June 2009 Archives

Just received another book in the "Know Your..." series.

This one is Know Your Horses and, priced £4.99, I reckon it would make lovely present - especially for youngsters interested in horses.

It's a favourite adage of mine - but you really do learn something every day.

Here's what I've learnt today. It was in a book called The Smallholder Encyclopaedia, first published in 1950 (no, I don't read this for fun, a copy just happened to come across my desk!)

The frill of long hair under the neck of a dog is called "the apron". And an "apple-headed" dog is one which, like a cocker spaniel, has a high rounded skull.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. The most invasive ladybird on earth, The Harlequin, is in Britain.

Here's what The Telegraph has to say about it.

And there's loads of information on the Harlequin Ladybird Survey website.

They were talking about it on The Today programme on R4 this morning, as well. It made me laugh, the way the presented was desperately trying - and failing - to get the guest to encourage people to squash as many of the little blighters as possible.

I am now worried.

Aly who was at Glastonbury with the Young Farmers has just showed me her pictures. This was one of them!

Been a while since we've pictured anyone on Field Day reading Farmers Weekly. The last celeb we bagged was Christopher Biggins.

Birds can be incredible. Look at these pictures of a falcon grabbing a swift. Or in this instance maybe it wasn't quite so swift!

We all know pugs are ugly.

But here's more proof, if ever it was needed, that dogs can be spectacularly ugly.

This is a photo of a colleague of mine, Aly, who's at Glastonbury - she's with a group of local Young Farmers who help out at the event.

As I've said before, I hate camping - but I think I could make an exception for Glastonbury.

The Boss has been there (that's not my boss, that's the Boss - Bruce Springsteen).

I am very jealous.

This bit of countryside looks rather different to this now.

The photo is of farmer and Glastonbury host Michael Eavis and was taken a few weeks ago. Now, however, the world-famous festival is under way and, with heavy rain forecast for this afternoon and tomorrow, some visitors are predicting "a mud bath".

Music fans can find good coverage of the Somerset event on the BBC.

I've talked about Mike Pannett before. His new book, You're Coming With Me Lad, is now out.

So I was interested to hear him this week on R4's Midweek. He was talking about some of his experiences as a rural bobby with the presenter and Field Day favourite, Libby Purves.

You never know what to expect when you answer the phone on Farmers Weekly. But a colleague of mine, Sarah Trickett, had a very ununusal call today, as she explains below.

This made me smile. It was my birthday the other day and I got this card.

It also reminded me - if I ever had any doubts - of the well informed/obsessive nature of some of my colleagues when it comes to tractors.

One has just told me it's a Fergie 20 on the card, and talked for about 10 minutes, barely drawing breath, about that model...

This might be of interest to those who enjoy using a camera - a landscape photography competition, supported by Natural England.

There is an entry fee, so you may decide against submitting a picture - but there's still some useful photography tips on the website.

I like Delia Smith. Not for the same reason, necessarily, that I like Nigella - but I quite like her.

But she's dropped a bit of a clanger. No, not because of her Norwich City football antics, but something far, far worse: she's promoting New Zealand lamb.

Seen by many as a champion of British food and farming for more than four decades (and lately awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours), the celebrity chef has been urging shoppers to stock up on overseas lamb. Her website is urging chefs to: Make it New Zealand lamb every time!

The advice has angered farmers. Blogger David Richardson, for example, isn't impressed.

We've talked about buying islands before. Well forget islands. Islands are so yesterday. I'm into beaches these days.

And anyone else who fancies owning one will get a chance on July 13, when 76 acres of Gwithian beach in Cornwall will be sold at auction.

The sandy beach, situated in the north east of St Ives Bay, is well known for its surfing.

The guide price is £50,000, but a spokesman for the firm that's conducting the auction, Colliers CRE, said it was impossible to say how much it would end up making. "Who can value a beach?" he said.

If it's anything like the Withnail farmhouse, it could smash the guide price (although that deal did subsequently fall through).

There are some photos of the beach the Daily Mail's website.

Now I'm off to dust down my surfboard...

I like butterflies. But I wouldn't drive more than 700 miles to look at some, like this guy in The Independent did, I'll tell you that for nothing.

A nice little story on the BBC about a dog reunited with its owners, after a 550-mile trip.

You know I referred to the nettle-eating competition a little while ago - well here's some more on it and a profile of the winner.

