenager ( How
White House stigmatises Muslims ,
page 27). Omar and her family left
Somalia when she was eight and
arrived in the US when she was 12,
after living in a Kenyan refugee camp.
Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
[email protected] or The readers’ editor,
Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU; alternatively
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signifi cant errors as soon as possible. For more information
on the readers’ editor’s offi ce and the Guardian editorial
code, see gu.com/readers-editor. Find contacts for other
Guardian departments and staff at gu.com/help/contact-usAs an 82-year-old , my hearing is
no longer as acute as it was and I fi nd
myself needing subtitles ( Lights,
camera, caption! , G2, 22 July).
But why am I able to clearly hear the
dialogue of fi lms and documentaries
from the past? One wonders if
there has been a change or decline
in communication and projection.
Dr David Carhart
London- I always use subtitles when
watching natural history fi lms
to avoid having to listen to the
Hollywood blockbuster music
or chase sequence themes more
appropriate to Benny Hill fi lms.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to
avoid the anthropomorphic scripts
but at least I don’t have to hear the
hushed tones when something dies.
Margaret V Darmody
Warwick - Liz Reason ( Letters , 23 July)
rightly objects to the inclusion of
irrelevant details in reports about
female politicians. May I also ask
for the age of people not to be
included unless it is relevant?
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France - My old burgundy passport cover
was headed “European passport”
in gold lettering. My renewal (just
received) has a burgundy passport
cover but this heading is omitted.
Have we left already?
Tony Crilly
St Albans - Dave Brailsford says if the French
won the Tour de France, “it would
be a shot in the arm” for the sport
( Report , 23 July). Er ... has that not
been the continuing occupational
hazard for cycling? But bonne
chance to Julian Alaphilippe and
Thibaut Pinot all the same.
Professor Andrew Watterson
Stirling
Yet another survey demonstrates
teachers’ excessive working hours,
many of them spent on activities that
contribute little to learning ( Ofsted
is source of stress for teachers, says
Ofsted survey , 22 July ) and resulting
in record numbers leaving the
profession. Despite the government’s
cascade of initiatives, it is either
oblivious to the true reasons for
this workload or won’t face up to
the reality that its own policies on
testing and inspections are the major
cause. Only a fundamental change
in the conditions schools operate in
will bring a signifi cant reduction in
workload. Such change must place
far greater emphasis on assessment
that informs pupils’ learning. And it
must refocus the role of inspections
towards school development and
improvement, rather than making
absolutist judg ments about schools.
Chris Pratt
LeedsEstablished 1906Country diary
Sandy,
Bedfordshire
Apollo 11: fl y-tipping
us all to the moon?
The lost art of
speaking clearly
Inspections culture
drives teachers out
Your recent series of articles
commemorating the Apollo 11 moon
landing have been both informative
and stimulating. Your sidebar story
( Lunar litter: Junk humans left
behind , 20 July) does, however,
sound a siren warning as to the likely
impact of human activity, if and
when astronauts resume exploration
of the moon and beyond. If 12
astronauts, and their associated
support systems, making fl eeting
visits to the moon 50 years ago,
results in nearly 200 tonnes of junk
left on the lunar surface, what is
the prospect for the environmental
stability of other “target destination
planets” in our solar system?
We have already made a dire mess
of our planet, even though regular
human space travel/exploration
on a signifi cant scale may yet be
decades away, it is not too early
for international commitment
to binding regulations, perhaps
promoted under the auspices of the
UN, based on the well-established
principles of the polluter pays, and
when visiting unexplored territory,
take only photographs, leave
only footprints.
Phil Murray
Linlithgow, West Lothian- Those saying we should fi x Earth^
before attempting to go into space
and fi nd other planets are missing
the fundamental point ( Letters ,
22 July). Earth is already broken.
The population is rising to the
point where there are not enough
sustainable resources to go round,
we are destroying this planet’s very
fabric just to survive and even if
we change our ways now , one day
another asteroid will send us the same
way as the dinosaurs. We have all our
eggs in one very decrepit basket.
We need a second home world,
preferably more than one, so that
when the inevitable extinction event
happens here, the human race will
survive elsewhere.
Ian McNicholas
Waun-lwyd, Ebbw Vale
[email protected]
@guardianlettersTwitter: @gdncountrydiary
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