Part 1 of a weekly series (Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5).

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Bronwyn Gosling was sitting in a hide on the East Anglian fens, binoculars and camera at the ready. But she wasn’t concentrating on the birds. She had her torch out, dimming the beam as much as she could. She was reading a poor-quality photocopy of a paper that the university librarian had forwarded to her, sourced from the British Library. It was written by Grayling Muir, PhD, from ______ University, Canada. It was the fifth in a series of papers that he had written over the past three years, each looking at different aspects of the behaviour of Brent Geese.

It was dark so early nowadays. Really she should go home and get tucked up warmly, watch some TV and have an early night. But no, to avoid further eye strain she closed the shutters, put torch on full beam, poured another cup of tea from her thermos, and kept reading. She was thinking back to her first encounter with “Gray”, when he had stayed in her village for a few happy weeks.

Prof Muir was the most North American person that Bronwyn had ever met, all teeth, hair and broad shoulders. But despite his imposing presence he was reassuringly gently spoken and fell in easily with both village and academic life. He took the bus and train into Cambridge once a week, but otherwise he was out on the fens every day.

Muir, attending a conference in London early November 1988, had overheard a conversation during a refreshment break. Two elderly ornithologists were discussing a change in the behaviour of a group of local Brent Geese. They knew from the meticulous records of the local amateur birdwatching society that these geese migrated to the same spot in the East Anglian fens every year. Used to a bit of rough and tumble to tag and document these birds, this year they had been struck by their docile nature. “Dazed” said the reports. Standing around or sometimes just sitting, wings by their side, head moving with their pulse.

Muir studied this further with the local enthusiasts and the team in Cambridge. They identified water sources, chemicals that had been used in the neighbouring fields, tested for infection and noted the general health of the geese and other species. He wrote two papers that year, describing the state of the birds and the exposures, appealing for suggestions in the journal’s letter page.

Reconstructed from Curt Finks’ 1992 diary (by Ali and GANTOB 2023)

Names, science and location have all been changed, except Bronwyn’s name (though she uses her married name nowadays).

To be continued… Read part 2 and part 3; parts 4 and 5 to follow).

Cover image is from the WWT website.

This is part 4 of Little Grapefruit and the Capitals.

When Little Grapefruit wakes, she finds herself nestled into a vixen’s tale. She thanks her before rushing to hop onto a tram, then bus, to Leopoldsberg, high above the city. It is a beautiful morning. The sun shines like a white grapefruit, picking out highlights on the vista below. The Danube is blue today. Little Grapefruit observes the river’s route back the way that she swam, but is quickly distracted by the parkland and modern towers to the left, the islands in the middle, and the old town to the right.

Anyhow, she is grateful for her excellent eyesight. She wonders how many people realise that grapefruit are an excellent source of vitamin A as well as vitamin C. She zooms in on the sparkly orb that decorates the Spittelau Incinerator. She decides that she is going to have a day focusing on the work of the artist Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser. Imagine choosing a name that includes the words “rainy day”, “dark coloured” and “hundred waters”.  Little Grapefruit wonders what she would call herself if she had free rein.

Rolling down the hundreds of steps from the church high above Vienna to the waters of the Danube, Little Grapefruit struggles to control her descent. She arcs high above a busy road and plunges deep into the river, surfacing a few minutes later in the Donaukanal beside the incinerator. She would love to roll across the roof, along the curves. But she knows that is not possible, so she keeps going.

Hundertwasser had lots of ideas. He redesigned houses so that there could be space for “tree tenants”. He decorated boring buildings like the old incinerator with tiles and a gold egg and cut big chunks out to make unexpected shapes. And he thought that floors should be uneven and interesting, providing stimulation for the soles of your feet. He built houses by these rules. And they’re nearby.

Opting to roll rather than swim this time, she crosses central Vienna, narrowly missing a stomping busker playing the bagpipes and wearing a terrifying pair of floral Dr Martens. She crosses the Stadtpark, paying her respects to Johann Strauß.

Little Grapefruit buys a ticket for the Hundertwasser museum, rolling around the uneven floors until closing time. She decides that Hunderwasser was right: “the straight line leads to the downfall of our civilisation”. That night she sleeps under a Spraybanane (AKA banana graffiti). 

LITTLE GRAPEFRUIT AS SHARED IN A POSTCARD TO HER EVEN SMALLER WELSH COUSIN

28 November 2023

This post marks the end of part 2 of GANTOB’s 2023: A trilogy.

The adventures of Little Grapefruit will be concluded in a future pamphlet, which will contain some of the materials included so far in these 7″ single excerpts. The pamphlet (GANTOB Pamphlet X30) will be issued in a print edition of two:

• one in a Christmas card to the person who sent GANTOB the question “How I can I make my children appreciate the beauty and the value of a well crafted and thought through long playing record in the age of streaming?”
• one to the person who can identify the quote in GANTOB’s first book that attempts to answer that question.

Pamphlet X30 will also be available electronically, hidden in the blog posted on Christmas Day.

Have you found the electronic copy of Pamphlet X11 yet?

Send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog (you’ll need to give an excuse for a late submission, but I’m quite reasonable really).

Little Grapefruit feels self-conscious as she looks into the water. She worries that people will try to rescue her, not realising that she is an experienced swimmer with a clear travel plan. Instead, she takes the bus from Bratislava to Hrad Devin. She rolls past thistles that make her feel homesick, into the ruined castle. From the crenellations  on the battlements she looks out over the setting sun, throwing a grapefruit pink over the still water of the river bend and the plains of Burgenland. She hums the words “The Danube is pink, it’s pink, it’s pink” to that old tune by Johann Strauss II.

