March 2008 Archives

This, my friends, is a sea cow. Or manatee. Or mami water. Or (my personal favourite here) a dugong.

These here dugongs in Lake Volta in Ghana, West Africa, are slowly being wiped out. There's a Guardian article here.

I think that us farmers need to show a bit of solidarity to the poor little sea cow. Well I say little, your Dugong is about the size of a sofa (yes, sofas vary, I'm aware of that. Two seater, three seater, recliner, 3 years 0% finance. Enough questions - I'm just quoting the Guardian here)

Some people think that they are mermaids on account of their teats. I don't think that, I'm just telling you what they think. That's the last thing that I think. Good grief haven't they seen that picture - she's no bloomin' mermaid.

According to the article One fisherman from Akosombo, a town on the banks of the Volta, refuses to speak of mami water, other than to say: "It is not an animal. It is a woman." WHAT??? How lonely is that fisherman? I'll have what he's drinking. She wouldn't be mistaken for a woman even in Spalding on a Saturday night (Boston maybe, Spalding no)

Anyway. That's the sea cow. Be glad you don't have to milk it. Or marry it.

Can you remember the entry about the podcast that Clare, Tim, Ian and I were faffing around with at Oxford Farming Conference.

Well, it's finally up on their website for you to have a little listen to. Click here to find it.

Comments welcome. Well, I say welcome. If you put that it is too long and a bit boring in parts then I probably won't publish your comment (we already know that it's a bit too long). My voice is right at the end of the second podcast and my voice sounds inexplicably fey and squeaky. Not sure why this should be, I sound like Brian Blessed in real life.

Here (since it's a wet day and I've got time to do it) is a picture of Brian Blessed so that you see how I actually sound.

After the recent stream of puns for titles I decided to enter some of them as entries in the National Pun Awards.

I sent the best ten puns in hoping that at least one of them would make it into the finals. But no pun in ten did.

Oooo while we are on the subject of potatoes (what do you mean when were we ever off it), did you see the programme on BBC3 about freaky eaters. You can watch it again here

You must be impressed at the way that my cultural landscape reaches from high-minded (pink) newspapers to the trendy youth tv channels. I'm clearly a schizoid or something. In truth BBC3 is probably a bit too youthful for me. I need a bit of translation to understand anyone aged under twenty these days.

Anyway, this programme, right? Basically there's this girl, right? And she only eats potatoes and like no other things. You know what I mean? Like potatoes all the time, right? So, like, these people, you know, they start learning her how to eat other things and she's like

It was a well good programme. it was mint. lol

Then afterwards I thought probably only eating potatoes isn't such a bad thing. Consumption of potatoes has been dropping at about 5% a year for the last few years. We need more girls like her. Instead of criticising the poor old bird, we should be giving her an OBE. The BPC (that's the British Potato Council and not the Bible Presbyterian Church btw) should be sending her a certificate of some sort.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/rural-life/2007/11/spuds-i-like.htmlToday's pun is a C-, I'm afraid. It's a pass but that's about all.

Right. I've started reading the Financial Times. Yes, be impressed. In fact I love the Financial Times. The pages are just as big and flappy as the Telegraph (the little Guardian is useless for lighting the Woodburner) but you don't have to wade through a bunch of pictures of Kate Middleton to find out what's going on in the world. Plus it's pink, which is cool.

I am always amazed by how relevant the FT is to what's going on in my life.

Anyway. Yesterday there was This article. I have long pondered over the fact that wheat is a staple food when it only yields about 8 or 9 tonnes to the hectare. We can get around 50 tonnes of potatoes from the same area of land.

Check it out there, Relfster, it's official - POTATOES RULE

Here's a link which I have picked up from Nontropolis, the blog of Steve Fairchild in the States.

It's fairly puerile - you can see what frame of mind I'm in at the moment - but is perhaps more entertaining than an entry about the impending meltdown of capitalism and the Western economy.

Good Tractor Driver needed in Hertfordshire.

I'm assuming that out of the eight people who read this blog there are at least two highly-skilled operators who are looking for a job. Well today is your lucky day.

A mate of mine is looking for someone good and has a great opportunity for the right person. It would be good for someone who wants to use their own initiative. Like me he is an equal opportunity employer (excluding dossers, junkies or insufferable know-it-alls).

