At aged 14 I went through quite a serious ‘military aircraft phase’ which involved a subscription to a magazine devoted to the subject, hours spent pouring over photos in books, and even going so far as to join the Air Training Corp with a school friend. The ATC is part of the Air Cadet Organisation, and is a voluntary youth organisation supported by the UK’s Royal Air Force.

Mostly, the ATC involved lots of marching up and down a school playground in a horrid, scratchy uniform made of wire wool, and being barked at by the Warrant Officer. But it did have three exciting benefits: 1) older girls in tight uniforms; 2) running around muddy fields late at night in camoflage, pretending to carry out tactical missions, and 3) gliding lessons. I stuck it out at the ATC long enough to experience taking over the controls of a glider, but the scratchy blue uniform and the marching eventually got the better of me, and I left.

The Windsor flyover [Source: Flickr user synx508]

Another thing I stayed with the ATC long enough to experience was a peculiar rumor, or fact, uttered in the back of a white Ford Transit on the way to a muddy field late one night. Passing underneath the flyover bridge of the dual carriageway which leads from Windsor to Slough, a fellow Cadet mentioned that the bridge had been designed specifically to offer Harier Jump Jets parking space in the event of World War III breaking out.

How could it be, that a familiar and deeply civillian part of Windsor, a sleepy middle-class commuter enclave on the Thames and occasional home to the Queen – the place that I had grown up in – had been planned with a mind for its tactical role in WWIII? The thought was chilling, and a bit exciting, and the image has stuck with me to this day.

So this evening, just out of curiosity, I tried something out. And then I got that chilling feeling again:

Suburban contingency plan for Doomsday

Two of Windsor’s Psittacula krameri

The next day I took a walk into the center of town, and there they were again, shooting overhead, their long tails trailing behind. A day later I took a walk into Windsor’s great park, a 20 square kilometer Norman hunting ground and the Queen’s modest back garden. On the way, the now familiar chattering overhead signalled their presence once again. Now I was convinced they were following me, and once in the park itself I managed to catch them taking a breather on the high branch of a dead tree.

(left) Ring-necked parakeet distribution in the UK, (right) a parakeet awaiting distribution [Sources: RSPB]

According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Britain’s parakeets are decendents of pets which either escaped, or were released deliberately. Despite being tropical birds, they’ve been able to withstand cold winters and started to breed in 1969 in the county of Kent, south of London. Peculiar though are British laws concerning the bird: it is illegal to release them deliberately, but they are protected under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act.

The RSPB estimates that there could be as many as 50,000 of the birds in London alone by the year 2010. It’s particularly odd that their numbers are increasing when one considers the rapid decline of the sparrow population in urban areas. Indeed, sparrows have made it onto the RSPB’s red list of globally threatened species.

Searching for UK parakeet sightings on the BBC website, I came across the following two relatively recent articles:

How do parakeets survive in the UK? – find out here
In pictures: suburban parakeets – better photos than mine of some pretty thuggish looking examples

A couple more links:
The RSPB website
A Windsor Information website

Marks & Spencers used to be a pretty dreary affair until some point in the early 1990s when it became clear that they were on their way up-market. It was the M&S foodhall which seemed to be leading the way: it started offering things like wholegrain chicken tikka masala sandwiches (pretty exotic in 1992), “traditional” style crisps and gorgeously branded little bottles of freshly squeezed orange juice.

The store I visited in Windsor is divided into two zones on the ground floor: a white zone (the women’s clothing section, which seems not to have alienated its core customer base and is still dominated by gigantic beige bras), and a black zone at the back (the food hall, which resembles a wing of the Tate Modern). Both sections are tied together by super minimal typography (Neue Helvetica, Ultra Light) and lime green accents which will be fashionable for about three minutes every six months till the end of time.

The thin line between designer heaven and designer hell

These photos capture a little of the food hall atmosphere, and a lot of my own nervousness about pulling out a camera on private property. The black floor and shelving provides the backdrop to an orgasmic riot of outragously over-under-designed packaging. Again, black often finds its way into this too, as do bold blocks of highly saturated colour, offset by lucious macro photography of the food stuffs inside. Shortcake biscuits are made to reveal a universe of unimagined erotic potential; a packet of müsli appears as the dilution of all human achievement.

The temperature is kept nipple-erectingly low, and there is none of the accoustic clutter so common to normal supermarkets. There is a serene functionality and calm precision to the fittings, the atmosphere is part library, part zen garden. The presence of utilitarian red plastic crates amongst this onanistic designer splurge hints at a whimsical, unembarrased acceptance of the vernacular form. And is probaby just practical too.

All human achievement is to be found here. Granny too.

Of course, the sensuality of food is exactly what M&S are riding their whole campaign on. The food halls themselves, and the saucy minimalism of the packaging, are merely the flimsy set pieces for the pornographic culinary romp promised inside.

Watch this (real) M&S ad with the audio turned off, then replay it with the audio, but close your eyes. The slight moistness you might experience afterwards is normal.

The story of the Guildhall in Windsor, England, is a nice one, regardless of how much of it is true, and how much of it is well-kept local legend.

Sir Christopher Wren took over the task of constructing the Guildhall from Sir Thomas Fitz who had started work on it in 1687 and died two years later. The construction called for a covered outdoor area which Wren claimed would only need supporting columns on the outer edge. The Windsor town council were more than doubtful and forced him to build columns despite his claim. Wren conceded but cheekily made the columns too short, which to this day do not reach the ceiling.

Wren’s elegantly bullshitted columns: note gap