February 2010 Archives

My parents are holding a drinks party today to celebrate my mum's birthday.  One of their good friends is unable to make it because he is in Chile visiting some of the onion growers who supply his company.  When we heard about Chilean earthquake, our first thought was for Robert's safety. 

David and Lorna Richardson, together with a group of UK farmers, are also destined to arrive in Chile today as part of an agricultural study which David is leading.  I hope that they have been far enough away from the danger to avoid any problems.

We have a blessed life in the UK.  We moan considerably about the British climate but it is rare for us to experience nature's wrath to a comparable degree.  Perhaps this is why we have such an arrogant attitude where land and the weather are concerned - we all believe that nature is our servant and not our master.  It would be trite and provincial to expand on the subject (not that it usually stops me) but this may be a subject for another day.

Ahhh. Poor old Mr World's Longest Hair has died

He was a little Vietnamese fella called Tran Van Hay and, at the age of 79, his hair was a perfectly normal 6800cm long (that's over 20ft).

That's not a "Jennifer Aniston" cut now , is it? 

Take two bottles into the shower? Not Tran the Man. He just lets it trail in the gutter to sweep up the litter.

So let's have a one second silence to record the passing of this outstanding hairdo.  Will we ever see it's like again?

The king is dead, long live the king

To my shame, I don't normally have the attention span to sit and watch television documentaries of any sort. I did watch Evan Davies' report on migrant labour on the Beeb last night and I thought it was a great bit of telly.

It was filmed in Wisbech just up the road.  Like Spalding and Boston, Wisbech is a pretty and once prosperous Georgian market town which has fallen into social, cultural and architectural disrepair as a result of declining farm incomes.  It has a large migrant population and a dis-enfranchised "underclass" of locals.

It is unusual to see a programme about a situation in which you are involved which sees matters as you do.  In this case, I thought it represented our own experiences perfectly and illustrated why Eastern European migrants are favoured by agricultural employers.  We employ Lithuanian staff in our business and think that they are bloody brilliant for all the reasons that the programme demonstrated.  The inability, sense of entitlement, lame excuses and petty militance of the UK workers was so familiar to me that it made me laugh out loud at one point.

Society will always have a proportion of people who have less ability and a lower work ethic.  Ideally we should try to engage them rather than simply replace them with foreign workers.  This problem can't be tackled by employers alone however (least of all hard-pressed supermarket suppliers), social support payments and the minimum wage play the main role in this problem.

The Victorians did not build workhouses for nothing, you know.  (Oh dear God, I think that I'm turning into a Tory again)

You can watch the programme here.

Some mornings I wake up feeling tired, decrepit and dreading the tasks of the day.  I just want to stick my head under the pillow and melt into the matress. I have felt like this most mornings this winter and some days I would have needed my ankles chaining to a slow-moving traction engine to drag me from beneath the duvet before 7.00am.

Other occasions (like this morning) I wake up with a "Ping" and I'm excited about getting my teeth into something.  I can't detect any pattern to it, I'm only going to be doing odd maintenance and administrative tasks today, just like I have every day for the last two months.  I've been laying awake looking forward to doing some work since about 4.30am.  I might finally sort out my 2010 sales list for daffodil bulbs which I've been putting off for a while.

Maybe the start of Spring is finally here to put a bit of a bounce in my step.  Maybe it's because Uncle Meurig held on to his job as NFU deputy president yesterday (I am unfeasibly pleased about that bit of news, I bet he's chuffed to bits, bless him). 

I hope that it' the start of Spring.  Much as the NFU leadership elections interested me, it would be rather tragic if they had that much influence over my psychological well-being.

I was pleased that Peter Kendall and Meurig Raymond were re-elected to their posts in the NFU Elections today.  They have done a good job and have the experience necessary to deal with a new Director General and, possibly, a new government.

Gwyn Jones is a worthy vice-president and he will be good in the role.  Look at his hairstyle, it's a peach isn't it.

He was my second favourite after Guy Smith.  Perhaps at the moment Guy is a greater industry asset as an independent voice anyway. 

Guy, if you want to stand again then you need to get a new barber.

Here's the new team

I'm taking a later breakfast today, I didn't get to bed until 1.00am.  This is very late for me on a school night and I've needed a lot of sleep lately anyway.  I went to bed at 7.30 one night last week - I have the body clock of a three year old at the moment.

I was giving an after dinner speech in Newark last night to Southwell Agricultural Society.  There were 480 people at the dinner, even you have to admit that it's an astounding attendance for a mid-week farming dinner.  I was given instructions that there would be no ladies presents and that I could be "rude but not crude."

I opened with the rather bold remark that "I hadn't expected any ladies to be here, being this close to Nottingham, but I did wonder if you were going to bring your wives."  Reading it back I can see that it was the wrong sort of "rude" but I did expect it would get at least a titter.  Instead I heard a gasp, a hiss, a boo and then I got a great big mouthful of tumbleweed.

This society organises the largest and most famous ploughing match in the country (winner of the 2009 Country Life magazine Best Day Out).  I told them, to silence, that ploughing causes soil contents to oxidise and contributes to greenhouse gases with gases like CO2 and Nitrous Oxide (I can't remember the symbol for that one).

I'm always a popular speaker.

I've started wearing a hat.  Make a note of it, would you?  It's the little communist's hat that I bought in Beijing.  I look like Fidel Castro, which is perhaps appropriate given my commercial performance in the last twelve months.  I'll get you a photo when I can find my camera.

