- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Watching the Tory Party leadership contest, and its inevitable spill into Brexit, I’m left with only one conclusion. We’re in a sordid sorry mess. The fact that Boris can offer, as his initial campaign salvo, a tax break for the wealthiest is symptomatic, and unsettling. If he is a serious candidate, it makes the party look uncaring and greedy. Selfish and blind to the concerns of the less well off. It’s a PR disaster….and yet Boris, surely knowing this, uses it as his opening gambit? I don’t understand at all. Is his goal to win over the faithful, rush through a ‘no deal Brexit’, and crash out at the eventual General Election?
As for the creepy, cunning, and above all ambitious Gove. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he made up his wishy washy, ‘cupboard skeleton’ exorcising cocaine admission to make himself look less geeky and weird. I’m minded of Bill Clinton swearing blind that he didn’t inhale anything from that college spliff….what a cop out. Mind, Ole Bill later swore blind he didn’t get up to anything naughty with that lass who then conveniently forgot to do her laundry. He wouldn’t know truth and integrity if it slapped him in the face. Anyway, I’m crossing my fingers that we lose Gove as DEFRA minister before he does any more damage, but fervently hoping it isn’t because he’s hit the big time.
My money is on that Rory Stewart lad. He appears to have a decency and depth of character generally missing around Westminster. It sounds like he’s seen more of the world than most of em, and it sounds as if he’s a man with whom you might safely hunt metaphoric tigers. The media are giving him some stick, but someone close to me has previously come across him, and reckons he’s the real deal. Poor beggar….what did he ever do to arrive on the scene when the chalice is still so poisoned.
Anyway, back on the ranch, spring is turning to summer, and the monsoon is back. With midsummer in sight I’ve kindled a fire this week to keep my beloved wife’s perfect little pink toes warm on the sofa. That cannae be right? I notice curls of smoke coming from other chimneys, so it isn’t just us. Calving has dropped off, although we’ll have tagged 100 spring calves before I can’t call them that any more.
And that reminds me. For some reason, I’ve had one or two very fruity newly calved cows this last week. A normally placid South Devon shelled out a huge bull calf unassisted in the paddock behind the sawmill, and a couple of days later I went out to bung a rubber ring on him and attach some ID to his lugholes. He was snoozing in some nettles when I grabbed un, and abruptly started bawling for Mum. And boy! Was she ever on hand soon! Eyes out on stalks, roaring and shaking her head, she came up nose to nose and told me just how small I’d be after she’d smeared me into the dirt. I’d dropped my stick to fetch the ring pliers out of my coat pocket, and all I had to defend myself was said pliers. Holding them by the business end, all I could do was jab her on the snout with the handles….which isn’t really going to do much to discourage a roaring adult cow. It was a white knuckle job for a minute until my assistant arrived, and passed me a length of 20mm poly pipe, with which I could explain matters in a manner she’d understand.
That minded me of an Australian I once read about. His job, and you wonder if there’s a lot of applicants, was to monitor some crocodile nests. See Mother Crocodile lays her eggs, and depending on the weather and how they’re covered, they might all hatch boys, or they might all hatch girls. I’m thinking this can happen with other reptiles, but it’s definitely the case with saltwater crocodiles. Now this fella was tasked with checking the eggs, and one of his jobs was to pencil an ‘x’ on them- presumably to see if Mum moved them when she attended her clutch. For Mother Crocodile is quite the doting mother. And of course, it occasionally happened that she’d come home to discover this chap rooting about on the sandy creek bank where she’d laid her precious eggs. This displeased her greatly. And, as he dryly observed to his interviewer, all he’d got in his hand was that blasted pencil.
As for the creepy, cunning, and above all ambitious Gove. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he made up his wishy washy, ‘cupboard skeleton’ exorcising cocaine admission to make himself look less geeky and weird. I’m minded of Bill Clinton swearing blind that he didn’t inhale anything from that college spliff….what a cop out. Mind, Ole Bill later swore blind he didn’t get up to anything naughty with that lass who then conveniently forgot to do her laundry. He wouldn’t know truth and integrity if it slapped him in the face. Anyway, I’m crossing my fingers that we lose Gove as DEFRA minister before he does any more damage, but fervently hoping it isn’t because he’s hit the big time.
My money is on that Rory Stewart lad. He appears to have a decency and depth of character generally missing around Westminster. It sounds like he’s seen more of the world than most of em, and it sounds as if he’s a man with whom you might safely hunt metaphoric tigers. The media are giving him some stick, but someone close to me has previously come across him, and reckons he’s the real deal. Poor beggar….what did he ever do to arrive on the scene when the chalice is still so poisoned.
Anyway, back on the ranch, spring is turning to summer, and the monsoon is back. With midsummer in sight I’ve kindled a fire this week to keep my beloved wife’s perfect little pink toes warm on the sofa. That cannae be right? I notice curls of smoke coming from other chimneys, so it isn’t just us. Calving has dropped off, although we’ll have tagged 100 spring calves before I can’t call them that any more.
And that reminds me. For some reason, I’ve had one or two very fruity newly calved cows this last week. A normally placid South Devon shelled out a huge bull calf unassisted in the paddock behind the sawmill, and a couple of days later I went out to bung a rubber ring on him and attach some ID to his lugholes. He was snoozing in some nettles when I grabbed un, and abruptly started bawling for Mum. And boy! Was she ever on hand soon! Eyes out on stalks, roaring and shaking her head, she came up nose to nose and told me just how small I’d be after she’d smeared me into the dirt. I’d dropped my stick to fetch the ring pliers out of my coat pocket, and all I had to defend myself was said pliers. Holding them by the business end, all I could do was jab her on the snout with the handles….which isn’t really going to do much to discourage a roaring adult cow. It was a white knuckle job for a minute until my assistant arrived, and passed me a length of 20mm poly pipe, with which I could explain matters in a manner she’d understand.
That minded me of an Australian I once read about. His job, and you wonder if there’s a lot of applicants, was to monitor some crocodile nests. See Mother Crocodile lays her eggs, and depending on the weather and how they’re covered, they might all hatch boys, or they might all hatch girls. I’m thinking this can happen with other reptiles, but it’s definitely the case with saltwater crocodiles. Now this fella was tasked with checking the eggs, and one of his jobs was to pencil an ‘x’ on them- presumably to see if Mum moved them when she attended her clutch. For Mother Crocodile is quite the doting mother. And of course, it occasionally happened that she’d come home to discover this chap rooting about on the sandy creek bank where she’d laid her precious eggs. This displeased her greatly. And, as he dryly observed to his interviewer, all he’d got in his hand was that blasted pencil.
