Plain trees

15 March, 2024 Gibson Square Leave a comment

I am reading Hedgelands by Christopher Hart. A chapter on the attributes of trees within a hedge is discussed.

Quoting research titled ‘The Value of Different Tree and Shrub Species to Wildlife’ by Keith Alexander, Jill Butler and Ted Green it transpired that the London plane is useless.

The paper’s authors rated trees as to their friendliest to British wildlife, using a range of criteria, rating species from one to five.

The London plane actually scored zero stars in several categories, including foliage inverts, wood decay inverts, blossom for pollen and nectar, also the tree’s fruits and seeds.

The species is a hybrid of the American sycamore and the Oriental plane, whose native territory is south-eastern Europe. But the London plane tree faces a problem. According to climate models from the Met Office, the planet’s mean temperature could increase by as much as 4°C by 2100, this will push the London plane to the edge of its range.

Only 1.36 per cent of the Capital’s trees are London planes, and they may not be much use to wildlife, but it has a redeeming attribute. The bark of the tree has the amazing ability to trap pollution. By shedding the bark, the tree removes pollution from the environment.

Thinking allowed

I’m not having that

14 March, 2024 Gibson Square Leave a comment

Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate has found that a third of UK teenagers believe climate change is ‘exaggerated’, the report found, that many YouTube videos promoting a new kind of climate denial aimed at young people proliferate on the platform. First many believed that climate change was not happening, or that humans were not exacerbating the decline. Now the research indicated the idea that the effects of global heating are beneficial or harmless.

Well, first these youngsters should look at my garden being slowly transformed into a bog, we have had rain almost every day in London. Secondly, my daughter has just returned from a skiing holiday in Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park, except there was no snow and the only light covering was being used as nursery slopes, with novices being charged hundreds to ski.

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: London Stone

13 March, 2024 Gibson Square Leave a comment

LONDON STONE (n.) A block of limestone that hath mythical status insofar that London’s prosperity depends on its safekeeping.

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon

Puppydog tails

Let sleeping lions lie

12 March, 2024 Gibson Square 2 Comments

Trivia fact: The sleeping lion on the Golden Syrup tin is a depiction of a dead beast. The reason for this – how the Victorians thought it was a good idea is anyone’s guess – is that there is a story in the Old Testament about some bees improbably building a hive in a dead lion.

Having used this as a promotional logo, Tate & Lyle decided to leave it there for 150 years or so before changing it. Captain Scott even took to the Antarctic and a fat lot of good that did him.

But hold on a moment, the text on the tin reads: ‘From the strong came forth sweetness’ and the Bible story is about bees. Correct me if I’m wrong, but bees don’t make syrup – they are advertising honey on their own syrup tin.

Here in London we have probably the world’s largest depiction of a dead lion (I’m open to correction here), so when I saw in a newspaper that Tate and Lyle were changing their syrup tin logo, I thought of the giant lion on the factory wall in Silvertown, East London.

But apparently, I can now breathe easy, the new logo is just for the squeezy bottle, not the tin. Probably the trouble of taking down that giant lion by the Thames was too much.

As a footnote:
Judges 14:14
So he said to them: “Out of the eater came something to eat, And out of the strong came something sweet.” Now for three days they could not explain the riddle.

So even in the Bible, it is described as a riddle.

Featured image: Tate & Lyle factory by Thomas Nugent (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)

London in Quotations

London in Quotations: Sophie Kinsella

Quote 11 March, 2024 Gibson Square Leave a comment

Because it is the triumph of a lack of planning –both for good and bad. It’s chaos –and whether you say that with a gasp of despair or glee or both is up to you. Whereas Paris (certainly in the centre) is the success of a single overarching monomaniacal topographic vision, London is a chaotic patchwork of history, architecture, style, as disorganised as any dream, and like any dream possessing an underlying logic, but one that we can’t quite make sense of, though we know it’s there. A shoved-together city cobbled from centuries of distinct aesthetics disrespectfully clotted in a magnificent triumph of architectural philistinism. A city of jingoist sculptures, concrete caryatids, ugly ugly ugly financial bombast, reconfiguration. A city full of parks and gardens, which have always been magic places, one of the greenest cities in the world, though it’s a very dirty shade of green –and what sort of grimy dryads does London throw up? You tell me.