Danskcolin: Saturday May 4th 2024 - "Orgy at Clive's Fruit Farm"

Oh dear! Mine and Lois's trip out to Clive's Fruit Farm near Upton-upon-Severn gets off to a bad start this morning, when we stroll over to the farm's hen coop next to the café tables, and see a bit of an orgy going on, with the cockerel mounting three of his 20-strong "hen harem", one after the other, in full view of customers.

My first reaction is to protect Lois from this unedifying sight, until I see that she's enjoying this unexpected "live sex show" as much as any of the other farm-shop customers seem to be, at which point I relax somewhat!

an amused Lois showcases the cockerel's activities, as members

of the cockerel's 20-strong "hen harem" (left) queue up to get a "seeing to" -

my goodness, on a Saturday morning too !!!!

I take a quick glance at our fellow Fruit Farm customers there already on the premises this morning, but fortunately there are no signs that they also think it's somehow "okay" to stage any kind of orgy here, not at this time of day anyway.

The couples at the café tables in the courtyard and the customers in the farm shop (admittedly mostly old codgers like Lois and me!) are all behaving with impeccable decorum, which is a relief, to put it mildly!

the plants-for-sale displays, the café courtyard and the butchery/farm-shop -

no orgies going on in any of those today, I'm happy to reveal !!!!

Apparently there's been a study done recently in the States, which suggests we shouldn't be surprised when we see male animals and birds just mating with their females there and then, whenever they feel like it, and whether they've got an audience or not is of little interest to them. Did you not read about it? It was in the Onion News.

A timely reminder - we tend to think we've made real progress in addressing gender inequalities, but in actual fact there's still "a ways" to go yet, isn't there, which is the honest truth.

16:00 An animal form of what we humans call "polygamy", or at least "polygyny" to be strictly accurate, is certainly the order of the day in Clive's hen-coop, although as far as I know, Clive himself, the owner, who was serving in the farm shop this morning, is believed to mainly restrict himself to one woman max - that's what the talk amongst locals suggests, anyway!

flashback to earlier today: Clive (right, ringed)

gets ready to serve Lois in his farm-shop and butchery

The other side of the coin - the practice of so-called "polyandry" where a female has several male partners - isn't heard about as much, although historically it's been a prevalent pattern in a number of non-European societies.

carving in an Indian temple, showing a woman called

Draupadi (far right), with her five husbands

And by coincidence the word "polyandry" pops up today in the crossword in Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, which we dissect, as usual, over a cup of tea and a scone, after coming downstairs from our afternoon "nap time". See the clue for 24 across (below):

It's quite an interesting magazine again this week, as it normally is - Lois's copy of "The Week", which gives a digest of the past week's news from the UK and overseas.

Lois and I often discuss Britain's so-called "refugee problem", and particularly the so-called "boat people" issue. It baffles us as to why so many refugees from the world's plethora of awful countries choose to cross the English channel in tiny, dangerously overcrowded boats, to seek asylum here in the UK.

a French rescue vessel looking to help an inflatable dinghy

carrying a group of would-be migrants who want to cross to the UK

Why would you do that? Why would you risk your own life any further, not to mention the lives of your family including maybe small children, when you've already struggled maybe halfway across the world, and already reached a decent civilised country like France or any other EU member. Why not stay on dry land, in France or Belgium or Holland?

It's never made any real sense to us why so many of them seem to want so badly to cross the water to the UK - and you never see an explanation. Have you noticed?

At last, however, some light is shed on the problem in this week's "The Week", which is nice.

First there's the digest of a Sunday Times article by Robert Colville suggesting that the UK's immigration policy is totally "chaotic". Well, no surprise there - have you ever seen a UK government policy that wasn't chaotic haha?!!!!

Fortunately, however, there's a more positive aspect to the issue, as outlined by John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times - see below.

Lois and I had no idea that migrants to the UK and other Anglosphere countries have a much brighter future ahead of them than migrants to other countries. Whoever would have thought that, eh?

Yes, surprisingly, migrants to Anglosphere countries and their offspring earn higher salaries, are more likely to go to university, and, also, are less likely to be living off social security, or to be involved in crime or go to prison etc etc, than migrants to other countries. Who would have thought that, eh?

[That's enough who-would-have-thought-its! - Ed]