'Slow-Hand' Harvey

Times - Flamenco Clive

           

How fast is your Flamenco?

By Kent Barker

Did I mention that I’m a keen, if rather indifferent, tennis player?  Unless the courts are snowbound or iced over, I turn out most Monday mornings with a group of fellow retirees or layabouts.  It’s a good way to start the week and, as we’re all of a similar standard, we manage long(ish) rallies.

Occasionally in summer I play with another group on a Friday evening.  This has the advantage of a post-match visit to the pub, but it’s notable how different the games are.  At the end of the week we have three big hitters.  Anything coming towards them gets walloped and, if it comes back at all, travels with such a speed and spin that it’s impossible to return. But about half the time they hit it into the net or out of court.  This results in extremely short points.  Either they win outright or lose immediately.  It helps us get to the bar faster, but isn’t always the most enjoyable type of play.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I’ve known one of the ‘hard hitters’ for years.  He’s a quiet, affable country solicitor mostly distinguished for his habit of ordering Bacardi and Coke when the rest of us are supping real ale. (We’ve taken to asking for those little cocktail umbrellas to accompany his concoction – which he generally accepts with good grace.)

But Clive has, for years, harboured a deep and dark secret, far removed from his conventional lawyery image.  I first found out about it a year or so ago, but thought it best to say nothing.  Slowly, though, he became more open about his habit.  At parties (doubtless after a few of those awful drinks) it would come out and he’d let us see just what he had been up to in all those hours of solitude at home.

The sad truth is that Clive is a truly exceptional … Flamenco guitarist!  That’s right, a practitioner and aficionado of that distinctive Andalusian music, pretentiously dubbed by UNESCO as ‘Masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity’. But how on earth had this village boy from Benenden, son of a local doctor, destined for a dusty career at law, taken up such an unusual - not to say unfashionable - instrument?

Moving the paper umbrella to one side and sipping his cocktail, Clive explains that, as a boy of five, he was forced to endure desperately dull guitar lessons when he’d have much preferred to be outside playing football.  But the last five minutes of each lesson were enlivened when the elderly teacher tried his hand at a limited Flamenco repertoire. 

It was enough to fuel the fire and awaken a life-long passion.  Later, as a solicitor’s clerk, most of his meagre earnings were spent on lessons from a brilliant exponent and teacher, John Paul Lee.  After finding one of his LPs remaindered on a record-shop rack, Clive tracked him down and persuaded Lee to take him on,

Many trips to Spain and Morocco followed where our Benenden boy found he could communicate with native players and visiting gypsies through his guitar playing rather than any known spoken language.

From the hours of solitary practice at home Clive developed a technique which enabled him to play at lightning speed. What he needed, though, was to record his work.  But in these days of on-line, digital music, record companies and recording contracts are all but impossible to find.  An old friend who co-owns a label was impressed by the playing.  But his partner felt it wasn’t sufficiently ‘alternative’.  Then a stroke of luck put him in touch with Hasmick Promotions who normally specialise in re-releases.  They thought that Clive was worth a punt and put him in the studio.  The resulting CD, Flamenco Guitar Music (well, I suppose it IS what it says on the box!), is released this week.

So now, after half a century, just as most people are retiring, Clive is embarking on a new career.  But how to promote this departure?  Over one of those disgusting Bacardi and Cokes, he asked my advice.  Now, anyone less qualified to consult on music, guitars or Flamenco would be hard to find.  But I was struck by his gentle boast that he played unusually fast.  OK, I said, put your money where your mouth is.  Challenge all-comers to a Flamenco guitar speed contest.  Give a prize to anyone who can play faster then you.

Hmm, he mused, what sort of prize?  Well how about a copy of the new CD?  That shouldn't cost you too much!

So it was decided and the challenge is out there.  If you think you can play faster Flamenco than a superannuated solicitor, take him on!  I look forward to hearing the result after (probably loosing) the next Friday evening tennis game.

Times. Stonehenge -Fleecing Tourists

Fleecing Tourists Is Our Heritage

By Kent Barker

Somewhere in the box of family photos in the attic there’s a picture of a (much) younger Barker at Stonehenge. If I’m not actually standing on one of the menhirs, then I’m certainly in the centre of the circle touching it.

This wonderfully tactile experience was brought to mind on a trip to the West Country recently for a funeral. Myrtle was being good in the back of the car, but heavy panting hinted she needed to stretch her paws.

I was aware that changes had been happening at the stones and that a proposal to build a massively expensive tunnel to hide the A303 from visitors had been resurrected. So I thought we’d take a look.  And what a depressing experience it turned out to be.

