A Prickly Affair

Idle laughter

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The lessons I best remember often involved laughter. Humour is a great gateway through which it is possible to lead a host of interesting and often complex ideas, bypassing the natural desire to resist.

When I started talking about hedgehogs, most often to the Women’s Institute, I found there were a few moments that the audience would laugh. I found that most appealing as, selfishly, it made me feel pleased to get that reaction.

Now I am not talking the sort of life-limiting laughter that will come from a good stand up comic, more it was animated smiling. But it still made me feel good.

But I was greedy, I wanted to hear more laughter and in a fit of madness agreed to do a little bit of hedgehog stand up at a friend’s party in Somerset – a big party, there were bands and lots of promises of extra performances like mine. In the end it was just me, and the music. I consider that night to be a key part of my mid-life crisis. First and last ever stand-up, first and last ever tattoo and first and last ever dance class – all in November 2009.

It was one of the scariest things I have ever done and I vowed never to do it again (along with the dancing and the tattoo … BUT … I have been dancing every week since then and am getting my second, and last, tattoo in two weeks!) … and now I am preparing to do something similar again, at the wonderful Idler Academy in west London.

Why am I putting myself through this?

The answer requires an admission. While Springwatch was on the BBC earlier this year I found a moment when I had a choice to watch it or Top Gear … now, I care not one jot about cars. I have one and use it as rarely as possible, but I know so little about them as to be a liability. My wife reminds me of the time when a mechanic came to fix the car we were borrowing from a friend and asked me how big the engine was. Apparently holding ones hands about a metre apart and saying, ‘about this big’ is an inadequate answer.

And I love nature, I love wildlife and will watch it for hours.

So why would I want to watch a programme about cars rather than nature? Because Springwatch was embarrassingly dull and Top Gear was entertaining. Worse, actually, there was obviously an attempt to make the nature programme entertaining my trying to get people who were not naturally comical to partake in a crude homage to Benny Hill (if my memory serves me correct).

I am no fan of Clarkson and his kind – in fact was thrilled to be present as a friend of mine stuck a custard pie in his face a while back … here is the photo I took.

But I would love it if that sort of nature programme could be as entertaining.

Now I am glued to the new Attenborough epic, but who wouldn’t be. It is an aesthetic triumph as well as benevolently informative. But I think there must be a space to wallow in the sort of fun it is possible to have with nature – nature does not need all of its promoters to be earnest. Sometimes you have to let the fun in.

Which is why I am trying to do the funny again … I even created a genre ‘ecological stand-up’ and was thrilled to be in the vanguard (only to discover THIS happening a few days before … darn those clever funny folk for stealing a march on me).

So, come to the Idler Academy on 22nd November and see if it makes any sense. I have been trying to picture what I do – and the best I have got to yet is the weird offspring from an unlikely union of Sir David A and Mark Thomas … trying to get the funny into taxonomy. And please share this – anyone who might like a laugh at the madness of hedgehog-lovers while learning why hedgehog love is key to the salvation of humanity should be told …

Bonfires and a little self-promotion

Hugh Warwick 1 Comment

To be honest, the title should probably be A LOT of self-promotion and bonfires, but that seemed somehow wrong.

To get the nitty-gritty of this dealt with first – there are a lot of bonfires planned for this week and some of these will exact a miserable toll on the country’s wildlife. If you need proof of that, pop along to a wildlife hospital and take a look at the few who survive being roasted. So the British Hedgehog Preservation Society makes a very big point at this time of year to ask you all to just check before you light your fire.

I did a piece on BBC West Midlands a while back where the slogan they were generating was, I think, ‘poke a bonfire, save a hedgehog’ … and as long as you use the handle end of a garden fork, that is great. Try and see if you can lift it a  little and look underneath. Better still, collect all your fuel in one place and then move it to the bonfire the day you are going to light it.

In 2009 the hedgehog lovers at Spontex have got in on the act, securing bouncers to protect a large fire, stopping hedgehogs unwittingly installing themselves in the wonderful shelter …

(photo by Fay Vass – BHPS boss)

Spontex have a good history of idiosyncratic hedgehog-related advertising as my previous post has shown …

So please, check out your bonfires before you light them. Hedgehogs face enough of a threat from everything else we do, so please give the pile a poke before setting it alight.

