December 2008 Archives

"Whooaaa.  Not the beard.  For the love of God.  NOT. THE. BEARD"

Let's have a peep behind today's advent door.

Yep, just as I thought.  It's a festive pug (or peke or somesuch) dressed as a giraffe.  He looks thrilled doesn't he?  If ever an expression said "I wish I was dead", it's that one.

Did you see this 130hp tractor test that they have done in the magazine. 

We bought a John Deere 6430 *(the same as tested) a couple of months ago.  I honestly had no idea it was 130hp until I read that article.  Either that or I was told and forgot.  No wonder it chomps diesel.  I thought it was about 115hp or something.  We think that it's a pretty good tractor, lovely to drive, very manouevrable (I sometimes wish that we had a Smellcheck on this thing) and well built.  It seems a lot noisier engine than the six cylinder one - it rattles when it first starts - but they tell me that's because it's a common rail.

The reason that I mention the test (apart from wanting to use that title) is that it occured to me how difficult it must be to do objective tests on products made by businesses that advertise in the magazine.  Perhaps this why there wasn't a Case tractor in the test.  Either that or the doors fell off it before the test started.  Or perhaps it got stuck in bottom gear and is still half-way down the road to Sutton doing 3kph.

Always remember that whatever the time of day, wherever you are, somebody, somewhere is shaving a dog and painting it to make it look ridiculous. 

Watch.  Click Every five seconds I'm clicking my fingers here (like Bono did for a less worthy cause) and each time that means another dog is facing this pain and humiliation.  Click.  It's a sobering thought isn't it?  Click.

Cheers, Bono

This is why I am starting a Christmas campaign to stop this cruelty.  With your help we can make sure that in 2009, no dog has to tolerate being dressed up as a banana or made to look like Britney Spears.  Oh blimey, I forgot my clicking.  Click. Click. Click.

Unfortunately, we can only stop this by raising awareness of the problem.

This is one of the worst cases of abuse of its kind.  Shocking isn't it?  This is called a "UFO cut."  The abbreviation UFO stands for Unhinged F&^$%*" Owner.

Nice use of deely boppers* though.  Click.

*Deely Bopper sometimes spelled Deeley, and also called Deely Bobber) is a pair of glitter balls, plastic "feelers", or other ornamentation on two long springs attached to the head with a plastic hairband as an ephermeral party favor meant to make the wearer look like a "wacky" alien with antennae.

I have just read that Lord Mandy is considering putting government money into Jaguar and Land Rover to save them.  Obviously they read my suggestion that they should be investing in carbonless energy instead of banking and have announced this to wind me up further.

Whilst it worrying to see any jobs under threat, I would much rather he put our money into helping our postal service (instead of selling it) and not foreign-owned manufacturers of highly-polluting vehicles.

The time to save the car industry is decades past (Land Rover has passed through three owners in the last decade).  The car makers of the future are surely those who have invested in green technology. 

With every announcement, I can't help feeling that the UK is getting into deeper trouble and further from where it needs to be.  When governments introduce subsidies or "financial stimuli", they need to be much clearer than this about the world that they want to create. 

America is in equally ropey form but at least Obama has grand Eisenhoweresque plans to improve infrastructure and energy efficiency and to build a country that CAN compete.   

In a year or two, there will be millions more people without a job.  These people won't be buying Range Rovers.  Mandy ought to read this and then consider the impact that high food prices will have on the unemployed. 

It is more important to structure the UK as a credible competitor in the world market in something than to keep the 2009 unemployment figures low.  If we have learnt anything from the credit crisis, it is surely that there is only so long that you can pretend that tomorrow never comes. 

I think this can be the last of these.  We can turn our attention to groomed dogs instead in the run up to Christmas.

This is a vegetable version of "The Kiss."  Although the original was one of Klimt's most famous works, it was a departure from his usual depiction of women as lascivious femme fatales.

The woman in the original is much more demure and submissive.  The head made out of a green turnip in our version doesn't capture that brilliantly.  Old turnip head isn't much of a looker, that ruins the effect for me.  Still the other turnip seems up for it, there's someone for everyone.

We are running the potato packhouse 24 hours a day in two shifts until Christmas so things are somewhat tense at base camp.  I haven't got a specific role in the proceedings but am on call to facilitate smooth and continuous operation.  I have just spent an hour tearing around the Fens trying to locate a very specifically sized piece of metal pipe.  The reason we needed it is a long and complicated story, it's a long and complicated bit of pipe too as it happens.  All you need to know is that it was urgent and so I was in a state of frenzy.  (As Rudyard said, "If you can flap when all around are standing about and costing your money, then you'll be a businessman, my son")

I started off at Exhausts Unlimited.  They were helpful but sadly they didn't live up to their name.  They hadn't got anything suitable perhaps they should change their name to Limited Exhausts Limited.

It's been a while, but here, since it's nearly Christmas, is a picture of a dog MADE to look like a cockerel.

I'll have a little Google and see if I can find enough new ones to give you an advent countdown from now until the big day.

The following joke is dedicated to Boy Bedford

A bloke from Yorkshire goes to the jewellers:
He says, "Can tha mek a gold statue o' mi dog?".

