Penguin Post Office

Penguin Post Office was part of the BBC’s Natural World series. The documentary is about a British post office located in Port Lockroy in Antarctica, which is also a breeding ground for gentoo penguins.

Port Lockroy was previously a British base and research centre which was working on developing radio communication signals. Nowadays it is part of the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust, and has reopened as a post office and museum. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Antarctica. I can see why it attracts tourists. Penguins are extremely popular, and to have an opportunity to see them close-up in their natural habitat is very appealing. There is also the novelty of writing and sending a postcard from such an unusual location. There will some nostalgia to it too, as sadly post offices and even the act of sending a written postcard is becoming rarer these days. The museum section shows objects left behind from when the site was a research centre in the 1940s and 1950s, such of tins for Player’s Navy Cut tobacco, old alcohol bottles, a gramophone, old photographs of the Queen, and paintings by the men that worked in the research centre of attractive female Hollywood stars from the era such as Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors and Elizabeth Taylor.

The place looks very like a postcard, as it is gorgeous to look at, with the white of the snow and icebergs and the blue of the sky and sea, as well as the bright red of the Royal Mail post box. It all looks very beautiful, magical and charming. The post office volunteers there certainly think so. Jane Cooper, who has trained as a lawyer, was one of them, and said “The colours here it’s just hues of blue and grey and white, and very bright even on a dull day” and that it is “the nearest thing I can imagine to being on another planet on our planet”.

Kristy Leslie is a university teacher, and for this season was the Deputy Postmaster at the Penguin Post Office. She stated it was a great place to work and to be able to see the life cycle of the penguins. She said how much she enjoyed hand-franking all the postcards as it was relaxing, and the place was “Really romantic, it is pretty magical here”.

It isn’t all lovely for them all the time though. They have to endure the cold temperature and the blizzards, plus they have to clean the penguin poop off the rocks every day. But all of the workers spoke of seeing a different perspective from working there, that it made them appreciate life more and that you don’t need as much as you might think.

Of course the main focus of the programme was the natural history side, on the gentoo penguins. Most gentoos mate for life, with both male and female having an equal share in parenting duties, taking turns with one incubating the egg and the other going fishing for krill. They go fishing as far as ten miles from their land nesting sites, but penguins are right at home in the sea. As comically clumsy as they look on land, in the sea they are very graceful and fast, the fastest swimming bird on Earth in fact. This affinity to water seems to be something which is learned rather than inborn though, as the penguin chicks are scared of going into water at first.

Their nests are built using pebbles and stones. Normally birds use twigs from trees, but there are no trees in Antarctica, so stones will have to do. This makes those stones very valuable to the penguins though. The narration stated that “Picking the best pebble is the penguin equivalent of giving a loved one a box of chocolates”.

But the tone of the documentary didn’t stay sweetly romantic for long. If you think that penguins are as pure as the Antarctic snow, this programme will have shattered some illusions. They have a bad side. Some of that “bad side” was still kind of adorable. They often nick each other’s hard earned pebbles and stones, most of the stones end up getting stolen and restolen over and over again. We also see a love triangle, a male penguin is flirting with a female who isn’t his ‘wife’, but his ‘wife’ returns, and attacks and drives off her love rival before attacking her cheating ‘husband’.

There were other things which showed the harsh realities of the constant fight for survival in the natural world. Gentoo penguin females tend to lay two eggs at a time. The penguin chicks are born blind, exhausted from breaking out of their egg and completely dependent on their parents, needing constant care and feeding. When the two penguin chicks get older, they have to work for their food, and are encouraged to chase their parents for it, and to compete with one another. The one who gets there first is fed first. It’s basically to keep them fit and healthy, and to prepare them for when they have to fend for themselves as adults. But if food is scarce, the penguin parents will favour the stronger chick, that is the one with the better chance of survival. This is of course not very fair, especially considering that the chick which happens to be born first is at a distinct advantage. The first born usually hatches about three days before the second, so has a head start in getting fed and building up strength. To use a human comparison, it seems to be a bit like “an heir and a spare”, where royal families have tried to make sure they have at least two children, one to be the heir to the throne, and another in case anything happens to the older one. With the gentoo penguins, it doesn’t look quite as cruel as the shoebill for example, which tend to favour one chick and leave the other to starve as a matter of course. With the gentoos (and other birds) they are more likely to do that if needs be rather than as the default, but it does show that the fight for survival isn’t a level playing field.

