No idea.

So, six months have past since I last tapped some keys and posted some anal bullshit on this blog eh?
I hope most who read this won't give a fuck for why it's been so long but convexly I hold close some shimmering desire that one or two close sycophants may have longed for me to scribe, like an alcoholic who lives next door to an off-licence or a reformed smoker living with a 20 a day partner, what you crave is so near yet you cannot have it, you sharn't, it will destroy you, it will finish you off they said!
Anyway, enough of that, let's get down to business.
I've been intending to post some sort of blog post for a while now, in fact, I wanted to blog something every time I bagged a new bird there's so many idiots doing it nowadays that blogging about ones sightings is the equivalent of texting your mates every night & telling them 'It's dark'. After a while it gets boring, reading the same old bollocks after EVERY twitch about how ya got up at 6am and picked Franky & Gordon up, ya travelled 357 miles via a well known coffee outlet on the M6, ya rocked up and stood about for 49 minutes then 'BOOM'(?) there it was, you stared at it, slapped each other around the face with ya cocks then drove home. Granted, if something proper decent happened whilst out an about then yeh, tell us, I mean, if you had a proper snazzy car crash and some blokes head came off & landed in Garry's lap (and it still had some prawn cocktail crisps in its mouth) then tell us but rolling out the same mundane repetitive dogshit is such pointless. Oh, and another thing, these 'bird bloggers' who for some spurious reason post past records of the particular species beneath their blog posts... Why?? If we're reading your blog, it obviously means we've got some Internet stuff so we certainly don't need you to be boring us with past sightings, if we want to know that sort of shit, we'll look on RBA or some other money grabbing site.

Ok, so, since you last read this bollocks, I've added three glorious species to my ever increasing Notts list (Melodious Warbler, Glossy Ibis & Pied Wheatear), I've knocked down some walls in the garden & built some new ones, my amazing dog, Chief Brody, has got bigger and smashed some stuff & I'm now the proud owner of a 3 month old baby girl called Isabela Oriole, the latter being the principle factor behind my british list not increasing at all. Putting it bluntly, I have missed every single fucking new bird this autumn, every single last one (apart from those in Notts). Now, my desire to see new birds for that silly british list ain't diminished and neither has my passion for traversing the UK with a posse of like minded fools. It's when ya get there that drains my positiveness, the freaks who nowadays frequent these events, ya know thems that think it's fucking uber cool to ponce about with a fucking ridiculous turquoise bandanna wrapped around their melon shaped head or them that rattle on about their latest fourteen week holiday in Costa Rica for 45 minutes and then yell ''Can someone tell me where the bird is currently?''. As I type away, there's a Orphean Warbler in SW Wales. I could go and look at it tomorrow if I so desire.  I could then add it to my BOU list on Bubo.  I could then arrive home and ponder what else I could have done with my Sunday. I could, I really could...but I probably wont.

I'm bored now so I'm gonna go. I know when I've posted this there'll be many things that I'll remember that I was meant to say but they'll save. S'pose it'll give me cause to come back later. I won't leave it so long next time Tom.

Desecrated

So that dodgy thrush hangs about for a few days, resting in peace in the tranquillity of a cemetery, recovering after an epic escape from a cage in Belgium... then the thugs clad in green, brandishing tools of voyeurism, descend onto its sanctuary, chasing it around, throwing slices of Hovis at it, making weird whistling noises in an attempt to seduce it out of the trees and using them stupid fuck off cameras that rattle like a Gatling gun...
Is it there today?? No?! Well that's a surprise...
 

NEED?!!! Nah, it's just a bird!

So, it was Friday evening, pretty late on, just after eleven I reckon. My cousin & his missus were round at ours and we'd devoured close to three bottles of Vino Tinto, half a bottle of Malibu & some lager. We were getting all merry and chatting bollocks when in the background I thought I heard that irritatingly exciting whine of  'THE MEGA ALERT'... I ignored it and carried on slurping. Then my phone started going off. I recall thinking 'Shit, there must be something fucking big cracking off... now does my goblet need a refill??'.
Fifteen minutes later (I think) I staggered  strolled into my bedroom, dug into my work bag, retrieved my pager, glanced at something about a thrush and lobbed it into the kitchen. I then checked my phone and saw the missed call was from Archer and thought 'Oh well, if it's important, he'll ring again'. He didn't so I carried on getting nuked.
When our company finally pissed off, some time after midnight, I fired up my laptop and learnt, via Facebook, that there was indeed a thrush knocking about. A pretty rare thrush in fact. In an inebriated panic, I quickly updated my Facebook status, informing all & sundry that I was not interested in this thrush and not to contact me regarding going for it and then I did some sleeping.
Yep, that's how pissed I was!