I'm afraid eating stinging nettles, like taking a squirrel in the shower with you, just isn't normal.

This crop circle, so some are claiming, depicts the end of the world. To me, it illustrates one thing: vandalism!

It's the latest in a spate of them this summer - previous ones including this dragonfly in Wiltshire.

More news and video footage of Nutty, the squirrel.

I've had a range of reactions since mentioning Nutty on Field day last week. Everything from: "That's cute" to "That's just not normal."

More Hoff news. Whatever next - Piers Morgan at the Royal Show? It might make a change from him buzzing out my farmer friends with their wheelbarrows on Britain's Got Talent...

It's summer ball season at agricultural colleges. I've never been to the one at Harper but, by all accounts, it's legendary.

Here's a gallery of pictures from this year's event, which happened on Friday and saw 1700 students and ex-students at the Shropshire campus. The theme was 'A Midsummers Knight'.

Look who turned up at the East of England Show. Only the Hoff...

Meet the world's fastest turkey carver.

Might invite him for Christmas lunch next year...

After the mouse in the malt loaf, now one's been found in a jar of curry sauce.

Well done to land agent Jack Tavernor, farmer Matt Eardley, Rich Wakelin and Jonathan Brindley. They have completed their epic four marathons charity challenge.

Jack tells me it was "really really hard work" - which still sounds to me like a massive understatement. They've already raised £5,000 for St Luke's Hospice - if you'd like to contribute, you can do so here. 

This is one of the funniest video clips I've ever seen.

I was almost crying with laughter. It's so very wrong. A grown man just shouldn't have this sort of relationship with a squirrel.

Paul Parker is rapidly becoming a bit of a household name.

The squirrel killer extraordinaire has now appeared in The Journal, a north east newspaper, having supposedly caught the region's first black squirrel. So far, so good - only problem is, it's not black, it just looks a normal grey colour in the photo.

I've mentioned Angela Davidson's work before. She's a super artist.

Her stand at the Royal Highland Show, which runs from June 25-28 will feature her new, long-awaited picture of an Aberdeen Angus bull.

You can see more of her work on her website.

Some of the hats at this week's Royal Ascot are nice. A lot are just plain silly.

I went to a sprout festival once.

OK, so that probably doesn't have the same impact as telling you, say, I went to lunch with Gordon Brown or got invited to Britney Spears' birthday bash. But it was actually quite interesting and I like sprouts.

So I feel sorry for the sailors on HMS Bulwark, a navy ship that's currently in the Mediterranean and Far East, because sprouts have been banned from the ship.

Commanding Officer Wayne Keble has labelled them the "devil's vegetable", according to press reports, leaving his 390-strong team of sailors and Marines unable to eat them. Apparently, they're the only food he hates.

No one has yet said whether he's worried about the after-effects in a confined space like below-deck on a ship.

I'm interested in the sex lives of animals. I can't claim it's for some deeply scientific or zoological reason - it's just because, well, it's interesting. I found, for example, the confused peacock fascinating.

This piece in today's Times made informative reading, therefore. It's about lesbian albatrosses. And they're not two words you hear used in the same sentence very often.

The sale of the Withnail and I farmhouse looks to have fallen through.

Sleddale Hall near Shap was bought from water company United Utilities for £265,000 at an auction in February by a local publican who vowed to restore it for fans and use it to promote the beauty of the Lake District.

But United Utilities has told the press that the sale has hit the buffers and that it's now "considering its options."

The Queen's birthday honours list is out - and quite a few farming and country figures have received gongs.

I can only assume, as happened after I tried to contact Liz Hurley, that the Palace couldn't get through to me. My email has been playing up.

One of my (many) shameful little secrets is that I read a few cat-related blogs and one of my favourites is Tom Cox's Little Cat Diaries (Tom's the author of a book called Under The Paw). And there's a great vid on on - a Look Around You clip that parodies nature programmes. As someone who feels sick at the mere mention of Bill Oddie, it made me laugh out loud.

There's a new farming family about to join Emmerdale - the Bartons.

He's dead now, sadly, but I once went to interview a previous popular Emmerdale farmer - Clive Hornby, who played Jack Sugden.

I think I must be old, because I remember when it used to be called Emmerdale Farm. And when Matt Skilbeck used to be in it.

News on the beaver's comeback in The Independent today.

