St James’s Park – A Right Result
Some dudes were filming in St James’s Park yesterday. Word got round they were chucking a load of free seed and bread bits about the place, so loads of us rocked up from Soho. It was true. Not one word a lie. A right fucking result.
Despite the outward appearance of a rather nice ‘Ring of Sharing‘, initially there was a fair bit of pushing and shoving going on:
Especially from Mike, the moody one at the back. He dived straight in just after I took this. Head first. No-one stood a chance. I put it down to over-excitement. Something Mike is prone to, truth be told.
As for the rest, it was all reasonably polite, particularly from those keen to get on camera like Dianne here who spent ages strutting her stuff on their bags:
Dianne’s always fancied herself as a Presenter, ideally a weather Presenter. Sadly, she’s not aging well so I think the moment has probably passed.
That said, she still gave it her all when the cameras were rolling:
Well embarrassing, especially as she was looking slightly panicked straight into the lens having chosen a rather tricky angle of approach. Give it up Dianne before you make a total tit of yourself.
Things got even better when one of the crew starting feeding us by hand. Even though it wasn’t on camera, we were keen to demonstrate the politer side of the pigeon so we queued up and waited in turn for a bite of the bread.
This is me, next in line after Terry:
All very civilised.
And here’s me again standing quietly giving it a wistful stare:
This approach seemed to work as I got a follow up hand of seed and was featured in several close ups.
Stuart, on the other hand, seen observing from behind, tried his own method.
Standing on one leg:
Needless to say, this didn’t work so well, particularly as he couldn’t hold it and fell off pretty much straight away.
Then Scottish Nigel just went straight for the snatch and grab:
And flew off with more than the rest of us put together.
There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Anyway, I’m not sure when it’s going to be on, but watch out for a show about pigeons coz we’re all in it.
Have to say I was fucking stuffed at the end of the day. Back on the diet now. That’s it. I’m starting to feel my wing joints rubbing which is never a good sign.
Rapid Rise In Alcoholism In Birds
Looks like drinking is fast becoming a big issue in the bird world, particularly in Romania where dozens of starlings fell out of the sky last week. Initially it was thought bird flu was to blame till scientists discovered the birds were hammered. Utterly trolleyed. Mashed to the eyeballs. So pissed they forgot how to fly, and just fell out of the sky.
You can read the whole story here.
Worryingly, in the last month similar incidents have happened in the US and Sweden.
I put it down to the rather unhealthy habit of giving up alcohol in January. Starlings are renowned for their propensity to drink heavily all year round, just not in January. My theory is that kind of all or nothing approach just doesn’t work. What probably happened was one of them suggested, “Just the one. Can’t do any harm. I won’t drink tomorrow. I’ve done really well this week. Just the one won’t hurt…”. But instead of it stopping there, it carried on and on into the early hours.
Inevitably, as this is what always happens, what started out as ‘just the one’ ended up as a massive binge where the entire of January’s alcohol allowance was downed in one sitting. It’s just not good for the heart, something this load of starlings learnt to their detriment.
So, any birds out there thinking “Just the one. Go on. Just the one”, think again.
Casual drinking from time to time is fine. Being mildly pissed on a Tuesday afternoon is fine too. Being so fucked out of your head you forget how to fly, not good.
Mickaboo – True Pals To The Pigeon
Stacey and a few others sent me this. Cheers, everyone.
It’s about Mickaboo, a voluntary organisation based in San Fransisco dedicated to the urban pigeon. Bring it on. Not only do they rescue, they fix us up with homes to go to. Total relocation package. Jesus. Thinking I might head over there myself. Sit on their doorstep panting a bit. See what happens.
Anyway, they’re after some cash to step up the meds supply. All you need to do is click on this link, and register your vote. Piece of piss. It’s been a while since I last asked for action, but this is clearly a genius and much needed cause. Maybe they’ll open a branch over here?
In the meantime, have a butchers at this rather nice video showing some of the sorts they’ve picked up.
Don’t know why but I’ve always had a thing for the American pigeon, providing they don’t try to speak:
The Big Birds Club
This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, just could never be fucked to haul my arse down there. Today, however, after falling off the wagon into what turned out to be a large spillage of Red Bull on the corner of Compton and Wardour, I had no choice. Few of us took off, and couldn’t stop. Off our tits. Wings flapping all over the place. Next thing I know I hear Mart shouting something: “Bri. Bri… Bri… Bri!”
I wanted to slow down, but my wings were having none of it.
“Bri. Bri. Three words. Big Birds Club.”
I looked down and saw we were indeed crossing the Thames somewhere near Kingston, and realised he was right. Fucking result. The Big Birds Club. I found myself slowing down almost instinctively. Speeding off our nuts though we were, it had to be done. If anything, the juice of the Bull would probably help.
We get there, and here it is. The Big Birds Club.
Most of them are even more twatted than us:
Beyond help. Jesus.
The one on the left was stood there like that with its leg in the air for ages. Hours. Didn’t move. I think the one on the right was asleep. Either that or he’d lost his weed.
Some were still dancing, badly, while others were clearly way too fucked to move:
Genius. Great spot too. Even the sun was shining.