I was awoken the following morning (this morning) by my wife shaking my dozy head and screaming ''STEVIE! GO AND TURN THAT FUCKING PAGER OFF!!!'' - It appeared that in my haste to carry on onto another planet the night before, I'd not fingered the correct button on the pager and when the news was blurted out at c6am stating that the Dusky Thrush was still alive in the graveyard, the cuntingly ridiculous 'Mega Alert' decided to start sounding again.
I clambered out of bed and with my drunken digits, molested the pager and made some coffee.
Right then, Dusky Thrush eh? In Kent! I best sober up and sort something out. Get my gear packed, wap some clothes on and head south east.
Ya see, that's what any bog standard fucked in the head birder would have done I guess. Most birders will tell you that they 'NEED' Dusky Thrush (well most won't now but pretend this was before they saw it). NEED! NEED, off of like, one NEEDS to breathe, one NEEDS to drink water, one NEEDS to eat food....  One NEEDS to see a Dusky(?) Thrush? Nah! What a load of old twollop. No cunt NEEDS to see a bird. They may WANT to see it and REQUIRE to see it so that they can 'tick it off' their silly lists but no fucker NEEDS to see a bird, that is unless some twat has got some weird medical issue where seeing a Dusky Thrush might just save their diminishing eyesight or mend their faulty kidney or summat.
I booted up the laptop and logged in to Facebook and didn't enjoy reading a load of tosh regarding 'the' bird. Was I envious? Well, yeah, maybe, just a little. I'd have enjoyed being down there with all those other cranks but Dusky Thrush ain't a bird I fancy. It does nothing for me. It's just a wishy washy Redwing in my eyes. Nowadays, I don't go for birds cos I 'NEED' them for 'my list' - I'll only travel for shit that I would love to see in the flesh such as Wallcreeper (such a cliché, I know), Yellow Browed Bunting, Sibe Accentor etc.
I know a load of folk who went and saw it and they must be all happy & stuff now, eagerly updating Bubo and posting pics of the creature they travelled all that way to stare at. What a joy it must have been spanking it down to Kent in order to mooch around in a cemetery with a load of other sad cases, all bedecked in various shades of green whilst a fucking humdinger of a bird porned it before their eyes silly little HYBRID bird pecked around in some trees.

Ya see, I ain't jealous, I had better things to do... I stayed at home, drank coffee, smoked fags, watched football focus, checked out images of hybrid Naumann's/Dusky Thrush and finished off my kitchen.

Before (around February time)

And after (about 3pm'ish time today).

Resurrection

As I sit here on this cliff top, c800ft above the azure Atlantic, the sun causing my hairless head to sizzle and Alpine & Pallid Swifts whizzing around just feet above me, it's heartbreaking to know that in just 24 small hours I'll be back in the shithole that is Britain...

That is what I  (should have) thought about typing only a week ago whilst I was perched upon some craggy rocks on the south coast of Portugal and I would have done if I had taken this laptop with me & had one of them snazzy dongle things that allow you to get online anywhere AND if I had any inclination whilst I was there to carry on with this blog thing..... Ya see, earlier today whilst out in a restaurant celebrating the wife's mother having her appendix out, I saw a sign on the wall that read 'Don't be a selfish dog, create a Blog' - Now I'm unsure what it meant cos I was too lazy to wander over to the other side of the room to read the small print, and I'm not even that sure I read it correctly now I think about it, but what I thought it read made me think about starting a blog. YES, I'll start one of them birding blogs that other folk do and scribe bags & bags of bollocks about the shitty birds I & the rest of the country have seen. I'll type an essay about who went & how we got there and who we saw and what we ate and what the weather was like and the other birds we saw and generally bore the eyes out of any sad twat who chooses to read it!!! YES!!!!!

And then I realised.... I've already got one!

Yep, this is it, my blog. The Web Log, where I'm supposed to post all manner of bullshit about what happens in my life. But why do I need it? I've already got a Facebook account where I post absolute bollocks on a daily basis, insulting folk & generally being a cunt (mainly after consuming some wine). Surely my thoughts & ramblings are better off on there being read by my chosen audience instead of on an open 'Blog' where any Tom, Dick & Barry can read it?

 *I got abit stuck what to put next so this 5 minute interval is when I went to open some Vino Tinto & have a smoke while I thought about how to carry this on - Please be patient*

So, this Blog. My last post on here was back in December 2012 when I left you all hanging on by not concluding my Cuba trip report. Well if you're one of the 500,000 that read my blog and are desperately awaiting the conclusion then wait no more!!!! No, I mean that, stop waiting. Stop! Now! It's not gonna happen! I'm not doing it. I really can't be arsed.
What? You really want to know what happened in them last few days? REALLY???? Ok, perhaps I might do one short post to conclude that particular tale, in a couple of weeks though, ok? Don't get excited though. It'll be concise and to the point, just for YOU! Ok, and you. And you.

Right then, where were we......
                      Ahhhh, 2013, what have we been up to............