When you are complaining about feral pigeons in Trafalgar Square, it is worth reminding yourself that, twenty feet or so below your own, is a large pile of hippopotamus bones.
100,000 years or so ago, in what is the evolutionary blink of an eye, there were loads of hippos in what is now London, and loads of other ‘charismatic megafauna’ as well. Elephant and Castle would have had the former in abundance, but not the latter, and Red Lion Square would have been full of lions. One of the problems with how we ‘manage’ our expectations of biodiversity in Britain (now officially the most ‘de-natured’ advanced country on the planet) is the shifting start-line.
By way of an example, a small recorded rise of insects in your local area looks very heart-warming so long as you ignore the fact that there was a 76% decline between 1989-2016. A small rise in the puffin population in 2019-2020 is best enjoyed without knowing that a combination of rising sea temperatures, fish farms and Danish supertrawlers has brought a huge decline since the turn of the century. Just like the happy fact that I might have lost 2 kilos of weight in April is noted without reference to the 10 kilos that I probably gained in the preceding decade.
I had a rather personal example of this earlier in the week, when I walked past a bookshop that had a copy of Shearwaterprominently placed in the window.
I am still at the stage of my writing career that this kind of thing makes me very happy. Whilst JK Rowling probably yawns and goes off to find a coffee, I get all skittish and feel myself wanting to point it out to passers by, rather like the parents of a hopelessly uncoordinated child who has just won the first heat of a sack race.
On a whim, I went in, and mentioned it with gratitude to the owner of the little shop.
‘It’s very nice for a writer to see his book in a window’, I said.
‘Indeed?’ he replied without enthusiasm, and without looking up from his computer. I had rather expected him to enthuse. Maybe even to go to his stock room and bring out a bundle for signature. Instead, he didn’t even ask which one it was.
‘It’s this one,’ I said, brandishing it not quite apologetically, but not enthusiastically, either.
‘Indeed,’ he repeated, as if it should have been obvious to the simplest soul that it was that one.
‘You have a wonderful collection of bird books,’ I offered lamely, after a minute or so.
‘Indeed,’ he said once again, but this time without a question mark.
‘Do they sell well round here?’ I was kind of scraping the barrel, but I was stuck in the process, like a sheep giving birth to an oversized lamb.
‘Adequately,’ he replied, still not looking up.
‘Anyway, I just wanted to say ‘thank you’. It made me very happy.’
‘It’s the Friday girl that you need to thank,’ he said. ‘She selects the books and does the displays. I’ll pass on your comments, if you wish.’
I thanked him again, and then offered to sign it. Whilst this wasn’t exactly having JMW Turner to supper and having him sketch on a napkin, I thought that it was at least useful.
‘Not right now, thank you,’ he said, engaging me with eye contact for the first time. ‘All our stock is sale or return, and we can’t send it back if it’s signed.’
And they dare to say that independent retail is dead.
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