The gulls can't help it
I know it's the silly season and that the newspapers have to fill up a lot of comment space to justify their existence and create an artificial dialogue with what little paying readership they have left, but this downpage piece hit a new low for me in yesterday's Guardian:To kill a squawking bird
If you want to read it in full, it's here, but these are the salient points, made by a writer called Ariane Sherine, whose work in the newspaper I am not familiar with but who apparently writes for My Family, which is more successful than any sitcom I've ever written. Anyway ... "For the past three weeks," she begins. "I have been woken up every day at 5am by seagulls." Ah, it's a first-person confessional slice of life. "As I live in central London, this is a bit like being nuzzled awake by polar bears when you live in the Gobi desert." No, it isn't. "There is no reason whatsoever for the seagulls to be here, unless they're the stupidest, most short-sighted seagulls ever and have mistaken the Regent's Canal for the sea."
She goes on. I read to the end, assuming she would at some stage, awake from her solipsistic Metropolitan stupor and address the issue of overfishing, which is one of the reasons seagulls now fly further inland to feed and breed. I thought this was well known, it's been happening for years and is well documented, and it's thus effectively our fault, but Ariane Sherine has her teeth into this now and will not let go. "And if they're that daft, why could they not accidentally brain themselves on some windows, instead of disrupting my sleep at precisely the same time each morning, like some kind of insane RSPB-sponsored speaking clock?"
She doesn't mind the sound of an "everyday garden bird," just the squawk of the impertient seagull, who doesn't realise that Ariane Sherine wants to go to sleep in Central London. She believes that their call translates as, "Where the hell is the sea?" In fact, it translates as, "Where is the fish?" They are incredibly intelligent birds, and know that inland is a lot safer than the coast too: more room, less predators. She correctly observes that the gulls now scavenge in our urban, inland rubbish, but that's because their natural food supply has been pillaged, and also, we chuck out loads of really nice food because the supermarkets stamp it with a random date, oh, and because we are wasteful, horrible people. We help pigeons thrive in the same way, by dropping old bits of muffin all over the pavement as we walk along eating our air-filled lumps of doughy nothing. And then we complain about all the pigeons.
Wait a minute? None of this can be true, or else Ariane Sherine wouldn't be entitled to hate seagulls for making what is their natural cry near her house in Central London, and the Guardian, a national newspaper of some repute, wouldn't give her a column in which to do it. "How on earth can a bird get lost?" she squawks. "Shouldn't its inbuilt evolutionary radar systems stop disorientation?" Yes, except it is not lost. It is searching for food, except without the aid of a handy Waitrose. They "prefer", she claims, "to feast on dead Marks & Spencer fish heads than dip into the sea for a tasty live snack." Yes, that is correct. You, Ariane Sherine, are correct. The gulls are antisocial idiots, we are blameless. And yes, ha ha, you should, as you threaten, get a gun and shoot them. That would be solve the problem. Although you'll have to shoot all of them.
Let's hope the Guardian don't follow Murdoch's lead and make us pay for their content in the future. They will be hard pushed to justify putting a coin in the meter for groundless, self-congratulatory filler like this.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 2:26 PM
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I appreciate your love of nature, but to be honest I don't like the sound of seagulls and I would add crows, magpies, urban pigeons. I would support a cull of many annoying animals including mosquitoes, flies, jellyfish which for me make the world a worse place to live. I'm not sure what effect this would have on the ecosystem food chain, nor am I sure GM food is risk free but if it helps feed people more efficiently it may be worth it.
People who loves animals more than humans annoy me intensely like animal rights activists attacking scientists I admire the passion but they have chose the wrong target completely a good target to attack would be the oligarchs and shadow people like Rupert Murdoch, not scientist who are trying to help humanity by curing diseases like Alzheimer’s.
‘My Family‘ may have got large audience figures due to it’s time slot but I would not call it successful in terms of artistic merit and I would not be proud to be associated with such soulless mainstream trash.
Here here. The amount of non-news in the news nowadays saddens me. As a non-believer in swineflu (its just flu) I remarked in the office that the only way you can catch swine flu is by reading the papers!! Thats as good as it gets for me i'm afraid. Keep up the good work AC. Cant wait to hear about your Edinburgh adventures. Keep the bedroom door locked!
[This is a bit off topic so you can cut this out if you like but did you see the 100m the other night? Not many things shock an old cynic like me but I never thought I would see anyone run that fast in my lifetime. I was stunned and it was just enjoyable and exciting to see something like that and feel as excited as I did when I watched the Olympics as a child in the 80's.]
