October 2009 Archives

Nicholas Sarkozy has just announced a 1.65 billion euro package for French farmers (I haven't got a key for the euro symbol on this keyboard funnily enough, I think that it was designed by Nick Griffin).

I like old Nicholas Sarkozy.  The poor little fellow has to stand on a box when he talks to the other world leaders.  Us shortarses stick together.

I've never been a big fan of government support for farmers (and maybe his plan is to shore up a bit of support amongst his rural voters) but when I read what is happening in France, my instinct was that they are right and that we are wrong.  The policy we have means that we will lose a lot of UK farming businesses after the all round crumbiness of this year.  That is not a good thing.

I am a bit miserable today I'm afraid (I haven't been in the mood to tell you the funny stories from my African odyssey yet).  I tried to find a picture of a dog in a wig to lighten the mood but instead I came across this gloomy story about a girl who has to wear a wig after a dog ate all her hair off or something.  There weren't any pictures.  Sadly.

Poor old Phil Archer has died.  Well, the voice of Phil Archer, Norman Painting OBE.

I love the Archers: Phil and Jill Archer are like the nation's grandparents.  He has been in the show since it first began.  How remarkable to play the same character for fifty years.  I feel really sad about the news.

Here's a suprising fact for you.  Norman Painting went to school with that other farming legend, Henry "Lord of the Plumbs" Plumb, the former NFU president.  There.  You didn't know that, did you?

I'm starving.  I've had the appetite of a horse since I got back from my trip.  I reckon that I've got a tape worm or something.

Anyway.  That's not what I want to tell you about.  I have just found out that while I was away the Farmers Weekly has launched a "sexy farmer" competition.  WHAT!  I can't leave them for five minutes can I?  A Beauty Pageant for goodness sake, aren't they illegal these days?

I called Stockings to express my incredulity.

"You needn't laugh" she said "you're in it"

And sure enough, to my total horror, there amongst the entries was a picture of me looking rather gormless in front of a garage door. 

I'm rather arrogantly assuming that the entry was for me, it could have been for the garage door. It was a particularly sexy garage door now I come to think of it.  Thankfully common sense has prevailed and I have been withdrawn.  I am many, many things but sexy I ain't

Have a look at the entries here.  There are some bloomin' corkers.  This chap gets my vote 

I've just got back from a trip to Kenya.  I bloomin' love that country.

There are quite a few funny stories for you when I've got my raconteur's hat on.  Today I'm just too busy getting caught up after a week away.  I am pretty perky considering time differences, loads of traveling and a lack of sleep.  If ever I am made a non-exec director of British Airways, I will suggest that we charge £10 000 per ticket for children aged below three (we had a cryer on both the outward and homebound flights).

I am pleased that Peter Kendall gave a bold presentation at the IGD convention.  I agree with him that there should be an supermarket ombudsman. 

I don't agree with his suggestion that the supermarkets should be promoting GM, however. 

I also thought that Peter was a bit feisty on Farming Today on Monday when he was talking about the organic movement.

He is a strong leader with a clear view and I'm all for the NFU's pro-science position.  I do worry that such comments will sound rather extreme to the average consumer and believe that, in public arenas at least, the union could display a little bit more sensitivity.

I've just got back from a brief visit to London.  There was a meeting of the Commercial Farmers Group last night and at lunchtime today I attended a "media lunch" at the Farmers Club.  Oh, yes.  Be impressed.

I simply love the Farmers Club.  Being a member is like having a batty old Great Aunt with an apartment in Westminster.  The shabby chic look is how one imagines the private rooms in Sandringham would be.  You imagine everything will be covered in corgi hair and smell of biscuits and lavender.  Last night I had one of the rooms in the battlements and had to climb through a titchy arched door and climb up a curious little staircase. It's like Hogwarts, basically.

You can't throw a breadroll (underarm, please) in the place without hitting someone interesting on the back of the head.   Last night I had the mischevious pleasure of drinking a nightcap of English whisky with a Scotsman, Jim Sutherland (the farmer who won a case to serve beef on the bone in his hotel).  He gracefully managed to not to choke on it.  My own initial verdict (although I will need to do much more research) was that it was jolly good.

We were also in the company of Jim and Janet Godfrey.  Janet's noble campaign to earn PGI status for Lincolnshire sausages has been mentioned here before.  There has been an objection from a company which makes "Lincolnshire" sausages for Tesco in a different county.  What a bloody cad, they should be sausagified themselves.  Please support the campaign by signing the petition here.  As a special thank you here is another picture of Janet wearing her sausage costume.

Had a brilliant time but am forbidden from telling you anymore for fear of breaking Chatham House rules or name dropping.

It transpires that I didn't have a hangover after all.  It was the onset of a cold which I've been reluctantly playing host to ever since.  I thought it was strange to feel so grotty.

It has been a busy few days as well.  I had to buy some bits at a farm auction on Saturday and I gave a talk about FARM Africa in Moulton Church on Sunday.  Our local vicar, Rosamund, is an absolute dude.  Her harvest appeal this year is supporting FARM Africa and I agreed to talk about my trip to Kenya in the service and also to give a school assembly at Moulton School.

The assembly was rather amusing.  Rosamund suggested that I should wear my wellies and she would wear hers along with her vicarly robes.  As it turned out my wellies were rather dirty and she could only find her husband's which were brand new.  She introduced me to the children and, to explain that I was an actual farmer, asked them what were the main differences between her wellies and mine.

