Mouth of the Wash

The EU have finally got around to launching their new organic logo to be used across all member states.

Trumpet fanfare

"Oh, I see " (pause for collective sigh) 

Can someone get me the "Whack, whack oops" sound effect that DLT used to play in the 1980's.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for democracy but do we really need to go to so much trouble on this stuff?  Considering how long this has taken, that's one bland logo.  Did James Blunt design it? 

Anyway the launch of it is timed nicely to coincide with the collapse of the organic dream and the growing acceptance between conventional and organic producers that the solution lies somewhere in the middle and that the name calling should stop.  At least there's some good news.

I called in to see my good friends Stuart and Alison yesterday.  They have started a number of diversified foody ventures (butchery, school dinners, catering etc) and recently bought a small industrial estate so that they can accomodate all of their activities (and 30 staff) in one place close to the farm.  

I had my first tour of the newly-opened butchers shop yesterday and was presented with this. 

It's a cured sausage - the lovechild of a Polish recipe and Lincolnshire ingredients.  Stuart has a Polish butcher on site (Boston is the migrant capital of Britain) and these are the first product from the newly constructed smokehouse .

"Here you go, Nobby," said Stuart, "Is that big enough for you."

Review:  Imagine that you are one of the Borrowers and someone gave you a human-sized peperami. It is quite an intimidating piece of food in that respect.

Good quality ingredients, plenty of flavour.  Intend to try slicing it frying it a la black pudding.

Everything in my fridge now smells of smoke and garlic, even the milk; which led to a memorable bowl of porridge at breakfast.

I'm of the opinion that a blog entry should be written quickly to record a thought.  Often when I try write a longer and more polished entry the original point is lost.

Having said all of that, I have just re-read a few recent entries and noticed how poor my typing has become. There are missed words, bad spelling and many examples of a wrongly used there/their and its/it's.  This is haste, that's what it is.

It looks as though I have been dictating these entries too quickly to a monkey........with glaucoma........that is using a blackberry.....and wearing mittens......and that speaks English as a second language.

I will start reading what I have written more carefully.  I promise.

The Co op has received some undeserved mockery for the terminology on their sausage roll packaging which described the product as "ambient."

The phrase "ambient" is widely-used in the food industry to describe unrefrigerated storage.  What does the Telegraph suggest that they should have put instead?  That's right - "chambre."

Three cheers to the Plain English Campaign for ridiculing the Co op for writing the word "ambient" when there is a perfectly good French word available which means the same thing. (insert sarcmark here)

I bought my current house with a clear vision of what I wanted to do to it.  Finally I have worked my way down the list to the bit that says "Demolish that bloomin' ugly looking porch around the front door."

I am having the front lawn and the drive into the house re-shaped and, in true farmer fashion, we're not faffing about.  The porch, which was neither original, functional nor (in my opinion) beautiful, is now but a distant memory and has been trampled beneath the tracks of the 360 digger pictured.  There remains a rather messy mess around the door which will need to be replaced with a surround which is more typical of the period and the local style.  By coincidence my friend Will, a London architect, is visiting this weekend.

I've been in London for the weekend.  Obviously there were geese walking by St Pauls Cathedral

This was for some sort of tv advert, I think.  Good to see that recession hanot impacted on the adverising industry's cocaine consumption yet.

I had a meeting yesterday with a farmer who also runs an irrigation business.  We are looking at the most efficient way to water some of our summer-flowering plants.  He did a Nuffield Scholarship on the subject and is one of the leading lights in drip-feed technology.  His name is Anthony Hopkins. 

It's bloomin' unlucky, I reckon, when someone with the same name as you becomes famous after you have been christened.  He must have heard every comment in the book.  If I had the same name as a famous person I would carry a cricket bat to thank people for mentioning the fact.

I managed to resists making any corny comments to Anthony although God knows how hard it was.  When I offered him a coffee I wanted to say "... or would you prefer fava beans and a nice chianti. Th th th th th.  I wanted to say it so badly that I almost exploded.  I had another little wobble as he was leaving and I had to stick a biro in my leg to stop me from saying "Enjoy what Remains Of The Day."

Anyhow.  Names have been a bit of a thing going on lately.  Lovely eco-entrepreneur Heather Gorringe, my favouritest businesswoman in the whole world (after Ivana Trump, obviously), was telephoned by someone looking for Herbert Orange.  I intend to call her that for evermore.

