Life in the North East of England (66)
Rod Adams
Now I have long held the view that if Garlic did everything that was claimed for it, it would be available only on prescription. You may gather from my “Doubting Thomas” viewpoint that my only use for it in the past has been in curries or Spaghetti Bolognese. And it remains so. I grow the stuff but it never gets near my drinkers. However I read an article this week arguing the case for it on the basis of properly conducted scientific research which has made me think that perhaps there is a case for it after all. And I use the word perhaps deliberately, I’m still not convinced. I knew that Greek athletes chewed garlic before competing and that the Egyptian slaves building the pyramids were given a clove a day, as were the soldiers of the Roman Legions, to sustain their strength and fight off illness but not that it was used as a cheap antibiotic in the First World War.
Apparently in 1858 Louis Pasteur confirmed the antibacterial action of garlic and later work established that it is a mere 1% of the strength of Penicillin, but antibacterial it is, however weak. Without doubt it is a source, be it small, of Vitamins C and E, Calcium, Cobalt, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, Sulphur, Zinc and contains some protein. Research in Japan indicated that Lectin extracted from garlic inhibited the growth of cancerous cells but didn’t touch healthy ones, and in America a trial there showed that people taking Allicin capsules (Allicin being the main active ingredient in garlic) were one-third as likely to develop a cold as the same number of volunteers taking a placebo and if they did get a cold they got over it more quickly. Allicin is unstable when heated which could mean that some of the odourless preparations prepared by heating or solvent extraction might not be any use.
Allicin you see is not present in the bulb itself but is produced by enzyme reaction when the clove is crushed or digested, in fact the best way to release it is by chewing but you might lose a few friends along the way! There are claims that taking garlic supplements as a way of cutting down the risk of stomach cancer is of no benefit, whilst regularly eating raw or cooked garlic cuts the risk by half.
By the time I had taken all of this in and also read that properly prepared, “standardised” garlic tablets can slightly lower cholesterol levels, reduce blood pressure, minimise clotting and generally protect the heart I found myself right back to where I started from. Why isn’t it on prescription? Make your own mind up whether you use it on the birds, yourself or both. It’s your choice, me I’m sticking to the curries!
Deja vu! I’d been in this situation before. Last year just before going on holiday I’d picked up a skin infection on my foot for which my Doctor had prescribed some “Canesten HC” cream. This time, off on my travels again, and I had a rash on the shin of the leg I broke a long time ago. My GP examined it gravely whilst my wife looked on. “Dermatitis Rod” he said loudly “induced by the stress of being apart from your wife for three weeks.”
She beamed. She hadn’t seen him winking at me as he said it, nor his grin as he wrote his words down on my record card intoning at the same time “stress induced Dermatitis brought about by leaving wife to go on holiday.” I love the man. “Betnovate RD cream ought to do it” he said and prescribed me a tube big enough to last me for the duration of several holidays!
Enough in fact to try out on Jimmy. Jimmy was an eighteen year old Blue Cock who suddenly developed a skin condition on his neck which was irritating him so much that he was digging into it with his beak and drawing considerable amounts of blood. I had no wish to kill him and, as the preparation I have used in the past for mixed bacterial/fungal infections, a product called Hexocil, was no longer available at that time, Jimmy was treated with Betamethasone Valerate. O.K. so it’s a topical steroid but Jimmy’s racing days are long gone, if he ever had any that is!
As a racer he wasn’t, but he bred some good birds and he had always been a special pet of mine. His particular talent lay in fighting me; he would go out of his way to have a go and still did so even at eighteen years of age. Skin diseases aren’t that common in pigeons, for obvious reasons, but in really old birds they can be. “Old dogs and old men smell,” that kind of thing. To my surprise the cream worked. On the strength of that once-off trial I can hardly recommend it but it is something to bear in mind should all else fail.
What’s in a name eh? I’ve heard them referred to as Trappers, Flappers, “Ticers” (as in to entice), Flirt birds and even “Deceivers”, the big Pouter-like Buchons in Argentina. I refer of course to those unfortunate pigeons that usually take a hammering every race day in the UK. Normally crossbreds of Fantail or Tippler origin, small, and nearly always white, these are the pigeons used on allotment sites (where no flying pigeons are allowed out on race days after a certain time or you are automatically barred from the next race) to pull the racers down out of the sky There is a subtle difference between a Trapper and a Flapper, though their jobs are interchangeable if need be.
Both are usually “cut down” on one wing but the Flapper does just as it’s name suggests, being held in the hand and waved up and down in the air to attract the attention of the race birds whilst the Trapper is usually thrown towards the loft door at an opportune moment to achieve the same end. “Ticers” are like the Buchons or Flirt birds. Brightly coloured and active about the loft area, though being virtually non-fliers birds they seldom rise above the height of the loft.
All are used as decoys with the same end in mind. A “quick trap.” This is an absolute must on a crowded allotment site where one circle around the loft can be the difference between first and being nowhere especially in Combine races where maybe 20/30,000 birds are competing and where a single “lap of honour” by a returning pigeon will put you well down the sheet!
These birds must love Saturdays! Being stuck in a basket, a convenient box or up somebody’s woolly pullover, only to be hauled out and waved about, or pelted down at every batch or single bird that goes over can’t be much fun. On a long day even a Jackdaw merits a Trapper! No wonder they run for cover after being thrown. On race days Don and Little Bob, two friends of mine flying in partnership, keep their Trappers in a basket on a bench mid-way between their two lofts.
Not flying myself I was watching an Open Race at their loft one day. Five birds arrived on the allotments together. It was complete pandemonium with everyone shouting, whistling, waving Flappers about and throwing Trappers for all they were worth as the arrivals sailed merrily around above them. My friends were pelting their Trappers at the loft door for all they were worth, completely regardless of the height or approach direction of their bird. Pigeons can’t get down on a tail wind like they can if coming into the wind, but in the excitement of course all that was forgotten.
“Oh hell” said one of my friends as his pigeon suddenly got itself into a position to trap, “there’s no Trappers left in the basket”. The Trappers, being no fools, knew the game; they were all hiding in the loft. All but one. That had stealthily made its way along the gantry and was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible under the bench.
I grabbed it, waited for the right moment and threw it past the lads and onto the gantry in front of the door. In like a stone went their widowhood cock. They both turned around and just gaped at me. “Where did that come from” said one of them. “Never mind where it came from” I said “time it in!” They won.
I was later told that the man who was second to them that day was not impressed when he heard the story. “He should have minded his own business “he said, and stalked out of the clubhouse in high dudgeon. Sportsmanship is alive and well, and living in the North East of England!
