September 2008 Archives

Maybe I should steer clear of writing about art. It's not something I know much (OK, anything) about and I've had a couple of waspish emails after being so critical of Damien Hirst. One accused me of being a philistine. Not knowing what one of those is, I'm afraid I was in no position to accept or refute the point.

In addition to the binocular and army camos, I have now also arranged to pick up a big box of bones on Monday to try and help us lure the beast.

The guy who we're visiting has just had another sheep mauled today - he's convinced a big cat is active in the area.

I'm wondering whether our plan to spend a night in a tent at the centre of the area where the sightings have happened is maybe not such a good idea after all! 

I've mentioned Casting for Recovery before - they do great work.

They recently held their first-ever fly fishing retreat in Ireland took place at Brookhall Trout Fishery near Lisburn.

Fourteen women from all over Ireland came together to take part in this unique outdoor-based programme specifically designed for women who have, or have had, breast cancer.

I have just managed to procure two pairs of binoculars and a set of army camos.

The big cat hunt is on. We're going to a farm on Monday evening and night. If this blog goes very quiet on Tuesday you'll know why!

I like cats (have I ever mentioned that?) but don't like Damien Hirst (have I ever mentioned that?.

So this presents me with a conundrum. A cat painted by Damien Hirst.

Maybe you can't judge a book by its cover, after all.

After the recent mixed post bag, another one arrives today and when I looked at it I thought: This man is mad.

I must be getting old.

I know this because I find myself getting irritated by the radio. Spefically, by the DJs on the radio. They all sound the same. They all shout a lot and never shut up and seem to think their ideas are original when they've been done dozens - hundreds - of times before.

So, even though I know nothing about it (and even though I'm tone deaf) I like listening to Classic FM, simply because the DJs know when to shut up.

I was interested to hear, then, that the composer John Woolrich and the orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, will perform two concerts inspired by the landscape and wildlife of the Fens.

The women of rural Shropshire are not happy.

They do not, they insist, have fat ankles, as one of the Antiques Roadshow presenters has suggested.

This story about Liz Hurley's pigs (no, you didn't misread that, I said Liz Hurley's pigs) appeared in The Sun.

First I had to move fast to scotch rumours of my demise, now I find myself fighting to dispel another rumour - namely that I am a peeping tom.

Here's how it happened. This morning, Nutmeg disappeared. Not disappeared in the gone-for-three-weeks or catnapped-for-a-pair-of-gloves kind of way, admittedly, but just disappeared for longer than usual.

I went walkabout in the neighbourhood to find her, armed with a box of cat food. My search took me along an overgrown alley which runs between two rows of houses. Picture the scene. It's early morning. People in houses are going about their business, getting up, getting dressed. You can probably guess what happened next.

I wasn't thinking. I heard a familiar miaow. Couldn't quite see in the garden where it came from. Stepped up onto the bottom rung of a fence to peer over. A woman (in a dressing gown) peered back from her living room. A woman in a dressing gown, looking alarmed. It's understandable: she would have seen a man skulking in the foliage behind her house, looking in at her.

I reacted swiftly by holding aloft the box of cat food as if to say: Look, this isn't what you think, I'm here on legitimate business. I called out (in my most un-pervert-like voice): Here Nutmeg. Puss, puss, puss, come here Nutmeg. Come here, cat that I'm looking for in this alley.

The woman drew her curtains. The cat ran to me. We went home. The police haven't knocked.

Talking about cats, if you're not sick of me rambling on about them, you might be interested to know that Tom Cox (who wrote the hilarious Under The Paw) has kindly had me as a guest blogger on The Little Cat Diaries.

A 20ft appendage. Heavens.

I've talked about The Cerne Abbas Giant before. Seems like the old boy has got a bit bedraggled. Hence why the National Trust has given him a makeover.

The Homer Simpson, who briefly appeared next to the giant, has now disappeared.

More madness.

First The Golden Calf sells for £10.3 million, now news reaches me that this sheep has made a staggering - and ridiculous - £2.6 million.

It's called The Black Sheep with the Golden Horn. 

The Hirst auction has already netted more than £70m.

Now I'm going to stop writing about this subject, as it'll only wind me up.

Talking of MasterChef, here's something not a lot of people know.

The top chef Michael Caines, who appeared on last night's show, has only got one arm.

It's testimony to his abilities, wouldn't you say, that very few people watching him ever notice this.

It's turned into a bit of an obsession.

At first I could take it or leave it. Then I started getting into it and now, frankly, I can't miss it. I'll leave work early to make sure I'm home in time to see it. It's MasterChef: The Professionals.

This is one of the spin-offs of the MasterChef franchise and it's addictive viewing. The presenters, Michel Roux and Gregg Wallace, do a great job of putting young chefs through their paces (I was so glad to see that nice Murray got through last night ahead of the Marco Pierre White-wannabe Dan.) Can't wait for the final on Friday.

