Country Life 8-Mar-2023

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk IN an age when 280-character tweets are employed to sway public opinion and a three-word manifesto (‘Get Brexit done’) can help secure an 80-seat landslide, words matter more than ever. The less precision in the choice of words, the more open they are to misinterpretation—and abuse. ‘Green’, ‘eco’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ are too vague to have any real meaning. Even if the intention isn’t to obfuscate, the effect often is. Clarity is vital, not least because it’s the key to understanding. In the world of furniture, gardens and architecture, ‘sustainability’ can mean almost everything —and nothing. Does it relate to the source of the materials? The means of production? A building’s carbon footprint? If we have a handle…

For all the latest news, visit countrylife.co.uk A CENTURY ago, the chief debates within the British ornithological establishment centred around classification, nomenclature and the identification of subspecies. Studies were mainly based on the skins of shot birds rather than on field observation, so knowledge of their ecology was limited. Now, there are descriptive accounts and statistics on the populations and behaviour of all of Britain’s resident and most passage species, with targeted surveys carried out on those believed vulnerable. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has played a leading role in these developments and celebrates the 90th anniversary of its foundation this year. The not-for-profit trust was formed to advance knowledge of British birds and their habitats, as well as identify issues influencing their wellbeing. Harry Witherby, an early vice-chairman, had proposed…

Quiz of the week 1) Which is England’s only ‘natural’ World Heritage Site? 2) Under which monarch did England lose Calais, its last toehold in France? 3) What’s the name of Mr Wickfield’s devious law clerk (later partner) in David Copperfield? 4) How many Pomp and Circumstance marches did Elgar complete? 5) Which marsupials can be found in the wild in the UK? Word of the week Vaccary (noun) A place where cattle are kept Paws for thought Dog trainer Ben Randall offers his advice Over the top Q Training with my dog, Bobby, went well at first, but now I find he keeps losing concentration and gets easily distracted. Help! — B. W., Derbyshire A Training a dog should be closer to kindergarten than the rigours of boot camp. If your dog is easily distracted, bored or disengaged, you may be…

Letter of the week It’s time for Parliament I WAS delighted to read Athena on February 22. Shortly after I was appointed Clerk of the House and chief executive of the House of Commons in 2011, my Lords opposite number and I commissioned the first comprehensive condition survey of the Palace of Westminster. I felt passionately that we could not be yet another generation of stewards of this magnificent building who avoided our responsibilities. The survey’s principal conclusion was that doing nothing was not an option; yet here we are, more than a decade later, and the main activity seems to have been establishing the project’s governance, changing it, then changing it again. Even doing nothing costs millions a month and the risk of a fire or a catastrophic failure of services…

TRIUMPH, humiliation, disgrace—February certainly went out with a bang. First, the triumph. Farmers all over Britain should be relieved and impressed by the Prime Minister’s remarkable achievement in reforming the Northern Ireland Protocol. He has achieved what no one thought possible and he’s done it by force of character, showing the wider world that he is a man to be trusted. Agromenes has often had to be critical of this Government, particularly of its attitude to the countryside, but, here, unstinted praise is merited. So, too, for the opposition’s willingness to give their unqualified support, thus showing a recognition of the primacy of the national interest. The EU also has been generous in its willingness to find a way to reconcile the irreconcilable. Nowhere else in the world have two different…

ATHENA has nothing against statues. In fact, she likes to think of her likeness—a 35ft-high colossus sculpted by Phidias for the inner sanctuary of the Parthenon—as the best statue ever, conscious that it’s been about 100 generations since anyone with first-hand knowledge of the original could presume to disagree. As one of the great cities of the world, London has a rich stock of public statues and monuments ranging from what are, in Athena’s view, the magnificent—Flaxman’s Achilles—to the highly accomplished—Rodin’s Burghers of Calais—to the slightly ridiculous—Animals in War Memorial—via the overblown—Bomber Command (seemingly dropped at random into position)—and the arcane—represented by any number of Victorian generals. Indeed, London is so heavily populated by bronze folk that the Royal Parks and the City of Westminster have no-more-statues policies. Nowhere is the…