Now, let me come clean. It was my first trip in probably 50 years and so I have no idea what the ‘visitor experience’ was like until the new centre was opened in 2013. Though I gather it was fairly minimalist: entrance via a tunnel under an ‘A’ road, no proper café facilities and only Portaloos available.

But my first impression of the new reception area was: what on earth is this awful tin roof, apparently supported by dozens of redundant Acrow props, covering disparate huts with ticket kiosk, tea room and gift shop? It looked completely out of place on the Wiltshire plain and had no resonance whatever with ancient barrows or henges. The new car park, which covers half a hillside, costs £5 to get into – though it’s refundable with your entry fee for the stones. And how much is that? £16 for an adult and £41 for a family. Sorry, HOW MUCH!!!!????? Oh, alright, £14.50 and £37.50 if you don’t add, as you are strenuously encouraged to, gift aid.

OK, that’s quite a lot, but perhaps the experience will be worth it. It does include a shuttle bus ride 2.4 kilometres down the recently closed A344 to the circle. But we didn’t want to travel in a noisy, smelly, diesel-powered motor bus, (if ever there was case for a fleet of electric vehicles, this is it!)  So Myrtle and I decided to walk. And that was pretty miserable too. A white line painted on the road demarcates the pedestrian route. So, although you can see the lovely surrounding countryside, you are actually walking along a tarmacked road with buses passing every minute or so. We finally found a proper public footpath and set off across a field full of unfenced cows with overly-curious calves. I didn’t mind, but Myrtle—and a fair number of other visitors—were severely intimidated by them.

So eventually the public footpath arrives at the prehistoric monument? Well no. Actually it arrives at a building site in front of the monument. There’s a pile of polystyrene cups, sandwich wrappers and plastic bags in one corner and mounds of earth and rubble strewn around. Ah, this must be the old car park that closed a year ago. How come they’ve not finished grassing it over in time for this season? Better not to ask.

Anyway, if you walk round the back of the building site you can get quite close to the stones. Yes, there’s an ugly wire fence in the way, but then the punters who’ve paid their £41 can’t get much nearer. They are restricted to walkways and barriers within the compound. So there we stand, walkers and official visitors, ten metres or more from the monument itself, unable to go into the circle, unable to touch the stones, unable to marvel at the construction as I had done half a century earlier.

As we set off back to the visitor centre car park we met a man in a threadbare sweater advising tourists they don’t need to pay the extortionate entrance fee but can, as we did, walk round via the public footpath and see the stones for nothing.

“You can’t be very popular with English Heritage?” I suggest. He nods. It turns out he’s been objecting to the ‘improvements’ at the World Heritage Site for years. “It’s absurd. This is a public byway so you don’t need to use the visitor car park at all. And there’s technically a footpath running right through the compound along the now closed A344. And the proposals for a tunnel are absolutely crazy. They’d wreck important archaeological sites and be a complete waste of £2 billion.”

Certainly you can’t help feeling angry on behalf of the tourists who’ve been fleeced of their entrance money and given a rotten experience to boot. If only they’d been allowed to wander at will and wonder at the 4,000 year old circle set among the most extraordinary Neolithic and Bronze Age burial sites. There must be a better way than this to ‘do’ heritage.

Stonehenge - New visitor cenre - any better?

Stonehenge - old visitor centre

Times - Dog from the Green Lagoon

Going green is dangerous for dogs

By Kent Barker

The recent spring winds have pushed the green algae to one side of the lake revealing beautiful clear water. It’s a wonderful—and increasingly rare— sight. When the glorified pond was first built by my father in the 1970s, it was always clear. There’s a lovely picture of ducks swimming through a mirror-like reflection of the house. But then, year by year, pond-weed started to grow up from the bottom and a thick green soup covered more and more of the surface.

It got so bad that visitors with dogs and small children had to be warned that this was, in fact, water and not an extension of the lawn. An elderly and none too bright golden Labrador failed to heed the advice and took one step too far off the bank. The result was comical to behold. Even once he had scrambled back onto dry land and shaken himself vigorously, he was still covered from head to tail in a glutinous green coat. How we laughed. Well, when I say we, not his owners. They were less than delighted that their beloved pooch had changed hue and now smelt like a creature from a primeval swamp. I’m not sure the hound was too amused either, especially when he was being vigorously hosed down before being allowed back inside the house.

Father tried every method imaginable to clear what he always insisted on calling his ‘lake’. Each spring vast quantities of expensive chemicals were cast liberally on the water. It certainly killed the algae. Temporarily. But it also killed most other pond-life. Permanently.  By July though, the algae was again thick enough to conceal the dead fish floating belly-up on the surface.