The Big Birds Club is exactly what it says it is. A private members all nighter exclusively for Big Birds. Geese, Ducks and the like. Even Sea Dulls are welcome, but as for the urban grey, it’s a big no. Wood Pigeons sometimes get away with it, apparently, but pigeons like us? No fucking way. The Security Geese see to that. Well hard and probably on steroids, they’re not to be messed with. Not even slightly.
And this is the Big Bird himself bearing all the markings of a great night:
And that’s us standing around in the background chewing like idiots.
The whole thing was his idea. Started it a few years back. Bit of a Legend as it goes. Ran something similar in Hyde Park for a while, till it got busted, so he moved it to Ham claiming those who still wanted to come would travel. He wasn’t wrong. It was packed.
So, once we could actually string a sentence together and listen to eachother long enough to know what we were talking about, we hatched a plan.
This is us, hatching our plan:
And this is me and Doug giving it some fine tuning:
Not sure we achieved quite the low profile we were after, but it didn’t matter in the end. Turned out to be a piece of piss. The idea was I had to distract the Security Goose while Doug slipped in.
So I go: “What’s that over there? Looks like a sparrow. It is… It’s a very small sparrow, and I think it might be dancing…”:
Worked a treat.
Check out Doug slipping in behind, and that was it. Once we were in, there was no getting rid of us.
Great end to a great day. Sure it helped with the Red Bull comedown too, and that can be nasty.
Best chill out for a long time. Fuck knows we needed it.
Hung out for so long even the Security Goose went to sleep:
Good times.
Check out Doug on the right. Absolutely fucked.
Amanda Holden Jumped On By A Large Pigeon
Just heard that Britain’s Got Talent judge, Amanda Holden, got jumped by a six foot fame hungry needy nutter dressed as a pigeon. Thankfully, it was a nutter dressed as a pigeon and not an actual pigeon. She’d never have survived the rogering. You can read the story here. Cheers for sending it, Rabbit. Got me thinking though, Britain’s Got Talent and pigeons. Not sure I’ve ever seen a pigeon on the show. Anyone know any different, let me know. Reckon it would clean up. May have a word with The Pall Mall Collective. Then there’s Doug. Could always get him up there doing a bit of Shakespeare. He’d be up for it like a shot. Anything to be poncing around on a proper stage. I’ll get in touch with ITV. See what they say. Here’s Doug the other day in the snow doing a speech from Winter’s Tale, of course: 
“Satisfy! The entreaties of your mistress! satisfy! Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou Hast cleansed my bosom, I from thee departed” He wasn’t bad as it goes. Not sure the grumpy twat on the right was particularly impressed. Then again, the likelihood of Dulls ever getting Shakespeare is faintly ludicrous. When it comes down to it, they don’t get a vote on the night anyway so who gives a shit what they think.
Pink Pigeon Rum. Nice.
Kid you not.
A whole new rum dedicated to the pigeon.
Sweet:
Okay, so I’m not sure I would’ve called it Pink Pigeon. Just pigeon. I’d have dropped the Pink bit. Not needed. It’s also not true. The Pink Pigeons of Mauritious don’t drink. Never touch a drop. No wonder they’re going extinct. Probably dying of boredom.
All that said, we should’ve got hold of some on New Year’s Eve. Might have saved ourselves the total arse of getting back from Newquay, especially the bit where Mart got stuck in the toilet on the train. We’d only just got on, and we had to get off again. Jesus.
Anyway, back now and bang up for 2011. Apart from anything else, it’s Pigeon Blog’s five year anniversary this year. Bring it on.
New Year. Oh dear.
So, having had the debacle of Christmas with all the ups and downs of Sylvia, Mart suggested a good old fashioned knees up for New Year’s Eve might be in order. Great idea. Disaster in practice.
It all started to go wrong after we downed a spillage of some non-descript lager in Covent Garden. Hard to tell but I think it was Stella. Guess that was our first mistake. One beak full lead to another. Absolutely off our tits. Falling all over the place.
Anyway, one minute we’re on our way to some random event in White City, the next we wake up in Newquay. What the fuck?
Jesus Christ.
Somehow we got ourselves onto a train at Paddington, fell asleep somewhere just past Ealing Broadway, and traveled all the way to fucking Cornwall. Twats.
We sobered up straight away, and wished we hadn’t.
This was the only roof left in the whole fucking town:
Sea view my arse:
And it gets worse.
This was what was downstairs.
Bunters. What the fuck?:
Next door to some shithole called Flounders Fish & Chips:
Which would have been a right result had the joint not been closed for the whole of New Year.
By now, I’m despairing.
Utterly despairing.
Mart is trying to calm me down. I try chatting to one of the locals asking him to recommend a decent local throwaway…
He fucks off mumbling something I don’t understand:
By now I’m on it for a stun gun. Shoot the fuckers. All of them.
Finally, a bit of sanity courtesy of a slightly better shithole called Berties famous for its chips, and it delivered. Full on fat fried potato slices done over to within an inch of their lives.
Bring it on:
Got back today.
Thank fuck.
Pigeon Blog 