PARENTS have been warned that if they take their children into the countryside, all the wildlife and all the greenery could trigger worries about climate change.
Hmmm. This is probably true if you’re the sort of parent who tells their kids that the cow they’re looking at is causing global warming and that the enormous number of berries in all the hedges is a sign that soon, we will all be consumed by a raging firestorm.
AFPIf you’re halfwit parents the poor little mites will probably have such an enormous anxiety attack that they’ll grow up to be as irritating as Greta Thunberg[/caption]
Jeremy’s two-year-old bull Endgame
“And look at how the leaves in the trees are turning yellow even though it’s still August. That’s a sure sign we will all be burning by next weekend.”
If you’re the sort of halfwit who says these things then yes, the poor little mites will probably have such an enormous anxiety attack that they’ll grow up to be as irritating as Greta Thunberg.
I have a rather different approach with my grandchildren.
We decided not to have a family holiday this summer so instead they came to stay with me on the farm.
Now these are city kids. They like pavements and dance classes and sitting in a ball pit while their mum does gym stuff.
They find fields a bit bumpy and cold and boring. However. Every morning, we collected the eggs from the chicken huts and turned them into breakfast.
And at tea time, we picked raspberries which we spread on their toast. And they loved that.
They came out to watch me harvest the durum wheat which will be made into their pasta and when all of it was piled up in the shed, they spent hours running up and down the mini-mountain of grain, shrieking with delight.
And at no point did I feel compelled to say that the only reason we can grow durum wheat in Britain is because it’s a bit warmer here these days.
Last night I took them to look at one of the gigantic, 150ft tall Wellingtonia Gigantea trees that live in the woods, and I explained that all of the holes in the bark were full of fairies who came out at night. This fascinated them.
I didn’t then show them all the forlorn ash trees which have been killed by some godawful disease, because why would I? They’re kids. And it’s my job to make them happy, not miserable.
They’ve fallen in love with Endgame, my bull, with the two-year-old saying: “He’s got a ring in his nose, like Mummy.”
And they found the noises the donkeys make nearly as hilarious as the pigs.
I could have said, of course: “That’s where your ham comes from.”
But that would have made them sad, and possibly worse, a vegetarian. So I didn’t.
They left on Friday morning and as I write, are headed back to London.
And I like to think that when they get there, they will look back on their two weeks in the countryside with fondness. Not a fear that it’ll all soon disappear.
Though that said, I did invent one bedtime story about how all the animals and all the pasta fields were at risk because of a nasty woman in London called Rachel Reeves.
Hopefully, that’s sunk in.
I don’t want them growing up to be Labourites.
HOUSE TAX A GAFFE
ReutersRachel Reeves taxes us every time we buy anything or go anywhere or do anything[/caption]
I DON’T want to lower the tone, but I thought long and hard this morning about sending the stool I’d laid to Rachel Reeves, with a note saying: “You’ve had every other damn thing so you may as well have this.”
She taxes us every time we buy anything or go anywhere or do anything.
And she takes big chunks of everything we earn. She even taxes us when we die.
And now we are told she is going to tax our houses.
She probably imagines that if someone’s house is worth more than half a million, then they can afford to give her some money. But she’s being a bit thick.
Because what about the old lady who bought her house in the Seventies for five shillings? If she sells it now, for £500,000 because she wants to move to a smaller bungalow, she will be clobbered.
So she’ll have to stay where she is. And if everyone does that, the housing market will tank.
The problem is that the Labourists don’t understand how money works.
We found out only this week, for instance, that they can’t even run themselves properly.
Yup, the Labour Party is £3.4million in the red.
Accounts show they took £90million from members and then spent £94million.
So if they can’t even run their own party properly, what chance do they have of being able to run the country?
PRUE’S MENU SENSE
ITVGood on you, Prue Leith, for hitting out at restaurants that give too much information on their menus[/caption]
PRUE LEITH has hit out at restaurants that give too much information on their menus.
Good on you, Prue. Couldn’t agree more.
I don’t need to know that the fish was “line caught”. Nor do I care what the cow’s postcode was.
I recently saw on one menu, “chicken, flattened with a brick”.
What?!!?! Is that how it was killed? And if it was, why tell me for God’s sake?
The other issue is when I’m told about every single ingredient in the dish.
This is silly because there is inevitably a trace element of something I don’t like in there, so I don’t order it.
“Pork”. That’s all I need to know. Not how it was killed. Not the name of the village where it lived. And definitely not that there’s a micron of garlic in the mix.
Because garlic’s for weird people who like their breath to smell awful.
A DISCIPLINARY panel announced this week that male bosses who hug female staff could be guilty of misconduct, even if the hug is in no way sexual.
This is good news, especially if it can also be applied to males who hug other males.
There’s nothing that fills me with such dread as a man heading in my direction with his arms outstretched.
Because what’s wrong with a handshake?
And I don’t mean a fist bump or one of those weird upside-down shakes either. I mean a proper handshake.
HEATED DEBATE
THE Met Office has announced that the average British person spends 56.6 hours a year talking about the weather.
That’s more than two days.
Hmmm. They didn’t ask me because I spend two days talking about the weather every half an hour.
I have to work out if it’ll be sunny because that effects how many beers will be sold in my pub or if it’ll be raining or windy or cold because that affects everything on the farm.
RISK A JOKE? I’LL GIVE IT A MISS, THANKS
InstagramMiss Palestine Nadeen Ayoub will be up against various misses from all over the world[/caption]
InstagramMiss Palestine will also be up against Miss Israel Melanie Shiraz[/caption]
I SEE that in the forthcoming Miss Universe pageant, Miss Palestine will be up against various misses from all over the world, including Miss Israel.
I wonder who’ll win. Actually scratch that. I know who’ll win.
And I was going to conclude with a joke I’ve just thought of. But I fear that if I do that, half of you will laugh and the other half will glue themselves to my house.
Better in this day and age then to not risk it.
Pity.
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