So he had to resort to other methods. He constructed, from decommissioned rugby posts, a boom that traversed the water. To the wooden poles he fixed chicken wire and netting and dragged the contraption from one side to the other, sweeping the algae towards the corner where the water exited the lake into the river some feet below.

Oh, yes, I’d neglected to mention the river. That was the vital ingredient in Father’s grand design. When he first mooted a moat for the—admittedly medieval—house, we mocked the idea. Even when he amended it to a pond (sorry ‘lake’) in what was, hitherto, a peaceful sheep-grazed meadow, we were sceptical. “Where are you going to get the water from,” we asked? “From the river, of course,” he replied. “But, Dad, the river is two metres below the level of the field. You’re going to have to do an awful lot of digging.” “No problem, I’ll pipe the water under the road from the upper millpond opposite”, he said nonchalantly.

No argument would dissuade him. Huge mechanical diggers were employed; the field was turned into a muddy quagmire and, whenever we asked how he was planning to dig up the road for his pipe, he just smiled enigmatically.

Then his fairy godmother on the council announced the adjacent road bridge was to be upgraded and a sliver of our land would be required. To avoid a protracted compulsory purchase battle, they immediately agreed to run Father’s  pipe under the road for him.

As I say, to begin with, the project was a great success. My sister and I bathed in the cool clear water. A dinghy was purchased and capsized regularly after drunken luncheons. Ducks were imported, but usually just swam across to the other side of the pond, waddled down to the river and disappeared off downstream, never to return.

After Father died, I rather let the lake return to nature. Trees grew up round it, depositing leaves, which further depleted the oxygen and aided the algae. I did, at one point, drain it and have a digger remove the organic matter on the bottom. For the rest of that season the water remained clear but, by the following year, the surface again resembled an unbroken green carpet.

Then, by chance, I discovered that new technology had come up with a solution. Apparently ultrasound kills off algae and, more importantly, prevents them coming back. So, I thought, rush me an ultrasound machine and let’s get going. But—and you just knew there’d be a ‘but’ didn’t you?—they are pretty pricey. And, frankly, I’d like to be sure that it would work before shelling out several thousand pounds on the off chance. So I wrote to the manufacturer asking if I could have one on approval or for hire to make sure it was fully effective. So far I’ve had no reply and, day by day, the algae is spreading out. I’ve now seen that they are using the stuff for biomass. I wonder if my green lake could be harvested for green fuel?

Times - Own your Own (Village Shop)

Own your village shop for £10!

By Kent Barker

They seem to have managed it in Ambridge.  The question is: can we do it here? Set up a community shop that is.

For some time a question mark has hung over the future of our little village grocers. The current owners – mother and daughter – wanted to sell up and move on and, not unreasonably, needed to achieve a fair price for their premises known as the Poplars. This is an old and attractive detached building with accommodation above, located in the heart of the village. So it was on the market for a fairly high sum. High enough to make the idea of continuing to run a shop there uneconomic.

So the ‘for sale’ sign was up for more than a year with no takers. And that was of growing concern to a considerable number of residents. There are several reasons why a village shop is important. Tradition obviously – and convenience.  But, to be frank, most people pop into the nearest town to Tesco or go slightly further afield to Waitrose for their shopping.

We are in a pretty wealthy area. Homes can change hands for around the million mark – especially if there’s a paddock attached for the ponies and room for the tennis court or swimming pool.  But there are also quite a few more modest homes and quite a bit of social housing. Not to mention the old council places which have been sold off but are still relatively affordable. So, hidden among the Range Rovers, BMW X5s and Porsche Cayennes are a number of elderly, down-at-heel Ford Fiestas. And there are a surprising number of people who don’t have a car at all - for whom popping out to a nearby town isn’t really an option.

Now, of course, you can get your shopping delivered from the big supermarkets. But that assumes you are computer literate. And the trouble is that the very people who don’t have cars and might want the delivery service are likely to be the very same people most unable or unwilling to shop online.

There is another factor as well. Loneliness. Elderly people living in the country often don’t have much social contact. A report from Age UK showed that half of Britons over 75 are living alone. And that 600,000 elderly people leave their houses just once a week or less. Proportionally, there are more elderly people living in rural communities than in towns. Half the population living in the countryside is over 45 compared to 36 per cent living in major urban areas. So the threat of closure of a village shop or post office – or both – is really serious for the elderly, the infirm or the poor, as it provides not just goods and services, but social intercourse and support. 