In addition (and correct me if I'm wrong), I thought they were technically 'gulls' (of various types) rather than 'seagulls'. If people will use such sloppy nomenclature, they deserve to be woken up at 5am every day. In case you can't tell, I'm an editor (aka 'word pedant') by trade...
Do you know, you write quite well. You should have a column or something.
We get loads of Gulls flying over (I live about halfway between London and Brighton) and I really rather like the sound. It reminds me of the seaside.
You can ask her about this article at
http://twitter.com/arianesherine
We've been here before Andrew. Let me tell you how this will pan out.
The Guardian will let you write a rebuttal on Friday in which you berate the lazy columnist and publicise your desire to kiss a seagull.
"Ariane Sherine has deliberately misrepresented the humble seagull..etc".
Ariane will then come back with a defence in which she denies misrepresentation, saying that the average reader will be in no doubt that the piece is entirely responsible, and lack of space meant the whole over-fishing side of things had to left out.
Meanwhile, the readership of The Guardian distracted, seagulls will press on with what has been their long game: waking Londoners up a little bit too early every day in order to further dull the human population in the city, leaving them less able to defend themselves against an all out bird attack. The city will fall, despite tales of human bravery in small pockets, with one particular odd character reportedly chasing seagulls away shouting "Just a small kiss, no tongues!"
I really don't know how you can look yourself in the mirror considering the part you played in our downfall Andrew.
Sadly this is symptomatic of the tosh that's been written in the Grauniad of late.
I've stopped buying it because of their bizarre attitude to anything and everything.
I love how this kind of writer uses brand names as adjectives. Every handbag has to be a 'Prada handbag', every fish head an 'M&S fish head'.
IS this somehow comforting for aspirational tosspot readers? I agree with this journalist because I too have been known to shop in M&S? Or wish I could afford to?
Well said, Andrew. What a load of arse she has written.
I'd like to ask you to elaborate on this, though:
"we chuck out loads of really nice food because the supermarkets stamp it with a random date".
My curiosity is piqued. Are you simply talking about the tendency to put the date a bit early in case of lawsuits, or is there more to it than that?
I've suddenly noticed an increase in the amount of seagulls, but I'd never realised why. I just assumed it was overpopulation.
I've also suddenly noticed that a lot of what the Guardian publishes seems to be utter filler tosh. Take this for example, in which someone complains about bikes (I think, I still don't really understand the point she was trying to make) on the bike blog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/aug/05/mountain-biking
Has the Guardian lost any kind of quality control? Or is it being run by seagulls?
I can't believe you've only picked out one shockingly execrable filler feature from the paper. It's full of them.
It's about time they discontinued all those spurious sections and presented us with one newspaper that actually had proper news and features, rather than this bilge.
Actually, that goes for all newspapers. No wonder everyone gets their news online, it cuts out so much crap and keeps their blood pressure down.
Henry, I think I'm right in saying that gull populations are down across the UK, but up in urban areas. Maybe somebody can confirm this?
Oh, and Karl, I have you down as a fairly strident post-Marxist. I'm surprised, as someone whose politics must by definition be based on compassion and equality, have such a downer on certain animals. Unless you actually believe we are superior to other creatures? I certainly don't make that assumption; we have much to learn from the natural world.
Nice article. But it probably ought to read "more room, fewer predators". I'll get my coat.
My beliefs stem from a desire for a better Humanity. I believe in enforcing Equality and Justice, only when those demands are met should we strive for peace and freedom.
Humans are more important than animals if I had to kill a dog or a human it would be a very easy decision, choosing between two humans is not so easy but should be considered in this time of overpopulation.
Ariane has spent her time more productively in the past, as she was the person behind the Atheist Bus Campaign.
There have been some awful Guardian columns lately, including Barbara Ellen's Unemployment one ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/16/barbara-ellen-unemployment-kate-moss ) and Tanya Gold's one about stripping ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/17/tanya-gold-stripping )
As Ariane Sherine was behind the hugely successful Atheist Bus Campaign, surely the headline should have read:
There's probably no cod, now stop worrying and enjoy your lie-in?
I rather like Righteously Angry Andrew.
Karl, you seem to have made the common error of assuming that because someone is In Favour Of a certain Thing, they must also therefore be Against a number of other Things.
Whose Northampton tones have i just heard talking with Mark Lawson on Front Row? The film you were talking about tackles schoolboys entranced by internet pornography and fight videos, sounds more like your colleague Herring's sort of film too me.