Some scenes in this documentary were actually quite graphic. There were some gory shots of the torn remains of a penguin chick being swallowed by a skua. Then there was a scene when a penguin chick had gone into the territory of some neighbouring adults, and was brutally attacked by them. The chick was seen bleeding and lying on the floor, but the two adult penguins kept on attacking it until it was dead. The chicks sibling then seemed to grieve, as it was seen laying its head on the chick’s dead body. Apparently, this sort of thing has been very rarely seen and isn’t thought to happen often, but it was still unsettling.

Skuas are the other bird which have a significant role in this documentary, and it’s easy to cast them as the villains of the piece. They are technically the antagonists, as the stars of the documentary are the penguins, and skuas eat penguin eggs and penguin chicks. They have been known to eat the eggs and chicks of other skuas too. There is also the fact that, superficial as it is, skuas are a lot uglier than penguins, and let’s be honest, we humans tend to like cute animals better. But skuas have fluffy chicks of their own to worry about, and really all they’re doing is trying to survive. They have some similarities with penguins though. One parent sits on the nest while the other goes fishing, and they both take turns in doing this. A male, female and a chick are seen sharing a fish meal. They also seem to have a “an heir and a spare” approach, as again the female tends to lay two eggs at a time, and the skua family we were shown weren’t bothered about abandoning the second egg after the first one had hatched.

Still, while trying not to see nature as too much of a simplistic “goodies vs baddies” thing, the most satisfying scene in the programme was one where the penguin chicks got one over on a skua. The skua was seen chasing a group of penguin chicks. It looked strange, as at this stage in their growth even one chick was quite a bit bigger than the skua, but there was a large group of them running terrified from it. The chicks soon seemed to figure out they could be a strong force if they banded together, and collectively they managed to chase the skua away and drive it off. You felt like cheering them on.

This programme reminded me in some ways of the ’90s cartoon series The Animals of Farthing Wood, in that the title might sound sweet, but it was well known for showing the sort of gory, cruel deaths that happen in the natural world. This documentary was similar. The title Penguin Post Office sounds quite whimsical, and we got to see penguins looking cute slipping on rocks and swimming, and the nice post office, and the beautiful scenery, but they also showed that nature can be cruel and callous, and as I said a couple of the scenes were quite shocking. So I ended up having a mixed feeling about it as a viewing experience, but as a documentary programme I’d rate it as very good. I liked learning about the post office and its history, and penguins are always an interesting documentary subject.

Now 88

With the three main Now! albums every year usually the second one has lots of summer holiday themed stuff on the album cover as it tends to be released in late July.  They haven’t done that with Now 88, possibly because they have also released a Now That’s What I Call Summer compilation this year. Instead they have gone for a fairly straightforward album cover, that which shows a rollercoaster ride.

The opening track on the CD is ‘Ghost’ by Ella Henderson. In 2012 she was the SHOCK! ELIMINATION! of the ninth series of The X Factor after she ended up in the bottom two with eventual winner James Arthur. Fast-forward to 2014, and James Arthur has been dropped from his record label while Ella Henderson has just had a big number one single which also has the coveted position of track 1 on CD 1 of a Now compilation. That ‘Ghost’ has done so well came as a bit of a surprise, but it is the best single released by a former X Factor contestant in a very long time. It was co-written by Ryan Tedder who also co-wrote ‘Bleeding Love’ by Leona Lewis. The two tracks are quite similar, both being classy R&B ballads with horror imagery in the lyrics and performed by a female singer with a great voice. 1)

R&B was a dominant genre for much of the 2000s, then it took a bit of a backseat, but pop music trends go round in circles and it appears to be coming to the forefront again. There are a lot of R&B influenced tracks on this compilation, among them another singer named Ella, Ella Eyre who was the guest vocalist on Rudimental’s 2013 charttopper ‘Waiting All Night’. Her solo single on this CD is the stylish ‘If I Go’.

