peterbirks | Gulls On Film

I see that the father of disc jockey Emma B (who I wish was named Edgar Broughton, but apparently isn't) has been given a conditional discharge and £400 costs for battering a seagull to death and then stringing it up (presumably "to encourage the others") because said gull shat on his wife's hair and lunch, in that order.

I was cheering the man to the rafters until I got to paragraph 3 of the story, where it was pointed out that Mr Broughton was a member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and claimed that "he didn't enjoy killing it".

Well, bloody hell, I would have. I hate seagulls with a passion. Whenever I stay on the coast, they drive me mental. All reasonable liberal sensitivity goes out of the window. If there is one species ripe for and deserving of ethnic cleansing in the Birks Book of Birds and Mammals, it isn't the pigeon, it isn't the grey squirrel, and it isn't the fox. It's the fucking seagull.

Fortunately, I live nowhere near the coast, so the paths of seagulls and I rarely cross. You might see the occasional tourist in Trafalgar Square who has flown up the Thames in search of the bright lights, but as a rule, seagulls stick to the coast and I stick to inland. Long may it continue.

Volcano Merapi Update: A total wimp. C'mon, either blow or piss off the pot.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Re: Gulls
(Anonymous)
2006-05-18 11:13 am UTC (link)
200 miles inland? In the UK?
No, Germany
John W

I've wondered at the paucity of seagulls in the Lewisham area, although since it's a blessing as far as I am concerned, I haven't investigated it. I used to get them flying around at the Oval every so often, which is also a mile south of the Thames.

Two possibilities occur to me. One is that there is a bloody great hill between me and the river at Lewisham. So perhaps the seagulls never get round to straying from Greenwich. The other is that there are millions of crows on Blackheath, which is the top of the hill between Lewisham and Greenwich. Maybe crows deter gulls?

I forgot to mention my final and, I think conclusive, point about seagulls. The group that called itself "A Flock Of Seagulls" were, in the main, unmitigated crap.

PJ

That should be "between me and the river at Greenwich".