Saturday night’s alright for fighting

I want to tell you about the best Saturday night I ever had. It was July 5th 2008 at Twickenham in west London. Travelling down from Manchester with my friends Shilli and Metal Dave, we arrived at Twickenham in time for a few plastic bottles of over-priced Carling before pushing our way to the front of the 70,000 crowd to watch Avenged Sevenfold. They were terrible. After they finished their tepid set of mediocrity, a band called Iron Maiden came on and played some songs. They opened with Aces High. Then they did Two Minutes to Midnight. Then The Tropper. Like I said, best Saturday night I ever had.

The second best Saturday night I ever had was June 25th 2011 in my house sitting alone in front of the computer. No I wasn’t reading the hoax Gay Girl in Damascus blog, I was reading this thread on Birdforum. Yes, that thread. Entertainment like that is why Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in his shed on his allotment in Rochdale.

I’m no great critic of Birdforum. I think the website holds a staggering amount of information that you simply cannot find anywhere else, and it’s an important – if not the most important – source of general birding information rivaling any other outlet either online or on paper. Despite a misconstrued notion to the contrary (including by the site’s admin), I have never ranted or puked up a tirade of abuse against the internet’s biggest birding website, though I regularly take the piss a bit, just like everyone else does. And surely the Walmart of birding often deserves, and is certainly big enough, to take a massive whack of good natured piss-taking? After all, the Birdforum moderators allow its members (including me) almost free rein to comment on the wider birding world, criticise, rip the piss, and even name and shame the odd misbehaving birdspotter without allowing them a fair trial (something I find quite repulsive and which – Birdforum moderators please take note – one day is going to turn VERY nasty), so the site requires a big kick up the arse every now and then. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that me writing something on a blog every Monday isn’t setting the timetable for Birdforum’s imminent demise.

Probably like most other birders, I check Birdforum as regularly as I check my emails, Facebook and Twitter – once every 12 seconds. This is because I have absolutely no life whatsoever.

Of course the problem with Birdforum is the first syllable in its title: bird. For some strange reason, people interested in birds and the internet just don’t seem to mix well. Actually, let me rephrase that: For some strange reason, Brits interested in rare birds and the internet just don’t seem to mix well. That’s more accurate.

So are outsiders looking in on all of this in horror? Are they astounded at just how passionately British birders treat this hobby of ours? Or are they struggling to pick themselves up off the floor and control their bowels with laughter?

If there’s one thing we do really well in this country, it’s blowing things out of proportion. Whether it’s Winston Churchill getting a bee up his arse about some bloke in Germany with a silly moustache, or a million workshy hippies marching through London moaning about an illegal war somewhere in the Middle East, we Brits have a real skill for getting worked up over nothing.

Still, it all makes for a great Saturday night.

Oh, and despite using the title, I can’t stand Elton John. Just needed to clear that up. Thanks.

Random Posts:

DaleForbes: What Spiderhunter is this?: Whilst visiting Khao Sok National Park in southern Thailand last year, we found a Spiderhunter which
Category:Birding Asia

Rich Hoyer: Cristalino Montage – Row 6: This week’s revelation of Row 6 from my Cristalino Montage has but one bird – but that’s all it need
Category:Birding Neotropics

Rich Hoyer: Cristalino Montage – Row 2: Here we are back to the montage I posted on October 18, this time covering the second row. One of my
Category:Birding Neotropics

Similar Posts:

TomMckinney:Goodbye Slender-billed Curlew?: Last Monday Alan Lewis, presumably having been tipped off with some insider information, posted an i
Category:Birding Western Palearctic

TomMckinney:Tart the Gyr: So it’s Sunday night, and I’m wondering why I should bother to write a load of garbage piss-poor poi
Category:Birding Western Palearctic

TomMckinney:Scilly – the final day: Two things about this trip to Scilly were inevitable – 1) it would have to end at some point; 2) des
Category:Birding Western Palearctic

TomMckinney:Sat on a rock: Yo! I’m back down in Cornwall for a week taking part in the final year of the Seawatch SouthWest pro
Category:Birding Western Palearctic

TomMckinney:A Christmas Carol: As a special Christmas gift, BirdingBlogs presents… A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens Marley w
Category:Birding Western Palearctic

Tagged as: birdforum, iron maiden, tom mckinney