This is a shameless exploitation of the eight of you but if you each tell one person we could be reaching out to a total audience that is in double figures. Leave a comment and I will put you in touch.

Herself, on her funny blog, has commented on my last column in the FW magazine about saunaing (that is the correct verb, no need for you to check it).

Whoahh, Matthew, I hear you say. You're bloomin' well cross promoting again. Well get over it - this, my feathered friend, is the way that the world of blogging works (it's an unscrupulous place).

Besides, she has some interesting stuff to say. It was good to get the inside track on this whole sauna business. This bit particularly cracked my pepper. "I did read Matthew Naylor going on about sauna in the last issue of FW [21.03.08]. Fascinating to see how a Brit reacted to a very normal Finnish activity. The way I read it - the culture shock was overwhelming."

Going.. on.. about.. I love that. It makes me sound like a right old woman

You must read what she said if you haven't already, I agree with it all. I'm a big fan of sauna in principle but unfortunately I was born into the body of a repressed little Englishman with no prize-winning physical qualities. I still feel that the sauna experience would be enhanced if you were physical perfection made flesh and could swagger in with your willy swaying from ankle to ankle.

Have I found my level. It seems as though I always end up doing knob gags and toilet humour. Probably I'm part-German or something. I'm not sure what's acceptable on here. Since most of the farming community spend their time groping cows boobs and doing things to bottoms (Is that what they do? What is that thing that they've got their arm in? You can probably tell that I don't do livestock), I'm guessing that they are unshockable.

Anyway if you are too mean to buy the magazine here's the article she was refering to (you should be ashamed of yourself).

Have a look at this hilarious discussion thread here. It has made my day.

It is clearly a wind up. My only concern is that when farmers rise to the bait, they often reveal a self-righteousness that they have no right to. They also reveal some pretty crappy grammar too. (The Campaign for Spellcheck on FWiSpace starts here)

We should welcome challenges to our shibboleths (look it up). There isn't a lot of moral high ground in the Fens.

I just spent bloomin' ages typing a lovely entry for you and it's disappeared. I forgot to blinkin' well save it. I have problems with this computer when I try to do more than one thing at once and it all jams up. So that entry is gone for ever.

Still. We got a nice title out of it.

The pun titles are back! Check out that beauty, I'm flying.

(Goodness know how but I resisted the temptation to do a "Hot Crossed Pun" entry over Easter.)

At the moment we can only use the exit gate to get into the yard.

There is an interesting article on Money Week here

It says that the following graph illustrates a classic boom/crash situation

It then shows us recent movement of the wheat price

Go figure

We had a demonstration of a Case Puma this week. One of the MXUs was in for some repairs under warranty and they dropped this off.

It looks quite smart if a little boss-eyed. I didn't have time to drive it (yeh, but you had time to photograph it though, didn't you. Hmmm fair point) but I had a little sit on the seat. It all looked too complicated and I haven't got the spare brain capacity for any new information, what with currently having the turnip for a brain thing going on.

I once had to drive a Case CVX for a day with a hangover. I can remember spending ten minutes trying to understand how to turn the pto on and off and I nearly burst into tears at some point between minute seven and minute nine. I refuse to go within 20 metres of a Fendt for this reason.

It's not long since my last rant about technology when my telephone answering button in the car was replaced by a child's Speak and Spell toy and a plasma screen with a picture of the Rocky Mountains on it.

At what point did technology cease to be our servant and become our master? Any gadget that arrives with an instruction manual is poor technology in my opinion. Someone needs to tell these machines that they should be doing the hard work while we watch.

Look at the comment here. Matthew Taylor, Matthew TAYLOR?

Surely this is the big time. When people who read your blog NEARLY know your name.

This is nearly as bad as an incident at the Royal Ag. College in Cirencester last month which I have been meaning to write about. I was at the bar and a student came up. "Hey, aren't you the chap who writes for the Farmers Weekly."

He probably didn't say chap, actually, this not being the 1920's. This whole saying "chap" habit is something that I've picked up from Ian Pigott - they all talk like that in the Home Counties.

In fact this student definitely wouldn't have said "chap" ; he was only a youth . He would surely have said, "Hey, aren't you the DUDE who writes for the Farmers Weekly." Or probably he said "turd" and I misheard him. Anyway this is of zero relevance to the story.