Someone's just showed me an article in their local paper which graphically highlights why we need initiatives like Open Farm Sunday.

Ian Pigott, one of the key drivers of the event, recounted a conversation he had with a young visitor on his farm last year. As they were walking round the farm, he pointed to a field and said: "This is where we grow the wheat to make digestive biscuits."

The girl looked around and said: "But where's the field where you grow the chocolate?"

I'd heard about the Women's Institute chicken jumper knitters, now it appears the ladies of a Suffolk residential home also helped out cold chickens last winter.

I like hot chicken best. 35 minutes in a hot oven, to be precise.

What is it, incidentally, about old people laughing? Seeing it always gives me a strange sense of joy.

I've mentioned Paul Parker (the man's who's waging war on grey squirrels before) - well, here's a big piece about him in the Daily Mail.

I wonder what he thinks about squirrels binge drinking...

How eccentric is this - a nettle-eating competition.

Just surprised it happened in Dorset, not Gloucestershire.

You might not think pigs would be a good subject for a book.

You might not think pigs could be objects of beauty.

You'd be wrong on both counts.

Angling is more popular than football, according to a new poll commissioned by the Countryside Alliance.

The survey, which coincided with the start of the coarse fishing season, revealed that more people have participated in angling (38%) than in organised football (36%) or birdwatching (22%), although rambling was even more popular at 42%.

After the woman on chaise longue in field with dogs and horse shocker in Country Life, I've now been alerted to this rather splendid photo: woman in armchair in field with dogs and cow.

Mike Pannett charted some of his experiences as a country copper in his first book, Now Then Lad...

I'm looking forward to reading his latest humorous offering which has just landed on my desk: You're Coming With Me Lad...

He outlines in it how "life as a rural beat bobby is no picnic" - recounting such incidents as when a crazed swordsman threatens to take his head off and a stag night turned ugly.

Let it never be said policing a rural area is easy!

I've always fancied living on an island.

I'd become a grumpy old eccentric, have loads of cats and smoke a pipe. My fiefdom would be gloriously caravan free.

I was interested, therefore, to read this piece in the Telegraph about island life.

It's no secret I hate caravans. They should be banned from the countryside.

They look ugly, they block up our roads and they're full of strange people.

I hear this morning that Top Gear's Richard Hammond has written a book about them. It's well worth looking at the six pictures with the articles in The Times - the sixth one looks particularly charming!

Can't imagine why - but people sometimes say I should include more mainstream hard farming news on Cereals. I usually refuse. After all, where else are people going to go for breaking cat news and crop circle updates.

But there's a massive arable event called Cereals happening at the moment - so if that's your bag, you can read all the news and watch a video from it here.

The collapse of the milk co-op Dairy Farmers of Britain has also been a seismic event for farming and has implications for thousands of people.

I like malt loaf. Or I used to. Not so keen after seeing this though...

Reminded me of the frog in the salad.

A hummingbird can fly faster than a fighter jet, according to The Independent.

Don't you just love Country Life (the mag, that is, not the butter).

Where else on earth could you find a picture like this - a woman with a load of dogs on a sofa in a field. With a horse!

Haven't written anything about poetry for a while - not since my dealings with the altogether adorable Pam Ayres and risking getting a telling off by banging on about Raymond Carver, in fact.

But I saw a clip of Ted Hughes on TV last night - he was a man who could well have been a farmer if he hadn't been a poet. One of his lovely (and topical) poems is Hay. Here are the last two verses:

Just been speaking to one of the two vets planning to row 2500 miles across the Atlantic. Good luck guys - it'll be an incredible achievement and Farm-Africa is a very worthwhile charity to support. Here are three more photos of them. If only the water was going to be this calm when they start their challenge...

Another day and, after yesterday's instalment, here are two more Abertay sack adverts.

There was the cow with its head in the washing machine... now it's a horse with its head in a wall (admittedly, it's a work of art).

As I've said before, I'm no art expert, but I rather like it.

Haven't annoyed fellow blogger Matthew Naylor recently with any inane cat stories, so here's a couple.

A piano-playing puss and a moggy at a major match.

I told you the people in Gloucestershire are a bit odd.

First it was the cheese rolling, then it was the shin kicking and the woolsack race.

But this, if any was needed, is proof. Conclusive proof. An onion eating competition.

