Like Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, apparently has restless thoughts and only finds ease in destroying. Doubtless, Dorries is aware on some level of the epic poem, in her capacity as guardian of the nation’s cultural treasures, and as an author herself, and yet she learns nothing from it. So how can it be true that the latest innocent public benefit to fall in her sights is a harmless wild bird that has delighted dog walkers and local schoolchildren for generations?
For nearly 20 years now, a mysterious, enormous and colourful parrot, nearly 3ft in height, has dwelt on the sylvan slopes of Robinswood Hill, a country park south of Gloucester, in a strip of land between the A38 and the M5. I glimpsed it once, as a younger man, flashing blue and red between the green woodland canopy and the orange evening sky and briefly I felt I saw the face of God. In Gloucester. The bird is even rumoured to have inspired local ski-jumper Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards to pursue his dreams of unassisted human flight, but his trainer, Bronson Peary, forbade him from using his preferred nickname of Eddie “That Enormous Colourful Parrot From Robinswood Hill” Edwards, saying it was “dumb-ass”.
