But seriously.
It's a bird-fancying desert out there.
And, speaking as someone who only relatively recently went through the joy that is online dating, not one of the fine men I happened upon included fancy birds as a consuming passion within their profiles.
Or admitted to it at any rate.
And yet, and maybe I am showing signs of my age and provenance here, I remember a time when looking out from the window I would have seen wooden shed (sorry, loft) after wooden loft filled with prize racing pigeons (yes, those fancy birds); and, if the shed, sorry - loft - was owned by a particularly showy bloke, it might contain one or two outrageous preening parakeets, their bright feathers in stark contrast to the drear, relentlessly grey northern weather that characterised my childhood.
My guess is is that tastes have changed. Fancy birds and pigeon racing have given way to plasma screens, Sky TV, and, er, multifarious online experiences. And wooden lofts to loft living.
The closest many of us get to a fancy bird now is to bright yellow, corn-fed poultry in the cold meat section of the local supermarket.
Or watching Chicken Run.
Which is a shame.
And I wonder what, fifty years or so hence, people then will think of our interests now...will they wonder at us, or be quite simply baffled?
Long live fancy birds, is all I can say!
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20/02/06 @ 16:02