I did wonder if this series wouldn't be as good as it doesn't involve John Torode, but Michel Roux's knowledge is second to none.

Now as you know, I'm not one to name drop. I'm not sure I've even ever mentioned my celebrity chef friend Clarissa Dickson Wright (full name, Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmeralda Dickson Wright) or old school friend (well, we didn't exactly know each, but you get the picture) Gary Rhodes. But I did have lunch with John Torode a little while ago - so if you're interested in the guy, here's the article I wrote about him.

My friend Lucy is worried about her Nigella-inspired honey-baked-Christmas-ham.

It seems that Rowse, the UK's biggest honey producer, has warned that stocks of English honey will run out by Christmas.

According to the British Beekeepers Association, in this article in The Independent, production is running at about half its normal level.

Apparently, the little blighters are plagued with varroa mites and are dropping like, well, bees. They couldn't cope with the wet summer and there's not enough borage for them to feed on (most growers have moved over to wheat.)

With foreign honey prices set to treble, Lucy is grimly contemplating a far-less-festive nutroast. She promises to keep Field Day readers informed of developments.

I simply don't get this.

Farming and the countryside can be beautiful and have featured in many awe-inspiring works of art over the years. This isn't one of them.

It's a Charolais bull pickled in formaldehyde, with hooves, horns and a disc above its head - all 18-carat gold. Yes, you guessed: it's a creation of Damien Hirst.

It's called The Golden Calf and it's the centrepiece of more than 200 new works, called Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, which will be auctioned at Sotheby's today and tomorrow.

When it comes to Hirst, I'm with the art critic Robert Hughes, who's dubbed his works "tacky" and "absurd". The bloke at The Daily Telegraph in this short video isn't convinced, either.

I look at his stuff and nothing happens. It leaves me cold. Totally cold. As cold as, say, a dead shark (possibly even one in formaldehyde!)

I've seen lots of depressing pictures over the past week or so of farmers hit hard by the floods. This one has stuck in my mind. It shows Richard Tutton at Trewern in Wales.

The shot below shows an almost totally submerged baler. And anyone who knows how high balers are will realise how deep that water is!

After the not-so-shocking revelations in The Sun, big cats are back in this news - this time in Cambridgeshire.

I must have reached a certain age.

I mean, it comes to something when you're more excited by the arrival of a cat calendar than one featuring naked people.

As well as being a 13-month wall calendar, it also features 12 full-colour (or color, as it's American) cat-gone-bad postcards.

The one below will be in the post to Matthew Naylor today - because he likes animals in fancy dress.

Life is good.

Animal charities have, understandably, been quick to point out that this is no laughing matter - a cow with its head in a washing machine.

Why, then, do I find it slightly amusing!

And if you don't want to hypnotise your chickens, you could always play music to them.

Presumably they'd like The Birdie Song.

I told you it was nude calendar time of year.

Well done to the guys and gals of Sturminster Newton Young Farmers Club in Dorset, who have produced this one.

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned hypnotising chickens.

Over on the FWi forums, I've been pointed towards the BBC and the Old Farmers Almanac for more information. There's quite a lot of video footage on YouTube, too, including this clip.

I'm not sure why I'm as fascinated by this topic as I am. Obviously, I need to get out more.

Whatever next? At this rate I could end up becoming preoccupied by stuffed squirrels. 

Two more books arrive at the office. One beautiful, and one that's put me off my tea.

The former is Animal Life - The Definitive Visual Guide to Animals and Their Behaviour by Charlotte Uhlenbroek. The latter is Cattle Lameness and Hoofcare - an illustrated guide by Roger Blowey.

The former is a book so big it could put your back out: it would make a fascinating, elegant addition to any coffee table; the latter talks a lot about foot diseases in dairy cows and has gory pictures with captions saying such things as "... a large drainage hole is created from the depth of the abscess" and "proud flesh amputated".

I've had a run of receiving books recently that I didn't want. There was the one about The Archers and the snappily titled Advanced Transport-Phenomena.

Because I'm feeling generous, I'm going to give these books away. Post a comment shedding some light on chicken hypnosis and the sender of the one I like best will get the animal book (unless, of course, you'd prefer the lameness one in which case, just let me know!)

You learn something every day.

Today, it's this: that you can hypnotise a chicken.

Don't ask me how we got onto the subject, but I've just been talking about it with a friend of mine who grew up on a farm in Essex. He tells me his sister used to be particularly proficient at it (now there's something to put on your CV). She used to make sure the little blighters were out cold, then would arrange them around the house in odd places!

According to Wikipedia, there are three ways of doing it. I'm intrigued. I know a man who keeps chickens, so I'm going to visit him armed with my video camera to have a go. Assuming he doesn't mind me bothering his chickens, that is.

I read on one website that pheasants are particularly easy to hypnotise, because they're so highly strung (and they've got good reason to be, with people trying to shoot them).

