Who's watching the watchers?

My recent sojourn in the pleasurable surroundings of the Eire penal system gave me time to reflect.
And I ask myself, and you, dear bosky reader (for you are one, literally and metaphorically), this question: Where have all these miserable, sour-faced, pulp-brained bureaucrats come from, all of a sudden?
Crawling out of the woodwork , they are, at every turn. Is anyone getting paid to deliver anything real?
Fuck 'em all.

Six months in the wilderness

Anyone still there?

Do foresters dream of electric squirrels?

Amazing what the Atlantic Wind blows in here on West Clare Coast.
I couldn't help but notice the inebriated Geordie twang emanating, nay fog-horning, from the lounge bar of O"Thornohans English Theme Pub up beyond Crappanoolans Crossing on the road to Feckshainrichie Bridge.
"Thas the best feckin' film ever made, fit like man, an' no mistaiken" opined Sir Didley Squatt (the very same) to no-one in particular as he took a greedy, Geordie gulp from his glass of The Black Stuff. For it was himself, holding on to the brass bar rail like the bemused, sodden captain refusing to leave a stricken trawler in a force eleven gale.
"And now I am havin' ti work wi' tossers like Brad feckin' Pitt, man. Moy arse if he carries off that Jesse James character wi' real conviction, like man. Donal, have yers any Pringles, man?"
As I pondered wistfully over this doleful scene unfolding before me, it was only moments until I realised I had origami'd a beer mat into a unicorn. What was happening to me? Is this all a dream? Is Wally Miapine a replicant, or one of us? Is there anyone out there?
I stumbled hours later from O'Thornohan's, with the rain lashing into my face. I pointed the dun donkey down to the black bay and slipped on a fine fawn shawl found on the foreshore. It was a poetic night, enough to stir tears to my cheeks.

Hope all is well in Blighty. Don't give up hope. I will be back soon.

There aren't nearly enough signs in the world

suburbanforest is pleased to welcome everyone into 2008 with a timely warning. I am sure you are all glad we are here to keep you on the straight and narrow.
Hasn't the weather been mild for the time of year? We think we are in for a cold snap. Will have to get some gas in, and a few Abernethy biscuits in case of visitors.
But remember! Do no hold the wrong end of a chainsaw.

Like the first awning...

Dear Bud
I thought I would open my suburbanforest account with an invitation for all your readers to a new field sport. Here's a picture of my uncle Leon (he's French you know, which explains the relaxed attitude to health and safety and the jaunty titfer) revelling in a bout of Recreational Directional Felling, which they've been doing in France now since around 1987.
All you need to get you started is a chainsaw, a loaded combi can, a sense of direction, and you're away.
Oh, and of course, you will need to find yourself a wood full of caravans. That's no problem! Thanks to the drop in timber prices, the retirement / shooting / redundancy of any staff who would give a shit otherwise, the nonsensical fashion for the civil servant always to laud multifunctionality and landowners' general love of loot, growing trees has often given way over the last few years to growing relationships with people who live in aluminium sheds on wheels. (For interactive site maps of your local encampment, go to www.arbdiddicoy.co.uk)
Tim Burr, Eastern Division Chairman of Recreational Directional Felling UK, the sport's governing body said in a recent interview with ForestTV: "Felling trees on caravans is a great winter sport for young and old. We have all walks of life coming here, to our training facility near Thetford. Some of our lads are off to Beiging next year, to work on dropping big stuff on statics in time for the Olympics. We have a few guys in Leeds and round there who drop stuff from trees into sheds and garages and that as part of their everyday work, so getting into RDF is just a natural progression for them. I like it when they leave the crockery in and you drop a seventy footer into 'em. It goes with a bang, I'll tell yer. "Specially if they left the gas on."
So, do you think any of your readers would like to give it a go? If we can get a party of ten together, it makes it cheaper on transport.
By the way, I really like your blog. It really is very good indeed. Has just the right amount of wit and caustic good humour, while balancing that with thought-provoking imagery and a real sense of purpose. I wish you and your team all the very best for 2008. Happy New Year.

Awning Has Broken

An Atlantic swell skips and scuds boisterously through and over my swinging, drying string vests. I watch from the window of suburbanforest's winter holiday quarters - a 12'6" Swift Tahiti berthed precariously on the sodden Eire coastline - as laundry items flap limply on a length of blue baler twine, as grey rollers break, grey as my Damart H-Fronts, break on the rickety rocks barely ten yards below. By golly jingos, this Paddy's 49% Proof Export Malt is pure fire.
Now I know I should have listened to Wally and packed spare Long Johns and extra blankets.
The donkey is pressed tight against a leeward wall, looking none the worse for wear after a fairly long haul back from Mrs. Paintefell's victuallers and general store-cum-hostellry up at Crappanoolan's Crossing with a cart load of carrots and two bags-for-life full to the brim with provisions for our fortnight away from Hell.
Theresa Paintefell, the incumbent's flame-haired daughter, alerted me to news from God's Own County by pointing dolefully to her computer screen in the shop's "internet cafe", a dial-up modem one-machine affair crammed in behind damp, faded Burren snap postcard carousels and piles of unsold cerise mohair shawls in cellophane. Ebor Forestry's defamatory biliousness and blatant link-dropping cowardice will have to be dealt with in 2008, once I am sober and dry. I read my emails and picked through forwarded post, only to find Forestry Commotion had sent me the most amazingly witty, novel, imaginative Chrimbo missive, in the shape of a card...containing a packet of tree seeds. What a fabulous way to save money and show they are really thinking about forestry in a big way for the new year. I look forward to Easter with rabid anticipation.
Dr. Connie Furze will be joining me for a couple of days to see out the old year, along with our old pal Middiameter. I will try to get them all to post something if we can all get on the cart and up to Crappanoolan before dark.
And what a year it has been. Watch out for one of those What A Year It Has Been supplements in your daily paper.
I personally cant wait to be reminded about it all.
Going forward (as all the finest pig-faced, stinking, clodwitted bureaucrats are wont to utter these miserable days), going forward into 2008, I am sure suburbanforest will carve a pretentious, garish niche for itself as probably The Second Best Forestry Blog in Yorkshire. We will continue to write drivel, second only to the drivelier drivel of its one rival e-rag.
But for now we return to the essential business of self-anaesthetised oblivion. If you have been, thank you for paying attention. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Groan...infrastructure

First, Twig, you mince pie munching, shopaholic, credit card swiping wazzock. When you come into the office reeking of MacEwans Eighty Shilling in future, please remember to not urinate in the shrink-a-sink in front of Mrs Fawcett-Tightly from Tring.
Furthermore, your inebriated reference to our lack of cheer belies your ignorance of our faith. It might have escaped your notice (the shaved heads, the smiles, the robes?) but we are all Buddhists over here at suburbanforest.
Here's a snap of Swami Smitringgith singing the groaning mantra of The Smiling Tree Planter of Ulan Bator
We value your support for suburbanforest and thank all today's many visitors. We would simply ask you to reflect on the vacuuous joviality of your blog. Look deep inside yourself and you will see - the Nolans have no talent.
Blessings all year round.
Wally Miapine