Now, I accept that a small business such as a shop cannot be run as part of our social services. (Well actually it could be, but not in our current political climate where individualism and self-interest seem always to trump communality and social caring.) But there are things that could be done. Using the Post Office to help hard-pressed local shops for instance. But, having privatised it, the Government has watched the Post Office embark on a massive restructuring known as Network Transformation, with 2,000 sub-post offices due to become ‘locals’ over the next couple of years.

The ‘local’ will be stripped of many roles, including handling international parcels and domestic ones over 20kg. The ability to pay bills manually will go, as will passport, car tax and DVLA services. And, most importantly, the retainer paid to the shopkeeper will also disappear.

Anyway, to return to the more parochial problems of our own threatened village shop, a working party was set up and reported that a community venture might be possible, but not in the old premises. The Parish Council looked at alternatives, but couldn’t see any viable sites. It was suggested that converting the public toilet block might be feasible – though the memory of its former use might have been a tad off-putting to shoppers seeking fresh produce.

And so things remained in abeyance until a chance discussion with one of our larger local businesses – Benenden Girls School. It seemed they urgently need more residences for staff and were prepared to buy the Poplars for the accommodation above. A slightly altered shop premises is to be offered back to a Community Benefit Society on a long lease at an affordable rent.

The new community shop will be owned by villagers who have bought £10 shares and who will elect a management committee to run it with volunteers and a few paid staff.  It seems a win, win situation, and I think we’ve been extremely lucky to find a local benefactor. Other equally deserving villages may not be so fortunate.

Times - Pink Aggregate

The preposterous priority of pink aggregate

By Kent Barker

Walking with my dog along a local bridleway and we got rather a shock.  Where, before, there had been a rutted muddy track, now was a smooth raised path constructed from laid and rolled aggregate. The trouble is it was pink.  Heavens knows where they found pink aggregate or why they decided to use it in this green field in the middle of the countryside. Or indeed why they had decided to ‘repair’ the muddy track in the first place.

            Actually I can guess the answer to that last one:  probably because the end of the financial year approaches and they had some money left in their budget!  The same thing happened this time last year on another local byway.

            Now, I’m not against bridleways or by-ways.  Nor am I against my county council maintaining them.  I’d much rather they didn’t use pink stones, but that’s my personal colour preference.  Others might like pink.  What does concern me, though, is the cost.  Tens of thousands of pounds must have gone into this ‘repair’. The bank, on one side, had been reinforced with wire cages full of rocks. Diggers and bulldozers and rollers must have been employed.  Hundreds of tonnes of this ugly pink stuff had been trucked in.  And for what?  So horses could keep their hooves dry?  OK. Not just for that.  Walkers would be able to keep their boots clean and cyclists their tyres pristine.  It simply wasn’t necessary.

            If they’d asked me what was needed, I’d have said more maintenance of our public footpaths.  On our walks we find collapsed and dangerous stiles, paths overgrown with brambles and cattle who have trampled the land to an impassable quagmire.  A few more reminders to landowners of their responsibilities, and a programme to replace stiles with gates would be of far greater benefit to far more people.

            But even that’s not really the point.  Kent County Council currently needs to save a whopping £81 million.  Year on year central Government grants to local authorities have been slashed.  Jobs have been lost and services cut.  Children’s services are next in line.  Adult provision has already been denuded.

            Out here in the country the elderly really rely on home visits.  It was the only thing that enabled my mother to remain in her house for the last years of her life.  This was vital for her, but also saved huge sums of money on residential care which she would have hated.

            At our last parish council meeting our local Kent County Councillor reported on the cuts.  “We’re looking to make savings by outsourcing further services,” he said.  This is councilspeak for privatisation.  And privatisation is a euphemism for taking services away from public providers like councils and giving them to private companies. And paying less for them.

I don’t necessarily dispute that competition can be beneficial, nor think that public services HAVE to be provided by public providers.

But I just cannot see how giving public service contracts to private ‘for profit’ companies will result in genuine value for money.  You have a pot of cash available to provide a service – say home visits for the elderly.  Then you reduce that pot. Competitive tendering might, just possibly, achieve sufficient savings without services suffering – always assuming that the previous public provider was inefficient.

But then you’ve also got to take the private company’s profit out of that pot. And what you then get is wages forced down – or people paid less than the minimum wage as travel is not properly included in their contract.  And you get them having to ‘clip’ the time they spend with clients. 

And anyway, why should shareholders in private companies profit from provision of PUBLIC services paid for by my taxes? Victorian capitalists wanting money to build railways or canals would seek investors who were taking a genuine risk – for which dividends and profits were the incentive. But there’s next to no risk in a fixed-price contract with a public provider such as a council, and the private company seldom if ever requires venture capital.