I wasn't really sure if you thought it was recommended viewing or not though....
Ticko
Ariane has spent her time more productively in the past, as she was the person behind the Atheist Bus Campaign.
A debatable point if ever I saw one! That ruddy bus campaign was an eye-roller. Atheism isn't a club!
Also, given the history of London's docks and the Thames generally, I can't imagine a time when there wouldn't have been gulls in the city
This has the makings of an interesting confrontation.
On the one hand, Ms Sherine, primary instigator of the global Atheist Bus phenomenon. As such, an admirable proponent of the reality-based society.
On the other hand, Mr Collings, who plays a gullible hippy on a podcast.
And yet, this time, Ariane is the one waffling, and Andrew is the one with a decent scientific point to make.
And Andrew has the added advantage of writing on an infinitely funnier sitcom than his opponent, even if it was less popular.
I honestly have no idea where to place my chips.
There's probably no God. Take it from us. We've done the maths so you don't have to, you poor fun-starved proles. Don't worry your silly little heads, and leave the clever stuff to us. What do you mean you weren't worrying about it anyway? Believe us, you probably were worrying. No, we're not more worried about it than you are - look, see, nothing says "carefree" quite like sponsoring a fleet of buses. Remember, we know so much now that there can't be anything left we don't know that's worth knowing. That stands to reason. Ergo, QED. What's that? No, you can't see our working out. We done it all in our heads. But just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Take it from us.
If the "light" seagull piece represents the fun we can have, now that we've stopped worrying and can enjoy our lives, then god help us.
I've had the horrible realisation recently that as I get older, and more and more of the history I've lived through is being written about by people who haven't, the output of the media is going to become just unbearable. No wonder old people are so miserable. It's not god weighing them down; it's precocious know-nothing kids.
Grumpy. Inevitable. Sorry.
Blimey, you don't have know how to kick of a debate Andrew. When the seagulls follow the trawler it means they smell the Herring.
Dave, despite the heavy cynicism, I can't help but feel you're spot on about that confounded bus campaign.
I see the debate is hotting up on Twitter, to the extent that AC is having imaginary bird poo deposited in his hair.
Ariane has been in touch with me, via Twitter, and told me I am humourless. That hurts, obviously. But I was woken up this morning by the sound of gulls, so maybe that's my penance. (Actually, I am in Edinburgh which is nearer the sea than Central London.) My beef is with the Guardian for filling their paper, as I hoped was obvious. If it was a comedy piece, it felt more like someone having a rant about something that bothered them. I have had plenty of columns turned down by Word for being too self-indulgent; they're quite rigorous that the columns have to reflect something wider than what gets on my nerves, even though they're personal.
And anyway, you threaten to shoot a bird, even in jest, and all humour leaves me!
Karl now has me worried that one day I too will be forced to choose between shooting a dog or a human. Is that a "task" from Big Brother?
Here's a nice pretentious quote for you, Andrew:
"Over the past 200 years, philosophy has shaken off Christian faith. It has not given up Christianity's cardinal error – the belief that humans are radically different from all other animals."
John Gray, Straw Dogs (recommended reading)
"And anyway, you threaten to shoot a bird, even in jest, and all humour leaves me!"
Where do you stand on magpies Andrew? I hate the bloody things and especially hate the way they're attacking and decreasing the smaller birds' populations.
I love birds, but I'd support a cull of certain species to redress the balance. I guess this is similar to the squirrel debate...is any one type of animal more important than any other?
And I long ago gave up on newspapers. I never really started the habit to be honest. The only time I've ever bought one is for the sunday supplements!
Well, it must be overpopulation as we still have plenty of gulls (of various flavours) in Felixstowe. They do a grand job of scaring all the more interesting birds we try to tempt into the garden with assorted feeders.
There must be something in the air though - apparently up the coast in Aldeburgh you can now be fined for feeding the gulls on the beach. My wife works at the Tourist Information Centre in Felixstowe and fielded calls from the Guardian and Five Live on the matter yesterday.
Humourless? Gosh, and her piece showed a deep understanding of humour by comparison, did it? Oh dear.
I have always been a staunch Guardian reader, but this week so far I have read 2 columns where the writer seemed to know nothing about their topic - Decca Aitkenhead on A-ha, and now someone else on Men's Health magazine. Why are people who don't know about these things asked to write supposedly light-hearted yet insightful pieces about them that will touch a chord with all of us, when it comes across as someone being given licence to parade their ignorance of things that are either popular or well known in the public domain, that we would expect an educated person, interested in their environment and the media, to know about? Maybe they will accept a column from me about nuclear physics if that's the case.
