BADGER CULL: WHAT’S THE POINT?

Today, The Sunday Times printed an article revealing what happens to infected cattle.

After reading this article, am I alone in thinking, ‘what’s the point?’

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Health/article1281338.ece

Furthering my conviction that the cull isn’t about BTb but more about the badger’s presence being an inconvenience to future mass development in our countryside.

RESPONSE FROM MP NICK BOLES

I finally received a response to my blog post ‘Oi! Wake up, Arthur!’ this week (20th June 2013) which I had sent to MP Nick Boles’ office. Of course, Nick was too busy doing what’s best for Britain so this has come from someone else in his office. After reading it, I invented a game; how many times does the word ‘framework’ appear? Great choice of word by them as it basically means ‘interpret it any way you like and do what the f*ck you want!’

 

Dear Mr Connor

Thank you for your email of 30 May to Nick Boles MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Planning, about development and the countryside.  I have been asked to reply.

SOMETIMES THE ANSWER LIES WITHIN

In my column ‘Crossing the headlines’ in this week’s Dog World (14th June 2013), I explore the benefits of puppy socialisation and ringcraft classes and how they could tackle the issue of dangerous dogs.

Sadly, once again, we see the all-too-familiar headlines featuring another death caused by an ‘out of control’ dog.
Pensioner Clifford Clarke, 79, was attacked and mauled in his own garden in Clubmoor, Liverpool, last month and this story bears all the familiar hallmarks of the other tragic deaths; the dog involved had been of concern to its neighbourhood – a large city council estate surrounded by similar developments, suffering all the usual deprivations and social and economic problems synonymous with such areas.
Throughout Britain in general, we are seeing just far too many of the wrong dogs in the wrong hands and while this Government wastes valuable time and resources ‘looking into pedigree dog breeding’ and not attacking the real nub of the dog problem, pointless deaths will continue.

HONG KONG’S PINK DOLPHINS IN CRISIS

It is strange how the smallest of incidents can set one off down a path in life never previously considered. One such incident happened to me back in 2003.

In the pursuit of finding somewhere dry to while away a particularly wet lunchtime hour, I happened into a charity bookshop. Something caught my eye and, whilst pulling it off the shelf, a second book fell out and clattered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up and glanced at the cover; “A Guide to Whales and Dolphins of the World”.

I casually flicked through the pages and spotted a little box halfway down the page devoted to the Indo-Pacific Humpbacked Dolphin. The picture inside the little box showed two bubblegum-pink dolphins breaking through the dark blue waters with a headline proclaiming “Hong Kong’s Pink Dolphins”.

I was intrigued; I’d never heard about dolphins in Hong Kong’s waters and was fascinated to read that the pink colouration did not come from its diet (like the flamingo) but from its over-developed blood vessels that blush through its pale, white skin. At birth, the babies are black, then slowly change to grey and from grey they begin to pinken. All in all, a quite remarkable animal and one I vowed to one day see.

THE DECLINE OF THE COCKNEY SPARRAH

It’s that time of year again and, on a dead branch of a cherry tree (just outside my kitchen window), sit four dumpy, newly fledged sparrows. With their large yellow gapes and fluffed-up feathers they look as if they’d be more at home in a Disney movie rather than a suburban garden. With quivering wings they beg incessantly to be fed by their smart chestnut-brown father. Watching them and listening to their ‘chirrup-chirrup’ calls transports me away from Dorset and back to the late 1970s and my Nan’s garden in Tottenham, North London.