Yearly Archives: 2015

No laughing matter

It may seem from some of our posts that we are having a little fun at Jim Perrin’s expense. It is true: sometimes we cannot resist teasing, as by his actions and pronouncements — whether under his own name or, as we believe, using one of his several aliases — he so frequently engenders this response.

However, our underlying concern is anything but humour. The fact is that we are not able to write of all his darker deeds (details of which have been shared with us by those he has harmed) without bringing embarrassment or humiliation upon his victims; or worse, that he should find some means of retaliation if he guessed their identity: such is the nature and design of his behaviour. Continue reading →

Jim Perrin spitting feathers?

We have just read Helen Macdonald’s critically acclaimed, wildly successful and award-winning book H is for Hawk, in which the author, an experienced falconer, relates how, following her father’s sudden death, and by way of self-administered therapy, she acquired and trained a goshawk, allegedly the most thuggish and challenging of raptors to deal with. The book sheds a fascinating light, for the uninitiated, onto the ancient and arcane world of falconry, and imparts a great deal that most will not know about T H White, author of The Goshawk along with his Arthurian romances. Certainly its success will be acknowledged by many a contemporary nature writer… Continue reading →

In defence of childhood

We almost missed an excellent initiative by a group of writers, back in January of this year, in petitioning Oxford University Press to reverse their exclusion from the Oxford Junior Dictionary of many examples of the vocabulary and vernacular of British nature — including, incredibly, ‘acorn’, ‘bluebell’, ‘conker’ — in some misguided attempt at ‘modernisation’. We ask you!!! Continue reading →