There is a way through this.  Only offer contracts for public services to ‘not for profit’ companies.  There are dozens of charities and trusts who can compete with each other and the public provider if they so wish.  But at least all the public money is going into service provision.

There’s another way to save money too.  And that’s to ensure that all council services are genuinely required. Resurfacing several kilometers of bridleway in pink aggregate is not, in my view, much of a priority.  Not nearly as important as care for the elderly.  Oh, but that’s a different budget.  And it’s capital not revenue. And it’s a statutory duty.  All of which may be true, but surely there must be a better way.

           

           

Times - Creature Harmony

Robin respect for fellow creatures

By Kent Barker

            There’s an over-friendly Robin in my garden. She (though it could be a ‘he’ - both have red breasts) gets far too close for safety when I’m chopping wood or piling logs.  I’d hate anything to happen to her.  She’s become a friend.  I even find myself talking to her. The dog thinks I’m a bit batty but, hey, what’s new?

            Last spring she, or her predecessor, was camped outside the back door making a heck of a row.  I greeted her politely, admiring her plumage and went into the kitchen.  And she followed, flying round and round, and shrieking as if in distress.  “Come on, out you go”, I said ushering her back into the garden. But she soon returned.  And I soon found out why.  A little ball of brown downy feathers was wriggling on the floor under the dining table.  Now a baby Robin is just the most gorgeous thing to behold.  Rather like a teenager awakened around mid-day with it’s hair uncombed and in a disheveled onesie, this is not a thing of intrinsic beauty, but nevertheless your heart goes out to it.  Whether it’s the baby Robin or your hulking child.

            So somehow the fledgling had got in through the open door and was stuck under the table while mum was flying round in distress (yes, this is the Robin we’re talking about again now – do keep up). I like to think she was appealing for my help. Which was immediately given as I gingerly put her offspring in the palm of my hand and reunited them safely in the garden.

            Now come on, I hear you say, enough of this anthropomorphic claptrap.  Get to the point.  Well, the point is that a year or so back they were talking of culling Robins.  No, really! So many were nesting in vent pipes and chimney flues that they were said to be causing a hazard.  Perhaps culling is a bit of an exaggeration but certainly the proposal was for you to be allowed to destroy their nests and remove their eggs without a license.  Surely, I thought as I read this, surely it would be easier just to put some wire mesh over the pipe and prevent them getting in to begin with?

            But that doesn’t seem to be the British way.  If there’s an issue with a fellow creature, our instinct is to kill it rather than solve the problem.  Culling Badgers who might or might not be infected with TB, rather than vaccinating them, is a case in point.

            My starting point is to try share the planet in harmony with any and all creatures on it – unless they are actively threatening my existence or wellbeing.  We talk a lot about ‘human’ rights.  But woefully little about animal rights.  It’s as if we were in the pre-abolition era.  Slaves were not regarded as human so they could be treated as animals.  But hang on a minute. We are animals too.  Why should we treat the human species so differently from, say, Vulpes?  You can’t go out and shoot a human, but a fox is fair game.  It’s considered ‘vermin’ (was there ever a more disgusting appellation – designed to make the destruction of fellow creatures seem not just acceptable but positively virtuous.)

The fox is closely related to my dog as a member of the Canidae family, along with wolves and jackels, yet no one is trying to kill dogs.  Well, actuallty that’s not quite true.  Organised dog fighting is, amazingly, on the increase. Along with cock-fighting. Last year the RSPCA received nearly 600 calls relating to organised animal fighting.  And you can be sure that far more goes on that the charity is not alerted to.

So despite it being illegal for eighty years, some people still goad dogs to savage each other. We still slaughter badgers – 1,861 in the last ‘pilot’ culls and we still shoot millions – yes, millions – of pheasants and other birds out of the sky each year.

A friend of a Buddhist bent considers part of the problem being nomenclature.  If you refer to creatures as vermin or livestock you cheapen their intrinsic value. 

“Let’s replace the stock from the storeroom … let’s replace the livestock from sow pens or veal crates.”   It all becomes the same.

She’s got a problem with mice in the larder at the moment, but can’t bring herself to kill them.  Her suggestion was to use a non-lethal trap and take them to the local park for release. My guess was that – like the Flintstones’ cat refusing to be put out for the night -  the mice would simply run home and be waiting for her when she got back. But at least she’d have the satisfaction of knowing they were still alive.

