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In a sure sign that we are starved of live music, a parrot has amassed millions of YouTube views of his warbling.
Tico, a yellow-headed Amazon parrot, accompanies the guitar playing of his owner Frank Maglio as he plays Whole Lotta Rosie and other classics in their Florida home. Tico & the Man's biggest hit is Here Comes the Sun, which has been viewed more than 3.8 million times. Musicians have praised his precise vibrato technique and more than one fan wished George Harrison was alive to witness the performance.
Mr Maglio told one newspaper the parrot had a full-blown smoker's cough and English accent when he adopted him from an older British woman 18 years ago. Happily for their act, the smoker's cough cleared up and his chirpings are crystal clear. He would probably sell out Croke Park three nights in a row, given the demand for live entertainment right now.
Unlike some potty-mouth parrots, Tico doesn’t swear during his performances.
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If only the US president Andrew Jackson had trained his parrot, Polly, in a similar way. Historian and Jackson biographer Mark Cheathem found an account of the profane parrot being removed from Gen Jackson's funeral in 1845, after it embarked on a bout of enthusiastic swearing. Funeral attendee Rev William Menefee Norment said the general's parrot got so excited by the wailing of the general's slaves that he let loose perfect gusts of "cuss words".
Which brings us neatly to another foul-mouthed parrot and a world leader. In 2004, a flurry of reports claimed that Winston Churchill’s macaw parrot was still alive and, even better, the British prime minister had taught her to hurl anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler abuse. Apparently, Charlie was 104 and living out her days in a garden centre in Surrey. America’s National Public Radio even dispatched one of its London-based engineers to check out Charlie. He stood patiently beside the bird for more than an hour but all he got for his trouble was an occasional whistle. No anti-Nazi tirade, mimicking the voice of Churchill. Never in the history of radio had so many minutes been spent on a parrot who delivered so little.
It fell to Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames, to insist that her father never owned a macaw in the 1930s or at any other time.
She said he did own an African Grey parrot in the mid-to late-thirties. It was “quite disagreeable and frequently bit those who tried to curry favour with it”, she was quoted as saying. But the angry bird was sold before Churchill became prime minister.
Claims that Churchill had taught the bird to swear were “too tiresome for words”, she said wearily.
If Charlie is the parrot who never was, Bud is the parrot who saw too much. The African Grey apparently witnessed the murder of Michigan man Martin Duram by his wife Glenna in 2015. After the murder, Mr Duram's first wife Christina Keller took in the parrot and noticed he was repeating an argument in a male and female voice, which always culminated in: "Don't [expletive] shoot", in the victim's voice. Little progress appeared to have been made in the case until a video of the loose-lipped parrot re-enacting the argument was aired by a local TV station. Three weeks later, Glenna Duram was arrested.
While there were suggestions that the parrot might be called as a witness, Bud never did take the stand, but Ms Duram was found guilty and jailed for life.
Bud is not the only parrot involved in a criminal case. In 1993, lawyer Charles Ogulnick tried to use the chirpings of a parrot called Max to save his client from a murder charge. Gary Rasp denied the charge of killing the parrot's owner, his business associate Jane Gill. After the murder, a pet shop took in Max, and the owner heard the parrot repeatedly saying, "No Richard, no, no, no". Could this parrot prove Gary Rasp's innocence? However, Max never got a chance to sing like a canary as the judge refused to admit the squawks as evidence. Gary Rasp was later jailed for life.
Owning an exotic bird seems to be mandatory for crime bosses so it’s not surprising that the parrots also get sucked into illegal activities. A Colombian parrot called Lorenzo unwittingly became a member of a drug cartel in 2010.
The Baranquilla gang members taught him to say “Run, run, the cat is going to get you” when he saw the police. He was seized by police during a raid but was let off with a slap on the wing.
A Swiss cockerel was not as lucky. In 1474, the male bird was accused of laying an egg. A judicial hearing at Basel declared it to be a satanic atrocity, as well as a "heinous and unnatural crime".
The poor bird was burned alive for, ahem, falling fowl of the law.
I would squeeze in a few more animal puns here, but I fear there have been too many twists in this particular tail.