I’ve come to the conclusion, non-scientific as it might be, that pigeons have become either insanely cocky, or indeed suicidal. In recent weeks, on more than one occasion, I’ve had to slow and even stop my car in order to allow a pigeon to escape certain death. They then nonchalantly make their way away from the car as if they would rather have been squished. Why have they suddenly become so brave or depressed?
Of course it would be true in theory that if they slowly started to venture onto the roads more, and cars got into the habit of slowing down for them, they would become more confident over time. But surely only over a long, long time? This sudden change in their behaviour has happened quite recently.
It’s not just my car they’re doing it to. That would be odd. No, I saw a car stopped today, beeping at the ignorant birds to move. Are these pigeons trying to combat a population explosion by increasing the risk of death in their day to day activities? Or have they just been listening to The Cure?
They can’t be suicidal because animals don’t understand the concept of suicide. No animal does. “What about lemmings?� No, lemmings don’t commit suicide and have never ever had a single suicidal thought. “But they jump of cliffs!�
There’s a really quite horrible reason for that myth. Lemmings were seen jumping off a cliff in a Disney film made in the 50’s called White Wilderness. Unfortunately, they weren’t jumping at all, but were herded off the cliff by the film crew. They were murdered, basically. What’s really odd is that the lemmings suicide rumours really started with the release of this film, there wasn’t the notion that lemmings committed suicide before it was made. So Disney invented the concept of a suicidal animal. Why?
White Wilderness was a wildlife film, shot in Canada (where there are no lemmings, they had to be bought and flown in) and so this begs the question, who decided that they should be represented as suicidal?
“We’re going to be shooting the lemmings today, Bob. But here’s the thing – they don’t have much personality. They’re just rodents. Can you think of any way we could give them a quirk?�
“What – like a strange habit or behavioural abnormality?�
“Exactly, yeah. Something that makes them interesting.�
“We could make a few run over that cliff and pretend they like committing suicide.�
“That’s not very realistic is it? Animal’s don’t have suicidal tendencies.�
“Lemmings don’t exist in Canada, it hasn’t stopped us pretending they do.�
“Good point. Okay, let’s make them top themselves.�
That’s what must have happened. Good Lord, I don’t know who’s worse, Disney for carrying out this rather sick stunt, or the rest of the world for believing them. It’s Disney, clearly.
When lemmings have population explosions, which happens quite a lot apparently, they migrate in groups into unfamiliar territory in order to spread out a bit. This means that some, through sheer misfortune, might one day have run over the edge of a cliff by accident, but that’s all it would have been, an accident. If you see a hedgehog squashed flat in the middle of the motorway you know the accident occurred because it’s a slow moving creature trying to cross a road full of fast moving cars. You don’t think ‘I wonder what Spike was so depressed about to go and do that?’
Then there’s whales, they’ve been accused of being suicidal when then seemingly beach themselves purposefully. It’s not suicide, they probably just fancied an ice cream.
But these pigeons really are pushing their luck. We’re a very animal loving nation to even slow down for them, are we not? I’m sure in Mexico they’d get mown down by some gleeful driver, delighted at ridding the world of a few more of these pests and perhaps we should adopt this attitude, if only to teach them to stay off the roads.
I reason I was driving today was to attend my friend Sue’s 30th birthday party, out near Warrington. It was a great bash, very boozy, and ended at about 6am for me. You can’t beat a good house party can you? A good wingding. I managed to put my foot in it a couple of times because a lot of Sue’s family, and consequently a lot of her friends, are deeply religious. I mean REALLY religious. And so you’ve got to be careful and yet it’s quite hard to tell the religious and the sinners apart – Christians come in all shapes and sizes these days, they’re not all dressed as vicars. And so I made a couple of ‘cheeky’ remarks to one person I was talking to which got met with an awkward silence – that’s when you know you’ve crossed the line. It wasn’t rude, but it’s easy to offend when you have a completely different moral framework and reference.
Oh and I managed to offend one woman when a man I was talking to (and didn’t know she had any connection with) said “I’ve got a very expensive dog at home� and I said “That’s no way to talk about her� which is just one of those rubbish things that people who are crap say, but it turns out his wife was sitting just a few feet away and was a bit annoyed. I apologised profusely but I can’t help but feel I should only go to parties with cling film wrapped around my head to stop me saying anything or indeed drinking the wine / vodka / beer / champagne / gin / port that makes me say them in the first place.
Never mind, a good time had by all, and I was the last man standing, or lying in a hammock in the garden watching the sun come up as it turned out. It made me wonder what I might like to do for my 30th birthday? I don’t celebrate birthdays as you know, but it would be churlish to ignore the big 3 – 0. It can’t be too expensive for people… Maybe just a night in a nice hotel out in the country somewhere? Get about twenty people (I’ll make eighteen friends before then) and have a meal before mixing up a few cocktails? If anyone knows of a nice old hotel that might suit this purpose (and indeed eighteen people willing to be my friend, if only for the day) do let me know.
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