Yesterday I visited one of my favourite local farmers. Duncan Farrington has pulled off an amazing trick – he has made a commodity into a luxury. And he has got Nigella Lawson to back him. I first met Duncan a good few years ago when I volunteered to do some bird surveys for the RSPB…
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A walk in our woods
Yesterday I paid a late morning visit to Fermyn Woods in east Northants. Mine was the 21st car parked on the grass verge on a small quiet road. Clearly others had the same idea, and a bit of time to spare. The stickers on the parked cars showed that there were plenty of birders there…
Are you a European?
I was just too young to vote in the referendum of 1975 but as a politically-aware sixth former I followed the debate and the arguments about whether the UK should stay in the European Economic Community (which the UK joined in 1973 (alongside Ireland and Denmark, swelling the original six members (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium,…
The raptor haters – Richard Ingrams
The raptor haters is an occasional series of articles on people who slag off birds of prey. Richard Ingrams finds red kites ‘menacing‘, ‘savage‘ and ‘unlikeable‘ and is ‘pleased to see a picture of a dead one‘. Every three years or so he dips his pen in poison and is really nasty about these magnificent…
The CAP still doesn’t fit
It’s not simple to understand, it’s not a riveting read , but it is very important – it’s the EU Budget announcement! The overall budget goes up but CAP funding goes down. Fears, which were absolutely justified according to insiders, that the ‘good’ bits of the CAP, Pillar 2, would be hacked into, disproportionately hard,…