And now the payback – I have asked you to consider the dark misery of roasting hedgehogs, now I offer you some relief …

I am performing my almost ecological-stand up routine at the Idler Academy on November 22nd … and I want (to be honest, NEED) an audience of enormous proportions … and that is only partly because the amount I get paid is relative to the number of tickets sold … it is also because I want to instil my brand of hedgehog-love deep into the hearts of as many people as possible … and also to introduce new people to the wonder that is the Idler Academy … So, please, book tickets and tell your friends. It will be fun …

15 seconds of fame

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The One Show, at last – and about 23 minutes into the show (please save yourselves, do not bother with the rest of it, it is painful!) is a whole section about our wonderful project, Hedgehog Street. Laura from the People’s Trust for Endangered Species does a wonderful job of getting a community to open up their gardens with judicious holes … though some of that was a little unnecessary as the there were clearly holes big enough for hedgehogs already … but that is the delight of television. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

And then my moment … wow, those 15 seconds flashed by rather quickly, but I am pleased I managed to say what I needed to say. Though they did introduce me as ‘Hedgehog author and aficionado’ … which is okay, but I had asked to be from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. At least we have a friend with Kate Bevan, the presenter who was snooping around my garden – she likes hedgehogs too.

The programme will be up on the web for another six days – here.

And a screen grab of me in mid flow, just to prove, after the web version is down, that it did all happen!

So lets get out there and make all our streets, Hedgehog Streets. Share the hedgehog love!

the trouble with archaic spelling

Hugh Warwick 1 Comment

I am still deeply embedded in the world of hedgehogs as I research my latest book, for the Reaktion Animal Series. This gives such license to spend all day searching through obscure references to the wonderful animal. And what a treat I received today when I tracked down a fairly obscure book from 1767 by Stephen Fovargue. Called, ‘New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors‘ it is available online. And on page 174 there is this:

I almost spat out my coffee as I read that for the first time, before realising the complications of archaic spelling …

The rest of the book is fascinating and well worth a read. The Preface is something that I think we could all benefit from considering: “To explain the use of education, no method can be more effectual, than to show what dull mistakes and silly notions men are apt to be led into for want of it.” To avoid further confusion, I have modernised the spelling.

Other delightful errors in need of Fovargue’s correction include, “That the heron makes a hole in the bottom of her nest, through which her feet hand, when she sits upon her eggs” and “That there is now, or ever was, such a science as astrology.” And remembering that this was 1767 it is interesting to note that the following was considered a great fallacy, “That the way to make boys learn their books, is to keep them in school all day, and whip them.”

That has helped give me a perfect morning of industry and self-amusement.

Breeding colours

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I have just had a moment, possibly indicative of senior ones to come, when I tried to check online for more updated information on a subject about which I had written, only to find all the references were to my writings about the subject … which makes me fear I might have made it all up.

And if it were not for the photographs I took at the 2007 Rocky Mountain Hedgehog Show in Denver, Colorado, I might be even more befuddled. But the photographs tell me that I was there and I did witness the International Hedgehog Olympic Games.

In fact, here are a few:

The reason I am back in the world of hedgehog shows is twofold – I am in the middle of writing a book about the iconography of hedgehogs for Reaktion and there is a chapter on domestication. So I wanted to see how things were doing in the amazing world of hedgehog-petdom in the USA. The other reason is that the latest show is about to begin, so if you find yourself within spitting distance of the Double Tree Hotel in Denver, get yourself to the Show.

One thing that did amaze me was the detail with which those who assess the ‘quality’ of hedgehogs on show have gone. The International Hedgehog Association now recognises 92 colour varieties! Salt and pepper, cinnamon, apricot, chocolate … the hedgehogs all begin to sound quite appetising.

Channel 4 news

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Nice and quiet Sunday – recovering from a busy Saturday in Manchester where I was talking hedgehogs at the museum thanks to ExtInked, who have a display up there. Had been planning to hang around up there and have fun with the wonderful friends who inhabit the place, but had managed to wreck my back a few days ago while splitting logs, and was too uncomfortable to play. Next time, however, it will coincide with me getting my second, and LAST, tattoo … more here soon.