So, back to the bar. I'm standing there basking in my celebrity, feeling pleased with myself, looking rather smug and nodding with fake modesty. Then the youth follows it up with, "Yes, I just said to mate, look that's Hugh Broom over there."

I've got a new toy. I've been playing with it all week...

Hey, I actually managed to get a few hours of ploughing today. I bloomin' love ploughing. It requires just enough concentration to keep you gripped but has a nice speed to it too. The main appeal for me is that it is absolutely calm and solitary.

Ploughing is normally when I am at my most imaginative. I never go ploughing without a pencil and notepad because I usually come up with all sorts of ideas.

Today was different, though. Not one idea. I've been like this since I got back from Brussels. I think someone has removed my brain and replaced it with a turnip. I seem just about capable of performing the basic functions at the moment.

I haven't moaned about first generation biofuels for a while. I still dislike them anyway. I have just received the latest paper from the excellent Dennis Avery. It sums up my concerns very nicely...

Did you see this story? John Maylam, the Sainsbury potato buyer, has been arrested over allegations of a £3million backhander.

Ha ha ha. Rumours of this sort of thing have always been rife in the fresh produce industry. I bet there were a few supermarket buyers spluttering their Cocopops across the tablecloth when they read that article. Ha ha ha.

There is too much to condense into words today.

I'll tell you what has struck me though. Don't the days fly by quickly. I normally get in a bit after 7.00am with a list of jobs. I can't normally get cracking with my telephone calls for ages because most people don't start work until 9.00am. Then it all starts kicking off and by the time I've finally got a moment to start tackling the list of jobs I look at my watch and it's 5.15pm and most normal people have gone home. We didn't get away until nearly 7.30pm last night because we had a few problems to address in the packhouse. I sometimes feel that everyone else is only doing a part-time job.

My mate Tim Teague was on Farming Today today. You've seen him on a snow bike already and now you can listen to him here if you wish.

He was explaining about the Hereford-bred cattle that he rears for Waitrose. The calves that he fattens for beef production are sired by Herefords but born to dairy cows. Radio 4 have been trying to stir up a storm in a cupcake about this sort of cross-breeding.

The discussion thread on the Farming Today website shows that the listeners have a good understanding of the subject. This is reassuring; there is too much scaremongering about breeding. Breeding new varieties and breeds has been an important part of farming since agriculture began.

I still feel that the UK is missing a trick by being romantic about pure breeds, they often yield less meat sometimes of inconsistent quality. I'm sure that the GM debate hasn't helped to sell the merits of breeding programmes to Middle England. Still, what do I know, I'm just a flower grower.

I have finally settled on the conclusion that I am in the prime of my life.

Oh, so it's one of those introspective and maudlin Sunday entries is it?

Yup, it certainly is.

So how did you come by this revelation, Matthew?

What a glorious morning. The sun is blazing and the air is crisp. I did my first drive around the daffodil fields quite early and it was a pleasure to be on the farm at that time of day. If it wasn't my job to do it, it would be a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

Contrast that with yesterday afternoon...

This entry is rather distasteful but it is a subject that some may appreciate. My sister was talking to a senior member of our extended family at dinner last weekend. He is not noted for listening carefully.

He was telling her, in rather some detail, about the death of his son's dog.

"What was the dog's name?" asked my sister.

"Oh, it was Cancer," he replied with a very grave expression. I hope that he had misheard the question. This set me thinking about names for pets.

Is there a correct protocol to pet naming? I'm always a bit uncomfortable with pets that have a human name. To my mind Roy, Ian or Tony would all be inappropriate names for a cat, for instance. We once caught a peach-faced love bird on the farm and raised him as part of the family. He chose his own name as it happens. We told him to chirp when he approved of our suggestion and this is how he came to be called Keith.

In his later life, my grandfather bred labradors. He always named each litter of pups as a collection. I can remember that one litter was named after trees, Ash, Willow, Birch etc. There was one named after precious stones with names like Ruby and Diamond.

My sister and I once helped to name a litter when we were young and they ended up as Dukes of Hazard characters, Roscoe, Bo, Daisy, Luke and so on. I appreciate that this cultural reference dates us somewhat.

Even though he bred many litters, my grandad never became so desperate that he had to resort to critical illnesses as a category. Can you imagine calling your dog in a public area if it had a name like Stroke, Heart Disease or Road Accident.

