Random Pictures? De de durr…..

 

This one is me, of course. 

Shetland 2022. Day 4. Thursday. Yep.

Hello. Even though I’m drunken now, I’ve just read my last “saved” post that I was obviously halfway through. I have to say, even for me, what the fuck am I on about?! I could just delete it but no, then no one would see what kind of shite I can HONESTLY come up with! So I’ll post it and maybe finish it off/rewrite day 4. 

Here goes:

 Bashed our usual haunts and saw FUCK ALL, blah blah blah, then saw a mega again. This is where I should finish this post. But that’s not what my beloved reader wants! Oh no. 

“It fucking is” said my mother, the lone reader. 

Again, we tried. We tried to find something. It’s hard going. If you’re birding Spurn, say, you give it a go and youlll see Black Red, Little Stint, maybe a Hawfinch, some Woodcock, that sort of thing, but up there you just see FUCK ALL. But then you see a mega, and maybe twitch a couple of other things making it a great day. I’m not complaining. Well, maybe I am. And it was today that I decided to fuck off to pub early in an attempt to a) drink more b) find a local retailer of recreational drugs and c) finger some poor victim, I mean, meet a genuine woman whom I could have intelligent conversation with (finger them). 

Before I legged it to pub, we tried, again, to find something. We were close as Cleggy got onto a large Pipit flying along the cliff but didn’t call and simply fucked off, probably to pub, which incidentally was where I wanted to go. So I did. Later. Soon. 

Another mega was found! Come on! Shetland is mental. Zero Robin. Zero Pied Fly. One Brambling. One Chiff. Four megas. This new mega was ANOTHER Yellow Rumped Warbler very close to yesterday’s and found by the same birder! Fair play to the guy but I reckon even he was just a touch disappointed that his second Nearctic warbler in two days was the same species?! We were that “overjoyed” that we simply didn’t go and look right at it. I went on the raging piss and birding stalwart Joel carried on birding and saw FUCK ALL. I saw fuck all in pub. 

Last year I noticed a working men’s club. Must have a snooker table? So I went and checked it out. TWO snooker tables and a room full of pool tables and dart boards! Sing hosannas! Fuck Yellow Rumped Warblers. So I had a knock. Then shetters people started coming in and playing pool. They played alone though, as in there were six tables being played by only six people. And they knew each other. Why not play each other? But hey. I might organise a knockout next year maybe…..

Ha.

Snooker Facts:

The first ever game of snooker took place in 31bc but in a very different format. For every christian killed, the lion got 1 point then got to try and kill a colour for between 2 and 7 points. If the lion failed, it was the next lions turn.

Lions manes are actually made from lions manes and illegal trading between lions regularly occurs.

I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m on about. I mean, look at the last two facts.

Even for me….

“Snooker Loopy” by Steve Davis topped the charts for a record 27 weeks. It is to this day, Kate Middletons favourite song but Meghan Markle prefers Fog on the Tyne by Gazza and Chums. “ol’ Willie Thawn, his hairs all gawn and the lads all take the rise, his opponent said Cover up his head cos it’s shining in my eyes” ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha how brilliant is that?! 

Jimmy the Jew and I once did a jig outside the Crucible Theatre singing Snooker Loopy. We were drunk apparently. 

Stuart Bingham once did a piss that took nearly four minutes to complete. This is the longest piss by a snookerist that Q@Spurns research dept. can find. Doug Mountjoy is second on 2 minutes 18 seconds. 

Hmmm….

Have you seen Paige Spirinac? I know she’s not a snookerist and covers golf but fuck me, have you seen the state of that? I would rummage for truffles for hours. And she knows it. She fucking knows it. I shout it outside her house every day until the police arrive and reiterate I have a banning order. 

Snooker was popularised by Jim Davidson

….And that’s as far as I got. Apparently. So ignore this post, but it’s just an insight into my mind when it’s at its most bollocksed. And that’s a proper word that. And Ive just started three sentences in a row with a preposition. Appalling grammar. 

I will (might) revisit this. Or summat. 

Shetland. The Third Day.

 Wednesday. Rain. Rain. Rain. 

I’d rather it not rain but it also meant I didn’t have to get up before dawn. Luckily I don’t get hangovers as I simply carry on drinking. The weather cleared up a little so we checked our regular spot, Veensharth and saw FUCK ALL It really is easy to see fuck all on Shetland but then you see a Pechora or a Lancey but no Chiffchaff. It is quite insane. We then covered our other regular spots and saw FUCK ALL. 

Because of seeing fuck all, we at Q@Spurn will regale you with……

Fun Shetland facts.

Shetland used to be a piece of Norway but broke off somehow and floated off into the ocean with a mind of its own. 

The population of Shetland is widely and evenly distributed around the islands as it may tip up if everyone stood at one end or summat.

Shetters, as they’re now known, will put ANYTHING in a pie. Lasagne pies, Macaroni cheese pie, even Pork Pies. I had to try a Lasagne Pie last year as they’re quite famous. Do you know what it tasted like my beloved reader? I’ll tell you. It was like a cold lasagne suspended in pastry. 

Not deep freeze. 

10cc are the only band that we know of to write a song about cold lasagne. I think Eric Stewart must be some sort of simpleton. 

Feel the Benefit is a proper tune. We had 10cc live at wembley arena on betamax back in the 80s. 

Why was there two kinds of video recorder? VHS and Betamax? Why wasn’t there just one? Or three kinds? 

Scotch video tapes had a lifetime guarantee. We at Q@Spurn have no comment or opinion on this. Thankyou sir.