Also, I forgot to tell you that one of the members at Huntingdon Discussion Group had a laugh like Boycie from Only Fools and Horses.  I pointed this out to them.

I was up early this morning.  I went to bed stupidly early last night.  I was completely pooped; I had spent the day working in the garden. 

I am completely fed up with winter now.  We looked at the daffodil fields and there will be no flowers ready for another week.  The interminable cold weather has gone beyond a joke and I decided to show a bit of British Bulldog and ignore it.  I pretended it was summer for a day. I raked the gravel, put in some kerb stones, cut the lawns, trimmed one of the hedges, pruned the roses, washed the car and pressure-washed the paths and the patio (or pati ooh as they say in Norfolk).  I was like suburban man (particularly when I was pressure-washing).  I looked like one of those nerdy men thatyou see in the glossy catalogues that fall out of the weekend newspapers.

Anyway.  I needed a good night's sleep and I got it and I feel very self-righteous about my endeavours yesterday because now it is snowing again.  I even remembered tro put my car in the garage.

All is not hunky doodle, however.  I woke to a major stock control issue.  Bacon, check.  Eggs, check. Baguettes, check. Coffee...

"I'm sorry, Sir, there doesn't appear to be any coffee in the cupboard"

WHAT!!!!

I have been down in the dumps this week. I've managed to keep pottering along as usual at work (and even managed to stuff a few pancakes into my face at one point) but I completely dried up blog-wise.

I gave a talk at Huntingdon Farm Discussion Group on Monday night.  I was a lazy little bugger and didn't prepare anything to say to them.  I had intended to think about it on the one hour car journey but ended up making and taking telephone calls most of the way there.  This was a bit silly; I normally speak without notes but I wasn't really in a jolly or confident enough frame of mind to get away with it last week.  I was trembling so badly that I looked as though I was dancing at one point. 

I sometimes forget that this is supposed to be a farming-related blog and thought you needed an update on what we are doing on the farm.

Ordinarily we would be busy harvesting daffodils by now...

I've started sending texts again.  Yesterday I sent the first one since 2005.  It's a long (and really rather boring) story but I entered a wrong code into the phone when I was in France and since then I haven't been able to send texts. 

I'm a fast mover - it only took me 5 years to resolve the matter.  Five years and 1 minute if you include the time that it took to fix the problem.

So I'm back in action text-wise.  The lady at my "service provider" asked me to send her a text saying "TEST."  I tried to type this in but my phone tried to guess what I wanted to say and ended up sending her a message which read "TEET."

Fantastic, eh? My first text in five years ended up being mildly sex pesty.

I have tried twice to write down my views about the forthcoming NFU elections (both on here and in the magazine) and have not published it either time.

For the record I'm pretty happy with the status quo.  Peter Kendall does a fine job and I think that "Uncle" Meurig Raymond is smashing.  I would like to see Guy Smith as the vice-president because I like him personally and feel that he would be the most interesting candidate.

I almost changed my mind when I saw this video from presidential contender, Derek Mead, though.

After a ribbing over on Catchat about my normal and healthy love of all things potato, we can perhaps justify a brief and rare excursion into the weird world of cat ownership.

I have a good friend called Katie.  She has many talents (check out her business website here).  I do, however, sometimes struggle to overlook her obsession with cats.

She is currently training her cat (I forget its name; it'll be something like Nutkins or Bramble) to use a lavatory.  Here is an actual photo of her actual cat. 

You can train a cat to do this using a device called a Litter Quitter (and I can also think of another word to incorporate in there which rhymes just as well).

Sorry to have to show you this.  I don't want to look at a straining cat on a Thursady morning any more than you do.   I'm not celebrating the achievement; I'm just bringing it to public attention. It's good to shine a light on this weirdness; I'm doing a national service here.  It's like my campaigning work on the matter of dogs in wigs.

Unless the cat is also trained to close the lid, I predict that this could lead to all sorts of social awkwardness.

PS You will be pleased to learn at Katie is dating once more.

Sheila Dillon, the presenter of Radio 4's Food Programme, posted the following comment on Twitter.

"Food Inc is good. See it . Oscar nominated. Thought I knew it all, but the corruption of democracy by agribiz will enrage even cynics."

The sales of snack sausages are on the rise in South Korea because people find them ideal as an Iphone stylus in the cold weather.  You can use them with your gloves on.

I'm not yet sure if this is good news for the pig industry but I've heard that there is a Korean dog shortage.

There is now a Facebook page which is trying to get more fans for this "sexy" potato than Miley Cyrus has on her fan page.  The potato was always going to win hands down on this blog (It was only propriety that made me put inverted commas around the word "sexy" actually).

I love these counter-culture revolts. I've nothing against Miley Cyrus, she has less vitamin C and lots more saccharine than a potato, of course, but some people like that. He she is pictured with her father.

I do have a problem with her father's hairdo (pictured, bleurghh) but that's a whole side issue.

Anyhow, this isn't a blog about mullet hairstyles.  My observation concerns the "sexy"/sexy potato.  Skin finish is good (slight thumbnail crack top right and a few raised lenticels but generally fine) my problem is with the shape.  I can't claim to be an expert in the female form but either that potato has been exercising too much or she is too young for us to be showing this sort of interest in her. 

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.