The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2462 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” she said. One of the things I loved about Delia was she made me feel sophisticated, she was so naïve.

“Yes, push off early tomorrow’s Saturday,” I said giving the more polite form of the acronym.

“Hey that’s really funny. I like working with you, Professor, you know so many funny things.”

“Well, as a professor I make a good comedienne,” I said, jumping when a voice behind me added.

“Aye, I’ll second that.”

“Watch out, Delia, that crabby ol’ git who thinks he’s the dean is about.”

She dissolved into quite loud laughter.

“Ye scunners, dinna laugh tae loudly, they’ll think ye like workin’ here,” was his parting shot as he strolled off to his office.

After this, Delia was almost paralysed with laughter when she suddenly jumped up and ran down the corridor which suggested she’d either had a little accident or was trying to avoid one. Of course such things never happen to me, I lied, and went and hid in my office behind the mountain of paperwork which appeared every morning.

The phone rang, Delia was obviously back at her desk, it was Alan, who had been working on the harvest mouse film and wanted me to see the first edit. We still had a few things to do, including a voice over but needed somewhere like a studio to do that. We had one in the university, I buzzed Delia and asked her to find out if it was in use tomorrow or Sunday.

“Um, where do I start looking, Professor?”

“Try the music department, it’s across the road.”

“Can you watch my desk for me while I run over there?”

“No, just phone them up.”

“D’you have their number, Professor?”

“In one of your drawers should be an internal telephone directory.”

“Okay, I’ll find it, Professor, sorry about...”

“You’re forgiven, or would be if I had a cuppa to distract me.”

“How would you like a cuppa, boss lady?”

“I think I prefer professor.”

“One tea comin’ up, Professor.”

“I thought you were against the exploitation of young women?” said Alan listening to all that had been said between Delia and me.

“That’s only when I’m the exploited one.”

“This being a nob has gone right to your head.”

“I can assure you I am totally nobless.”

“As in noblesse oblige?” he fired back.

“Absolutely, I’m exploited dreadfully.”

“You’re exploited? What about little Delia?”

There was a knock on the door and in walked Delia with a mug of tea and a chocolate biscuit, a wafer wrapped in red and gold foil. A Tunnock’s caramel wafer, she was spoiling me.

“A Scottish biscuit for a Scottish lady,” she curtseyed and deposited both objects on my desk.

“Why thank you, Delia, I think when I leave this afternoon we’ll switch the phones over to the admin office, then no one will know if you’re here or not, will they?”

“I’ll make sure I do that, Professor, oh and I’ve booked the studio for tomorrow morning.”

“Well done, thank you.”

“Looks like I’ve an early start, tomorrow.”

“I thought you were an early bird?” I fired back at him.

“I am, but then I don’t have ninety three children to wash and feed.”

“That’s an exaggeration, I only have eighty four.”

“As they never stand still, I musta counted some o’ them twice.”

“Quite possibly, do we need a technician?”

“That would be brill, someone to monitor separately what I’m doing.”

“I’ll request one.”

“See you at nine.” He rang off and I called the studio to request a technician be present tomorrow. That was arranged. Costs were certainly rising this time around.

I wondered how we’d do this tomorrow, he might well bring a green board, which means he can alter the background once we’ve decided what sort of background is suitable. Probably farmland or fields of wheat. I must remember to put in a plea that farmers try to avoid fields where harvest mice are active, if they’ve seen any. Being so small—Britain’s smallest rodent—they’re not easy to see and combines go through so quickly, I wonder how many of the puir wee souls have perished while passing through a combine—quite a few, I’ll wager.

This is a dilemma we’re fighting all the time against the agri-business lobby, that profitable farms are essential if we want to keep people working the land, and feeding ourselves. We’re such a small island compared to France or Spain and with populations growing like mad, especially in the UK, we have to import food as we can’t grow enough ourselves. However, if that involves using pesticides, especially neo-nicotinoids then that almost certainly means increased absence of bees and other pollinators, which are being killed by over use by farmers—in the past forty years, we’ve lost forty percent of the world’s species, some of which we’ve never even glimpsed, so won’t know if they might have been useful to us—perhaps in showing us how they do things or have some research use. If something becomes extinct before you check it out, you have lost that opportunity forever. Large scale farming is every bit as damaging to the environment as heavy industry, even if they won’t accept it. Their riposte is always, ‘You want cheap food, this how you get it.’

My response to that is, Not at the price we’ll pay in terms of living in a polluted or sterile environment. Apart from the joy seeing truly wild animals, birds or plants gives most of us, their use as indicators of the health of the countryside is also important. No birds or insects—something is very wrong and the next species to disappear could be us.

Watching Brian Cox on his latest science-lite series, he says about how man is the only species to colonise or explore every sort of environment on this planet and to even do so on a limited scale beyond it—referring to the space station. What he didn’t add was how we’ve polluted and left our detritus behind us everywhere we’ve been from the deep oceans to outer space, the latter carries masses of space junk which is a constant worry to those who maintain or manage communications satellites. No other species is quite as good at shitting in its own nest as we are, but I’ll bet dear Brian never says so.

He did admit he was nowhere near as clever as Isaac Newton, on whose equations they calculate re-entry into the atmosphere from space missions. I suspect I’m nowhere near as clever as Brian, but I don’t let it bother me and I do stick to my own subject when making films—mammalian ecology/biology only I didn’t get to wander round Ethiopia or South America. Perhaps my next film should be about the plight of elephants and rhinos at the hands of poachers—a species of two legged rat I might enjoy exterminating, or the stupid Chinese and Japanese who buy the ivory.