Tag: Farming
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A Robin in the Summerhouse; a Drunken Wasp; Birds, Beasts & Bedlam (book review) and a bit of Star Trek
It’s hardly the first time I have fished a wasp out of a pint of lager. They do, apparently, become intoxicated by alcohol (not the case for all animals). I fetched a spoon, fished him out and tipped him onto the table as gently as possible. He seemed to stagger around for a bit, giving…
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Nature Boy
Seán Ronayne, Nature Boy; a journey of birdsong and belonging, Hachette Books, 2024. Book review. I didn’t want to finish this book, in the sense that I didn’t want it to end. It had me in tears too many times to count and from the beginning I was sure that it was going to be…
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Guy Shrubsole. The Lie of the Land. Book review. Part I
The Lie of the Land. Who Really Cares for the Countryside? William Collins, 2024. This essential book follows on from the author’s superb Who Owns England?: how we lost our green and pleasant land, and how to take it back, William Collins, 2019, which forensically details who actually owns our countryside. Now he explodes the…
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New Scientist magazine, pointless animal experiments, tractor protest and through the microscope at HART Wildlife Rescue
Returning briefly to Bill Bailey’s book, My Animals and Other Animals, I was shocked to see what he said about Whale Sharks (and therefore all animals, or just fish?). Is our imagining that they live lonely existences just a projection, since they do not have “the faculty of self-awareness”? That is one hell of an…
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RSPCA Assured scheme scandal update
I have written about this several times, most recently, following Brian May’s resignation as vice-president, here: HARDtalk with Ingrid Newkirk – Animal Wild I had allowed myself to believe that the RSPCA made no money from the wholly discredited scheme and so remained mystified as to why they didn’t just drop it. Why did I…
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Starmer, farmers, foxes, badgers, salmon and more
Sounding and feeling a little like a Roman Catholic penitent at confession, it has been two weeks since my last post. It has been a busy time – my son turned 18 and so there was much celebration, I travelled to the hugely disappointing Spurn Migration Festival near Hull, of which more in a separate…
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Sir Brian May, badgers & farmers: thoughts after the BBC programme
As previously discussed, Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance made a complete fool of himself by trying to stop the BBC from broadcasting the programme on the grounds that it was biased, before he had even seen it. Since I hadn’t seen it either, I made no claim that it wasn’t biased, but now that…
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PETA calls for Levi’s boycott and Compassion in world farming
Other leading brands are moving with the times, but Levi’s is still using leather patches to carry their logo on the back of their jeans. Their welfare policy claims that animals’ health and welfare are protected. But the leather comes from filthy factory farms in countries where if legislation exists at all it is rarely…
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RSPCA Assured
It is not much more than a week ago that I posted about this: Chris Packham and the RSPCA – Animal Wild Now George Monbiot has reacted and his voice is, as ever, worth listening to. How is it, he wonders, that an organisation has come to stand for the precise opposite of what it…
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Chris Packham and the RSPCA
Chris Packham has taken a swipe at the RSPCA, of which he is president, which is perhaps somewhat overdue. I have been saying for a long time and elsewhere in the blog and in my books: “It has been suggested that I am somehow anti the RSPCA, but I’m not. They do a lot of…
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An end to live exports at last
A slew of e-mails has arrived over the last couple of days celebrating this massive win for animals in the UK. World Horse Welfare were first, describing it as a historic milestone and a monumental victory (they have been campaigning for this for over a century). PETA and others were not far behind. I couldn’t…
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Jeremy Clarkson is a damn blasted liar
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liarChristopher Columbus is a damn blasted liarYes, JahAh, he is saying that, ah, he is the first oneWho discover JamaicaI and I say thatWhat about the Arawak Indians and the few Black menWho were ’round here before him? This is a part of the lyrics of a song by…