sime42

More high level corruption if you ask me.

What about the £80 - £100 billion for HS2, that won't benefit the vast majority of us?

Is that the lot just outside Dunster, near Minehead? They're truly impressive. The tallest trees in England the story goes. There's probably taller in Scotland.

That's interesting I've not heard of mob grazing until now, sounds good all round. It's within the same concept of nature regulating itself. Reminds me of how grazing works on the African Savannah. I was listening to this earlier. Very much in the theme of what's wrong with our current agricultural systems. English Pastoral by James Rebanks - Episode 3 - BBC Sounds WWW.BBC.CO.UK The pressure to squeeze more out of the land intensifies as the farm risks ruin.

I completely agree with all your sentiments on flooding. It's all a problem of our own making, again. Trying to further control/constrain nature by dredging, straightening and embanking rivers is not the answer,. Instead we need to step back and let the natural environment regulate itself. Also, we need more beavers! Seriously.

T and T was another shameful waste of money for sure. The worst thing was that it barely worked, if at all; look at the mess we're in now. To claim that it was "World Beating" is embarrassing. It might have been a tiny bit worthwhile at the end of the day though and the waste of money is far overshadowed by the cost of HS2. At an estimated cost approaching £80 billion that really is a criminal waste of money that could've been better spent in any number of ways to avoid this health and economic disaster that we'll now be living with for decades to come. It's just a stupidly expensive way to further destroy our fragile environment. This government care not at all for people nor planet. As long as they can feather the cosy nests of themselves and their little friends that's all that matters. StackPath WWW.INSTITUTEFORGOVERNMENT.ORG.UK

I have no knowledge of Badger, but I can certainly vouch for squirrel; very tasty. Bit of a faff to skin and butcher though.

Good innit?! [emoji12]

Surely a similar argument is true of kiln dried firewood. After accounting for the energy, (and hence carbon produced), to dry the logs they're not as much of an environmentally friendly fuel source as we're lead to believe.

Ash is very good for the garden, especially fruit trees. Providing it's clean wood that is.

And probably the price! I bought my Henry as second hand and reconditioned for £80. It was a while ago so it's got the old more powerful motor as well. It's a hungry monster of a hoover!

Wrt to your comments about PM10 spikes when you ashed out the stove. I've been seeing special purpose ash vacuum cleaners around for a while now, but just dismissed them as another gimmick. I'm now wondering if they are actually worth while, if they stop the finer particles being blown out into the room. (Presumably they've special fine filters). I normally just use the trusty Henry hoover to clear up any loose ash and other debris around the wood burner. I use HEPA filters in it, (purely by chance as that was all I could get last time I bought them), and having just looked it up they should block PM2.5 stuff and even smaller. So we should be ok. Any thoughts on this?

Wanted: UK bison rangers, no previous experience expected | Wildlife | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Project using large beasts to help restore woodland offers unprecedented job opportunity Nice idea as well, to use wild animals to do habitat restoration.

The old 'uns are also much favoured by the Tractor Pulling boys as well, especially the Fords/Fordsons. They obviously like the very strong, over engineered gearboxes and back ends. Any time I've ever seen tractor pulling over half of them are always Majors.

Lots of proactive raking up won't go amiss either!

Anything and everything by Jeff Jepson. He's got three books, ( or maybe four now). They're all quite small and very readable, but packed full of good basic information. Well written and nice informative little line drawn illustrations. There's one on general tree climbing, one on tree felling and one on knots. Also, The Art and Science of Practical Rigging Workbook. Not sure of the author of this one.

............. By the chain end!

Yeah, I enjoyed that too, a good analogy indeed.

How to Vaccinate the World - Larry Brilliant - BBC Sounds WWW.BBC.CO.UK Tim Harford reports on the global race to vaccinate the world against Covid-19.

This is worth listening too. It's an interview with one of the guys responsible for the eradication of Smallpox. He is an epidemiolist, so is actually an expert in my book, hence I tend to trust what he days. The last 5 mins is so is pretty sobering. He basically says that vaccination alone is not the way out of this mess, it has to be done in conjunction with all the transmission limitation measures. He reckons those countries that think they can tough if out and follow the flawed Herd Immunity strategy will have a particularly tough few time of it this year.

Fixed mindset. Akin to Dogma.

We've covered this in another discussion. The suspicion is that the Nightingale Hospitals were just another monumental government fckup. They were probably well intentioned, albeit a kneejerk reaction, but no thought was given to how they would be staffed. Especially when a lot of NHS staff are off sick, with Covid, or self-isolating. No doubt some chums of Boris or one of his world beating team also profited hugely from their construction. Much like other elements of our pandemic response strategy. (Track and Trace, PPE procurement, testing etc)

Covid-19 is spread by human contact. To limit the infection rate we have to limit human contact. We have to limit the infection rate to prevent our healthcare system being overwhelmed, (we are already seeing this unfortunately, with the knock-on tragic consequences even for non-covid patients). Strict Lockdown seems to be the only effective way to minimise human contact. The first Lockdown worked extremely well, not even you can deny that surely. The transmission rate plummeted whilst it was in place and just after it. Subsequent lockdowns and Tier systems have not worked adequately simply because of a lack of adherence by a certain minority of Individuals. This has allowed the virus spread to rage completely out of control again. IMO, but without going into details, our splendid government is as much to blame for these failings as the anti-lockdown, anti-mask wearing fraternity. Lockdown is obviously not the long-term solution, it is merely a holding strategy until such time as sufficient vaccination of the population has been achieved. So called Herd Immunity acquired by protecting the Vulnerable whilst allowing everyone else to carry on life as normal with no restrictions could work in theory. However I do not believe that in practice it is possible without massive collateral damage. The number of vulnerable people is simply too large, and their lives are too interconnected with the rest of society. (Even if we don't include the numerous people whose vulnerability is due to lifestyle choices. I agree with the sentiment that they should not expect any preferential treatment). Look at what's happening right now with hospital admissions; and that's with semi-effectual restrictions in place. Imagine how much worse this would be without any restrictions in place.

""I don’t give a flying **************** in reality about you or mr cropper and what you think,"" Your now numerous responses and references to this would suggest otherwise ................

Sorry, I'm not being quite fair there. I should add that my second question is addressed not just to yourself, but also to anyone else in your select club of Anti-Lockdowners.