Prince Harry

The historian Lord Macaulay (1800 -1859) wrote; "We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality."   Except today, in the 21st century, when over the last week we haver been nauseated by the sight of elements of the British Press enjoying themselves at the expense of a cracking young lad who most of us would be immensely proud to have as a son.

Last week I read a lengthy article in the Daily Telegraph by their arch prig -Peter Oborne - whining on about how Prince Harry by his behaviour had bought both the Royal family and the British Military into disrepute. Leaving the Royal family out of it  (though I bet Prince Philip is heartily glad that camera phones were not around in his youth) what sort of men does Peter Oborne actually think join the armed forces and willingly risk their lives so little worms like him can tout their poison in freedom?  Well I will let him into a little  secret. They are red bloodied boys who thrive on the high adrenalin which military life provides and love nothing more than having a bloody good party and if that involves playing strip poker with pretty girls all the better.  They are not in short anally retentive prigs like Oborne or others of his ilk who have enjoyed themselves writing sermons about Prince Harry's conduct over the last week.  

There was also a nauseous  leader in the Sunday Times which praised their sister paper - The Sun - for 'Its brave loan stand for press freedom.' For those who don't know the owner of The Sunday Times and The Sun is Rupert Murdoch, who also of course owns Fox News in America, and  who is on record as having a peculiar loathing for the Royal family.  Actually, of course, the reason The Sun published the photos has nothing to do with 'bravery' and everything to do with selling extra copies of its joke newspaper thereby putting more money into Murdoch's grubby pocket.   

Kishanda - my wife -arthur my son

Actually I am not alone in my family in being able to write. My wife too is good with a pen and to prove it I append the link to her latest offering in the 'The Hidden Britain' supplement of todays Sunday Telelgraph where she expounds lucidly and humourously on the perils and pitfalls of being chatelaine of our house.  The good news is that my son, Arthur, has added his comments as well to the piece on his 'view of his inheritance' proving not only that the literary gene!  has been passed on but that the future of this house and estate are safe in his hands.    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/travel/hidden-britain/9480079/english-stately-home-fulford.html

Double Barrelled Names - A resurgence

One surprise from the Olympic Games is that the double barrel name is alive and well.  No longer though are double barrel names the preserve of the British Upper Classes ( not forgetting also those who aspired to be considered Upper Class) but now are seemingly enormously popular among Jamaicans.  Why this is I would be fascinated to know but every time a double barrelled name appeared on the list of athletes taking part in an event it was always born with pride by a Jamaican.

The hope must be that this resurgence of the double barrelled name will encourage those who, over the last thirty odd years, have discretely dropped one or more names from their full surname to once again take them up. Life will be infinitely richer if the likes of my old comrade in arms, Sir Ranulf Fiennes reverts back to calling himself; Sir Ranulf Twiselton - Wickham -Fiennes or Charles Clive once more rejoices in signing his name Charles Clive - Ponnsoby- Fane.        

Smoking

A businessman once said; "I know 90% of my advertising budget is wasted -I just don't know which 90%."   Well I have news for the Department of Health and that is that virtually 100% of the anti smoking budget might as well  be ditched for all the good it does. As my children grow up I have observed with amazement that they all smoke to some extent and that virtually all their friends smoke as well.  While I also noticed at a party  a thirty year old army officer gave  that virtually all his mates where smokers - this despite sky high prices for fags and a constant barrage of propaganda.  Conversely hardly anyone over 50 now smokes (I gave up my 40 a day habit when I was forty nine) .

The lesson is simple. Abandon trying to scare the shit out of the young about ciggies as it does not work with them - they don't believe it will affect them for a start and smoking is simply just too much fun and too social an activity to give up.  Us oldies on the other hand are easily scared and are highly receptive to tales that nicotine makes us look older, causes our teeth to fall out and eventually ends up killing us one way or the other.

So the answer is for the Health Gestapo to concentrate its ads on the over 35's while taxing the shit out of the youth. The trouble with this policy is that most of my children and their friends are adept at 'rolling their own' and I strongly suspect that the majority of 'roll up' tobacco smoked in the UK is smuggled duty free into this country via lorry drivers etc.  So why not cut duty on tobacco?  It does not act as a deterrent to the young but it does act as an incentive to the smuggler. Cheaper fags wouldn't -I suggest cause people to smoke more - but it could cause them to smoke more legitimate ciggies rather than smuggled ones.  

Country House Rescue -A mistake

You can't live your life without making the odd mistake and it seems now that I made a major one when I agreed to allow Country House Rescue to do a programme on us.  Lose some win some and we lost this one big time as our programme has certainly disproved the old adage 'That there is no such thing as bad publicity' wrong.

Allow me though to put things in perspective. Firstly for every one hour of  film shown on the TV there is nearly one hundred hours which lie on the cutting room floor. In other words -in simple language -it is all in the edit.

Secondly Simon Davis and his Director decided for reasons known only to them - to rubbish the house and our pricing  of events etc. They flagrantly hammed up scenes such as the one where Simon Davies pretends he has had to turn on three electric radiators in order to keep warm- it was actually a very warm night and one of those electric radiators is more than ample to heat a room. They refused to accept that houses such as ours are not hotels. We have no wish to be a hotel or to compete with them. We believe we offer something different which is the exclusive use of a great country house and that there are people who are willing to pay for such a unique experience. We had hoped Simon Davies would have some insight into helping us market our house. Instead he had no insight except to say 'go down market.' His idea of a 'pop up' cinema was frankly pathetic. In the local town you can enjoy a film in the comfort of an armchair with a drink in your hand at a superb cinema - why would anyone bother to pay good money to come to us and see an out of date film? OK maybe once for the novelty and because the TV cameras where present but not on a regular basis.

