Tom Kitchin and Saturday Kitchen Live

I’m quite surprised by how many readers of this blog are (apparently) devotees of Saturday Kitchen Live – personally I’d never heard of it until this weekend. But they had the chef Tom Kitchin (I bet he gets even more remarks about nominative determinism than I do) preparing a grouse, black pudding and something else…

Grouse shooters secret survey with secret funders

The grouse shooting industry’s practice of quoting unpublished and unavailable, ie secret, reports in the media in ways that suit them but cannot be scrutinised by others, let alone evaluated, and certainly not criticised, is becoming a regular feature of the Inglorious 12th. The most recent example has been, and still is, some research by…

Countryside Alliance Awards #ruraloscars

I’ve nominated the Bowland Brewery for the Countryside Alliance Awards – modestly described by the Countryside Alliance as the rural oscars. I am a fairly regular purchaser of Bowland Brewery’s Hen Harrier ale and I like it as a beer and as an idea – my beer drinking gives money to the RSPB’s Hen Harrier work….

Cairngorms NP doesn’t know what to say…? UPDATED

Peter Argyle, Convenor of the Cairngorms National Park must have been keeping his fingers crossed that this wouldn’t happen. He attends a packed hall on Hen Harrier Day, says some of the right things about illegal persecution, and then another Hen Harrier disappears mysteriously in his National Park. And, of course, it was last recorded…

A large landowner speaks…

Given that the Convenor of the Cairngorms National Park, Peter Argyle, attended the Boat of Garten Hen Harrier Day event, and spoke at it, and would have heard the strength of feeling in that room about continued raptor persecution within the Cairngorms NP,  it will be interesting to see what the National Park has to…