Biospherical pt 3

Still can't make the video upload, but here's the text for my North Devon Biosphere piece, working title, Bioculturaldiversity...(!)


primrose, campion, cranesbill, vetch, dog-rose, foxglove, holly

hawthorn, blackthorn, cross-leaved heath, bracken, bristle bent, beech

purple moorgrass, yorkshire fog, sheep fescue, tormentil

birdsfoot trefoil, pedunculate oak, bell heather, western gorse

lundy cabbage, rowan, hazel, irish lady’s tresses

wood anemone, buckler fern, orchid, ash, thrift

orange fruited elm lichen, purple ramping fumitory

sea rush, common reed, marram grass, thyme, eyebright, portland spurge



Aspi-what? What like breathing? I dunno what you mean by aspiration

Oh, oh right! No, I don’t need no further education

My situation’s sorted, all mapped out, I’ve got it set so

I don’t need to worry, Mum’s gonna get me on the checkouts at Tesco,

Not gonna let go of that am I? It’s a great job. Ironic?

What like that shit song? It’s like Mum says, when the gravy train comes, get on it,

Simple as that. Might be unfair but with so little jobs we have to look after ourselves.

Leave? Why would I wanna leave? We’ve always lived here. I don’t need to go nowhere else.



tortoiseshell, red admiral, peacock, orange tip, green hairstreak, speckled wood

pearl bordered fritillary, high brown fritillary, plume moth, marbled white

dingy skipper, grizzled skipper, goat moth, dragonfly

great green bush cricket, bloody nose beetle, brown argus, large carder bee



Look, even if I wasn’t black, I’d always be an outsider,

You’re not Devonian unless you’ve been here three generations and when you’re cut you bleed cider!

Well, I decided to buy my second home here cos I fell in love with it when I was a kid,

Our school brought us here to work on a farm for a week, best thing they ever did.

A few months every year, but when I retire I’ll move here full time

No, you get the odd look or comment, but everyone else is fine.

It’s mostly those who moved here from cities cos the multicultural project was failing ‘em,

Irony is, they move down here, and they also get treated as aliens!



yellow hammer, whitethroat, chaffinch, song thrush, dunnock, bullfinch, teal

bar-tailed godwit, cormorant, curlew, shelduck, dunlin, knot,

lapwing , wigeon, wheater, woodpecker, wood warbler, stonechat, chough

pied flycatcher, cormorant, gannet, nightjar, fulmar, gull

oystercatcher, cirl bunting, skylark, corncrake, cuckoo

golden plover, redstart, redshank, grey partridge, barn owl

common sandpiper, coal tit, blue tit, great tit, roseate tern

peregrine falcon, sparrow hawk, kestrel, buzzard, snipe



Well, I still do the milk round, course it’s not my milk any more,

After the cull we couldn’t go back to the way it was before.

Still do a bit of arable, beef, sheep, farming’s in my blood.

Try not to ruminate too much, we’re not made for chewing cud.

But dairy was dying before foot and mouth, we were tied up and buried in paper

The iron lady cast a long shadow, we always knew we wouldn’t escape her.

There’s no money in milk no more, ‘less you’re prepared to go big

And these hands weren’t made for pens, but tools, for my challenges, I’ll dig.



badger, rabbit, seal, otter, greater horseshoe bat

hedgehog, fox, red deer, dormouse, soprano pipistrelle,

brown hare, slow worm, grass snake, adder, greater mouse eared bat

natterjack toad, common frog, sand lizard, great crested newt



I tell him, ‘Dad, read the sticker, if it’s off shore, I’m off work!’

He says I’m lazy but it’s his fault, he taught me to surf, the berk!

He wanted me to follow the family trade, work in the big shipyard,

But I knew I’d fail to show when the sea called me to rip hard.

And I’m not some hippy peacenik, but I did sort of question why

I’d want to build a boat that sent young men off to die

So I make my paper cutting limbs off trees in my chain-saw surgery,

And when my mistress the sea throws those sets at the beach, that’s life’s only urgency



flat fish, flounder, mullet, salmon, sea trout, shore crab, shad,

common lobster, limpet, bass, painted topshell mussel

leopard spotted goby wrasse, pollack, undulate ray

acorn barnacle, spider crab, peppery furrow shell

beadlet anemone, snakelocks anemone, hydrobia, honeycomb worm

oarweed, bladderwrack, irish moss, amber sand bowl snail

devonshire cup coral, Pink sea fan, scurvy grass, breadcrumb sponge

early gentian, lady’s bedstraw, round headed club-rush.



Nah I’m not scared, can’t wait, it’s exactly what I’d planned.

But it’s weird to think these dunes’ll soon be Afghanistani sand.

I’ll miss ‘em. And my family of course, even this shitty town

Why did I join? Well there’s nothing else going for me, take a look around.

You get good pay, qualifications, I’ll have a serious career

As long as… look it’s nearly last orders, do you want another beer?

You know my granddad trained for D-day here, taught him how to fight…

No. I don’t mate. We’re not trained to question wrong or right.