Saturday Sun (?)

To Deptford market for good deals on a hands free kit, some corn on the cobs and a particularly delish melon. I also swung past the flea market and got a quids worth of vinyl, which I’ll tell you about when I’ve burnt a few tracks. On the way home I stopped in the little park near my flat. The sky was flat grey and I had the place to myself. So I listened to the radio and munched my sarnie.

A few things occurred to me whilst I listened and chewed:

Fat fighters:
Two examples of the battle against obesity, one more destined to succeed than the other, firstly Greggs the Baker has started selling fruit salad! Before you start it’s not wrapped in pastry and called a “turn over”, but your actual apple and grapes etc. So have one of these, a cup of tomato soup, a juice and veggie pasty and you’ve had 4 of your portions of F’n’V for the day or may be not…

The second tactic in the fight against the flab was the young kid who I saw cycling round the town and who joined me in the park. Now we know cycling’s good for you but this poor blighter had had his seat pinched and so was riding permanently out of the saddle he must have legs of steel, we should sign him for the Olympics.

Get the Flock outta here:
Apart from me, and Deptford’s answer to Miguel Indurain, also in the park were a flock of 50 – 60 pigeons. Not an uncommon sight but they were engaging, pecking away at seeds and insects and the crumbs from my lunch. Looking at them more closely I was struck by one thing, why are pigeons not all the same colour?

In this flock there were black, white, mottled grey, variations on the standard pigeon plumage and a whole variety. So what, well have you seen such variety in robins, magpies, or even seagulls? The answers no, normally in wild animals they all look very much alike. The variety we see in domestic animals is only transitory, leave two fancy gold fish in the same bowl (even ones with outlandish ones with long tails or bulbous eyes) and they will interbreed and return to a common ancestor.

The same goes for dogs and cats. So why haven’t all these wild pigeons breed back to a common cliff dwelling ancestors’ plumage? Well 2 minutes on the web and I have my answer, I won’t rehash the facts but basically in towns not many things eat them, there’s plenty of food so birds of a feather flock together and they tend to mate with similar coloured birds.










Just as I finished my musing on pigeons Northern sky by Nick Drake came on the radio and after it had finished, I collected my bags and wandered home and fished out this tune for you.

Elton John Plays Way to Blue (1972?).
Sorry I can’t remember which site I got it from.
I’m not the world's biggest Elton fan I always think the idea of his recent albums sound better than the actuality. But this version of “Way to blue” is interesting and does have some good piano work on it, see what your think.