- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
For some reasons, I keep getting emails from firms wanting to flog me translation services. And the irony is that my cattle breeding interests and exploits do indeed put me in touch with breeders all over the world. We’re exchanging, for instance, large tranches of information with a group of Kiwis at the moment, but I don’t think we need translation help there. And our Brazilian cattle breeding chum has reasonable English…certainly enough to converse. Admittedly enquiries from Russia have been difficult, although we’ve now got translators who would help. And anyway, Putin has put an embargo on any transactions anyway, since the West suggested he ought to let the Ukrainians determine their own future, so there’s no business to be done there.
Now I come to think of though, we do business with several Scots who I struggle with. Could be an opportunity there. Then I’ve been supplying heifers into an area of Wales where 60% of the households use Welsh as their first language, and there’s some of the natives West of the Tamar we deal with who seem to use a patois not readily compatible with English. Perhaps I should investigate these translation services further…..
And speaking of Kernow…obviously news that a large pod of Pilot whales has been seen off the coast has had hurried telegrams sent to Thorfinn and Lars. They reckon they’ll be down early next week, and that to find yourselves a shallow shelving bay, and we’ll eat well this winter! Then there’s the cash to be made renting parking spaces to the satellite vans and TV news crews. That’ll be a major earner, and the end of season lull in the holiday trade should be sorted out, with a huge influx of protestors needing B&Bs, and to hire their own boats so they can get in the way and waves some placards. Oh, better lay in extra supplies of placard making card, lentils and spare ponchos. Wow, this could be quite an opportunity lads, so fill yer boots.
What? Oh, you think slaughtering whales is a barbaric practice, and I’m a wicked cad for joking about it. I say get over yourselves. In fact, there’s opportunity aplenty ferrying paying passengers out to wonder at the spectacle of the pod of ‘rare’ creatures. And in fact they’re not rare at all, the north Atlantic population numbering close to a million. No, let’s get them used to coming inshore hereabouts…..
I’m tempted to stray into somewhat tougher territory, and discuss at what point the ‘overstocking’ of a small country becomes an environmental issue. Or whether some thought might’ve been put to the situation once it became clear how many were moving West through Turkey, and queuing up along the North African coast. Instead, we seem to have waited until they were pitching up on the rail tracks at Calais, trying to clamber on the roof of the Eurostar, like those amusing pictures of trains in faraway countries with travellers hung of every available space. Whether choo-choos chugging into St Pancras International will start to look like that I don’t know, but I’d be happy to pull up a deck chair and watch.
It’s OK though, we’ll have ample chance to come back to this subject later, as current policy is simply encouraging millions more back home to start their journey.
Instead, let me tell you about polydactyl cats. See, there’s a relatively common mutation in domestic cats which causes them to happily slink about with extra toes. It is inheritable. Unfortunately another mutation, if allowed to proliferate, causes them to breed the occasional cripple, so if you’re going to permit such things around the place, it’s probably better to know which one is which.
Earnest Hemingway was once given a six toed feline, and 40 -50 of its descendants still thrive around what was his home on the Florida Keys. It’s a museum now, and it’s is very possible that being on an island, the mutation has had an unusual chance to come through and stabilise. It does raise some interesting thoughts about mutations in restricted populations. I suppose a variation that doesn’t hinder your chances can become concentrated in a comparatively closed group, at least until conditions change, and it then becomes a disaster. I’m happy enough to accept that this concept of random mutations, and their success or failure, is a facet of evolution. And I’m aware there are some people who fondly imagine that such things are all directed from on high, although quite why such directions would place 6 toed cats on Key West remains a bit hazy.
There…anyone left to upset this week? Sorry if I missed you out, next time eh?
About the author
Originally published in The Western Morning News, these articles are reproduced for the enjoyment of TFF members World-wide by kind permission of the author Anton Coaker and the WMN
Anton Coaker is a fifth generation farmer keeping suckler cows and flocks of hill sheep high on the Forest of Dartmoor and running a hardwood and mobile sawmill.