Also. Following on that the stuff that I wrote about Richie Farmer, the commissioner for agriculture in Kentucky, I have stumbled across nominative determinism.  This is where you have a name which is in some related to your work. I was playing a game on the subject on Twitter the other night with Jack Davies (he works for another farming journal - I'll probably get dragged down to FW Towers and tarred and feathered for putting that link in.  No doubt they will use red and yellow feathers to make me look even more corporate).

 The best names of actual people that we came up with were (I'll do a Pick of the Pops Top 10)

10  Chair of aneaesthesiology and pain management in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois is called William J Tranquilli

9  In the early '70s, the art adviser to Newcastle Education Authority was Geoffrey Drewitt

8  There is a reasonably well known jazz drummer called Ray Pounds. "Ray Pounds on the drums"

7 Minister for Tourism in Gibraltar - Joe Holiday

6 Presenter of Farming Today - Anna Hill

5 Presenter of Farming Today - Anne-Marie Bullock (I think that Tina Turner's real name is similar to that.  I am not suggesting that Tina Turner is presenting Farming Today these days)

4 Presenter of Farming Today - Mark Holdstock (Hold Stock geddit???)

3 Presenter of Farming Today - Ian Silage-Clamp (I made that one up)

2 Chap from Britsih Waterways - Lee King

1 American Urologist - Dick Chop

I have just heard on r4 that someone has "invented" a new punctuation mark.  It is known as the "sarcmark" and it's purpose is to denote sarcasm.

Isn't it fantastic (insert sarcmarc).  How did we cope without it (insert sarcmark).  Aren't you pleased that people devote their lives to....etc

In a lot of modern communication forms (like email and text) it is difficult to convey when you intend to be ironic.  Most people use a stack of exclamation marks at the moment and this sarcmark is supposed to replace that.

I don't use exclamtion marks very often (it's like laughing and clapping yourself when you tell a joke) and I haven't sent a text message since 2005.

I won't be using sarcmarks on here.  For the record though, unless I point out otherwise, it is best to assume that I am being sarcastic.

I've not been in a supermarket so far this month and I think that I will be able to hold out until the start of February.  I've still been eating like a king.  Last night I cooked pheasant for a friend and the entire plateful was made up from things from the farm (some had been frozen in the summer so I'm not boasting about my carbon footprint her).

I am making soups this afternoon to use up some grizzly looking things from the fridge and pantry.  I've gone semi-industrial and intend to freeze quite a lot.  There is bacon and artichoke (PARPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!), there is French Onion (which made use of some undrinkable white wine) and the there is a pheasant and vegetable (with pearl barley and green lentils).  The last one is a hearty soup. At the moment it's so hearty that your spoon would stand upright in it and you would need a throat massage to swallow it.

Anyway.  Mum was also having a kitchen odyssey today.  When I called in for a cup of tea and a chat, she was baking.  I sat in the breakfast room reading the paper and talking to her as she went about her floury business.  All of a sudden...

Mum:      "Look, I can't talk.  I need to concentrate on what I'm doing"

Me:         "Eh?"

Mum       "I've put the tart in the oven and forgotten to put in the nuts"

Me          "It'll be fine"

Mum       "I've already forgotton to put any honey in because I was talking to you"

Me          "What are you cooking?"

Mum       "A honey and nut tart"

We have had the farm and all of our environmental features and habitats surveyed by Natural England over the last two months.  We were selected for one of the spot checks to ensure that we are abiding by the rules of our Countryside Stewardship agreement. 

This surveying is a fairly major undertaking, it was all done using a measuring wheel.  The lady who did it was extremely considerate and practical in her approach to the job but had to make six visits to complete the job. 

We had a problem with the field margins on one field that we had rented out to another grower.  They were standing boxes on the margins when the inspection took place and the field was disqualified.  We had allowed a reasonable margin for error by installing 15% more environmental features than we required for ELS, thank goodness.  My theory was that some would not be successful habitats. I had also failed to count a few eligible grass buffer strips so it all worked out just fine.

I'm pleased that we entered the scheme when we signed up for LEAF Marque.  I'm not convinced that it has transformed the bio-diversity of the farm yet, but it has started that learning process.

I am fully supportive of the Campaign for the Farmed Environment, of course, but I'm jolly pleased that we are a step ahead of it.  My primary focus for 2010 has to be the commercial well-being of our business and it would have been a distraction that we can well do without at the moment.

I'll tell you one thing.  We always seem to be the farm that is selected for "spot checks."  We were also in the percentage that had our accounts checked by the HDC.  I'm not sure why this is.  My handwriting is reasonably good and I usually draw neat maps so maybe people think that we will be an easy touch.