Authors Electric

  I nearly always watch the technology programme Click on a Sunday morning, and the episode that dealt with 360 ˚ cameras really got me thinking. There was a shot of someone strapped into a chair that tilted in every direction, mimicking what was occurring in the presentation where you could look around you, just as though you were turning round or moving your head. This guy’s chair had tipped right forward, and he looked as though he were throwing up. Whatever he was experiencing was all too real. Or was it?             It’s been bothering me for some time, this move to an alternative world. We get our natural history in exotic locations via a screen, edited and selected with its stunning visuals and recorded birdsong and absence of mosquito bites and tummy bugs. There’s nothing to discover – it’s all been done for you, and the sensory experience narrowed to sight and sound alone. A walk in the countryside is so diffe...

Well, this is one for a start. Writing a blog post instead of knuckling down to chapter twenty-three. What excuses do you find for not getting on with that book you’re writing? There are all the usual ones, of course. Cleaning, cooking, gardening, exercising – and ironing, if you’re really desperate. The more specialised ones, like re-decorating and car maintenance and keeping up with your social life. The once a year ones, like… no, we won’t go there in case once a year translates in your house as squalor.             And then there’s wildlife.             For me, this is the killer. The frogs in the pond, the bird table, the nest boxes, the walks on the common. Two years ago we had great tits nesting a few yards from the house. Breakfast could be taken in the conservatory, watching the action. First of all there was the survey. This was extremely thorough, and invol...