Who's for conkers . . . ?

Did you know that conkers are an endangered species?   No, not in the literal sense . . . let me explain.

Our brains, it seems, don't offer us precisely what our ears and eyes are recording.  On the contrary, what we receive is a carefully edited version based on past experience.  To a large extent, our brains place before us the sights and sounds that we already know, ones that we can recognise and name . . . the name being of prime importance.

To give you an example, an Inuit, who has many names for what we call 'snow', would look out of his igloo at a complex and interesting landscape.  In the same situation, the limitations of our language would restrict us to seeing little more than a stretch of endless, monotonous white.

Why am I mentioning this?  Because of a challenging and absorbing new book by Robert Macfarlane.  It's entitled 'Landmarks', and in it the author laments the fact that a recent edition of 'The Oxford Junior Dictionary' chose to omit many words included in previous editions.

Amongst the words excluded were 'conker', 'acorn', 'kingfisher', 'dandelion', 'bluebell' and 'pasture'.  The reason for these omissions?  Because it was felt that the dictionary needed to include a plethora of new words such as 'blog', 'broadband', 'celebrity' and 'voice-mail'.

It was the editor's view that, as the majority of modern children live in urban areas, they didn't need many of the nouns that relate specifically to the countryside.  However, it was essential that they were familiar with the terminology of modern information technology.

A world without conkers or acorns?  Surely not!
Familiarity with these evocative names enables us to look beneath the trees and immediately identify the natural treasures nestling in the leaves.
Without those names we'd be gazing down at a featureless forest floor . . . something that our brains would probably choose to ignore.  'Language deficit,' writes Robert Macfarlane, 'leads to attention deficit'.

As for the 'dandelion' which was jettisoned to make way for the 'celebrity' . . . true, a city child mightn't be able to hold one in her hand, but which celebrity could possibly rival the dandelion's dramatic transition from golden glory to parachuting seed-head?

And, think about it for a moment, without an identifiable name to seize upon, wouldn't the brain consider the flower to be merely part of the meadow and filter it out of sight?
There again, if the word 'meadow' has gone the way of 'pasture', the brain would probably dismiss the whole thing as no more than a featureless, unimportant, green blur.

Surely children need to be offered a wide-ranging, not reduced, view of the world they inhabit?
Might I suggest that 'The Oxford Junior Dictionary'  is overlooking two very important facts . . . the need to root the technological wonders of the modern world into the natural world they stem from, and the need for children's lives to be rooted in that same nourishing soil.


What a bland countryside we're bequeathing to our descendants.  No hillocks, no dales . . . no tussocks, no mole-hills.
The inevitable outcome will be no grandeur, no splendour . . . just stultifying, mind-numbing uniformity.

Is this how we want to be remembered:  the generation who encouraged children to become addicted to smartphones whilst depriving them of conkers . . . ?
Surely not!

In addition to which, as any child will tell you, a conker is far smarter than a smartphone.
Not only is it capable of self-propogation, but it runs on nothing but water and solar power!

Breathing in bluebells

I wonder if you heard the 'Today' programme on Radio 4 last week when, on the subject of climate change, a scientist made a telling comment?


"It's as though we're on the 'Titanic'", he said, "we're surrounded by broken ice floes, yet we spend our time arguing over the cost of drinks in the bar."

I thought of this remark on Wednesday when Earth Day came, and went . . . largely unnoticed.

True, the planet marked the day in ways we would not have chosen.  On Earth Day itself the World Trade Center in New York was hit by lightning . . . there has since been a massive volcanic eruption in Chile and devastating earthquakes in Nepal.
But if the Earth marked Earth Day in such an unnerving fashion, we did little to acknowledge the wonders of our planet.


Wouldn't you agree that, by and large, we look upon the Earth as little more than our inexhaustible pantry and playground?
We respond to natural disasters with initial shock, sympathy and the sending of aid.  But we soon turn away and go back to arguing over the cost of those drinks.

It's all too easy, it seems, to forget that we're an integral component of the natural world.

In a recent talk, David Abram made the interesting point that man is part of the lungs of the planet.  As we breathe in the oxygen produced by trees and vegetation, so that same vegetation absorbs the carbon-dioxide produced by birds, mammals and us.  We breathe in as the natural world breathes out.  It's a lovely, rhythmic co-ordinating activity.

But what if we ignore the importance of this natural rhythm?  What of we remove the vegetation and chop down the forests . . . where will we find the oxygen that's essential for our existence?

I thought of that image this week when I took Chloe to our local bluebell wood.  There we were, Chloe and I, breathing in bluebells.  And there were the bluebells, getting an extra shot of carbon dioxide all thanks to our visit.

As we sat there on a tree-trunk, I noticed something else.  From under the stems of the bluebells crawled out a bee.  It made its way past my feet then, to my surprise, plunged headfirst into a small hole in the earth.  I sat and waited . . . expecting it to re-emerge.  Despite  waiting for several minutes there was no re-appearance of the bee.  All of which made me wonder.

The bee had entered the earth below my feet for a purpose, down there between the roots there must have been an inter-connecting web of tunnels,  tunnels along which bees and other insects could travel.  The Earth was every bit as alive below our feet as it was at ground level and overhead.

As we stood there in the wood, it seemed that Chloe and I were doing more than keeping our balance on a lump of dead rock careering through space.

We were an integral part of a living organism . . . mixing and mingling in the medley of rhythmic existence which stretched from deep within the soil to the upper limits of the atmosphere.

But I've kept the most compelling argument to the end.
Let me share a moving video.

Click here and breathe in all that Julia Roberts has to tell us about our incredible world.

And what if we don't acknowledge our role and responsibilities in relation to our planet?  What if we go on arguing over the cost of drinks at the bar?

Well, the Earth could all too easily shrug us off  . . . but that's another story.