I'll post the video on Field Day as soon as I've shot it...

I've just been perusing my middle class pornography (the office copy of Country Life).

I think I'll have this one please.

Everyone tells me the bottom is falling out of the housing market. Maybe they'll accept a low offer. A 10% of the asking price-type low offer!

It's not long until I go on the big cat hunt.

So, I'm trying to keep abreast of reported sightings. There's an interesting story in The Sun today about a spotting in Essex. Frankly, I'm not convinced about this one. It just looks like a normal cat, as there's nothing next to it to give a sense of scale. (Maybe I should take a dwarf with me when I go, to stand next to my costly cats for a photograph!)

Still, if nothing else, it's given the sub-editors on The Sun a great opportunity for a few puns: Paws, Back in Black and The Missing Lynx, for example.

The article from Judith O'Reilly (more commonly known as blogger Wife in the North) has arrived.

It will appear in this Friday's Farmers Weekly, but Field Day readers can get a sneak preview below. Judith's blog and book chart her experiences having moved from the capital to rural Northumberland. Here's her piece:

"Arriving in the middle of the countryside fresh from London, it is fair to say I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

I grew up in Leeds, worked in Newcastle and spent 17 years living in London. The countryside was something you saw on television. You might manage a week in a holiday cottage somewhere green (and usually wet), but that was as far as it went. The countryside was another place.

When my husband pleaded to move to Northumberland, I had no realisation of what life in the country would be like. As for farmers, The Archers was as close as I had ever come. I mean, I like Ambridge, I just wasn't sure I wanted to live there.

Moving to Northumberland, though, opened my eyes. Three years ago, I saw isolation; today, I consider it peace and quiet.

I appreciate in my soul the beauty of the heathered moors, the rolling fields and swaying barley crops - a landscape I once regarded as hostile, unknown and a poor substitute for the grandeur of  London's architecture.

And the country pursuits I viewed with blank incomprehension, if not downright hostility, I understand are an integral part of country culture.

There are those who do not understand why I struggled to come to terms with the move we made. But aspects of country living are so very different from the world I knew.

For instance, the idea a man might work a farm in partnership not just with his wife but with brothers or parents. In the city, you might be self-employed, you are more probably a "salary man", far more unusual these days are family businesses.

Ten things I learnt on the Isle of Wight last week:

1. Ferry prices across to the island are extortionate. It cost me more than £70 flippin quid to get the car there and back. And it's virtually only a stone's throw across the water.

2. Customer service really does county. The lady who we hired bikes from in Brading station - you're an absolute star.

3. Houseboats look lovely, but must be damp, dark and grim to live on.

4. The Needles are well impressive.

5. Time seems to go slightly slower on the island (and it seems to take longer to cover the same distance in a car than it does on the mainland).

6. Locals sometimes call people from the mainland 'overners'.

7 Cowes is very nice - but can be a mecca for annoying, braying young people spending their parents money!

8 Tennyson Monument is worth a visit.

9 Crab meat is delicious.
 
10 Cycle tracks are an inspired idea. We had a great ride from Brading to Newport and back. Despite the puncture. And the fact that I ached like hell the day after.

My cats might have cost me an arm and a leg - but I don't think it would have been much cheaper if I'd got a dog, if this research is anything to go by.

This is great - a road sign written in regional dialect.

The sign has been put up in the village of Wiveton in Norfolk to warn drivers about the danger of speeding.

The parish council reckon it's had an instant effect on motorists.

I reckon it's a rum do.

It's that time of year again. I've been sent my first calendar, featuring naked and semi-naked country peope (don't worry, there's nothing too indiscreet on show!)

This one is the Farmers Calendar 2009 - some of the proceeds of which go to RABI and to Spitalfields City Farm in London. There are two versions: one featuring men, the other ladies.

Get a copy (they're £5.99 plus a quid P&P) by calling 01548 821207.

It may have been (and still is!) a nightmare year for getting the harvest in - but, resourceful as ever, those Young Farmers at Brandon and Wolston YFC in Warwickshire have managed to raise money for charity through a sponsored grain cut.

They were using the new New Holland CR9090 combine, raising money for the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution. They managed to make around £650, 60% of which will go to RABI and 40% for club funds.

The weather was not at it best and, in wet conditions, where the moisture levels were above 20%, the combine did 52 tonnes per hour, peaking in the seventies. 
 
The photo shows (from left) Rory Hammonds, Martin Wallington, Phil Barratt, Jeff Barratt, George Simpson and Jenny Simpson.

Machinery buffs will be interested to know that this is the make and model of combine that recently set a world harvesting record.

Apologies for my deafening silence recently.

I've been away on the exotic Isle of Wight (more of which later). Just wanted to say hello, I am now back. I promise to do better and put lots of stuff on the blog from now on!

Need I say more!