sime42

Agreed. I'd always like to know exactly how many of the supposedly "otherwise fit and healthy" younger people succumbing to C-19 are actually overweight. I hope and suspect that it's quite high , but I don't know as I've never seen any figures on it. It's never published. For whatever reason there seems to be a stigma attached to labelling people as overweight or obese. I think this is actually counterproductive in tackling the obesity epidemic in the long term and current pandemic in the short term. In my opinion obesity should be listed as an underlying health condition, especially if it's self-inflicted as is often the case, as you say.

Old floor boards make ideal kindling. Mine split down lovely and burn like stink. Not sure what wood they used to use but it's way better than the soft white crap we get these days.

And the punchline is that Big Boris asserts that he did everything he could to prevent this happening.

Maybe the one and only environmentally responsible action by this government so far. Hurray.

UK government backs birth control for grey squirrels WWW.BBC.CO.UK The government gives its support to a project to use oral contraceptives to control grey squirrels. About bloody time.

Yeah, airline meat could be anything really couldn't it?

As is human flesh apparently!

So why the hell hadn't Boris stopped it then?

Fair enough, I share your outrage. Just think how much better it would have been if some of that wasted £22Bn had been spent on supporting people unable to work due to Covid 19, either due to having lost their jobs or having to take time off to self isolate. Have a look into HS2 when you get a minute. I'm sure you'll be equally appalled. To add insult to injury that one is also an environmental disaster as well as a waste of public money.

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.