{"id":1595,"date":"2014-11-27T14:18:33","date_gmt":"2014-11-27T04:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2014-11-27T14:19:10","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T04:19:10","slug":"the-common-shag-plus-bear-with-buns-and-hedgehogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/?p=1595","title":{"rendered":"the common shag, plus bears with buns, and hedgehogs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bearsRbuns\"<\/a>
These bears are buns. Or, these buns are bears. Either way, they’re cute.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, a relatively recent copy of the LRB showed up in the post\u00a0this week. For various reasons, my subscription has waxed and waned this year. Sometimes nothing arrives for months, and then suddenly a flood of copies – a flurry – in one glorious avalanche.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve read about two paragraphs of it so far, but one of the best bits was being reminded of this grand, perfect, and perfectly unlikely poem by Christopher Isherwood, which some wag quoted in their letter to the editor:<\/p>\n

The common cormorant (or shag)
\nLays eggs inside a paper bag,
\nThe reason you will see no doubt,
\nIs to keep the lightning out.<\/em><\/p>\n

But what these unobservant birds<\/em>
\n Have failed to notice is that herds<\/em>
\n Of wandering bears may come with buns<\/em>
\n And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.<\/em><\/p>\n

I cannot decide which image is the more endearing. The cormorants foolishly laying eggs in paper bags, or the bun-eating, crumb-collecting bears.<\/p>\n

The bears have it!<\/p>\n

\"Hedgehog\"<\/a>Renewing my acquaintance with\u00a0this lovely nonsense poem about\u00a0cormorants and bears\u00a0reminded me that I’d been meaning to dig out (as I keep referring to it in conversations about hedgehogs, and you know how often they occur!) ‘that poem of Larkin’s with the hedgehog and the mower’. Not nonsensical at all, but perfect unto itself. A poem as self-contained and smug (in a good way)\u00a0as an egg. Or, indeed, as a hedgehog.<\/p>\n

The Mower<\/em><\/p>\n

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found<\/em>
\n A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,<\/em>
\n Killed. It had been in the long grass.<\/em><\/p>\n

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.<\/em>
\n Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world<\/em>
\n Unmendably. Burial was no help:<\/em><\/p>\n

Next morning I got up and it did not.<\/em>
\n The first day after a death, the new absence<\/em>
\n Is always the same; we should be careful<\/em><\/p>\n

Of each other, we should be kind<\/em>
\n While there is still time.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, a relatively recent copy of the LRB showed up in the post\u00a0this week. For various reasons, my subscription has waxed and waned this year. Sometimes nothing arrives for months, and then suddenly a flood of copies – a flurry – in one glorious avalanche. Anyway, I’ve read about two paragraphs of it so far,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[193],"tags":[875,874,872,873,876,871,870],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-reading","tag-bears","tag-buns","tag-christopher-isherwood","tag-cormorant","tag-hedgehog","tag-philip-larkin","tag-the-mower"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LH1G-pJ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Hedgehog.jpg?fit=550%2C366","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perilousadventures.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}