Like Ella Eyre, Sam Smith also first made the top 40 as a guest vocalist on tracks for urban-dance producers, in his case for acts such as Naughty Boy and Disclosure. Since then Sam Smith has been named both the BBC’s Sound of 2014 and  has won the Brits Critics Choice Award. While they don’t always make the right call, it’s fair to say they have with Sam Smith, as he has done very well both here and in the US. His track on this compilation, ‘Stay With Me’ is a very soulful tearjerker ballad, and shows that he has a very beautiful and very distinctive voice.

Then there’s ‘Classic’ by MKTO, which not just sounds retro-soul, but kind of lampshades how nostalgia focused it is, using terms like “rewind throwback old school” in the lyrics. It sounds very much like ‘I Want You Back’ by the Jackson Five. It references Cadillac cars, Marvin Gaye, Prince and Michael Jackson, but it’s really about a girl they fancy. As so often is the case with recent songs which talk about how gorgeous a girl is, she is compared to Beyonce. It’s all very cheesy really, but I can’t help but love it.

Ed Sheeran is mainly known as a sensitive singer-songwriter strumming an acoustic guitar, but he has used urban sounds in his songs now and again. He’s never really done anything as straight-up pop-R&B as ‘Sing’ though. Still, it has earned him his first number one single. It was co-written by man of the moment Pharrell Williams, and it sounds like an attempt to be like Justin Timberlake. The odd thing about that is that the real Justin Timberlake is struggling a bit. His most recent chart hit is featuring on Michael Jackson’s ‘Love Never Felt So Good’, which is appropriate as Timberlake began his solo career trying to sound like Michael Jackson. ‘Love Never Felt So Good’ is included on this compilation, though it is the solo Michael Jackson version rather than the one featuring Justin Timberlake. It is a pretty good track too, again very retro-soul and smooth, and was originally recorded as a demo in 1983 and has been re-worked to be included on Jackson’s posthumous Xscape album.

‘Problem’ by Ariana Grande is a bit of a Pick N Mix sort of track. It has lots of different elements which don’t really connect. Sassy brassy backing track, klaxons, Big Sean whispering the chorus, Ariana Grande doing vocal gymnastics and Iggy Azalea getting a big section to herself where she references Jay-Z’s ’99 Problems’. But it has all resulted in a very good track and a massive hit. Like Pick N Mix, sometimes random mixes can be just what we want.

Iggy Azalea has her own song on this compilation, the very fun ‘Fancy’. It has an ace video which parodies iconic ’90s movie Clueless. Charli XCX sings the chorus, and I continue to hope she gains more mainstream success as she is potentially a great pop star. For now it’s nice she has another hit, her first being ‘I Love It (I Don’t Care)’ with Icona Pop.

There are a few acts with two songs on this compilation 2). A lot of people, myself included, thought ‘Rather Be’ by Clean Bandit feat. Jess Glynne was a glaring omission from Now 87, but better late than never as it is included on this one, as the opening track of CD 2. While ‘Rather Be’ has been played so much this year fatigue will have inevitably set in now, it still sounds good. Possibly because it was a hit more recently, Clean Bandit’s follow-up single ‘Extraordinary’ is on CD 1. The guest vocalist on that is Sharna Bass, and the track makes great use of steel drums. ‘Extraordinary’ should have been an even bigger summer hit than it was, in my opinion.

Some other great summer anthems on this compilation include Fuse ODG feat. Sean Paul – ‘Dangerous Love’, and Calvin Harris going for a “what it says on the tin” approach titling his summer single ‘Summer’. Calvin Harris writes and produces brilliant tracks, though he sings ‘Summer’ himself, and let’s be honest his singing voice isn’t the best. It’s better when another pop star sings his songs.

An example of this is ‘I Will Never Let You Down’, which he wrote for Rita Ora. It’s a fantastic pop song, very well suited to Rita Ora’s voice and in my opinion the best song she has ever released. Having said that, it will probably feel awkward for her to perform in future, as she and Calvin Harris were in a relationship and have now split up.

There are a number of songs on here which reached number one that sampled songs which didn’t get that high. One is Secondcity – ‘I Wanna Feel’, which samples Toni Braxton’s ‘You’re Making Me High’ (number 7 in 1996). Rixton’s ‘Me And My Broken Heart’ samples ‘Lonely No More’ by Rob Thomas (number 11 in 2005). The best of this bunch is Sigma’s ‘Nobody To Love’, which rather than a sample per se is a reworking of a remix they did of ‘Bound 2’ by Kanye West (number 55 in 2013).

