DIARY
DEBORAH DEVONSHIRE Idon't suppose many readers of The Spectator keep their own chickens. You hens know what you're missing. A flock of nens becomes quite fascinating when you feed and water them twice a day and can watch their individual ways. Mine are a mixed lot: there are some dowagers who have done a season in our open-to-the-pub- he farmyard, some young and flighty White Leghorns from Capel Manor Educational Farm in Hertfordshire, eight light Sussex beauties, russet Welsummers whose eggs are the colour of mahogany, huge, soft and Cowardly Buff Cochins with feather- trousered legs, and those of mixed race, Black Rocks and the curiously named Hi- sex. They roost and lay in a listed building. 1.;_11 yes, Wyatville, the know-alls say when 'ileY see what appears to be a little temple built of the same stone as the 19th-century wing of the house, which is indeed by , natville. An important 18th-century folly, said the people who came to list it. Both are wrong. It is a game larder, built in 1910 henhouse hang 4,000 pheasants. The tenants of the "nhouse can wander as far as they like, the freest range possible. On a still day at this is time of the year I see the most inquisi- tive ye several hundred yards from their home In search of fresh grass, worms and other treats. In the summer our visitors park their ears all round the game larder and the Chickens hurry to investigate each new arrival, hoping for a decent picnic. They are seldom disappointed and enjoy everything except orange peel and (I hope) chicken sandwiches. The Black Rocks are so tame they hop into picnickers' cars. In this way We have lost several to an uncertain fate. 13ird behaviour is like human behaviour and it is just as predictable. They fight, they resent newcomers, they hate wind and rain. Some are bold and forage far from home and some hardly bother to go out of doors. They practise a bit of racial argy-bargy and their purposeful walk when hurrying into ,the house to lay is like determined women 'leading: for the sales. They queue to lay in the same nesting-box (why, when there is a haven't of identical boxes?), and when they uaven't got time to queue they climb on top of the first corner, to her intense annoy- allee, Some are neat in appearance and habit, but the Hi-Sex are sloppy and have 110 idea of chic. They seem to be perma- nently losing a feather or two, instead of !aving a good moult, getting it over and wen looking smart again, bright of eye and Comb. These feckless females drop their eggs anywhere, on the floor of their house or On the ground outside. Our long-suffer- ing guests are subjected to collecting the eggs, the high spot of my day. They pretend tc1 enjoy it, but I notice a careful examina-
tion of the soles of London shoes when we get home.
The other day I went to Harrods to look for a coat for a friend who can't go shop- ping. After all these years I still miss the bank on the ground floor, and the green leather chairs where my sisters and I used to meet and sit and talk and laugh so loudly that the other customers got annoyed. Now there is a slippery marble floor and fierce young ladies sell all the same make-up things under different names. You can't talk and you certainly don't feel like laugh- ing. But it was what happened outside that struck me as so odd. It was pelting with rain and a gale was blowing, people's umbrellas turning inside out like Flying Robert's in Struwwelpeter. A smart car with a chauffeur drew up and an old, cross, rich couple got out. The woman had a mink coat slung over her shoulders, which fell into the road and the dirty water. The commissionaire dashed to pick it up, shook it and hung it on her again. He opened the door for her and her beastly husband, who didn't lift a finger to help. She walked straight through without looking round. 'Didn't that woman say thank you?' I asked the commissionaire. `Oh no,' he answered, 'they never do.'
Iknow the Turner Prize is stale buns now, as it happened last November, but I missed it at the time and have since become fascinated by how it is decided. Someone at the Tate kindly sent the bits of paper about it, written in a special language which is not easy to understand. The pho- tos of the prize-winning works of art don't `Pope . . . mope . . . hope.' help much either. It seems that the prize is given to a 'British artist under 50 for an outstanding exhibition or other presenta- tion of their work in the 12 months pre- ceeding 30 June'. It is awarded by a jury consisting of four, or sometimes five, good men and true, and a foreman (sorry, chair- man). The jurors have a wonderful oppor- tunity to find the artist guilty and sentence him to a term of no work and generally keeping quiet for however many years they think his art deserves. Amazingly, instead of doing this they give him £20,000. I'm all for people giving each other £20,000 as often as possible, but the reason in this case seems so very strange. According to the press release, last year's winner is said to `play an interesting game with the relation- ship between art and reality' and has a `refined sensibility in the handling of mate- rials which range from hardboard and crushed steel to asphalt'. Very nice. In one of his exhibits, according to the foreword of the brochure, 'lurks the gap left by a shifted saucepan lid'. Good. A runner-up showed a glass case called 'A Thousand Years'. Inside was a box full of house flies, a piece of rotting meat (I think) and what looks like an electric fly-killer. As the proprietor of a butcher's shop, I am pleased to see the meat, but — oh well. Another worthy run- ner-up says, 'I access people's worst fears.' A third competitor uses dogs' messes. Dogs' messes are my worst fears and too often accessed in this house. There will be lots of fine artist's material when I get a new puppy, so I hope he'll come and give me a hand to our mutual advantage. And so it goes on — but why drag poor old Turner into it? Channel 4 gives the money for the prize. I like Jon Snow, his ties and his news, but I think I shall have to give him up for a bit.
The television and the radio delight in feeding a morbid interest in illness and accidents with an ever-increasing number of programmes showing frightful things happening to people. Green-clad surgeons get their heads and hands together over some bit of body, stretchers bring a harvest of victims of horrifying accidents and a dif- ficult birth or two vie with each other to delight us. Turning on the radio, hoping for a cheery tune, I heard, 'Yes, blood blisters on the roof of the mouth can be very unpleasant.' I should jolly well think they could, but these are the least of the horrors on offer. If you happen to be even vaguely well you feel guilty because you aren't suf- fering like these unfortunates. Switch the thing off, you say. Well, of course, that's right, but lots of people must enjoy such ghoulish entertainment or it wouldn't be broadcast.
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