Nest Building & Other Antics

A scrupulously tidy garden is not always a good thing. It's much better to leave dead leaves and twigs for the birds. In the last few days they've been busy collecting useful material from my garden. I often see a female blackbird searching & gathering. When she flies off she's holding a huge amount in her beak. She particularly favours dead grass so I've been giving her a helping hand by leaving it on the patio area. The cheeky sparrows have been having a lovely time dust bathing in an unplanted area and popping in and out of the privet hedge.

The Pope's Toilet

This film is a nutty Spanish-language farce is set Set in Melo, a godforsaken village near the Uruguay-Brazil border. It tracks the misfortunes of a dirt-poor petty smuggler named Beto. The film unfolds in 1988, during Pope John Paul II's visit. Dozens of economically struggling locals devise plans to turn a buck from the arrival of the papal father -- such as baking cakes and grilling chorizo sausages -- only one concocts a scheme to earn a fortune from offering the only public toilet in town. Our hero Beto, reasons that all of those cakes and sausages will be digested rather quickly and that the 50,000 expected visitors will soon be clamoring to use the porcelain bowl. Of course, toilets abound in South America, but Beto sets his public toilet apart by crowning it with an aura of prestige -- his will be the only Pope's Toilet in all of Uruguay, and the crowds, he is certain, will soon be clamouring to use it. Unfortunately, before he can set his scheme in motion, Beto must first locate the most appropriate toilet and make several risky trips, on his bike, across the Brazilian border and back to that end. Then, just as Beto is within arm's reach of success, someone thoughtlessly steals his beloved bicycle. Regardless of the complications at hand, however, Beto's determination persists. Parts of the film are truly touching and laugh-out-loud funny. The film shows how poverty in community happens in a humane, if saddening, way. It also highlights the eternal possibility of hope which gets expressed as a get-rich-quick scheme and how it enlivens and challenges community life.