A prodigious writer and regular correspondent for The Western Morning News, NFU and The Farming Forum, Anton’s second book “The Complete Bullocks” is available fromwww.anton-coaker.co.uk
Now I come to think of though, we do business with several Scots who I struggle with. Could be an opportunity there. Then I’ve been supplying heifers into an area of Wales where 60% of the households use Welsh as their first language, and there’s some of the natives West of the Tamar we deal with who seem to use a patois not readily compatible with English. Perhaps I should investigate these translation services further…..
And speaking of Kernow…obviously news that a large pod of Pilot whales has been seen off the coast has had hurried telegrams sent to Thorfinn and Lars. They reckon they’ll be down early next week, and that to find yourselves a shallow shelving bay, and we’ll eat well this winter! Then there’s the cash to be made renting parking spaces to the satellite vans and TV news crews. That’ll be a major earner, and the end of season lull in the holiday trade should be sorted out, with a huge influx of protestors needing B&Bs, and to hire their own boats so they can get in the way and waves some placards. Oh, better lay in extra supplies of placard making card, lentils and spare ponchos. Wow, this could be quite an opportunity lads, so fill yer boots.
What? Oh, you think slaughtering whales is a barbaric practice, and I’m a wicked cad for joking about it. I say get over yourselves. In fact, there’s opportunity aplenty ferrying paying passengers out to wonder at the spectacle of the pod of ‘rare’ creatures. And in fact they’re not rare at all, the north Atlantic population numbering close to a million. No, let’s get them used to coming inshore hereabouts…..
I’m tempted to stray into somewhat tougher territory, and discuss at what point the ‘overstocking’ of a small country becomes an environmental issue. Or whether some thought might’ve been put to the situation once it became clear how many were moving West through Turkey, and queuing up along the North African coast. Instead, we seem to have waited until they were pitching up on the rail tracks at Calais, trying to clamber on the roof of the Eurostar, like those amusing pictures of trains in faraway countries with travellers hung of every available space. Whether choo-choos chugging into St Pancras International will start to look like that I don’t know, but I’d be happy to pull up a deck chair and watch.
It’s OK though, we’ll have ample chance to come back to this subject later, as current policy is simply encouraging millions more back home to start their journey.
Instead, let me tell you about polydactyl cats. See, there’s a relatively common mutation in domestic cats which causes them to happily slink about with extra toes. It is inheritable. Unfortunately another mutation, if allowed to proliferate, causes them to breed the occasional cripple, so if you’re going to permit such things around the place, it’s probably better to know which one is which.
Earnest Hemingway was once given a six toed feline, and 40 -50 of its descendants still thrive around what was his home on the Florida Keys. It’s a museum now, and it’s is very possible that being on an island, the mutation has had an unusual chance to come through and stabilise. It does raise some interesting thoughts about mutations in restricted populations. I suppose a variation that doesn’t hinder your chances can become concentrated in a comparatively closed group, at least until conditions change, and it then becomes a disaster. I’m happy enough to accept that this concept of random mutations, and their success or failure, is a facet of evolution. And I’m aware there are some people who fondly imagine that such things are all directed from on high, although quite why such directions would place 6 toed cats on Key West remains a bit hazy.
There…anyone left to upset this week? Sorry if I missed you out, next time eh?
About the author
Originally published in The Western Morning News, these articles are reproduced for the enjoyment of TFF members World-wide by kind permission of the author Anton Coaker and the WMN
Anton Coaker is a fifth generation farmer keeping suckler cows and flocks of hill sheep high on the Forest of Dartmoor and running a hardwood and mobile sawmill.
A prodigious writer and regular correspondent for The Western Morning News, NFU and The Farming Forum, Anton’s second book “The Complete Bullocks” is available fromwww.anton-coaker.co.uk