"Aye, reckon a can," sez the jeweller.
"Does tha want it eighteen carat?".

"Neigh," sez bloke, "I want it chewin' a bone."

My friend, Lindsay, called in on Friday to ask me to witness his signature on a legal document. 

He said "I need it signed by someone who isn't a relation."  Such people are very difficult to find in South Lincolnshire.

I'm not sure what to think about Hilary Benn after the speech that he gave this week about food strategy. 

Many happy returns to the National Farmers Union which was 100 years old on Thursday.  I'm very fond of the NFU.  It isn't easy being a pan-industry body, they have to represent a number of contrasting members, landlords and tenants, organic and conventional, large and small and horn and corn.

I think that they make a fair hand of things considering these constraints.  I don't always agree with the policy decisions (although I often do) but I admire the way that the organisation walks the line between being democratic and progressive.  I also think that Peter Kendall is turning into the best leader since the Lord of the Plums.

A lot of farmers moan about the NFU (which is a bit like kicking your dog after a bad day) but the industry would be weaker without it.

More vegetable art, anyone? 

Sorry that this is a bit self-indulgent, there's not too much going on on the farm to write about.

Had my first go in a mobility scooter today. 

"Have a go if you like, it's really fast."  You're never going to pass up an opportunity like that are you?

Our next door neighbours have retired from farming and now occupy their time looking after their eight acre garden.  Tim has always been a "mad inventor" kind of farmer and he loves a new gadget or tinkering with something mechanical.  He's now in his 80's but he's a remarkably innovative engineer. 

He has just bought this little electric vehicle for taking his dogs for a run to the bottom of the parkland behind their house.  It's a cross between an invalid carriage and a golf buggy.  It's bloomin' fast and completely silent.  He can sneak up on their gardener in seconds.

I loved it.  He has completely spammed it up.  There's a holster for his thumb stick, a glovebox for his dog biscuits and a gadget for firing dummies for his labradors to retrieve.  "It's even got a rocket launcher look" said Dad.

I helped him to set up one of those satellite navigation things this morning.  He had it fitted on the front of the buggy at one point.

If you get a chance to have a go on one, you must.  Seriously, they're really fast.  I reckon it would outpace Dad's menoPorsche from 0-7 mph.  Hope that Dad never sees that you can buy these.

Kudos to the Relfster.  He discovered this news article about the heaviest potato EVER.

Obviously I LOVE the potato.  The real thing puzzlin' me though, is that bloke the love child of George W Bush and Chevy Chase?

Look at the artistic and culinary feast that I've rustled up for you over the weekend

It's a healthy eating version of Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa.  The original was first displayed in 1819 and depicted the true story of a life raft from the sunk French naval frigate, Meduse.  Most of the people on it perished, their deaths blamed on the incompetent captain who was appointed by the French king in an act of political favour.

The painting was described by the art historian, Georges-Antoine Borias, as representing "on the one hand, desolation and death. On the other, hope and life."

On the third hand, this version depicts cabbages and root vegetables too.  Old Georges-Antoine wasn't havin' any of that.

The is yet another article here, this time by Ben Adler on American Prospect, which suggests that cows are an environmental evil.

This further supports the view that being a vegetarian is better for the planet.  Here's Sir Macca in his jeans and T shirt telling you what to do.

Sorry, I was getting a bit intense in the last entry again.  I have taken a herbal stress-relief tablet and undone another button on my shirt.  

I bet this picture would taste good with a Duke of Beef Wellington.  

Poor old Napoleon.  I didn't realise that he only lived to be 51.  He became First Consul in 1799 after he staged a coup d'eTATE and was finally defeated at The Battle of Watercress. 

I am pleased that Mugabe's intolerable regime in Zimbabwe is making headline news again, although I wish that it was for more cheerful reasons than a cholera epidemic.  Our media seems obsessed by soap opera news like "Baby P" or the girl in the divan drawer.  I'm not suggesting that either of these things are trivial but in both cases the offenders have been apprehended and justice is being served.  This is more than the 13 million people in Zim have seen yet.

Gordon Brown has just urged the world to "tell Mugabe that enough is enough."  Fair point, Gordon (please stop doing that weird gulping thing with your bottom lip btw, it's very off-putting).  I did as Gordon told us and said my bit here some time ago.  I don't think that he meant me though, I don't think that Mugabe reads Mouth of the Wash.  I think that he means the other African leaders. 

Mugabe can easily dismiss harsh words and sanctions from the developed world as white, supremasist actions.  The best that we can offer is aid and we seem to be doing that.   

Kenya got the ball rolling this week when PM Odinga said it was time to get him out (he's still wearing his hat at a jaunty angle about the Obama news).  It was also good to hear Desmond Tutu speaking out on Newsnight last night.  He managed to get a good gag in too about the country going from breadbasket to basket case. 

It seems to me, although I'm hardly an authority on the subject, that the challenge is getting Mbeki and South Africa on board.  As someone who opposed the Iraq war, I sometimes get a bit frustrated by the hypocrisy of the government's mealy-mouthed approach to the humanitarian injustices throughout Africa.  On my less liberal days I would support a UN effort to send in troops to kick Mugabe out.  In more reflective moments I understand that if the West wade in there, there is a danger that other African countries may side with Zim and create greater difficulties.   