But back to this morning, while I was busy washing up and Pip was playing – with enforced Brahms in the background, a phone call came through from Firebird PR – who work with the Peoples Trust for Endangered Species. Could I be an expert, in an hour, for Channel 4 News … and we need stunt hedgehogs …

Luckily, Penny Little, who runs the Little Foxes rescue put us in touch with one of her fosterers, who takes the less-critical hedgehogs in until they are fit for release. Anne Fowler lives only 20 minutes away, so, after a shave and a realisation I needed a haircut (too late for that) I was soon at her door.

‘They had to want to do it today,’ she said as she invited me in. ‘One of the hedgehogs escaped last night and is under the dishwasher,’ and she pointed to the dismantled kitchen unit. But still the hedgehog had evaded capture, when she had managed to gently grasp it with the barbecue tongs it had rolled into a ball, understandably, and had become too big to extract. So there was a stand-off. And a plate of dog food with which to lure him out.

Channel 4 were not far behind me. I had been at the launch of an important report on Tuesday in London. The State of Britain’s Mammals had been commissioned by the PTES and was written by the UK’s top mammal scientist, Professor David Macdonald from Oxford University’s WildCRU. But David was in Brazil, and anyway, the story that the press had picked up on, again, was the parlous state of the UK’s hedgehog population. So, being local, and a media tart, I was ‘perfect’!

Cut aways of hedgehogs roaming the garden in daylight will undoubtedly upset the purists – hedgehogs are, of course, nocturnal and if they are out in the day, something is probably wrong with them. But I was most impressed with the journalist presenting the piece, Asha Tanna. I told her that these images would result in letters, and she very naturally wrote an explanation into her script … and while it is important people do not think that hedgehogs enjoy sunbathing, there is also something very powerful about actually seeing the real animal … even if it is out at the wrong time.

I have watched many of these sorts of reports being recorded, and it is always great to see the cameraman (and sorry, I forgot his name) find their inner-David Attenborough and go trying to capture every possible bit of actuality.

At one point it looked as if it was the hedgehog being interviewed!

Very impressive to watch them head off at 2.15 with a plan to have it all ready for 6.15 tonight … fast work!

And the story? Hedgehogs in decline, down 25% in 10 years, and over 90% in the last 60 years (though that is based on a possibly not very reliable population estimate from 1950). What we need to do? For a start, Hedgehog Street.

George the Hedgehog

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While radio-tracking hedgehogs, many years ago, around the fields of Devon I became quite lonely. Working from 9pm to 4am out in the dark and rain, returning to my cold, damp and draughty caravan to sleep for a few hours before heading back out to check all the day-nests was a tiring existence.

So it was no surprise to me that I started to talk to my hedgehogs. And while each had a unique number, referring to the frequency of the radio-signal the little box on their back gave off, I found that they easily acquired names. So Freya, the enthusiastic traveller, Nigel, the speed freak and ‘little Willy’, the one who had recovered from an intimate swelling all became my nocturnal friends. Those of you who have heard me talk on the matter will know that Nigel was my favourite hedgehog, becoming a close friend and also seeding in me the idea that has gone on to shape much of my thinking since then.

But it is George I turn to, if only as a link to a film I have just been to see. And what different characters. George the Hedgehog, the Polish animation, features a spiky protagonist about as far removed from the solid and reliable hedgehog I became fond of in Devon. In fact my Devon hedgehog almost had me in tears on BBC Radio. I had had a bad run of losing animals, even my beloved Nigel, to cars and badgers. This led to a line that I thought would be edited out of my book, A Prickly Affair, ‘and I watched in horror as my Little Willy was eaten by a badger.’

George had gone missing, I was recording my thoughts for the radio, walking around with a tape recorder, and I could not find him. I was getting more and more anxious, worried that he, too, had been eaten. Eventually I got a good signal and found him – and the genuine relief that the tape captured so moved one listener of Pick of the Week that he was minded to feed it in as a sample to a dance track … not sure whether he ever did.

Which, tangentially, brings me to the film I went to see at the Barbican in London last week. It was part of London’s International Animation Festival and was irresistible. I should warn any of the faint hearted that this trailer is fairly robust – in fact the entire film, George the Hedgehog, was one of the rudest and crudest I have ever seen. The Polish title is Jez Jerzy, and we were lucky enough to have one of the directors present for a Q&A after the screening. It felt slightly odd having people asking serious questions about funding and animation styles after such a bombast of fart jokes, alcohol and sexual excess. But they did.