Jimmy the Jews dad, Ken, had every episode of M*A*S*H on betamax. He never watched them although this is unconfirmed. 

MASH is an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Well of course it’s surgical! A non surgical hospital?  It really doesn’t need the surgical bit but I suppose it’s more catchy as MASH as opposed to MAH. 

In America they have mash in KFCs. The foodstuff, not 53 betamax tapes. Maybe it would be good if they had video tapes of M*A*S*H? “Do you want mash with that?” And they give you a betamax tape with Hawkeye on the front and two pieces of dead dismembered chicken. Bit graphic.

ELO is also an acronym which stands for Electric Light Organisation. (credit: JC)

ELO have never played Shetland as they’re not THAT organised to plan the logistics. 

There is no KFC on Shetland. 

Shetland is good for birding. Apparently. 

There. A seamless segway. So, back on Shetland, we marched on. We’re not massive listers, but we’re not shy either. But we’ve “only” seen two yanks warblers each. Joel, Yellowthroat and Yellow Rumped, and I, Blackpool and Yellow Rumped. On checking news, which you do every 49 seconds on Shetland, a Yank warbler had been found! Yes, come on! A third mega in as many days! I actually let out a little groan of disappointment when it broke as Yellow Rumped Warbler. Neither of us needed it for our bird jotter super tick list. How can you be disappointed with a Yellow Rumped?! We went and saw it but, and as I say, we’re not big hitters but both earlyish to mid 400s, it was sort of ironic it was this species. It’s not all about the numbers, but it seriously helps. 

Still no recreational drugs. One member of the party was starting to shake. It wasn’t Joel as he’s a teacher and cannot be linked with that sort of thing on a public blog. Nor was it Mark as his mam is the only reader of this and will get grounded for a week.

We managed to watch the football and get a bit drunk, I refused to sleep with the local women as there weren’t any. We retired to a rather poor effort of a curry and chicken Biriyani made by myself earlier. The Biriyani was alright actually but the chicken in the curry was overcooked.  

There, cookery, pies, birding, ELOrganisation, no fingering, mash, what more do you want?  Three mega species in three days. 

1 Pechora 1 Lancey 1 Myrtle 1 Eastern Yellow Wag, 1 Hornemanns Arctic, 1 Chiffchaff 0 Robin! Insane. Absolutely insane. 

Fin

………

Shetland 22 Day 2.

 Sensible title. 

Tuesday.

First light. Saw Hornemanns Arctic yesterday also. Forgot to tell you all (4 people) that. Suppression. After the Wuthering Heights of yesterday, we set off to…wait for it….Unst as the unashamed Leeds fan that is Joel needed to see the Ortolan which had been frequenting the most northerly populated isle in the British Isles. With Great Expectations we birded Yell for a while instead of going straight to the top of the world which was lucky as we were “only” one ferry from the mainland as news of a Locustella sp came through. I was driving as I was surprisingly sober at the point, a thing I was determined to make up for later in the day. 

We debated. It could just be a Gropper. Do we carry on in the hope of the Ortolan then this Locustella? Catch 22.  Then news came through that it was a Lancey! Holy shit sauce. Lancey is short for Lanceolated Warbler. And I’ve just realised the irony of being called Monica. That’s crazy that. Not that I’m called Monica of course. I presume the Lancey wasn’t called Monica. Or perhaps it was/is? And Neneh Cherry. What’s wrong with Turin? It looks like quite a nice place to me. 

My “jokes” are getting worse. I’ll delete that. No, I’ll leave it in. Make your own mind up. Where is this going?

So, a Lancey no less! In a tiny Hamlet on Shetland! We went straight there and looked right at it. Right at it. After the crowd had flushed it deliberately several times as it’s all about the views and the tick in your bird jotter pad and definitely not about the welfare of the bird that has just flown 2000 miles off course (of course?). At one stage it literally nearly flew into me trying to escape the marauding hordes trying to kick it in its head. Several flights later when I’m sure it just wanted to peacefully rest and feed rather than be kicked in the heed, it found a new field Far From the Madding Crowd. It showed quite amazingly, down to a few feet. Incredible bird. No sign of it the next day almost certainly down to the constant flushing of the hordes of bloodthirsty twitchers not letting it rest and probably ending in The Big Sleep. Still, a tick in my bird jotter pad so fuck it that’s all that matters. 

We birded like madmen, thrashing ditches, bashing bushes and erm, twatting trees but found ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL. And when I say Fuck All, I mean Fuck All. Well, Jack Snipes and Yellow Brows and things like that I suppose.  I got onto 3 Redpoll on Yell one I thought looked good for Arctic on fleeting views but they simply flew off about 18 miles away in a huff. We’d tried to pin them down but Much Ado About Nothing. Why were those Redpolls so grumpy? Who knows what kind of day they were having so fair enough. Upto them. 

Shetland is quite, nay, very sparse when it comes to recreational drugs with no passers-by having any about their person, strangely. I suppose if a total stranger dressed in wellington boots and a Stone Island hat (only these items) approaches you in the street and asks for recreational drugs, you probably would say you don’t have any and make your way onwards, probably purchasing a lasagne pie as all Shetlanders eat lasagne pies. Or, if you’d lied to that stranger and you DID hold recreational drugs about your person, you wouldn’t need a lasagne pie! Hurrah! 

We celebrated our joint tick fest with brandy and several apple based drinks. If only the barmaids were called Jane Eyre or King Lear. I believe I might have eaten something that evening too. What is the world coming to? 

Join us in only 8 weeks time for the next up-to-the-minute instalment of our Shetland trip report. I’m almost certain it may be entitled “Day 3”. 

(Huckleberry) Fin.

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