Readers familiar with my musical tastes should be aware that this blog was not inspired by Frank Zappa’s Valley Girl, though some parallels could be drawn. I share his scepticism of human behaviour. But it was another long lost hero, a personal friend, who provided the idea for this piece. When speaking about his workplace, long ago, he mentioned a colleague known to all the others as Toenails. Why? I asked him. Because he was so far up the boss’s arse that’s all you could see of him.
Are we not, as a society, in a similar position with the titans of capitalism? Why, for example, do we allow the fossil fuel companies to continue prospecting for more oil and gas when the IPCC says, in no uncertain terms, no more new exploration?
Why do we continue to buy, and in a year’s time upgrade, every new-fangled gadget that we did perfectly well without until its glossy image was floated across our screens?
How do we sanction our politicians to suggest that the real cost of living crisis is anything other than deciding, now, how much we should pay, or forgo, to limit the impact of environmental collapse? What is it about us that allows us to let what we choose to believe trump that which is abundantly apparent? (Apologies for the T word).
It would seem from the flurry of vox pops in the run-up to the general election that at least some of us are choosing not to believe our political leaders, and in this case, succumbing to the blindingly obvious. True, it is a difficult time to be a politician, when the truth they should be telling is so unpalatable that they decide to protect their job and their party in preference to adopting some guise of leadership.
We expect, for example, that when they say ‘we have been perfectly clear’ they mean ‘we continue to deceive’. For ‘energy security’ read ‘CEO bonus initiative’. Populism: selfish ignorance. Affordable housing; oxymoron. Pothole: inadequate drug supply?
If 80% of climate scientists are predicting that by 2100 temperatures will have reached 2.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, a situation they describe as catastrophic, why is this topic not the main subject for discussion, especially when climate science has consistently underestimated the impact and timing of the changes we are witnessing?
Why, if we need to reach net zero carbon emissions in the early part of the next decade, is anyone still talking about 2050? How can a British prime minister say, with a straight face, that this country has already played its part in achieving climate goals? Did his expensive education exclude both the natural sciences and history?
These are all rhetorical questions, of course, and could be described as a rant. As ordinary citizens with limited agency is there anything we can do to effect real change, as opposed to the Starmer version, for example? Certainly the idea alluded to in my last blog – that our cultural evolution has swamped our instinct for survival – is not a happy one. However, given our talent for believing in the unlikely, or downright impossible, it should be feasibleto foment a little hopefulness.
Rightly or wrongly I put a degree of faith in organisations like Greenpeace, Avaaz, 38 Degrees, who have demonstrated that positive outcomes can be achieved when enough people get behind an issue. And it can be as simple as pressing a button on a keyboard; and infinitely more rational than expecting your national football team to beat Germany in the opening match of the Euros, in Germany.
Back in the garden we have enjoyed the most colourful Spring to date, with a number of plants flowering for the first time, including several rhododendron species, magnolias and most surprisingly, the Davidia that can’t be much older than fifteen years.
Bird nerds may be interested to know that swallows arrived later than usual, and only one pair decided to nest here, inconveniently choosing the porch of a summerhouse lovingly referred to as the eyepad – rendering conventional use of the building a potential wildlife crime. Willow warblers, on the other hand, arrived on time, and occupy at least three territories in the garden.
Sadly there have been no signs of sedge warblers here this year, despite two broods being successfully raised in 2023 from a nest near the big pond (reedbed). One might have expected some of them to return, but perhaps the rigours of intercontinental travel proved too much for them. It has been suggested that for another sub-Saharan migrant that an insufficient food supply – insects – prior to the long haul causes population decline.
Birds apart, keeping the garden all together still appears to be within our grasp, a task much facilitated by the frequent deliveries of woodchip mulch from our tree surgeon friend. Jack the dog, now 2, has developed a winning way with rabbits, which more than compensates for his behaviour with other canines. He is the fourth German Shepherd to live here but the first to demonstrate an effective hunting instinct. Having taken another year out from involvement with the Scotland’s Gardens Scheme there have been few visitors to witness the extraordinary growth in the new part of the garden, now in its tenth year of development. However, we look forward to meeting a group from The Hardy Plant Society at the end of July, and are busy making sure that there is a decent selection of plants available for sale – all proceeds, as usual, going to Fauna and Flora.
Any requests to visit from The Toenails Society will be impolitely denied.