The scourge of suburbia

I got thinking about our leylandii trees today. My Dad, displaying a disturbing level of childish excitement, bought a new chainsaw in Lidl with the specific purpose of chopping them down. The leylandii tree sometimes gets described as the scourge of suburbia. It's easy to see why. It grows like fuck and has an extremely wide (if shallow) root system that spreads into neighbouring gardens and often blocks drains. People moving into new houses often plant leylandii as a low maintenance, quick growing hedge, a green buffer to fall between pervy old neighbours' eyes and spouses' bronzing baps. Additionally, they are extremely dense, giving them the ability to block out noise (perfect for when uncle Cormac brings a couple of badgers up from Laois so the pet pitbull can have a bit of craic without worrying the neighbours).

Yet woe betide the inexperienced gardener who plants these aggressive shrubs without foresight. Because of their shallow roots they often grow lanky and topple over, smashing sheds, roofs, dreams and in the sad case of Llandon Burdon - shot dead in a leylandii dispute - even life itself. Ours are about 30 foot now and apparently constitute such a risk to society that an enigmatic man turned up at the door one day offering to chop them down for what he pitched as the bargain price of two thousand quid. By buying a chainsaw for €74.99 in Lidl, my Dad reckons he is going to shove it to the mystery man and make a saving of €1,925.01. He obviously hasn't worked the value of a human limb into this equation.


come on and prune me if ye think yer 'ard enough

I'll miss 'em when they are gone though. During summer nights, when I open my bedroom window to let in the night, I can sense them easily, looming and swaying in the dark. They are scented too and add a sort of woody ambiance to the garden air. Behind them lies a noisy football pitch that gets taken over by nocturnal hordes of bebo spawn. They are out there right now as it happens, gobbling yips (Kells street term for pills y'all) and messing around with some sort of motor bike which probably has a live cat tied to the back of it. The trees soften the chatter of noise from the pitch.

But they have to go. We looked into a drain near the back of the house today and hairy tangles of roots were busting through the soil and crawling thirstily toward the water pipe. This was creepy considering the trees themselves are about 11 meters from the house. The sight of the roots that close to the house gave the upcoming chainsaw massacre a personal edge for my father. After considering them for a few seconds he started pretending to choke himself, looked at me with a wild glint in his eye and said "did you ever see that film with the trees?"
"Which one?"
"the one where the trees start coming through walls and strangling people."
Yikes. The chainsaw comes out for its maiden run next week.



I wonder will Doves pull an Elbow this year and go nuclear with their forthcoming album Kingdom of Rust? I like their new single a lot. Because the web sheriff is after it, I can only post the video (below). Anyways the song has a rousing mariachi style clip to it, slightly tempered by some politely psychedelic xylophone sounds during its later moments. The vocal melody - funnily enough - is a big, sweeping, mournful north of England affair with lyrics about rusting factories, love and birds in flight over the moors. Here is a bonus MP3, Sea Song, from the stunning Lost Souls record. I only came back to Lost Souls recently and it floored me. Such a haunted album. It has more spooks in it than the big containment unit in Ghostbusters. Sea song sees the Goodwin brothers playing harmonica and keening from the deck of a spectral galleon in the fog.

MP3: Doves-Sea Song

Kingdom of Rust


Finally, I am seeking a ticket for Animal Collective in Dublin on the 27th. If you have one spare I'd be more than happy to purchase it :) email asleepontheheap@gmail.com