I could go on but I won't. As ever don't believe everything you see on the screen.            

Naples

We have just come back from a short city break in Naples. So what struck me strongest about Naples?  Well the complete lack of any 'Health & Safety' for a start. Everyone charges about on scooters without, horror, helmets on, weaving through the traffic and, where necessary, mounting the pavement. No driver seems to bother with seat belts, everyone smokes, the streets are littered with rubbish and the buildings covered with graffitti, the police, especially the Carbineri, are extremley smart and well turned out (in sharp contrast to our slobs) and everyone seems very relaxed and happy.

Taking all the above into account I thought I ought to look up the average life expectancy of these Neopolitans when I got home as, obviously, they must all die very young and you know what- they don't !!  Italians actually live longer than us - the average Italian can expect to live for 79.86 years.  Why do they live so long? Probably because they aren't stressed out trying to avoid death by living theire lives according to the set of rules devised by such fatuous public bodies as The Food Policy Unit in Defra. This employs 70 entirely surplus to requirements Civil Servants whose role in life seems to be to warn us to eat less meat.  The Italians in contrast eat what they like, smoke what they like and drive how they like and live longer.  There is surely a lesson here for George Osborne as he seeks ways of cutting public expenditure and re invigorating the economy -and that is make a bonfire of all the 'nanny knows best'  departments and 'units' in the public sector - the savings in money would be large and you know what - we would probably all live longer and, even if we didn't, we would certainly enjoy life more. 

         

Save Our Forests 2 - Forest Research - A blast

Don't get me wrong I am strongly in favour of the Government reducing public expenditure -for instance is it really necessary for the taxpayer to fork out some £56 million a year on buying crap art for Government offices and hospitals - answer no -obviously -but we are still doing it.  Now to pay for all this dubious art cuts have to be made somewhere and where better than in an obscure department of which 'no one knows anything' and which does not have a vociferous screaming shouting BBC/Guardian reading lobby behind it - namely something called Forest Research.

Forest Research?  - Never heard of it - Get rid of it - Another F***ing QUANGO - Bollocks to it - There are no votes in F***ing trees - and so on - etc. -such -I imagine -are the typical comments which reverberate around the rarefied corridors of DEFRA and the Treasury.  So Forest Research is having it's budget cut by 25% - which - hurrah - will allow for continued spending on crap art for Government offices.  But actually perhaps the idiot Spelman - who is the joke minister in charge of DEFRA - and her colleagues ought - for once - to try and take a longer view of the well being of this country than just the next twelve months.

The primary task of Government should not be buying art of questionable ability but should  be defending the people of this country against enemies both physical and biological.  The physical side of defence is taken care of the by the armed forces - or what's left of them - while the biological defences - against human and plant diseases -is carried out by a variety of government funded institutions one of which is Forest Research.

Ok -I am biased - I love trees- hell I plant trees - oak trees which I will never ever live long enough to enjoy seeing in their prime two hundred years hence but which give me enormous pleasure to watch grow and - you know what - I would seriously like these trees to be allowed to reach maturity therebye providing numerous benefits to wildlife, the landscape and the eco system  and - eventually - being felled and making my great great grandson a tidy sum before being made into some marvellous piece of furniture.  That's the dream. The trouble is that dream may just turn into a nightmare - not just for me - but for all those who plant and nurture their oak and for all those who enjoy the sight of national tree in it's prime. I refer to an obscure disease called Acute Oak Decline of AOD.

Now I know memories are short and I am quite sure the idiot Spelman has no recollection of the catastrophe which hit the English Landscape called Dutch Elm disease ( I am not sure if Osborne or 'Our Dave' were even born then - but if they were I suspect they were still on 'early learning Lego).   Dutch Elm disease only occurred because of the gross incompetence of her department in the 60's.  Now her parsimonious treatment of Forest Research threaten another iconic tree - actually not just 'another iconic tree' but THE iconic tree- the English Oak.         

I won't bore you with the the details of this disease (look it up on the Internet). Nor is AOD the only threat to our unique Bio diversity.  In the West of the UK tens of thousand of acres of Larch trees have been felled because of a disease called Phytophthora Ramorum - imported into this country on Camellias brought in from SW China via Holland or -to give you another example - what about a particularly nasty pest called the Processionay Moth imported - once again - you've guessed it - from nurseries in Holland on semi mature fastigiata Oaks and now likely to become endemic in the sE of England - Oh - and in passing I must mention Red Band Needle which attacks pine trees- imported - weirdly -by our very own Forestry Commission who purchased a large number of Corsican Pine plants from abroad.

Yes we do love Free Trade and I am a firm believer in it but why DEFRA thinks Free Trade - and being a member of the EU - means we have to accept diseased plants from money grabbing nurseries in Holland which import much of their stock from China beats me.

Still no doubt La Spellman will take much consolation in her declining years that while the principal cause of AOD getting out of control and devastating the English Oak trees was her decision to cut Forest Research's budget by 25% at least by doing so it meant that her deaprtment could have a lot of not so pretty pictures hanging on the walls of their offices .