Just been pointed in the direction of another artist whose work I love the look of. It's a woman called Mary Ann Rogers and you can find out more about her on her website.

More Abertay sacks adverts unearthed this morning.

After the woman looking out to sea and the one who's obviously decided she needs to cool down, we discovered these two.

I won't bang on about squirrels again this week, I promise - but one bit of news that did catch my eye was talk of a new squirrel pate.

Denbighshire food company Patchwork Pâté has made the product with hazelnuts and Frangelico hazelnut liqueur.

It's available to order online, with money going to the Friends of Anglesey Red Squirrels.

The firm's Jenny Whitham explained how this dish came about: "Squirrels had been pinching my chickens' feed and I had always threatened I would make a pâté out of the grey squirrels. We caught one and it was delicious, just like chicken, so we caught five more."

I dodged the showers and got to one of the farms which opened its doors to the public yesterday - Shabden Park Farm at Chipstead in Surrey.

There are pictures from there - and some of the other places that welcomed the public as part of Open Farm Sunday - in this gallery.

Today is Open Farm Sunday.

This is a fantastic event and I'm just deliberating which farm to visit. There were huge thunderstorms in this part of the world (Surrey) in the night, but thankfully the rain has now stopped and the sun is out.

After yesterday's crop circle story, The Guardian has published some more pictures of them today.

Grey squirrels are in the news again and not for getting drunk this time - but because they now have a very influential enemy.

Prince Charles, who's patron of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust, has declared it's "absolutely crucial to eliminate the greys which are an alien species to the UK and threaten the very existence of the reds".

"The greys are doing immense and increasing damage to hardwoods all over the country and threaten to compromise all our efforts to restore native woodlands, let alone create community forests," said the Prince.

His comments came as he backed a new report from the CLA, warning that greys were wreaking havoc in traditional woods and forests by stripping trees of their bark.

There was an immediate backlash, with the RSPCA claiming that a cull would be cruel and would fail to keep populations under control.

No doubt a few grey squirrels will be drowing their sorrows today!

Now this is pretty damn impressive. Two vets will be attempting to row 2500 miles to raise cash for the charity FARM-Africa.

Remember the Abertay sack advert I found the other day? Well here's another one, which appeared in Farmers Weekly in the 1980s.

The little ditty is the sort of thing you'd have heard in an episode of On The Buses. You definitely wouldn't see this sort of thing nowadays!

More crop circle news - this time a dragonfly in Wiltshire.

Indisputable artistic - but nonetheless it's still vandalism!

And as I've said before, I'm very suspicious of dragonflies.

OK, guilty secret time. Despite what I said earlier, I do occasionally read The Sun. Amongst all the rubbish, they have the odd bit of interesting stuff - like these photos of crop circles.

I'm quite surprised, incidentally - I haven't been contacted and moaned at by the extra terrestrial-believer brigade, after my dismissive comments yesterday.

Squirrels - when the troublesome little things aren't getting drunk, they're causing mayhem at baseball games in the States.

I've upset a few people in the past talking about crop circles - in particular, how they're about as likely to be made by little green men as wind turbines are to be broken by them!

But this act of public art or - as I'm inclined to view it vandalism - is in the news at the moment - a giant jellyfish.

Those pesky squirrels, they deserve to be eaten. Otherwise, they'll only spend their time getting drunk...

Spoke to Sam Parris again this morning, one of The Barrow Boys.

I'm not a name dropper, as you know, but let's just say Biggins is yesterday's man.

Anyway, when I was with Boris this morning...

I'm a big fan of Desert Island Discs - it's a simple but brilliant concept. So I'm looking forward this Friday's episode, when the guest will be Lady Caroline Cranbrook (some of you many have heard it yesterday when it was first broadcast). 

She's a farmer who's made a name for herself as a champion of local and regional produce, has campaigned against supermarket power and is vice-president of CPRE.

I won't spoil it for those of you who want to listen to the show which airs at 9am on Radio 4 by giving too much away about her music selection, but her choice of book was Food in England by Dorothy Hartley.

Friday evening saw the final stage of the selection of chefs to cook in the homecoming banquet for troops in BBC2's The Great British menu.

The winning courses were:

Starter: Aberdeen Angus salad.

Fish: Masala-spiced monkfish.

Main: Lancashire hot pot.

Dessert: Treacle tart.

It's making me hungry again now just thinking about them...