There is an important lesson from these struggles.  If UK farmers want to demonstrate to governments, retailers, economists and consumers just how important farming and food production are to a nation's well-being, Zimbabwe makes the point with tragic clarity.   

We've snapped the plough in half then.

It's very wet still but we were managing to keep the plough going until yesterday.  Chris called to say it was broken.  In this situation he always says, "We've hit a problem." 

I always reply "Is it bad?"

Yesterday he said "Oh.........It's baaad"

Basically there is a casting which connects the headstock to the beam...  Barp, Barp, Barp. Technical data alert, Technical data alert, Barp Barp Barp Townies please look away now.  It has a pin through it which the beam pivots on (It's a 6 year old Kverneland, if you were thinking of buying one).  It is this casting which had broken.

The tractor was ploughing headlands when it broke and so the tractor was right in the corner between two deep drains.  The front of the tractor was a few inches from the edge of the drain.  It couldn't go forwards and it couldn't go backwards.

I took the JCB Loadall to the field to try to lift the plough out of the way but we had to dismantle the front of the plough first.  It was a complete %$£^&*($ with the added excitement that the tractor might go into the drain at any point.  We were lucky that it all went much more smoothly than we had any right to expect.  There were a thousand alternative scenarios which I prefer not to think about. 

The plough is now in our workshop, please don't ask how we got it back here. 

This is all starting to sound like one of those real farming blogs on the fwi forum.  Although I tend not to write about it too much, I am a real farmer.

So Aldi are selling Maris Piper potatoes for 39p for 2.5kg. 39p for 2.5kg is a retail price of less than £160 per tonne. 

What the hell are Aldi playing at?  Am I completely misunderstanding the costs in my business or is everyone in that particular supply chain losing money?  I am pretty sure it's the latter, I have a fair bit of experience of growing and pre-packing potatoes at low cost. 

This retail price sends a completely unrealistic message to consumers and to other retailers.  Anyone paying more than that is, quite unnecessarily, going to feel overcharged. 

Am I being a drama queen again or is the fresh produce industry slowly going into meltdown? 

So here's the Birth of Venus by Sandro Boticelli, 5 a day-style

"The Birth of Venus is the myth of how Venus was born out of the waves of the sea, after Uranus was castrated by his son, Cronus. His severed genitals, falling into the sea, fertilized the water."

Perhaps it's best to stick to the bottled water, eh?

This is all a bit Field Day, I confess, but I have found an artist who recreates art using vegetables.  Hey, ha ha, I'll tell you what...I've got a funny here.....you'll love this...IT BRINGS A NEW MEANING TO ARTY FARTY, eh? eh? Are you having that?  We beat the Relfster to that one, didn't we?

I will feature a few of these and then tell you a bit more later in the week.

This is Picasso's The Dream.  Veg/art puns gratefully received, of course

Have I told you this already?  The BBC have a little recording studio in Spalding.  It's very 1970's in style, it has a swivelly microphone, a carpeted table and massive bakelite earphones.  It's bloomin' hilarious.  Oh, and it's located in a cellar underneath the municipal swimming pool so it honks of chlorine.

Here's an aside for you, the chap who was the duty manager at the pool today was called Paul Fish (no jack, that was his name).

Here's the drill.  You go to the counter at the pool and ask for the studio keys.  They pull a quizzical little face and then have a light-bulb-over-head moment and go and fetch a dusty old book for you to sign and a little set of keys.  It's all a bit Harry Potter.

You take your keys down a couple of flights of steps and then let yourself into the comedy studio and connect yourself to whomever you need to broadcast to.  It has stickers and signs on the walls which are totally retro.  Once you get your "cans" on, red and green lights come on and beneath them there are some sliding buttons which you are told not to touch.  (You are also forbidden from running, ducking, bombing and heavy petting). 

Today I was speaking to Pebble Mill, I did a recording for Radio 4 about my trip to Africa.  I will tell you a bit more when it is coming out; it's going to be on Farming Today at some unGodly hour over the next week or so. 

You must listen because I actually became embarrasingly emotional during the interview.  Today, in case you are not aware, is World Aids Day.  I met a lot of people in Africa who were infected with HIV or suffering from Aids (there are currently 33 million people in the world who are).  When Anna asked me about the people that I met in Kenya, I suddenly realised that some of them will have almost certainly died since I was there.  My voice became a bit wobbly and I lost my composure when I thought about it.

It was actually genuine (in case you think that I was holding half an onion under my eyes or trying to win a BAFTA).  I still feel desperately sad when I think about it.  

 Anyway.  This was only half of it.  As I was getting out of my car in the carpark, there were some youths walking by.  I managed to get a bit of elastic from my jacket (it was my favourite grey, blouson-style Gant jacket, fashion fans) became wrapped around the seat adjuster.  I had a bungee moment just as all these dudes were walking by and I made rather a fool out of myself.  It made me feel like a very doddery old man.  Luckily I wasn't crying at this point.