Times - Grubbing Orchards

Farming subsidies buy precious little protection

By Kent Barker

A bulldozer was in the field the other day near one of our regular dog-walking routes.  Above the insistent roar of the big diesel engine was the clang, clang , clang of the metal plate at the front, lowered to the ground, forcing all before it.

I knew what it was doing. Removing stumps and roots of trees. Trees that had been cut down more than a year before in what, round here, we dubbed the great Kentish Chainsaw Massacre.

It all started one lovely Sunday May morning. The blossom was resplendent, bees were buzzing, and birds were singing in the warm sunshine.  Then came that awful penetrating whine of two-stroke engines that just went on and on.

In the countryside, chainsaws are not uncommon. I use one myself quite frequently, but only in short bursts. You may fell a small tree and cut it up into lengths. But then you stop the engine and pile up the logs. Not so in this field.   The noise just didn’t stop. What could they be doing? It was a bit late to be pruning and, anyway, pruning with a chainsaw is rather radical. So I went to investigate.

I knew this was an orchard but, as they were hidden behind high hedges, I’d never actually seen the trees. And how magnificent they were. As we walked through the gate we stared at the great old full-standard apples with boughs spreading outwards, probably planted in the 1940s or 50s. Possibly Bramleys or Coxes. And a whole field of them. Well, there had been a whole field of them. Now half were gone.  Two men were systematically felling and sawing them up.

I asked, politely, if they had a licence and got a surprised response. Didn’t think we needed one. We’re only contractors. We’ll go and check with the farmer.  

When I got home I did some checking too. The Forestry Commission’s website is clear: “You normally need permission from us to fell growing trees.” But a little later: “felling carried out without a licence is an offence unless covered by an exemption.” And of course, you’ve guessed it, fruit trees in a garden or orchard are exempt. But how could they be? What possible logic is there?

  Traditional orchards are fast vanishing. A recent survey from Natural England and the National Trust found that almost two-thirds of England’s ancient orchards have disappeared since 1950 – and they rest could go by the end of the century unless action is taken to save them.

So let’s take some action! I phone the council’s Tree Officer. Could you slap a Tree Protection Order on those left in that orchard on my walk? Sorry, he tells me, it’s not that straightforward with commercial orchards. Fruit trees are exempt from TPOs. A farmer has to be allowed to profit from his land.

So I write to my MP. She seems sympathetic and will forward my ‘case’ to the Environment Secretary. A month or so later she gets a reply from a junior minister, Richard Benyon: “I would like to assure Mr Barker that we value very highly the contribution that orchards make to biodiversity. They support a wide range of wildlife, including an array of Nationally Rare and Nationally Scarce (his capitals) species.”

Excellent, I think, the Government is behind me. Laws will change. Orchards will be saved. I’ll get a knighthood or some other gong for my services to Saving the Trees.  But then I read on:

“The reason that orchards are excluded from the tree felling regulations in the Forestry Act 1967 is that fruit trees are not recognised as timber producing species. There are no plans to amend the legislation to include the felling of fruit trees.”

So that’s it then. The Government recognise orchards are important and that they are disappearing. But they will do nothing to save them because fruit trees are not “timber producing”. What nonsense is this?

But the clue, I think, came from the council’s Tree Officer. “A farmer has to be allowed to profit from his land”. Hmm.

I can still remember when the fields across the valley from my house were criss-crossed with hedgerows. A vitally important wildlife habitat, everyone agreed. But the hedges were systematically removed, as ever larger tractors and combined harvesters were employed. The little stream at the bottom of my garden used to have brown trout in abundance. Until pesticides and agrochemicals ran off the land and poisoned the water. We used to have hundreds of acres of traditional apple tress until they were grubbed up and replaced with easier-to-pick dwarf and bush varieties.

We pay something like £3 billion a year in subsidies to UK farmers. You might have hoped that would have bought us some environmental protection from their activities. Sadly it seems not.

Times - Fracking Bridges

An Environmental Bridge too Far.

By Kent Barker

            There used to be a beautiful brick hump-back bridge over the river at the bottom of the hill by my house.  It was rather narrow. Doubtless when horse-drawn carriages, ox carts, hay-wains and the like met on its approach one would give way to the other with cheery wave and friendly conversation as drivers passed slowly by.

            With the coming of motor vehicles things changed. Brakes would have to be applied and one or other driver would be forced to back up, with possible imprecations, to let the other through.  But as cars got faster and the lane became busier, accidents became more frequent.  My sister and I, playing in the garden, would hear the squeal of rubber on tarmac and lay bets on whether it would be followed by the sound of crumpling metal and breaking glass.