"Your feet are much bigger than his" came the reply from a five year old on the front row.  MUCH bigger, he said.  How rude is that?

I had a load of slides to illustrate my talk on Sunday but the morning turned into a nightmare of broken laptops, blank memory sticks, car tyre punctures, bicycle rides in the rain, lost leads and incompatible projectors.  I was getting rather tense about the whole escapade and at many points resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to show my photos.  I assumed that it was God taking revenge on me for not believing in him, either that or he's heard me speak in public before and was trying to sabotage my moment. 

Divine Providence played a part and eventually (through a hastily-arranged medley of electronic equipment from a number of sources) I was able to make my presentation but afterwards I allowed myself the luxury of feeling poorly for an afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm sure I didn't drink that much.  I don't know why I feel so shoddy.  Maybe it was the lack of sleep.  Maybe I'm allergic to VELVET. JACKETS.  Uh huh, that's right - I wore the velve.  It drew a few admiring glances let me tell you.  I looked like the romantic lead role in a 1960's French film and naturally I will be destroying any photos which conflict with that claim 

A fantastic night at the Farmers Weekly Awards anyway.  Lots of laughing, stacks of clapping, ladies in elaborate shoes, men in unnecessarily flamboyant cumberbunds, excellent food and superb company.  One uncomfortable moment when old "Voice of the Balls" who was doing the commentary interrupted Hilary Benn (I love Hilary, I felt v. embarrassed for the poor chap) but otherwise a masterpiece of planning and organisation.  Three cheers for Debbie Beaton and four cheers for AGCO who generously invited me to be one of their guests.

Spent a fair bit of time "hanging" with the other columnists which was brilliant.  Had a "moment" with my fellow Young Farmers of the Years (did you know that back in the day I was Miss Farmers Weekly 2000?). We are now Young Farmers of the Distant Past, goodness we looked and sounded like a bunch of old farts.  It's a curious paradox that the defining characteristic which qualifies you as a winner in the Young Farmer category is being old before your time. 

The NFU handed over a cheque for £205 000 to FARM Africa.  While that is, on first glance, a decent sum of money, it calculates back to a paltry amount per individual NFU member.  Sarah Whitelock and her team at the NFU put a huge amount of effort into the campaign and I am ashamed and appalled that the industry didn't behave more generously. 

I am looking forward to going home and collapsing in a chair.  I am not used to seeing two 3 o clocks in one day.

Owwww.                My.                                   Head.                                          Hurst............  Hutrs...........................Hurts.

It's the Farmers Weekly Awards tomorrow night.  I'm REALLY looking forward to it.  The "Voice of the Balls" is going to be announcing the winners and everything.

It's black tie, natch.  I don't like to boast but I have a stack of dinner suits (basically I'm James Bond).  I have a double-breasted one (which is a bit "80s"), a couple of single-breasted ones (a best one and a rather tired one which I wear if it's likely to be a rough do), a white tuxedo (heaven only knows how that came to be in my wardrobe - I can't ever recall wearing it) and a velvet smoking jacket (which I bought from a vintage clothes shop which fits well and can either look very cool or truly absurd).

I can't decide which one to wear.  I'll be hopping on a train at some point tomorrow afternoon so if you have an opinion then you'll need to leave a comment before then.  If not, I'll just grab the cleanest one.

I'll do you a full report on the Awards on Friday. 

We finally had half an inch of rain last night and have cautiously begun harvesting potatoes again.  I'm already so fed up with potatoes that I can hardly bear to write about them.  I've told you a billion times already that I become progressively more tired and irritable until the potatoes are harvested and the cheques are rolling in.  I have found 2009 to be a tough year and I can't wait until it is over.

In other news, though, there was a pair of pants in front of the farm gate when I arrived for work this morning. Big, men's pants.  I'm not sure how they came to be there.  Was it a reader of this blog showing their appreciation by giving me some Tom Jones treatment?  THAT is the ONLY possible explanation.

Also.  Can you remember me telling you about the new daffodil bulb grading line that we bought in an American on-line auction?  Maybe it was one of those stories that I started telling and never finished, you know what I'm like.  Anyway we bought this new grading line which we will start using next year and we sold our old one to a dealer in the Netherlands. 

The first lorry arrived to collect some bits of it today, it was a Polish haulage firm.  The driver spoke no English, I speak no Polish and so we had to battle on speaking in our own respective tongues without understanding a single word that the other one was saying.  It was a fairly complicated and agonising process, not least filling out the the Dutch paperwork to allow the VAT to be reclaimed.  It was like another episode of "Give Us a Clue"

Not sure that there is too much else to report.  We are still harvesting  flowers, there is a bit of building work going on at our trial ground and we have all finally agreed the artwork to sign write our little van (I'll put some pictures up when it's done). 

Petting farms, eh?

I'm not an ecoli warrior or anything but I think all petting farms should be closed - I don't think that children should play with their food.

OK people, let's blog.

I only went a snapped my laptop in two pieces.  Uh huh, that's right.  Two, Deux or Dva (if you're Russian which, let's face facts, most of you are).  I haven't had time to sit at my desk and write for you since.

We are making very steady progress with the potato harvest.  It hasn't rained for eight weeks so the potatoes are prone to bruising and we are only lifting to customer order and not for storage.  The front pto on Case MXU135 tractor that pulls our potato harvester has broken for the second time in a week and is back in the dealership.  That tractor is the piece of machinery that I most regret buying (it came in 2006) - I wish that we had bought the 6820 John Deere at the time.