Director Wojtek Wawszczyk expressed pleasure that only four people walked out of the screening. And seemed genuinely surprised when I got to meet him that I was interested not animation but in the choice of the species – why a hedgehog? This is something I have been asking many people who are involved in the use of the hedgehog – either in stories or marketing. What is it about the animal that made you think it would be a great idea.

I was not aware that this film is based on characters that have featured in an adult comic strip since 1996. George is a sex-mad alcohol fuelled hedgehog embroiled in a passionate affair with a married woman (human … this is odd) and being chased by a combination of racist skin-heads and genetic scientists. I heartily recommend it to anyone who likes their humour unsophisticated!

I have now written to the originators of the strip in hope of some answers as to why a hedgehog … and would welcome any suggestions you all might have as well!

 

Adult Content

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I am currently writing another hedgehog book, while I wait for the revision for Beauty in the Beast to appear. This time I am doing it for love – I am pretty much paying the publishers for the pleasure. But I love the series it will be part of from Reaktion Books and really could not contend with anyone else writing it! It is far more about the iconography of the hedgehog and the way we relate to it – and not about my personal ramblings … though hopefully it will not be without humour. And today, after hitting a low in discovering that my ‘A Prickly Affair’ contains a mistake (I suggested that Nungunungu was Swahili for hedgehog when in fact it means porcupine – and the real word is Kalunguyeye) I found this amazing website – The Cursing Hedgehog – from Finland. I have written to the artist, Milla Paloniemi, for permission to use images in the book – these two in particular:


I am finding it fascinating how the hedgehog takes on so many different characters around the world – which is good news for the book!

TV – the street takes off

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Hedgehog Street is such a great idea, and when it was launched at the beginning of June we did loads of media and were thrilled with the way it had grabbed the attention. Within a few days there were thousands of people signed up and – in fact as of now there are over 11,000 people who are out there actively helping to improve the lot of the hedgehog. And now, thanks to the politicians taking some time off from their mistresses (what is the male version of a mistress?) to be with their families, there has been a second spate of interest. A week or so back I did an interview with The One Show – a BBC1 sofa-based chat thing that I have never watched. I had a few hours, on returning bleary eyed from five days at the wonderful Buddhafield festival, to make my wildlife friendly garden seem more suitable for the non-human wildlife (this required putting the superfluous toys and bikes in the neighbour’s garden). The interviewer (forgotten her name already, must get a brain) teased me about the state of the place, piles of prunings gradually being munched by minibeasties, but it all seemed to go well. She was then off to interview Laura from the PTES and get an idea of how best to link up all the wildlife friendly gardens – the key to Hedgehog Street.

Then today I was back with the wonderful Sue Kidger in Twickenham to be interviewed for the Right/Write/Wright Stuff on Channel 5 (which one is right?). Great fun, camera operator Rosie ended up covered in hedgehog poo and having a little hoglet named after her – assistant David took a photo of me performing for the camera.

And I got photos of the hedgehogs performing for camera too …

And my first half decent photo of a hedgehog self-annointing.

So all in all a very successful day. As yet we have no idea when the pieces will make it to air, but I will let you know when I do.

Gek op egels

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At last, in my grubby little hands, I have the Dutch version of ‘A Prickly Affair‘ (and thank you very much to the author Warwick Cairns, to whom they were originally sent, for passing them on)

It is rather exciting to see an entire book that apparently has my words within – while I remain oblivious to the contents. It is possible, though I am sure that the publishers would never pull a fast one like this, that it is utterly different … would be very happy to hear from any bi-linguals out there.

There are a few differences, there were some phrases I used that were untranslatable – and there is a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to the good folk of the Netherlands. For example, Jerusalem and the Women’s Institute were explained, as was the has-bee David Bellamy. Rather strange to find that the Clangers were not a hit in Holland, but most surprising was to see the term ‘Dogging’ needing some detailed explanation. Any ideas what ‘Het hebben van seks in een auto terwijl anderen toekijken’ means?