Waging war

Today is Remembrance Sunday and this year it falls on the 11th day of the 11th month.  The Second World War was the deadliest conflict in human history but I was surprised to learn that the First World War was ‘only’ the sixth deadliest. Are you wearing a poppy? It’s interesting that we use a…

Blue-blooded squirrels in Cornwall?

Everyone likes red squirrels – I know I do.  And everyone would like to see red squirrels return to their widespread former distribution, even if that meant seeing the back of the non-native grey squirrel – I know I would. I’ve said this before, and it momentarily caused a stir, ‘If I could click my…

Just a thought for Caroline Spelman

The political life is a somewhat harsh one.  One moment you can be at the top of the tree and the next you are almost nowhere.  If you lose your ministerial job then suddenly your views don’t count and your successor’s ears are the ones into which everyone seeks to whisper. I always used to…

Guest blog – Ashes to ashes – Peter Marren

Like you, I expect, I cannot imagine what the landscape will be like in, say, ten years’ time. My window on the world is in Ramsbury, in the upper valley of the Kennet in Wiltshire. We have long been used to dying trees. Death took all our mature elms long ago, and they have gradually…