“A goddess on a mountain top 
Was burning like a silver flame”

— Shocking Blue, Venus (non-album single, 1969, although included on later pressings of the At Home album) 

I am currently listening to the audiobook of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and the protagonist, a fifteen year-old boy called Kafka* Tamura, spends his days in the early part of the novel in a library in the Japanese city of Takamatsu on the island of Shihoku (the smallest of Japan’s four main islands).  Komora Memorial Library specialises in collections of haiku and tanka poetry and during one of the daily tours, a librarian tells visitors that the haiku poet Taneda Santōka spent a considerable period of time there.

Komora Memorial Library is actually a work of fiction, although based on the nearby Kamada Museum in Sakaide.  Taneda Santōka, however, is a very real person, living in the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century. Continue reading →

“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now”

– Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin IV, 1972)

When I first started my PhD in biology there was someone in the same research corridor just finishing writing his thesis on the role of hedgerows as wildlife corridors in the UK.  Since much of Britain (excluding some areas of Scotland and Wales) are densely populated, natural locations are often turned into wilderness islands by the surrounding built-up areas.  Hedgerows can act as conduits between these areas for small mammals and reptiles to travel in and are valuable wildlife habitats in their own right.

If you ever wish to roughly determine the age of a hedgerow (and why wouldn’t you?), there is a method called The Hooper Formula which suggests that the number of woody species in a 30 yard length of hedge equals the age of the hedge in centuries.  Thus, a hedge with just one species in a thirty-yard length is likely to be 100 years old or less, whereas a one thousand year old hedge will probably contain ten to twelve distinct species in the same distance.  The formula has been established as a pretty good rule of thumb although it tends to lose accuracy for any hedge older than a thousand years.

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“Words, words, between the lines of age“

— Neil Young, Words (Between the Lines of Age) (Harvest, 1972)

I did not publish many haiku last year so was pleasantly surprised to be included in the list of top 100 European haiku writers for 2019.  Thank you to Krzystztof Kokot for his annual drawing up of the list. 

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