St George and the Dragon

I haven't actually seen any ABE (Anyone But England) banners or badges in my part of Wales yet, but I believe they are on sale. About a quarter of the people interviewed in a recent survey in Wales said they would be supporting any team playing against England in the World Cup and another quarter said they would support England. The remaining half said they weren't interested either way.

I get the impression that rather more than a quarter are in fact supporting every team that England comes up against - some people were just a bit shy of admitting it to the interviewers. There's certainly a bit of ill-feeling about the appearance of St George's flags here and there (though very few around here, to be honest). Some of the flags are on vehicles from England, passing through for business or pleasure. It seems a bit hard if they can't fly the 'wrong' flag. In any case, you certainly see a few Welsh flags in London whenever Wales is playing England at rugby, and that seems fair enough.

But I have to admit to a surprisingly strong feeling of resentment on the rare occasions I see an English flag in Wales. This is rather curious, considering that I spent the first 60 years of my life in England and have no no Welsh ancestry, as far as I know. That's the power of the Dragon for you.

Second swan tragedy

Another man-made tragedy has struck the swan family (see post of 31 May). A dog has killed 3 of the 7 cygnets. Last year's cygnets were protected from dogs by the cob, but the pen isn't fierce enough. Notices immediately went up ordering people to keep their dogs on the lead, but the notices were soon torn down again, as were earlier notices telling people not to feed white bread to the water birds. People just don't like being told what to do these days.

For someone with a somewhat rebellious history, I'm surprisingly keen on people being told what to do. I recently composed a mental list of things I would like to see banned and another of responsibilities I would like to see enforced. Both lists turned out to be pretty long. I couldn't think of a single instance where I'd like to see a rule relaxed. Perhaps we banning and enforcing freaks will have more influence if there's a real crisis of some sort (as during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath, for example).

Persecution mania

It was of course unfortunate that those twins were mauled by some animal which was probably a fox, but the worst aspect was the media hysteria about it, which has played straight into the hands of those who are always on the lookout for something to hate and to persecute. The reaction to the alleged fox attack is an extreme example. Such an attack is so rare as to be insignificant compared with the number of attacks on children by dogs, for example. Foxes are timid around humans, generally get on well with cats, eats slugs, are highly photogenic and give many people in urban areas a lot of pleasure.

Grey squirrels are also a source of enjoyment for many people but are the object of fierce hatred by many others who have swallowed the guff about their being an introduced, therefore 'alien' species. After about 150 years, 'introduced species' is a meaningless concept. If you are so keen on the 'native' reds, go to other parts of Europe, where they abound. In some ways the greys can be pests, but then so can cats and dogs.

Badgers? About to be persecuted on very unscientific suspicion of spreading TB among cattle. Don't take my work for it that the 'evidence' is a load of bunkum - listen to people like Iolo Williams, Wales's most distinguished naturalist. During a rest on a recent nature walk led by Iolo, in which I took part, he made a speech defending both badgers and foxes. Get this: foxes do NOT take lambs, other than in exceptional circumstances.

Foxes, badgers, grey squirrels, feral pigeons, herring gulls, rhododendron, ivy, Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed - the list goes on and on. For something to persecute, stick to rats - they are unquestionably a bit inconvenient.

Soldiers

We went to Cardiff on Wednesday, mainly to visit the castle, which we had not visited before. It turned out to have a much more interesting history than we'd imagined, but there was a bonus. We'd forgotten that it was June 2nd - Coronation Day. We were treated to parades and music by the band of the Royal Army Air Corps before Territorial Army volunteers fired a 21-gun salute. As it happened, I'd recently acquired a new camera (the previous one was stolen long ago) and Angela got some nice video footage.

Interesting to think that at one time you wouldn't have caught me anywhere near anything military. These days I feel a vague stirring of patriotic pride at such events. Chatting to three very young soldiers before photographing them standing by their field gun was all very pleasant, too. I think it's called getting old.