And I don't even like seagulls.
P.S. Off topic, but thanks, Andrew, for championing The Wire - it was one of the things that made me tune in when BBC2 started showing it from the beginning. I have rarely enjoyed anything on TV so much.
Stupid article, bit like the kind of trash Giles Coren sometimes writes in the Times. Maybe the Guardian are trying to beef up their cred by being a bit politically incorrect, get a few cheap laughs. Maybe that's what happens when the mask of liberal pretention slips. I've started buying the Morning Star actually, never thought I'd see the day. And I don't even believe in council housing.
She's a Polly Filler in the best tradition of Private Eye.
"Gulls, doncha hate 'em? A-squawking and a-shouting in the early hours. I wish Steven Seagull (geddit) would karate kick 'em back where they belong."
I'm not a media-type myself, so it occurs to me that what I am about to say may be pretty obvious to most - but this type of article seems to be imitating the conversational tone and information-empty style of a blog post. Have editors realised that a segment of their readership don't care for conventional editorials or opinion pieces any more, but would instead prefer a youtube-inspired rant?
Hi Andrew. I agree with you that it's our fault the gulls are in the city centre, but it is a nuisance that where I live I can't even sleep with the window open as the gulls are so noisy even at night. I'm flanked by restaurants, which are the culprits, I'm sure. Also, the gulls who actually do live by the seaside are so much quieter and less aggressive.
I agree we have much to learn from the animal world, in nature it’s clear survival of the species and habitat is the priority. When I say cull I don’t mean genocide or extermination just thinning out the population for a more harmonious balance. I think quality of life is more important than quantity of life. Actually I wouldn’t always kill animals over humans as some humans (nasty criminals etc.) are worse than some animals (pandas, dolphins etc.). Grumk sometimes we are faced with a bad choice or a worse choice it is important to think about our priorities seriously so we make the best decision for humanity the world and all life. Humans are responsible for the world, to control our environment in a positive way to survive ourselves and protect rare species from extinction.
I get woken every morning because of the worry that Ariane Sherine is being woken by seagulls. See what you have started Arian Sherine, go chase a boat and leave me alone.
Duncan - I won't have you besmirch the name of Giles Coren. He's ace!
And I say that even though my other half is in love with the bloody man.
can i stand up for magpies and the miss founded nonsense that they reducing song bird population. Predator numbers are governed by their prey not vice versa so more song birds more magpies. Domestic cats have more negative effect on song birds than mapies but a cull of them is unlikely.
As ususal lack of habitat much like with the gulls is the main problem with song birds.
As for the Guardian it's in free fall to ghastly crud I read 2 articles out of the Observer this weekend there's little sadly to make me buy it anymore.
I saw him on that historical food thing with Sue Perkins and he was very funny, they worked well together, but some of the articles I've read in the Times stray into the mean-spirited, cheap and smug. He reminds me of some guys I went to school with who had to take the piss the whole time to show how clever and what individualists they were.
People who don't eat meat are not just pale, boring, vain and flaky. They are also suffering from an eating disorder
Rowing! It's not even a sport. It's just a measuring system for brute force, ambition and the ability to subjugate oneself to a collective will. It's Nazism with paddles. It's a keep-fit pastime for pituitary cases who are too dim for rugby.
A mere dog, though, is just a thing bred for lonely people
The ideological road from nut cutlets to Belsen is straight, and short.
Gets on my tits after a while.
Ms Sherine
May I suggest double glazing.
Yours
Mr C Gull
Duncan - if I said that I think he writes that kind of thing knowing full well it makes him look an idiot, would I be a Coren apologist?
I know what you mean, but it depends how you read it I suppose...
giles coren and sue perkins in edwardian supersizers were quite entertaining when I got over the barrier of their poshness.
I don't think I'm being a reverse snob when I say that they seem to me to be slightly aloof posh clique elitist snobs it seems to me that they think they are a class above most people are more intelligent, educated and witty I don't find them that funny. I think underneath they might just be quite insecure and cover this with a desperate defensive false quick witted cockyness. Having said all that I do still watch them sometimes. I prefer them to Anne Robinson.
Bruce Parry is a really likeable character he gets his hands dirty and seems to really care about all the tribespeople he meets and they care for him too a genuinely nice posh guy
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