            Once a car lost control, and ended up half way through our hedge with its front wheels in the rose bed.

            Eventually the council deemed it prudent to replace the bridge with a modern concrete structure, wide enough to accommodate two vehicles at once. The result is that cars and vans now travel at ten times the speed but we seldom, if ever, face the prospect of the roses being demolished.

            I was put in mind of our old and much missed bridge when I read about a petition to save a similar structure in West Sussex.  Boxal Bridge is an even lovelier stone-built single-lane affair that is threatened with demolition by the county council.  And why?  Because of Fracking.

            The bridge is just 400 meters from the entrance to a proposed drilling site operated by Celtique Energie.  This multinational company has an exploration and development license covering 1000 square kilometers of Southern England –from Liphook and Petersfield in the west to Copthorne, Horsham and West Grinstead in the east.  The company is currently appealing against the county council’s refusal of planning permission for drilling at Boxal Bridge. If they win, the bridge goes.

            I think it’s important not to be too emotional over things like Fracking.  After all, wouldn’t it be good for Britain to be far more self sufficient in energy?  Especially as up to 15% of our gas probably comes from Russia! Certainly Shale has transformed the United States’ economy and means that their petrol is about a third the price it is here.  Just imagine, less than 40p a litre!  If – and I know it’s a big IF – the UK was self-sufficient, how much extra money we’d have available to spend on the NHS or schools.  What’s a pretty bridge or two compared to those benefits?

            And if the only downside to Shale gas extraction was wider access ways and a bit more concrete on the countryside, then I might be in favour.  The trouble is it’s not quite that simple.

            Fracking involves drilling down vertically about 2km, then horizontally outwards for as much as 3km. (Possibly under your house!) On a typical well, up to 10 million litres of water containing sand, lubricating fluids and chemicals are pumped into the borehole under extremely high pressures. This opens up cracks in the Shale for the gas to escape.

            Some 60 different chemicals are used in the process including, crucially, Hydrochloric Acid to dissolve minerals and initiate the cracking.  There is a lively debate as to whether these chemicals are the source of pollutants – including Arsenic - found in ground water near US wells.

            So let’s summarise the potential downsides of Fracking: pollution or poisoning of aquifer water, release of methane gasses, chemical spills, seismic disruption, a vast increase in heavy traffic near wells, and concreting over parts of the countryside.

            Oh, yes, and one other. The carbon dioxide ‘green house gas’ emissions that will result from burning it. Surely if we are to invest large sums in creating or harvesting new energy supplies we should be promoting renewables and not fossil fuel hydrocarbons.  Even the government’s own report by Professor David Mackay concluded: “without global climate policies … new fossil fuel exploitation is likely to lead to an increase in cumulative carbon emissions and the risk of climate change”.

            Yet the same government continues its self-avowed policy of a ‘dash for gas’ while more environmentally friendly schemes such as renewables are left behind in the race.  The recently announced tidal lagoons in Wales are a welcome exception.  And some of the renewable heat incentive grants are, despite unbelievably labyrinthine bureaucracy, helpful.  But where is the legislation to require builders to make new homes genuinely self-sufficient in energy? Where’s the serious research funding for electric cars?

            It makes the citizen feel powerless in the face of corporate momentum and apparent governmental indifference.  It seems the best we can do is sign petitions to save sentimental structures like Boxal bridge.

HIP Politics - Voting

Election Fever or Voting Apathy?

Former political correspondent Kent Barker provides your guide to voting in the general election.

            The alarm is summoning you from slumber.  As you roll over in bed you realise it’s May 7^th - Election Day.  You must resist the temptation to pull the cover back over your head. There are important decisions to be made. Who to vote for? Whether it’s best to vote for a person or policies or party?  Indeed, whether to vote at all?  Perhaps you haven’t decided yet. Maybe you still have questions.  Let’s see if we can provide answers.

First you may ask: Aren’t there good reasons why I shouldn’t bother to vote at all? Politicians are all the same self-serving egotists; my vote wont make any difference as governments are usually elected with less than 50% of the popular vote; Russell Brand was right that grass roots activism actually gets more done; I don’t want to perpetuate an archaic parliamentary system where I can’t elect the upper chamber.

Well, yes, those are strong points.  But you can’t really complain about the state of things if you can’t even be arsed to participate.  And maybe not ALL politicians are in it entirely for themselves.  Some genuinely believe in public service and work hard for their constituents.  If you had a real problem with the bureaucratic state, it might be useful to have someone to fight on your behalf. As for Russell Brand, his argument for local activism doesn’t stop you having a national government as well. Finally, our current parliamentary system might be outdated, but there have been some genuine reforms recently, and it might change more if you voted in some younger more radical MPs and replaced old fogies like Sir Bufton Tufton.