Perhaps this is the litmus test. A good pet's name should be something that you could shout with confidence in a crowded park. It would be a brave person who named their dog "Rape."

I'm back at work today. I got back on the Eurostar last night.

I am in a very serious mood today. It's a funny old business. While I was in Brussels with the Leadership group, I was really rather frivolous. I'm not sure why all this is. When I'm put in a supposedly serious or dull situation I can't help trying to make it less serious or dull.

Now. Put me in a nightclub, at a New Years Eve party or around a Christmas table and I'll be instantly recognisable as the one with a scowly old face. There's something about that forced air of jolliness that I rebel against.

Even the intensive psychometric testing that we had on our training programme can't explain this.

It's great to be back at work though. I felt elated as I was driving along Roman Bank this morning as I wondered what had been going on at work in my absence. The daffodil season is progressing smoothly, the potato orders are rising very nicely and the new mains room is finished ready to wire in the new power supply.

I'm probably just tired - these entries are always rubbish if I write them at night. There is the alternative explanation that I might have left my sense of humour with the Belgian bureaucrats.

I've always been a passionate European. A few days in Brussels have challenged this opinion but I don't think that they have changed it.

The decision of Parliament this week to not allow a referendum on the Lisbon treaty means that we are now heading towards a Federal Europe. I can't decide if this is right or wrong. Clearly Europe is crying out for some sort of leadership and the adoption of a European President is a good thing, I guess.

I did find out that the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Marion Fish Bowl, has her own blog. She seems like a good egg: passionate, hardworking and intelligent. This said, I'm not sure that you'll be selling your television and relying on her blog for all your entertainment needs.

One thing that I am sure of is that Brussels is a city of compromise. The 27 members of Europe all have their own views so it is impossible for anyone to get their own way. You can see on the faces of every bureaucrat that you meet that no one has ever had a dream come true in Brussels.

I'm actually in Brussels at this point (I'm writing this two days later). I didn't tell you this at the time - I know how the readership of this blog is largely made up of bandits and rogues and obviously I didn't want my house burgling.

I was there on the second leg of the Institute of Agricultural Management's Leadership Development Programme. We have been looking at the European Parliament, the European Commission and various lobbying organisations. There are twelve of us in the group and we are being led by Professor John Alliston from the Royal Ag. College. It's a really good group and we are getting on very well together; I've thoroughly enjoyed both weeks. There has been plenty of learning, exchanging ideas, making odd analogies, cracking up, quality lunches and the odd powerpoint siesta.

I can't tell you any more for two reasons. The first is that our group operates under Chatham House rules and so we are forbidden from revealing many of the details of the course. The second reason is that nearly everything to do with the administration of the European Union is almost lethally boring.

I have been meaning to tell you all about Finland.

My father and I have been getting on really well lately. Then this morning we had a mini ding dong about the NFU. I think that it is generally a good thing and ... well, let's just say he's not sure. Luckily the matter remained in hand and I have promised to put his name forward as the President when Peter Kendall retires.

We also had another debate about one of these

Or was it one of these?

We couldn't work out if it was a Cattle Egret or a Great White Egret. (Thanks to my rubbish compooter skills, the Great White Egret pictured is only a mini Great White Egret which will please the irony lovers amongst you.)

Anyway. Which ever it actually is, I was rather fond of it. It was good to see something a bit different on the farm.

I am sure that I have already shared with you the strange desire I have always had to kick a heron up the bum. I have to fight this temptation every time I see one.

I don't want to get all poetic on your ass but the Egret is a much more graceful bird. It is what a heron would look like if it had a shower, a shave and brushed its hair.

I'm trying to play by my new rules and place a little entry every day. I'm going to try to be good and put in links and tags and geeky stuff too but don't pause that oxygen intake - just look how I cracked under the strain of having to invent weak puns at consistent intervals.

We have had a reasonably busy week of daffodil harvesting. Thankfully, with the weather being sunny and cool, we are on top of the situation and have not needed more than 50 croppers at any point. A hot day will cause them to burst and make them useless - I'm talking about the flowers and not the croppers here.

Dad and I got an early train home but were not at peak performance for the rest of the day. Chris is excellent at holding things together when we are not here, in fact I think it runs better when I'm not. He is very fortunate, isn't he, to have someone like me to travel around taking the credit for his hard work.