I was half-expecting Neon Jungle’s ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ to be a cover or a sample of the Guns N Roses track of the same name, but it isn’t. It isn’t a cover version at all, but a pretty decent electro-dance track from the urban girl group. It does remind me of another song though, ‘Kernkraft 400’ by Zombie Nation.

‘Jubel’ by Klingande is pretty rubbish and uninspiring. A sleazy saxophone, something which sounds like a synthesised banjo and, I quote the CD booklet on this, “an unnamed guest singer”. will.i.am somehow got to number one with the dreadful ‘It’s My Birthday’. But no song on this compilation is as lazy, shallow, annoying and pointless as ‘Wiggle’ by Jason Derulo feat. Snoop Dogg. It really offers nothing at all other than yet another song about appreciating “big bootys”.

But there is some good stuff on here. ‘Budapest’ by singer-songwriter George Ezra is a very nice acoustic guitar track which also uses a Vox Continental organ. I like that sound as it makes me think of cinemas. The crowd of people wearing 3D glasses and eating popcorn in the video probably adds to that.

Sometimes a remix can turn a good song into a great one. The Robin Schultz remix of ‘Waves’ by Mr. Probz and ‘Stay High’ by Tove Lo feat. Hippie Sabotage are examples of that. True they were fine in their original forms, but the remixes gave them that extra something which allowed them to become international hits. ‘Waves’ is a good soundtrack to relaxing on a sunny beach by the sea, and ‘Stay High’, originally titled ‘Habits’, talks of always being in a drunken melancholy haze after a bad break-up.

While it isn’t a remix, Coldplay’s ‘A Sky Full Of Stars’ taken from their new album Ghost Stories may sound like one. Like a lot of Coldplay songs it’s a nice, wistful stargazing track but it has more of an electronic sound as it was produced by dance DJ Avicci.

Overall, Now 88 has a lot of forgettable songs on it, but the good stuff included is very good.

Notes

1) Ella Henderson isn’t the only former contestant from a reality TV singing contest to get a surprise charttopper included on this compilation. Becky Hill, who had been on The Voice features on dance producer Oliver Helden’s ‘Gecko (Overdrive)’.

2) The other acts that make two appearances on this compilation are Jess Glynne (on ‘Rather Be’ and her solo song ‘Right Here’), and boyband with guitars The Vamps, who have ‘Last Night’ and one with Demi Lovato – ‘Somebody To You’). In Demi Lovato’s last few singles they’ve had her doing pop-rock (‘Heart Attack’), the pop release of a Disney ballad (‘Let It Go’), club-dance (‘Neon Lights’) and collaborating with first Cher Lloyd (‘Really Don’t Care’) and now The Vamps. They really don’t know what direction to stick with with her do they?

3) Speaking of ‘Let It Go’, the version that actually was a hit is included on here, Idina Menzel’s one in the Disney animated film Frozen. The track is not at all well suited to summer months, and it’s a vastly overrated song anyway. There, I’ve said it. I mean, the animation sequence which includes the song in Frozen is good, but out of context the song isn’t much to write home about. While Idina Menzel may, technically, be a good singer, her voice isn’t pleasant on the ears at times, it can be a little shrill and screechy.

4) According to the CD booklet, before Kiesza became a pop star she was a trained ballerina, had been in the Navy and was offered to train as an army sniper. It’s a pity her song ‘Hideaway’ isn’t as interesting as her C.V.

5) ‘Touch’ by Shift K3Y isn’t a bad track, but what a rubbish name. It looks like a car number plate! I know replacing letters with numbers is nothing new, but it reads like “Shift Kthreey”. Couldn’t they have just gone for “Shift Key”? Fair enough, pop acts want their name to be findable on the internet but it still looks daft.

6) I was surprised that Paloma Faith’s ‘Only Love Can Hurt Like This’, her biggest hit to date, was written by Diane Warren. She is famous for penning big, bombastic movie ballads like ‘There You’ll Be’ by Faith Hill, ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ by Starship and ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’ by Aerosmith. ‘Only Love Can Hurt Like This’ is more of an understated pop-soul song, which granted is the sort of thing Paloma Faith does.