Little Grapefruit recalls visiting the other side of the Danube when she was a very little girl, looking up at the cliffs and this castle, past barbed wire fences and watchtowers. She has had a number of regenerations since then. The world has changed beyond recognition since the 1970s. Little Grapefruit thinks that we take a lot for granted nowadays. She is relieved that grapefruit can now travel freely across Europe.

LG rolls down from the castle into the Danube, dodging the pleasure cruisers. She swims upstream for hours, never flagging, her mind freed up now that she can forget the acronym that has guided her this far. Along the way she communes with a small school of friendly common nase (Chondrostoma nasus) that are hiding on a gravel bed at a large bend in the river. They readily share their meal of algae, and swap contact details. LG heeds their warning about the giant fish called huchen (or Hucho hucho to give them their scientific name) that would eat even a large grapefruit in a single gulp.

Little Grapefruit feels conspicuous for long stretches of the river, as the only pink object in evidence, catching the light of the full moon. The stars are bright on this clear night, away from the glow of the city. But little by little they fade, partially obscured by the dull red dome above Vienna, and Little Grapefruit starts to recognise familiar landmarks. She turns off at Donaukanal and surfaces at Schottenring because it has a friendly ring to it, and it’s a good starting point for the day ahead. It’s exactly 03:00. She sleeps in a bush at Votivkirche. She feels relaxed. This is the city where she grew up, in a Julius Meinl supermarket on Krottenbachstraße.

LITTLE GRAPEFRUIT – SENT BY POSTKARD SELEKTED FROM A TABAK ON THE GRABEN

27 November 2023

Send in your completed blog ideas by 27 November 2023 (that’s today!) for a chance to win the book of this blog.

Little Grapefruit is high up in Tallinn, spinning round the upper decks of the tower, enjoying a perfectly clear morning. A large part of her enjoys being little, but she worries about her deceptively soft rind being stepped on and pierced by a stiletto heel. She shakes off her concerns by bouncing along the old streets of Tallinn, before heading south along trunk roads out of town. She breathes a sigh of relief when at dusk she reaches the peace and quiet of tracks that carry the scent of wolves. She navigates successfully by celestial bodies until she reaches the next village.

That night she ruminates on height. Everybody seems very tall in Estonia. She thinks back to her days in Bowlingham: the arguments with her siblings, and the comforting words of her mother. There should be no stigma, no labelling of grapefruit by size or colour. She sleeps in a barn by the border with Latvia.

Little Grapefruit wakes to the sounds of bells. She drops down onto the soft hay, nodding to the hens who offer her breakfast, crosses the border, and hitches a lift to Riga with a pig farmer who is off to visit the bank. In the Latvian capital she enjoys a concert by a local children’s choir. She persuades a passing rollerblader to untie a yellow pedalo that is wintering against a pier. They cross the Daugava River, stopping off to explore the islands on the way. It is all a bit of a blur.

She follows a similar schedule as she travels through Lithuania and Poland, stopping off to do the tourist trail, talk to the locals, and search out family members in the supermarkets. Her penultimate stop is Bratislava. She travels there by train, taking the advice of the helpful ticket collectors along the way, sometimes struggling to make herself understood as she asks about the best routes. She has a good ear and is a quick learner, but she has to make a number of adjustments along the way from Estonian, to Latvian and Lithuanian, then Polish and Slovak. She will check with her teachers back in Scotland if they are on the school curriculum. Arriving at Bratislava Castle a couple of hours before closing time she catches her first glimpse of the Danube and her little heart leaps. She rolls down to the water humming a tune by Johann Strauss. 

LITTLE GRAPEFRUIT – EMAILED TO GANTOB FROM AN IoT ENABLED FRIDGE IN A SUPERMARKET IN BRATISLAVA

26 November 2023

Send in your completed blog ideas by 27 November 2023 (that’s tomorrow!) for a chance to win the book of this blog.

Little Grapefruit keeps in touch with her parents in Bowlingham, and her many siblings across the world. After rolling around Finland for a few days, taking a triangular track from Helsinki to Turku, up to Tampere, and back to the capital, she visits an internet café, pays the owner for an hour, and logs on. On Instagram she spots GANTOB and The Benefaktor getting into a lather about a “Kapital X”. Checking her emails she spots a note from a Welsh cousin who has recently taken a rather rough ferry crossing during an adventure to Liverpool. An accompanying photo shows her cousin in a markedly green hue, almost as if still on the tree.

Little Grapefruit was going to cross the Gulf of Finland by ferry, but after checking the weather she decides to go by seabed instead, making a mental note to avoid disturbing the cables and piping she has read about in the newspaper. She readies herself for the journey committing a few details to memory. She has left all her usual kit in Badenoch, knowing that her mobile phone and paper maps would not survive her travels by sea (and create uncomfortable corners). Before her hour is up in the café, she has learnt the following lists: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia. That’s easy – alphabetical order. But in the last few seconds of her session she realises that the signs that she will be relying on to navigate will not use country names (except at the borders) – they’ll be focused mainly on nearby towns and cities. She zooms out of the map, just far enough to see the capitals. She tries to remember them all: Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, Bratislava. She tries to think of a scheme – anything – that will allow her to remember them in order. Tractor reaches velocity with bales. That might work. Her time is up.

Little Grapefruit tilts herself to 5 degrees as she passes the owner, hoping that he will recognise this as a gesture of thanks. She can’t say anything, or she’ll forget her list. TRVWB she recites, imagining a pastoral scene at harvest. She plops into the water, holding her breath, and uses the techniques her mother taught her to weigh herself down by thought processes alone, and trundles across the Baltic Sea, reaching land a couple of days later, making a beeline for the top of Tallinn TV Tower.

AS KONVEYED TO GANTOB BY THE GHOST OF THE OBSERVER

25 November 2023

Send in your completed blog ideas by 27 November 2023 for a chance to win the book of this blog.