The Royal Mail

I had some post delivered this morning, which was quite a surprise in view of the Royal Mail strike.

I'm not at all sure how solid the strike is. I went for a walk earlier today, and, in the course of about three miles, I saw two postmen delivering mail, another emptying a pillar box, a Parcelforce van making deliveries, another Post Office van lurking at the side of the road and a postwoman apparently on her way home after work. Make of that lot what you may.

What did surprise me is that a number of post boxes (three out of the seven I passed on my walk) had been partially blocked up and would only accept small envelopes. According to signs placed on the boxes, this is due to "...persistent attacks with fireworks on this Postbox in previous years..."

All very strange. I've lived in this area for over thirty years, and I've never heard of any of these boxes being attacked with fireworks. What can it possible mean? I don't know, but I think we should be told.

Phenology: Steep Holm Peonies

I've just noticed that my Steep Holm peonies (Paeonia mascula) have already produced the first shoots of next year's growth. I thought that they were very early on December 9 last year, but this is definitely the earliest appearance that they've ever made.

Comma

A comma (Polygonia c-album) in our garden today.

I don't think I've ever seen one here before, but then I probably haven't been paying attention.

St Nicholas

Today was Open Doors Day in Bristol which offered the chance to delve into some places not usually open to the public.

One of these was St Nicholas church. The church is redundant and, although I have been inside when it was a tourist information centre, it's now the offices of Bristol and Region Archaeological Services, so it was interesting to see what's become of it.

All I can say is that this is the sort of office I should like to work in. I wonder if it's too late to retrain as an archaeologist.

Google, Books and Copyright

There's an article by William Skidelsky in this week's Observer that examines Google's book digitisation project.

It's an interesting piece, but Skidelsky is wrong when he states that "Outside the US, Google has made sure only to scan books that are out of copyright..." I can say this with a considerable degree of certainty, because a number of books of mine have been digitised: the four volumes of the Abstract of Bristol Historical Statistics published by the University of the West of England (Poor Law Statistics 1835-1948, Unemployment Statistics 1910-1997, Political Representation and Bristol's Elections 1700-1997 and Health Statistics 1838-1995) and The Bristol Coal Industry.

The Abstract of Bristol Historical Statistics was co-authored with a number of colleagues at UWE and the copyright is owned by the university, so all I can do is to assert my moral rights as one of the authors.

The Bristol Coal Industry, however, is all my own work. It may be a fairly insignificant pamphlet, but I own the copyright and I object to it being copied by anyone without my permission.

Google has reached an agreement with US authors over copyright. The trouble with this is that it's largely incomprensible and I'm not at all sure that anyone really knows what effect it has on authors based outside the USA.

I'm awaiting future developments with considerable interest, although not necessarily of a financial nature.

Temple Way House Redevelopment

Building work still hasn't started and the site is deserted.

Art Criticism

I see that someone has taken a dislike to the Banksy mural in Park Street, Bristol.

Wildlife Garden Report No 5

For the last three years or so, I've been trying to make my garden more welcoming to wildlife.

It's not been easy.

Although our house is built on what used to be a market garden, one of the first things that the builders did when they moved in was to strip off all the topsoil and cart it away. What they left behind was a steeply-sloping garden which has no more than two or three inches of compacted soil over the underlying limestone.

Strawberries used to be grown here, but now it's a real problem to grow anything at all, even wild flowers don't seem to like it.

One of my most successful decisions has been to stop mowing the lawn and cut the grass with shears every two or three weeks instead. This year I've noticed a big increase in the number of butterflies and bumblebees in the garden, and today I found three frogs lurking in the grass. They were the first that I've seen since the three that I saw squashed in the road at Kewstoke and Sand Bay in February. My garden is particularly dry and I don't think I've ever seen a frog there in thirty-four years, so I like to think that their presence today shows that I'm doing something right.

Painted Ladies

On 29 May I wrote about the arrival of a large number of painted lady butterflies (Cynthia cardui).

According to the July/August issue of the Bulletin of the Bristol Naturalists' Society the numbers arriving in the UK this year are the highest since 1996, largely due to a population explosion caused by heavy winter rains in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

They started to arrive over the weekend of 23/24/25 May and at one stage wardens at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust reserve at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire counted 3,000 in 45 minutes.