Bad Pigeons

 Meaning of Irony; Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders' incomprehension. Wiki entry

So Banksy has won the game yet again, his irony fails too pierce the ignorance of the council members, who finding 'racial' offence at the above photo scrubbed it off the wall not knowing it was a Banksy thereby depriving Clacton of a 'masterpiece' worth several hundred thousand pounds, or maybe they  just did not have a sense of humour.  Double meanings are part of our collected language inheritance, we delight in them, they are clever little parodies which tells us a truth which makes us examine our own thinking.

Anyway, it is a delight to see birds brought into the argument, as I watched 'our' birds feed this morning, the dozen or so sparrows that come to the bird table for seed, the small dopey one who sits inside for a long time watching the world go by. Then there are the doves, whose nest building abilities leave a lot to be desired.  A quick shake of a few twigs laid haphazardly on a branch or two and the job is done.  Of course it falls down in a matter of days, they even built a nest on the bird table, only an expert could recognise it as a nest, but quickly done and quickly forgotten about. I am always alerted to the fact that there is no seed on the table by one dove's squawk as he flies down.  The blackbirds are the next on the scene, a young male is trying to bath in a little plastic saucer, and looking ridiculous, whilst the  old  male blackbird tries to shoo him off.  Age is fast creeping up on this bird, he started the spring with such fierceness, fighting off all intruders, but now has patches of white all over his feathers, too much white bread (but not from this house).

LS has been in touch with 'Billy Broadband' in Newton-on-Rawcliffe, worrying about internet reception in the village.  Well as our 'maybe' house is opposite the village hall we should 'bounce' off whatever contraption is needed to get reception, such things are beyond my scope, but it is a delight to know that such people as Billy, who was a radio ham at one time, exist. He also gave the latest village gossip, the pub is up for sale, now LS is worrying whether there will be a pub in the village after all....