            There’s another reason to vote. You might actually get a bit of a buzz from it.  Both because you’ve done your civic ‘duty’, and because, even if only in the tiniest way, your vote might actually make a difference.

Hmm. But if I do go into the polling booth, how shall I decide who to vote for?  Is it the party, their policies, or the local candidate? Or is it just a beauty contest between Cameron and Milliband?

            Well, the answer is all of the above.  If you really like one of the candidates in your constituency and believe they will represent you best – then vote for them regardless of party. If you really believe in the policies of a particular party, then vote for that party regardless of the candidate. And if you really think that, say, Milliband would make a better leader of the country than Cameron, vote for him rather than his party or their policies.

            That answer is useless.  It doesn’t tell me which are the more important factors. 

No, well only you can decide on your proprieties.  Often it will be a combination or a sort of instinct.  “I think this party’s policies are likely to increase/decrease the gap between rich and poor”.  “I want a party that cares about ordinary people rather than an elite”.  That sort of thing.

Well, what about tactical voting?  If I really support the Lib Dems or the Greens isn’t a vote for either of them wasted, as neither are realistically going to form a government?

Yes, that’s a tricky one.  I have a friend who is a member of the Green party and so really wants to get the Tories out both here in Hastings and at Westminster.  But if she votes Green she will, effectively, be taking a vote away from Labour who do have a chance of winning both locally and nationally.  So her Green vote could be entirely counterproductive.

So what should she do?

She could vote tactically for Labour but that would be to ignore her party commitment.  Plus the more votes her Green Party gets nationally the more legitimacy they have, even if they don’t win many actual seats.  So what she did was arrange a vote swap.

What’s a vote swap?

She found a Labour supporter in a nearby constituency with a massive Conservative majority.  He agreed to vote Green there on her behalf, and she’ll use ‘his’ Labour vote here in Hastings.

Isn’t there a danger that sort of arrangement would work for UKIP and the right-wing parties too?

That’s democracy for you.

I’ve been really impressed with Nicola Sturgeon and Leanne Wood.  How come I can’t vote SNP or Plaid Cymru?

The short answer is because they don’t have candidates in England.  But it’s notable that for the first time in many, many elections, a clear left wing message is finding a resonance across the UK.  The questions are though, will it be reflected in the way people vote, and will it lead to a fairer electoral system in the future where people who vote for smaller parties actually get the representation they deserve?  We’ll have to see.

HIP - A Lamb in Sheep’s Clothing

A Lamb in Sheep’s Clothing

By Kent Barker

I’ve often pondered how extraordinary it is that something as entrancing as a new-born lamb can turn into such an unattractive and generally stupid creature as a fully-grown sheep.  And this is not just my prejudice. Shepherds and sheep farmers will forever tell you that a ewe’s chief objective in life appears to be to kill or injure itself.

We used to have a flock in the field behind the house. Many is the time I’ve heard plaintive Baaaa-ing and, on investigation, found some silly sheep has got stuck half way down the river bank, unwilling to go forward and too frightened to go back.  Sometimes they get stuck in muddy patches. The more they struggle the deeper they sink until they’re up to their bellies.   A wire fence is also a magnetic attraction.  Through the hole goes their head with the ears acting as barbs when they try to withdraw.

I used to call the farmer to extricate them.  He’d grab their fleece with both hands and push them up the river bank, or haul them bodily out of the mud, or smooth back their ears so they could remove their head.  So now I just do the same.  Once you’ve got over the fact that they are pretty panicky it’s not difficult.

But at this time of year you can forgive a ewe almost anything as she produces those gorgeous lambs which leap and gambol and chase each other around the field with the warm spring sun on their woolly backs.  More than snowdrops or primroses, daffodils or bluebells, it’s lambs that herald the end of winter.

I was thinking of this as I was parking the car in a Hastings side street recently.  A group of young women exited a terraced house next to me, followed by their host waving them farewell.  The latter appeared to be not so much a person as a sheep, walking on its hind legs, smoking a cigarette.

Now, I may be a bit of a country bumpkin, unused to the ways of the town, but even I realised this was unlikely.  And, indeed, on second glance I could see she was, in fact, a girl in her early twenties wearing a rather convincing, if deeply unattractive, sheep ‘onesie’. 

As she went back inside I mused that this must be an extremely rare  example of lamb dressed as mutton.

Read More at: KentCountryMatters.Blogspot.Com

Lamb in Lamb's clothing