Boxsets and garden birds - Rab's take on the latest hot topics

The garden birds fluff up with joy whenever I appear. The opposite of humans really. I’m under no illusions. They like me because I feed them. But, sometimes, they hang about afterwards, listening to me talking tripe at them. “Did you see Man United last night? Hopeless. But what about Aston Villa, eh?”

Birds nest close to the house, even in the ivy on the wall, a heartwarming vote of confidence: I provide security. It’s not just blackbirds and robins but sparrows, finches, blue tits, an occasional thrush. I’ve planted hedges. There’s a pond to bathe in. My little demesne is a haven.

Occasionally, I find a pile of feathers: mangled by a cat or hawk; evil sent into our Eden by Him.

The robins eat from my hand, even if alighting only briefly. Blue tits come within inches of my big red coupon.

Others hang back. None, not even the robins, trusts us fully. Who can blame them? Humans are a cruel species on the whole. They have history. And it’s nearly all rotten.

Robins (Image: PA)

Sometimes, I worry about the birds becoming dependent. Instead of rootin’ aboot, the blackbird just waits for me blundering forth in the morning. I tell them all: “What are you going to do when I die, as the Lord has decreed I must? You’ll starve, and He’ll laugh.”

But, having concreted over their land, it’s a kindness, even an obligation, that we give something back from the plenty we have.

They can’t even get wild berries any more because bourgeois “foragers” take them all, instead of getting them from the supermarket like regular citizens. Anyway, I see little of the birds in spring and summer, when they don’t need me and feed on evil insects.

READ MORE: Scotland's ancient rulers didn't fill potholes or empty bins either

We write in the wake of a 97-year-old woman in Lancashire whose main pleasure was sitting in her conservatory watching small garden birds feed in her back garden.

A baldy next door made her life hell, playing loud music and complaining to the council, who threatened her with a £100 fine.

This would never have happened in the 1950s, when baldies weren’t allowed to own property.

This one claimed the old dear was attracting gulls by putting out food in the front garden, which she never did: “I was left really upset by that.”

Bird-feeding separates the sweet from the chav. True, it should be done responsibly, in moderation, and preferably in the morning so nothing’s left at night that might attract rodents.

If my birds ever get out of hand, too demanding and expectant, showing no gratitude, then their tea will be oot. But, for now, I can spare seeds, berries and suet. They’re for the birds.

Surprise news HERE’S something that made my day. I sent off to a secondhand bookshop for an island magazine from 1992, and inside found four pages from my local paper containing two bylined stories by … moi!

There were so many names on the pages of people that I knew or worked with or came across in the line of duty, where I conducted myself daily at the heart of the community.

Happiest professional days of my life. I retain a passion for local papers. Later, on Scottish national papers, I got to travel extensively and meet important people. How I hated it.

There was also a handwritten note in the magazine to the then owner from the local archivist, someone I knew well too.

READ MORE: St Andrew's Day Scotland: When is it and why we celebrate

Of course, I couldn’t help feeling sad, at a journalist colleague and others lost and at these names of folk with whom I’d interacted, rather than sitting in the hoose masell, talking to my Lord of the Rings figurines.

All life is change, which is another bad thing about it.

For Heaven’s sake

HERE’S something that’s been bothering me: when we die and go to Heaven, do we get to watch television?

It’s one of the few things I get any joy out of down here on horrible planet Earth, and even then it’s mostly rubbish. If we do get telly and films, who are the actors? Is it all AI, aye? If not, do the big stars get more money than the other ones? Is it subscription only for the football?

Do you need a satellite dish? Is there a BBC? Will there be woke censors, keeping us all in line? One could imagine them ticking off God for having Biblical slavery links or, worse, being a white-bearded supremacist.

Do you have to have a heat pump? Do you send letters or emails? Is it telepathy? If so, how do you cut out the chatter? Are there influencers? Is that what angels are now?

So many questions. I’m beginning to have doubts about the whole thing.

FIVE THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED THIS WEEK

A pound for a smoke now

In some London shops, it’s now £20 for a packet of fags: one pound a ciggie. Gordon H Christ. I used to be a roll-ups man: Old Holborn or Golden Virginia. Liquorice papers, natch. Scratched old tin. The craftsman’s pleasure of rolling your own. The big sook in. Decades on, do I miss it? Yep. Welling up here.

Lovers’ riff
Is the guitar riff dying out? Half of those in a Sky Arts survey thought so, with 74% saying that was a bad thing. Most identified the 1970s as the riff’s “golden age”. Correct. Since then, it’s been replaced by computer keyboards, robotic drums and female singers who sound like they’ve inhaled helium.

Jaffa laugh
This shows how wrong AI can be. Two chatbots have given their adjudication that Jaffa Cakes are ... cakes. Not biscuits. Preposterous. They’re too small to be cakes. They’re in the biscuit aisle. In a biscuit packet. They don’t make a mess. You can eat hundreds of them without getting fat. AI my eye!

Libraries (Image: Archant)
Quiet riot
Libraries in parts of England are being forced to hire security guards to deal with unruly yobs intimidating other visitors, climbing on roofs and, it says here, “ignoring quiet signs”. Quiet signs? In a library? Nowadays? A couple I visited in Embra might as well have greeted users with: “Come on, let’s make some noise!” 

Minces off
The Glynhill Hotel & Spa, Renfrew isn’t offering mince pies this Christmas as, every year, they get thrown away. “Not very many people at all seem to like them,” said chef Willie Millar. Brave decision. Mince pies are a Xmas must-have. Trouble is nobody opts to have one. Even Santa sniffs: “Oh God, not these again!”