Appeared on “Hay-on-Sky” 25 May. There can't be many Arsenal fans who have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Latin bird names but the comedian Rory McGrath is one of them. The book is very easy to read with engaging, even tender, stories of his life and love of ornithology.
Bearded Tit is Rory McGrath's story of life among birds. From a Cornish boyhood wandering gorse-tipped cliffs listening to the song of the yellowhammer with his imaginary girlfriend, or drawing gravity-defying jackdaws in class when he should have been applying himself to physics, to quoting the Latin names of birds to give himself a fighting chance of a future with JJ - the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. As an adult, or what passes for one, Rory recounts becoming a card-carrying birdwatcher, observing his first skylark - peerless king of the summer sky - while stoned; his repeatedly failed attempts to get up at the crack of dawn like the real twitchers; and his flawed bid to educate his utterly unreconstructed drinking mate Danny in the ways of birding. Rory's tale is a thoroughly educational, occasionally lyrical and highly amusing romp through the hidden byways of birdwatching and, more importantly, a love story you'll never forget.
Rory McGrath is a British comedian, writer and TV presenter. He wrote
and appeared in the 1977 Cambridge Footlights Revue on the BBC in 1977
and he went on to write for Not the Nine O'clock News and Alas Smith
And Jones.
He also helped write and starred in Channel 4's Chelmsford 123 - a
sitcom set in Roman Britain in 123 AD! He is probably best known as a
team captain in the quiz show They Think Its All Over which has been
running for more than 10 series and pulls in an average audience of
nine million.
